Flowers of the Departed Souls - Chapter 17

Guangming stared blankly at Tang Xieqiang’s body.

After a long time, he walked out of the autopsy room, got into his car, and drove off, feeling restless. He just wanted to clear his head. Facing this perplexing case, he felt like he was losing his mind.

He didn’t know how, but he found himself turning towards that place again, the place he used to play in as a child. He got out of the car and once again stood beneath that large locust tree. Chestnut Alley, Chestnut Alley, he silently recited the name. Perhaps, if he could find this place, everything would fall into place.

He recalled that childhood dream, or rather, everything that happened during that state of temporary soul detachment. He slowly leaned against the tree trunk, then slid down along the tree, sitting down, just as he had on that day when he was eight years old. He felt as if he had once again returned to that childhood state.

He hung a pendant on the tree trunk and swayed it with his finger. Yes, he was going to hypnotize himself. Whether it worked or not, he had to try.

He stared at the pendant, silently reciting, “One, two, three, time goes back to that afternoon twenty-five years ago, I fell asleep right here…”

He slowly closed his eyes and began to enter the state. At this moment, time rewound to that afternoon twenty-five years ago. This time, he saw everything clearly. That day, after finishing lunch after school, he ran to this place and encountered a group of bullies he usually tried to avoid. He wanted to steer clear of them, but they still spotted him. He ran in front, and they chased behind. To escape them, he kept running on winding paths, turning left and right. After running for about twenty minutes, he saw a village, a village he had never been to before. To be precise, it was a very small, desolate village. The houses were submerged in overgrown grass, with only small white sections of walls showing.

He pushed aside the grass to enter this village. It looked as if it had been abandoned for too long. He saw several houses, houses that had been burned. The charred wooden beams looked a bit horrifying. He walked somewhat aimlessly, without any direction. After an unknown period of walking, he saw an alley. When he saw a narrow alley with walls covered in ferns and vines, a voice within his heart called out: Chestnut Alley.

Yes, this was Chestnut Alley, the place he went to during his out-of-body experience, or rather, the place he visited in his dream, and the place Tang Xieqiang spoke of. Such a mysterious place that had haunted his soul for twenty-five years.

Yes, Chestnut Alley, Chestnut Alley. Chestnut Alley, with these words written everywhere on its walls, left by graffiti-loving children, scrawled everywhere.

And now, he had finally returned to this place once more. But it was like a deeper, more difficult riddle, with a cruel answer waiting for him to unravel.

He kept running in Chestnut Alley, running without stopping, with the same curiosity he had back then, and at the same time, with the conscious mindset of twenty-five years later, looking left and right as he ran. Yes, Chestnut Alley, the exact same Chestnut Alley. He didn’t stop but continued to run. At the end of the alley, he saw the lingering fragrant mist and heard the ethereal chanting, like a fairyland. Yes, a temple—a magical temple.

He intended to awaken himself at this moment. He called out in his consciousness, “Wake up, wake up!” When he finally roused himself and struggled to open his eyes,

Besides feeling the afternoon sun incredibly dazzling, he also saw a face, a face wearing a bird-headed mask.