Why did Director Feng conceal such an important detail from us? Wasn’t he afraid of getting fired?

I continued to ask the middle-aged man about the case, but he waved his hand and answered, “We’ve told the police everything we know, haven’t we? Why don’t you go back and ask them yourself? You’re from the city, aren’t you? Well let me give you some advice—give it up and go home. You won’t find any killers to catch here, because it was a ghost who did it!”

“A ghost?” I asked. “How?”

The man sighed. “You policemen just love asking questions, don’t you? I’ve got these bricks to deliver right now, but you can come find me at my house after lunch if you like.”

He left us his address, then climbed back onto the tractor and drove away.

It was barely an hour before noon, so we decided not to return for lunch. I called Xiaotao to inform her of our major discovery. She was both shocked and angered, and she told me that she would confront Director Feng about it right away.

Yuanchao had some snacks in his car, so we had a simple lunch there and waited until noon to drive to the village where the middle-aged man lived.

Because it was right around new year, the villagers were all at home. As we drove into the village, all the people we passed stared at us with eyes full of suspicion. Dogs barked at us and chased the car. It seemed that every house had a dog here.

When we reached the middle-aged man’s house, I saw him squatting in front of his door with a bowl of rice in hand. He was chatting with a young woman. He said some pretty lewd and vulgar stuff, which prompted her to blush and call him a pervert.

“You’re early, aren’t you?” he yelled when he noticed us, visibly annoyed. “I haven’t even finished my lunch yet!”

“We can come back later if you want,” I said.

“It’s fine,” he replied, putting down his chopsticks. “Come on in!”

He was unmarried, so it was a simple house with simple furnishings. There weren’t many windows in there to let natural light in, so it was quite dark and stuffy inside. He made us two large cups of tea and sat us down at the table. The first thing he asked us was whether we saw a sealed well at the front of the village.

“Yeah,” I answered. “What about it?”

“Well, it’s haunted by the ghost of a woman!”

He went on to tell us the whole background of the ghost, which started during the Qing Dynasty[1]. There was a girl, aged only sixteen, who was beautiful and delicate as a flower, but unfortunately, she was born in a very poor family. Her parents married her off to a man from the same village. He was an official, but he was already in his fifties. The girl was naturally distraught. She cried basins full of tears and begged her parents to change their mind, but the matchmaker and her parents nagged her and persuaded her to go with the plan, so she had no choice.

But it seemed that they weren’t fated to be a happy couple, because on the night of the wedding, the groom drank too much and fell ill, of which he never recovered from.

But the girl was already officially his wife, so she had to serve him and take care of him every day. The man’s condition worsened day after day. He was almost completely bedridden, and the girl dutifully tended to him, cleaned his urine and excrements every day without uttering a word of complaint.

One day, the girl noticed her husband getting very gloomy and depressed. She asked him what he wanted to eat so she could make it to cheer him up. He replied that he’d like nothing more than fritters fresh out of the pan, so the girl set up a pan in the room and started to fry them. The man took a bite and told the girl a bug had fallen into the pan, so the girl lowered her face to the pan to look for the bug, but right at that moment, the man shoved her face into the hot oil. The girl screamed so loud it shook the whole house. Other members of the family were at home at the time, and they were all spooked by the girl’s haunting scream of agony.

The girl managed to break free from her husband’s hand and collapsed to the floor. Her demure face had been disfigured into a red mass of flesh.

The man told her he had to do what he did to prevent her from ruining his family’s reputation by remarrying after he died. He had to destroy the most valuable thing she had—her beauty—so that she would have to remain as a mourning widow for the rest of her life should he die!

The girl bawled her eyes out for three whole days, until she completely lost her mind. She would roam around the village during the day, and if she ever encountered a beautiful woman, she would rush up to them and try to attack their face. Her in-law family felt humiliated, so they shut her up in the house, not letting her near any mirror lest she be triggered. But this did nothing to hold her back at all. She escaped at every chance, and managed to even stab one of her in-law’s face with scissors. Over time, the family found her to be too much of a nuisance, so they flung her into a dry well and threw down some food and water every day so she could survive.

Nobody knew how long she lived like that. It was said that at night, when it was quiet, you could hear her cries which turned into laughter, then back to forlorn cries again.

After her death, it was rumored that the well became haunted by her ghost, and there would often be incidents of young and beautiful women mysteriously falling to their deaths into the well. Some people said that it was because the girl’s soul was lonely, so she had to pull other people down there to accompany her. Others said that it was because she envied the women’s beauty. Whatever the reason, the villagers decided to seal the well, but on every seventh night of the month, a haunting cry could be heard coming out of the well, because that was the day she died.

Then the middle-aged man sighed and remarked, “What a pitiful girl!”

Yuanchao and I were pretty much unimpressed. I even thought what a waste of time it was. I never believed that ghosts could ever kill people, and the police didn’t either.

“What does it have anything to do with the murders?” I asked.

“You’re not a smart policeman, are you?” the man sneered. “Think about it! Those dead women were all disfigured! They all wore red dresses—that’s what brides wore in the olden times! The ghost of that girl must’ve killed those women, obviously!”

“Were you present when the bodies were found?” I asked.

“No,” he replied stiffly. “I was working. You can go ask Old Wu over there. He knows.”

I mentally made up my mind to return to the police station after that, then come back here later. We excused ourselves and were about to leave the man’s house when he shouted, “I won’t be sending you off then! Nice talking to you!”

We got into the car, and Yuanchao tried to start the car but it just wouldn’t start. He checked the gas meter and found out that the car was out of gas, yet he remembered that it was full when we came here.

I suddenly detected the smell of gasoline. When I looked out, I found the village completely empty—everyone had gone inside and closed the doors!

“Get out of the car now, Uncle Wang!” I shouted.

When we got outside, we saw a hole punctured through the fuel tank and a pool of gasoline on the ground underneath the car. At that moment, a number of villagers surrounded us. Their eyes were full of murderous intent, and they were all holding iron rods, bricks, sickles and other weapons.

I now understood that the middle-aged man shouted before we got out to signal these people to get ready. The story he told us was probably meant to buy them some time to prepare themselves. I couldn’t believe how bold these villagers were—they even dared to attack the police!

This would be my first time in this kind of situation, so I’d be lying if I told you I was not afraid. Still, I knew that I had to keep calm and not panic. I yelled at the men, “Don’t you know that assaulting police officers is a serious offence?”

“We’re just stupid villagers, aren’t we?” a man sneered. “Why should we care about anything like that? All we know is that we must protect our people from outsiders! Get these city boys, lads! I’ll give you one fat pig for each limb of theirs you manage to tear off!”

They swarmed towards us the moment that man uttered those words.

“Get in the car!” urged Yuanchao. “I’ll deal with them!”

I wished I could’ve stayed outside to help him, but I knew the truth that if I was there, I would only be in his way.

“You must be careful!” was all I could say.

“Don’t worry about me,” replied Yuanchao calmly. “Get inside and protect yourself!”

1. Lasted from 1644 to 1911.