Flowers of the Departed Souls - Chapter 25

Chi Ziming struggled to maintain an expression of pleasant surprise rather than shock. “Uncle Luo, how are you here? It’s… so late already.”

Luo Bozi’s expression was extremely strange. Under the beam of Chi Ziming’s flashlight, half of his face was in shadow. His throat made gurgling sounds, like a machine needing to gather enough energy to start. His voice sounded like wind blowing through a reef crevice, carrying a salty, fishy sea breeze. “Do you still remember the story I told you about the God of Death?”

This voice, this question, made Chi Ziming feel a dizzying sensation of being at the mercy of strong winds and waves. He suppressed the rising unease and panic in his heart, nodding. “A handsome young man dressed in black, who is actually a terrifying God of Death.”

Luo Bozi smiled, his lips curving slightly upward, but his facial muscles seemed stiffly plastered together. His sparse brows drooped like a dog’s ears. It was Chi Ziming’s first time seeing Luo Bozi smile, and also the first time seeing such a bizarre smile that made one’s hair stand on end and caused such profound discomfort.

Chi Ziming forced himself to endure the extreme discomfort. “Uncle Luo, what’s wrong with you? Are you feeling unwell?” Luo Bozi shook his head. “Quick, go save Xiaofeng and them. They seem to have been carried away by some carrion vultures.”

“Carrion vultures? Vultures seize people?” At this moment, Kelou ran over, having just overheard that sentence. He looked at Luo Bozi and said strangely, “How are you here?”

Luo Bozi gave a blank smile and pointed to the brick house next door. “I live right there. No more talk. The most important thing now is to rescue them.”

“Do you know where they would be?”

He thought for a moment. “I have a method that can lure out the carrion vultures. You wait a moment.” With that, he took a pot of something like ghee from his house, then led them to a large open space. He picked up some straw, lit it, and then poured the ghee-like substance onto it.

Kelou looked at Luo Bozi in confusion. “Will this work?”

He said faintly, “In Tibet, when Tibetans perform sky burials, they use this method to attract carrion vultures. Let’s hide first.”

Smoke from the haystack curled upwards, rising higher and higher. Just as they managed to hide inside a broken large ceramic jar, they saw a tiny black dot appear from the horizon, truly flying towards them. As the distance closed, they clearly saw it was a gigantic bird. “It’s appeared! Be careful!”

The carrion vulture stopped, hovered around the fire for a while, looking around but seeing no food. It then flew away disappointedly. At this point, Luo Bozi and the others emerged from the jar. Luo Bozi carefully watched the direction the carrion vulture had flown and said gravely, “I know where it is now.”

So Kelou and Chi Ziming followed him. In fact, they hadn’t slept properly for days and were extremely tired, but they had to force themselves to stay alert. They exchanged glances, their bloodshot eyes looking somewhat like fierce wolves. However, Chi Ziming’s heart was very uneasy. He kept feeling that Luo Bozi today seemed very peculiar, reminding him that this man had always been so elusive, but he couldn’t confirm this suspicion, and it was just an intuition, without any evidence.

Kelou’s heart had also been restless these past few days, and he worried that something might have happened to Guangming, as he hadn’t been able to contact him, and his colleagues couldn’t find him either. But he couldn’t leave this place now. If he left, Chi Ziming might be the next target, and here, he was also constantly in danger. This small seaside village was too strange and eerie. Therefore, Kelou’s days here were not easy. He truly wanted to solve the case as soon as possible and leave this place forever.

He had actually never ruled out Luo Bozi as a suspect, including Chi Ziming and Luo Xiaofeng. But intuitively, he felt Chi Ziming wasn’t a bad person, unless he was hiding it very well. Luo Xiaofeng was relatively more suspicious because, firstly, all these incidents happened at the inn, giving her the opportunity to commit the crimes; secondly, she was most familiar with the inn, making it relatively easy for her to set up a trap. As for Luo Bozi, he couldn’t be certain. Firstly, he was a local of Luoyang Village and had worked odd jobs at the inn, so he should be very familiar with it; secondly, he had secretly investigated Luo Bozi’s background. Luo Bozi was sixty-five years old. At forty, his wife and child died in a flood, so he left the village heartbroken. Three years ago, he returned to his hometown, all alone, still destitute, and had injured his leg. No one knew what he had been doing all those years he was away.

The further they walked, the more familiar the path felt to Kelou. He must have been on this road before. Oh, this must be Bird Slope. The place where Zhong Dan’s body and the bird tomb were found. The bird bodies were strangely arranged in a trapezoidal shape, and Zhong Dan’s body was also strangely flexed, as if it carried some religious significance.

Chi Ziming had never been here, so he was curious about the feathers spread on the ground like leaves. “What is this place? Why are there so many feathers?”

Luo Bozi made a “shhh” gesture and whispered, “This is Bird Slope. If you go over this slope, I remember there’s a cave that most people don’t discover. I think the carrion vultures might live in there.”

So, they continued down the slope. When they passed the spot where Luo Xiaofeng found the bird tomb, Kelou paused. He kept feeling as if countless small heads were vying to look at them, as if waiting for them to dig them out of the earth so they could come alive and fly to the tree branches.

Crossing this mountain, the landscape looked even more desolate, with even animal and human remains, and some graves and half-dug up ruined tombs. Some even showed exposed bones, as if dug up by some wild beast, sending shivers down Kelou and Chi Ziming’s spines.

Luo Bozi pointed to a small mountain hollow not far away. “It’s right there, there’s a cave.” Chi Ziming felt a bit creeped out. “These big birds wouldn’t eat living people, would they?”

Luo Bozi nodded. “Generally, they’re only interested in corpses. If living people don’t attack them, they usually won’t actively attack you. Of course, exceptions are those trained by specialists.”

“Then, after we go in, how do we rescue them?”

“At this time, they should be sleeping. How about this: I’ll go in first to scout, and you wait outside. Take this rope. If I tug three times, you come in. Otherwise, don’t come in yet. If there’s danger, I’ll tug twice, and you run first; don’t worry about me.”

Kelou looked at him. “We won’t abandon you. How about this: I’ll go in with you, and Chi Ziming can guard outside. If anything happens outside, we’ll have support.”

Luo Bozi thought for a moment. “That’s fine too. Let’s go in.” So, he and Kelou followed the cave entrance inside.

Chi Ziming waited at the cave entrance for a long time. Unconsciously, he even fell asleep on the ground. He was truly too tired; as soon as he stopped moving, he couldn’t help but doze off. When he woke up, he found the sky was already turning pale. Luo Bozi and Kelou were nowhere to be seen, and the rope in his hand had slipped away at some unknown time. He suddenly jumped up as if something had occurred to him.

Could they be in danger? They hadn’t returned for such a long time. He vigorously pulled the rope, but the entire rope was pulled loose by him.

At this moment, he fully realized that they were in danger, or rather, had met with an unforeseen incident.