RPAGF Chapter 824 Pattern
Chapter 824 Pattern
Old House Mystery**
The cicadas were chirping, making the July heat even thicker. Lin Xia stood at the entrance of the bluestone alley, clutching a yellowed envelope, looking up at the mottled plaque of "Su Family Old House". In the envelope was a lawyer's letter informing her that her great-aunt, who lived in a small town in the south, had passed away and left her this century-old house. In her memory, her great-aunt always wore a silver bracelet, her eyes were cloudy but she was stubborn, and she always told her not to come back on the phone. Pushing open the heavy carved wooden door, the creaking sound startled the sparrows on the eaves. The musty smell wrapped in sandalwood hit her face. In the middle of the hall hung a portrait of her great-aunt, with a smile frozen on the faded photographic paper. The long-burning lamp on the altar flickered, but the incense ash piled up high, as if no one had taken care of it for a long time. Lin Xia put down her luggage, glanced at the old photos on the wall, and suddenly stopped - in one of the family photos, the little girl who should have stood next to her great-aunt had her face smeared with blood and flesh with a red pen. "Lin's girl?" A hoarse voice came from behind. The old woman with a bamboo stick stood at the door without knowing when, and her wrinkles were embedded with the vicissitudes of life. "This house is not clean, sell it as soon as possible and leave." Lin Xia smiled politely, and just as she was about to speak, the old woman's bamboo stick suddenly pointed behind her, and her turbid pupils suddenly shrank: "Behind you..." Before she finished speaking, a gust of wind blew up the dust on the ground. When Lin Xia looked back again, the old woman had disappeared at the end of the alley. She rubbed her sore neck, always feeling a chill on the back of her neck, as if a pair of eyes were staring at her in the dark. The wooden stairs on the second floor groaned with every step. Pushing open the door of the master bedroom, there was an exquisite rouge box on the sandalwood dressing table, and the word "Wan Niang" was engraved on the lid. Lin Xia gently opened it, and a touch of rouge came into her eyes, and it even had a faint fragrance, as if it had just been used. In the dressing mirror, her reflection suddenly twisted, as if being pulled by an invisible hand, frightening her so much that she took a few steps back and knocked over the camphorwood box next to her. With a "clang", the box lid popped open, revealing a stack of yellowed diaries. Lin Xia picked up the top one, with "Spring 1943" written on the title page, in neat and beautiful handwriting. "Today, Master Su brought back a little girl, saying that she was an orphan adopted during the war, and named her Wan Niang. But the child has a sinister look in her eyes and always likes to stare at me..." When Lin Xia read this, her hands trembled slightly, and suddenly a thunder exploded outside the window, and raindrops as big as beans hit the window frame with a crackling sound. The rain was getting heavier, but Lin Xia continued to search for it. The contents of the diary became increasingly bizarre: Wan Niang would comb her hair in front of the mirror late at night, muttering incomprehensible spells; servants in the mansion disappeared one after another, leaving only broken hair on the floor; the aunt had seen Wan Niang's shadow crawling on the wall like a spider... The last diary entry stopped in the winter of 1945: "The master wanted to marry Wan Niang to a warlord, but she said that none of us would survive tonight..." "Boom!" Lightning illuminated the entire room, and Lin Xia was horrified to find that a figure had appeared in the dressing mirror at some point - a girl in a bright red wedding dress, combing her hair with her back to her, her long black hair hanging down to her feet, and every strand of hair was wriggling. She wanted to scream, but she couldn't make any sound, and her body seemed to be nailed down and unable to move. After an unknown amount of time, the thunder gradually faded away. Lin Xia slumped to the ground, and there was no one in the mirror, only her pale face and rapidly rising and falling chest. She stumbled downstairs, but found that all the doors and windows were locked, and her mobile phone had no signal. Moonlight leaked in through the carved window lattice, casting strange patterns on the ground. In a trance, she saw a hand stretched out from under the altar in the main hall, with nails as black as ink. "Aunt, save me..." Lin Xia curled up in the corner, tears welling up in her eyes. In the darkness, there was a crisp sound of silver bracelets colliding, getting closer and closer. She looked up suddenly, and saw her aunt wearing shrouds, standing in front of her expressionlessly, with the silver bracelet on her wrist shining coldly. "Girl, it's time to pay your debt." The aunt's voice seemed to come from underground, gloomy and cold. Lin Xia suddenly remembered that when she was a child, her aunt took her to the City God Temple, and the old Taoist pointed at her forehead and said, "This child's forehead is black, I'm afraid she is haunted by the wronged soul." At that time, the aunt's face was pale, and she stuffed a silver ingot into the Taoist, and took her away in a hurry. At this moment, all the clues came together in her mind - the aunt guarded this old house to suppress Wan Niang's resentment; and she, as the blood of the Lin family, was the sacrifice chosen by Wan Niang. The eternal lamp on the altar suddenly exploded, and sparks splashed on the back of Lin Xia's hand. The severe pain made her sober up, and she turned and rushed to the kitchen, grabbing a kitchen knife to defend herself. At this moment, the whole house began to shake violently, the beams and pillars groaned under the heavy weight, and the old photos on the wall fell one after another, and the faces in the photos turned into Wan Niang's hideous appearance. Lin Xia stumbled to the backyard and found a wooden basin beside the well, which was filled with blood and a few strands of long hair floating on the water. A faint sob came from the well: "Give me back my life..." She mustered up the courage to look out, and the wall of the well was densely covered with women's handprints. Deep in the bottom of the well, a pair of blood-red eyes were staring at her. "I'll fight you!" Lin Xia raised the kitchen knife and chopped at the wellhead. The moment the blade touched the well water, it was bounced away by an invisible force and stabbed heavily into the mud at her feet. In the darkness, countless hands reached out from all directions, grabbed her arms, hair, ankles, and dragged her to the well. At the critical moment, the silver bracelet of the great aunt suddenly flew over from the altar and was put on Lin Xia's wrist. The bracelet burst into a dazzling white light, and those ghost hands screamed and retracted into the darkness. Lin Xia then discovered that there was a line of small words engraved on the inside of the bracelet: "Suppress evil and drive away ghosts, protect future generations." She remembered that it was mentioned in the diary that the great aunt's father had asked a master to make this pair of silver bracelets to suppress Wan Niang's resentment. For many years, the great aunt has guarded this haunted house alone, just to prevent Wan Niang's wronged soul from harming the world. Now that the great aunt has passed away, this responsibility has fallen on Lin Xia's shoulders. Lin Xia clenched the bracelet and shouted at the darkness: "Wanniang, I know you are wronged, but if you continue to hurt others, you will only fall into a place of no return! If you are willing, I will help you to transcend and let you reincarnate as soon as possible!" A shrill cry came from the darkness, gradually turning into soft sobs. In the dressing mirror, Wanniang's figure appeared again. This time she turned around, the resentment on her face dissipated a lot, and her eyes were full of sadness. "I was originally a lady from a wealthy family. I was abducted and sold here, and I died of torture..." Wanniang's voice was ethereal, "Please, take me away from here..." Lin Xia set up an altar in the old house according to the notes left by her aunt before her death, and recited the scriptures for transcendence. As the curling green smoke rose, Wanniang's figure gradually became transparent, and a relieved smile appeared on her face.