blogombal Chapter 12 The Old Man at the Pharmacy
Chapter 12 The Old Man at the Pharmacy
"Shall we light the letter?" Lin Zhensheng asked, taking out three black sheets of paper from his pocket.
"I have a question. Where did you get all this letter paper?" Sun Rui asked. Black letter paper usually appears in the post office corridor at night, when there are evil spirits attacking the post office. Where would ordinary people get so much letter paper?
"I don't know much. It seems to have been left by the messengers on the first floor. They said there were a lot of them at first, and they were all kept in the drawers of the counter on the first floor. Now they've been almost completely wasted," Lin Zhensheng said truthfully.
Sun Rui nodded: "No need to waste paper."
With too little information, he couldn't determine who left the letters. After collecting the black letters from Li Jian and the others, he now had a total of ten black letters.
During this time, the old man's body did not change, so the two simply rode away on the motorcycle that the messenger had left behind when he entered the village.
Outside Shuanggui Village, Liu Qi and his parents stood at the intersection waiting for something until two motorcycles came into view.
"Sun Rui, these are things about my grandparents. I hope they will be helpful to you," Liu Qi called out, holding a piece of white paper in his hand.
Sun Rui stopped his motorcycle, took the white paper from his hand, on which was written the story of the barefoot doctor saving lives.
"Is it Zhang Bohua, the old man from the pharmacy?" The only ghost tamer Sun Rui could think of related to medicine was the owner of a traditional Chinese medicine shop in Zhongjiang City, who was also a ghost tamer who had lived since the Republican era.
"Thank you, these insights are very helpful to me. If you have any questions, you can come to Dahan City to find me, except for paranormal events," Sun Rui said.
"Okay." Liu Qi nodded, then hesitated, as if he wanted to say something but didn't.
Sun Rui roughly understood Liu Qi's thoughts, but he didn't pay much attention to them. Becoming a ghost tamer was mostly a coincidence, with only a very few cases being man-made.
He and Lin Zhensheng left the motorcycle with Liu Qi's family. Wang Guohai was still waiting outside the village; he didn't need the motorcycle anymore.
Inside a Maybach S600.
Sun Rui brought Lin Zhensheng along, mainly because he wanted to learn about some of the things that happened back then.
"I don't really know much about that person. I was only seven or eight years old back then. During the paranormal event, I hid under the bed and managed to escape. That person looked to be in his early twenties, and since so much time has passed, he could very well be dead by now, right?" Lin Zhensheng said.
"I'm curious, why can't I find your file?" Sun Rui said. It seemed that he wouldn't get any information about Zhang Xianguang's matter. Lin Zhensheng was lucky to have survived back then.
"...My information wasn't in China. After encountering the paranormal event, my family survived by sheer luck. Then my parents took me and fled abroad, thinking that staying far away would be fine. But we never expected that the vengeful ghost would eventually come knocking on our door," Lin Zhensheng said.
Sun Rui nodded; no wonder headquarters couldn't find the information.
"Are there many people in the world like you who have obtained the power of a vengeful ghost?" Lin Zhensheng asked.
"Not many, but not as few as you might imagine. Generally, larger cities have officials in charge who handle paranormal events," Sun Rui said casually.
"I understand." Lin Zhensheng nodded. He had always thought that the paranormal events in this case were special cases. Even though he had been searching for paranormal events for so many years, most of them were just rumors and there was no real evidence.
Now he understood that paranormal events were not rare, and there were even people specifically in charge of handling them. Obviously, in Sun Rui's circle, this information was semi-public, otherwise they wouldn't have told him.
"Alright, you can get out of the car in a bit. I have things to do," Sun Rui said, as the vehicle had already left the country road and entered the main road.
"...Can I...work for you?" Lin Zhensheng asked. Since he would be dealing with all sorts of supernatural events later, he might as well get more information beforehand.
Sun Rui tapped his right hand on the handrail. He didn't really need any help, since there weren't any supernatural events happening in Dahan City. However, the Ghost Post Office still needed information, and once Lin Zhensheng got to the second floor, he would know the current situation there.
After thinking about it for a moment, he agreed.
"Sure, Wang Guohai, you can arrange it." Sun Rui said to his assistant who was driving.
"Okay, boss!" Wang Guohai said.
At seven o'clock in the morning, the three returned to Dahan City, and Wang Guohai took Lin Zhensheng to complete the onboarding procedures.
Sun Rui then returned to his office on the top floor of the Donghan Building.
"Should we go find the old pharmacist?" He held a black pill in his hand, which emitted a faint fragrance of Chinese herbs, but more so a chilling aura of supernatural power.
He is now very close to the resurrection of the vengeful ghost, and dares not use any unknown supernatural items. If he were to stimulate the vengeful ghost within him, he could very well die instantly.
"According to the information Liu Qi gave me, this pill seems to suppress the curse on his grandparents. I just don't know if it can suppress the illness demon on me." Sun Rui let out a long breath.
In the end, he still decided to go find Zhang Bohua, not only for the pill, but also for the copper lock he got from the corpse, which should be the biggest gain of this trip.
"This should be an artifact from the Republican era, and the curse is suspected to be residing on it."
He just asked Wang Guohai to check, and it should be called a love lock, an item from the Republic of China era. It is usually a token of love between husband and wife, and it is engraved with a few small words - "May you be forever united in heart".
Sun Rui didn't handle the item for long and put it into a gold box.
"I should take a shower first." Originally, he was thinking of going to find someone right away, but the sweat mixed with the stench of a corpse made Sun Rui feel very uncomfortable.
Headquarters Communications Room.
Zhao Jianguo sat in his office with a list in his hand, containing a variety of supernatural items of unknown purpose. These were all the items he could view within his authority.
"Black Corpse Water: Use unknown, a byproduct of making supernatural items."
"Ghost Talisman: It is suspected to have the effect of suppressing evil spirits, but the specific triggering conditions are unknown."
"..."
"Ghost money: Its purpose is unknown. It was obtained by a person in charge while handling a paranormal event."
Zhao Jianguo scanned the list. The items on it were either byproducts of the laboratory or items that the person in charge did not know how to use and then handed over. Most of them were not reproducible.
"That's fine then." Zhao Jianguo passed the list to Sun Rui, which was considered to have met his requirements, and it wasn't a loss for the headquarters anyway.
After Sun Rui finished showering, she also received a list from Zhao Jianguo.
"Headquarters is as stingy as ever," Sun Rui said. Of the entire list, only the ghost money had a specific purpose; the rest were completely unknown to him.
The purpose of ghost money is simple: it's "life-saving money." Giving money to a vengeful ghost can prevent it from attacking you, and in a sense, it can be considered that it will never attack again, even if you trigger its killing pattern again.
This is because the vengeful ghosts who receive the ghost money will go to the Ghost Lake and be suppressed by it, which creates the feeling that they will stop attacking you once you give them money.
Of course, different kinds of evil spirits require different amounts of ghost money. The more terrifying the evil spirit, the more ghost money is required. Ghost money is usually available in denominations of three yuan and seven yuan.
In the list sent by Zhao Jianguo, there was a three-yuan banknote with colorful patterns that looked rather strange.
Sun Rui briefly summarized the supernatural events that occurred in Shuanggui Village. He concealed the details of the Ghost Post Office, the copper lock, and the pills, as he didn't want headquarters to know his secrets.
Having done all this, he should now set off for Zhongjiang City.