Flowers of the Departed Souls - Chapter 10

To Guangming and Kelou’s frustration, they finally managed to apprehend someone with a bird-headed human tattoo and send him to the hospital, only for him to slip away. They found his name, Tang Xieqiang, in the hospital’s registration book and then tracked down his home address.

However, once they arrived at his house, they felt even more frustrated, as Tang Xieqiang’s mother immediately blocked their way, spewing insults. “I don’t have this son. Don’t come looking for him here anymore. Even if he commits murder and arson, it has nothing to do with us. If he’s shot, he deserves it. He’s self-destructive and shouldn’t live.”

It was Tang Xieqiang’s sister, Tang Nana, who quietly told them, “Brother stole the money for Dad’s medical treatment. He hasn’t been home for over a month now.”

“So that’s it.”

“But my brother really wasn’t a bad person before, not like he is now. Mom and Dad both hate him. He changed after he started secretly hanging out with some very strange friends. Oh, and he even secretly looked for me…”

“Wait—” Kelou interrupted. “What kind of friends? Can you tell us? And how can we find him?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know them, haven’t seen them. Because most of the time, they’re in a car, and they all wear sunglasses, so I can’t see them clearly. They often pick up my brother at the intersection, but they’ve never come to our doorstep. I saw them once by chance. Oh, by the way, I remember the license plate number. Maybe it’ll be useful to you. Uncle Guangming, I love watching Conan, and Hong Kong detective dramas, and Sherlock Holmes, Kogoro Akechi, and Hercule Poirot are all my idols.”

Kelou made a stopping gesture again. “Just tell us the license plate number directly. We’ll have the colleagues investigate it first.”

Tang Nana nodded excitedly. “Zhe CJB8503.”

“Your memory’s pretty good.” Guangming then called in the license plate number to his colleagues and said to Tang Nana, “Little girl, now you can continue telling us what your brother secretly asked you about.”

“He seemed to be a little hurt that day, and he frantically asked me for money. I didn’t have any money. I asked him, ‘Brother, what’s wrong with you?’ He said, ‘Brother has no way out. Brother truly regrets it. If Brother ever disappears, please remember, don’t come looking for me, and don’t tell anyone about me. Even if I’m gone for good, I’m afraid of dragging you down. Those people, those people are too terrifying.’ He only said those few sentences and then he left.”

“It seems those people are indeed very terrifying; they scared your brother. Even if he dies, he won’t give them up,” Kelou said indignantly.

“I’m not clear on the specifics either. That’s all I know.”

At this moment, Guangming’s phone rang. “What? It’s a reported stolen car?”

“No way, the lead isn’t broken again, is it?”

Guangming thought for a moment. “Oh, by the way, little girl, do you know any places he frequently goes, or anything he said while on the phone?”

“Let me think. Oh, he seemed to mention finding Taotie or something. Oh, and Chestnut Alley.”

“Chestnut Alley? Taotie?”

Tang Nana nodded. “Yes, if I heard correctly, it should be these words. As for other circumstances, I don’t think there’s anything else.”

Guangming and Kelou exchanged glances. “Alright, thank you. By the way, this is my business card. If you hear anything about your brother, or remember anything else, please notify me immediately, okay?” She took it and nodded.

After they left, Kelou sighed. “Sigh, to have such a son. No wonder his mother hates him so much. The world is so big, and we found this person with the tattoo. I really don’t believe we can’t find someone like this. And at least we have some leads. Didn’t Tang Nana mention Chestnut Alley?”

Kelou continued to muse aloud, “But I’ve never heard of such an alley. As for Taotie, in ancient times, it was an extremely cruel animal, a deified animal worshipped by the ancients. Its head shape was often carved on ancient bronze vessels for decoration. In modern times, it mostly refers to greedy individuals. I’ll check the资料 (zīliào – materials/information) more carefully later to see what other mysteries are in there. Maybe we can find some clues.”

“Hmm, Chestnut Alley. That name does sound a bit familiar. Chestnut, Chestnut…” Guangming mumbled the words like a sleepwalker. He felt his mind was a chaotic world, a primordial world, where nothing had yet been conceived, emitting a murky, dim light. He struggled to capture a bright spot from the center of the murky light, even a tiny one would do. Then it would slowly emerge from this chaotic world, gradually detach, and finally, the chaos would completely disappear, leaving only that gradually expanding bright spot, clear and dazzling like a pristine moon.

At this moment, the words “Chestnut Alley” rose like that moon from Guangming’s mind, surfacing from the sea of his memory. He remembered when he was very young, in his childhood, he was chased by some bullies on the street. Seeing that they were about to catch up, he turned into an alley. The alley was narrow and long, with walls on both sides. In a child’s eyes, these walls were mottled and tall, as if leading to the ends of heaven, looking so high and out of reach, and he was desperately fleeing in the gap beneath this heaven.

The messy words on the walls whizzed past in his vision, but in his memory, there were only two words: “Chestnut,” and the other word was “Alley.” He didn’t know how long he ran, but he felt as if he had entered another space. That innate sense of apprehension towards an unfamiliar environment slowly occupied his mind. He stopped, looked back, and there was no one following him anymore. This alley clearly reached its end. In front was a very tall house, filled with fragrant mist and the sound of wooden fish, as if it were a sacred temple, a pure land untouched by human dust.

He slowly approached and heard resonant chanting. He saw the monks in yellow robes with downcast eyes, mumbling prayers. What astonished him was that they all had halos around their heads, just like the halos of deities and Buddhas he had seen on television—holy and serene.

At this moment, he saw a person with a halo even more intense than theirs appear, slowly walking towards him, smiling. That face was exactly like the Guanyin he had seen on television. That person smiled at him, placed a hand on his head, and he felt a strong, burning power, passing from his head, through his chest, to his feet, making him tremble and groan uncontrollably, his consciousness beginning to blur, and then he lost consciousness.

When he heard someone calling his name, he woke up. It was his father shaking him awake. At that moment, he found himself leaning against a tall locust tree. There was no alley.

He rubbed his eyes. “How did I end up sitting here?”

“You, you actually slept here. Did you skip class this afternoon? Your teacher couldn’t find you. They thought you went off to play somewhere again. How did you end up sleeping here?”

“I clearly remember Ah Zhi and them chasing me just now.” His father’s face changed color. “He came to look for you with me after class. What nonsense are you talking about? Hurry and come home with me.” Only then did little Guangming notice that Ah Zhi was watching him from not far away.

This incident remained hidden in Guangming’s heart, becoming an unspeakable secret. That afternoon, he clearly remembered the alley, but no matter how hard he looked later, he never found the alley with “Chestnut” written all over its walls. As for what happened that day, he later started to believe what his father said: he was indeed dreaming. During his lunch break, he was too tired, so he leaned against that tall locust tree and fell asleep, then dreamt that someone was chasing him, and he escaped into that alley filled with the word “Chestnut,” seeing a hall filled with fragrant mist.

“Old man, what’s wrong with you? You’ve been staring blankly for ages. Is your soul out of your body?”

Kelou vigorously waved his hand in front of Guangming’s eyes. Only then did Guangming return from his memories to reality. “Kelou, come with me.”

With that, he got into the car and sped off. Kelou was a bit bewildered, sitting in the passenger seat, his eyes constantly darting to Guangming’s face. “Old man, where are you taking me?”

“To be honest, I don’t know where to go. I can only rely on my feelings to reach a certain place.” By now, they had left the bustling city area. All around them were fields and mountains. After passing a cemetery, they reached a village. Guangming’s car slowed down significantly. “Do you know, my childhood was spent here. We moved several times, but the clearest memories I have are those from my childhood. Children have the best memory, and everyone, do you know what they dream about the most? Not the people you’ve recently met or the places you’ve recently been, but the place you’ve stayed the longest, and events that happened in the last ten years, especially five to ten years ago. Therefore, when you’re ten years old, you’ll always dream of the old house you used to live in. When you’re twenty, you’ll often dream of schoolmates you played with and studying with them. And when you’re thirty, you’ll dream of colleagues and superiors you haven’t seen for several years. I don’t care how Freud analyzed it, but this is my summary over these past thirty-plus years.”

“That seems to make sense. I often dream about high school life and that group of good friends. I even dream about my first girlfriend. Truman Capote said that dreams are the thoughts of the soul, our secret truths. I think they express things we usually suppress deep within us, things we don’t easily touch.”

“Heh heh, when did you become a philosopher? I think it’s around here. Let’s get out and take a look.”

Guangming got out of the car and looked around. If he wasn’t mistaken, this should be the place where he had dreamed that day, leaning against the tree. Kelou grumbled behind him, “Old man, you’ve never been this strange today. You didn’t tell me anything and just brought me here. I’m full of questions.”

“Shhh—” Guangming made a silencing gesture and whispered, “You’ll wake them up.”

“Tch, this ghostly place, not a soul in sight. The only thing you’ll wake up are the ghosts underground. But—you didn’t wake up ghosts, you woke up a dog.”

Because, at that moment, he saw a dog running towards them, carrying a piece of meat in its mouth. It looked bloody. It ran past them, and they didn’t pay much attention, assuming it was a stray dog that had found food or stolen meat from someone’s kitchen.

At this moment, an increasingly familiar feeling enveloped Guangming. This place hadn’t changed much. Time had changed so many things, yet this place remained forgotten. He felt as if he had suddenly returned to his childhood, becoming that carefree, fearless little brat who ran around everywhere.

Guangming pointed to the thick locust tree in the distance. “Do you see that tree? When I was little, I often skipped class, and when I got tired from playing, I’d lean against the tree and sleep. Once, I even had a strange dream.”

Guangming hadn’t even finished describing the dream when Kelou squinted his eyes and said, “It looks like someone is sitting under that tree.”

“What?” Could it be a little kid napping under the tree, just like he did back then? Guangming thought. They strode closer and indeed found someone leaning against the tree, but it was clearly an adult.

When they saw the person’s face clearly, they almost shouted at the same time, “Tang Xieqiang?!”

Tang Xieqiang was slumped against the tree, his head tilted to one side. His chest was covered in a large patch of bloodstains. Kelou checked for a pulse and flipped his eyelids, then shook his head. “He’s dead.”

But at this moment, Guangming was staring at Tang Xieqiang’s chest. He suddenly tore open Tang Xieqiang’s shirt, only to see that his internal organs were completely empty.

He gasped, realizing instantly that the dog that had run past them moments ago was carrying Tang Xieqiang’s heart in its mouth.