Chapter 38: Sacrifice of Miao

Li Muzi's sudden appearance really startled me. This woman was too strange.

The first time I met her I saw a strange handprint on her throat.

Now, I saw her eating a scalp.

This woman was a cannibal.

"What did you see, Mr. Yu?" She asked me in a whisper.

I didn't speak.

She said again, "It's OK. What on earth did you see?"

"I didn't see anything." Could I say that I had seen her eat a scalp? Of course, I pretended to be blind and saw nothing.

She took my hand and said, "You didn't see anything, but why did the coffee fall on the ground? You are too careless.”

I looked down at my head and said I was a bit careless. "I guess you saw something. Come on. Come in and talk with me." She took my hand and went to the office.

I really did not want to go. She was so terrible that my heart was quivering.

But if I didn't go? Would there be something even more terrible happening? I saw a ferocious face.

I walked slowly, thought quickly, and I thought of what Liu the sixth said to me, "If you want to be rich, you must take risks. In the ghost business, if you want to build a reputation, you have to be bold first."

You must be bold.

I thought, she wants me to go in, so I’ll go in. If there is something wrong, I’ll run. I do not believe a woman could catch up with me.

I followed her into the office.

As soon as she entered the office, she shut the door and said to me, "Sit down, sir."

"Alas."

I sat on the couch, watching her.

She pointed at the scalp in the unknown solution and said: “You must have been watching me eat that scalp.”

Since she had asked, I said: “Yes, I saw you eating scalp.”

She walked to the front of the scalp, one hand braced the glass container, and said to me, "Do you know who he is?"

I asked, "Who?"

"The owner of the scalp,” she said.

I also couldn't play dumb. Since she discussed this topic with me, then I could only continue to discuss with her.

I said, “Who is that man?”

"My first boyfriend." She said: “I can tell you the truth... I ate his two hands.”

Ah?

I was already ready in my heart, but I was still amazed. She also ate her first boyfriend's hands?

I suddenly remembered that the first time I saw her, I saw a small handprint on her throat. Was that small slap from her first boyfriend?

I swallowed saliva, and felt she was very terrible.

A woman who ate hands and scalps… Besides ‘terrible’, I couldn't think of another word to describe her.

However, her eyes suddenly returned red, and she asked me: “Mr. Yu, you must think I'm a terrible woman, like an old witch in a western fairy tale, right?”

"No, no," I hurriedly waved my hands to deny.

She said, "No, I think I am an old witch, but these are my hometown’s rules.”

"Your hometown?" I was a little confused.

What was the relationship between eating hands and scalps and her hometown?

She went to the office closet, inserted a key, twisted, and opened the door.

Inside the door hung several colorful clothes. These clothes were tall, somber robes. Looking at the style and texture, they seemed to be quite old.

She touched those clothes and said, "My grandmother is the sorceress of the Miao. These clothes were left for me by my grandmother."

Miao? As in the Miao territory?

I used to listen to my master say, in the Miao territory and Yunnan, there was always some weird magic. Not only normal people felt very strange, even many people in the ghost business felt strange.

She said that the Miao had a ritual, called "Swallow Love."

The Miao people thought that the most loving parts were the hands and head.

Hands were used to hug your lover, to touch your lover, to feed your family, to make more money, to make your lover live better.

So, a hand is actually a very sacred thing.

The head naturally went without saying. All the love was in the brain.

The Miao's "Swallow Love" ritual was to eat the hands and scalp of the lover and then perform a sacrifice so that the next life of the lover could have a good reincarnation.

After saying that, she put on those colorful robes, closed the wardrobe, and knelt down in front of the wardrobe mirror. At the same time, she used a knife to cut her forearm and let the blood drip from her hand.

Then, she used her bloodstained hands to grab a stick of incense, lit it, and held it in her hand.

The incense, when burning, also burned the attached blood. The smoke gradually blurred Li Muzi’s image in the mirror.

Her two hands held the incense, and she talked about her first love affair.

Her first boyfriend was called Wu Hua, and he was also a professor of medicine at Minnan University; a very gentle and handsome man.

Wu Hua spent a period of inseparable time with Li Muzi. Wu Hua often put his arm around her shoulder, took her to the movies, and drank coffee in the coffee shop.

Wu Hua liked to drink salty coffee.

When they went to the coffee shop for the first time, the waiter asked Wu Hua whether to add milk or sugar, but he just said: “Give me two teaspoons of salt.”

She thought it was very strange and asked him, "Why do you like to drink salt coffee? It's no place to drink such coffee."

He put his head in his hands and said very emotionally: “You know, I lived near the sea, my parents were fishermen. One day there was a typhoon. They hadn't returned in time, and were blown out to sea. They never came back.

"That day, when I heard the bad news, I threw myself on the beach and cried for a long time. The tears in my face and the sea, interwoven together, let me taste a very bitter taste." Wu Hua said, “My parents died when I was twelve years old. From that day onwards, I was brought up by the whole village. My uncles supported my studies, and I came to the city to go to college. Every day I did odd jobs to earn a living. Once, my classmate invited me to drink coffee. I was very nervous and said ‘add salt’. As a result, the cup of salty coffee had the taste of my hometown."

"What taste?" Li Muzi asked Wu Hua.

He said it was the very bitter taste that he tasted when he was crying on the beach the day his parents died.

So, he fell in love with salty coffee. Every time he drank this kind of coffee he thought of his parents, and thought of their burial in the sea. He wanted to work hard to be worthy of the death of his parents.

That night, he sat in a bar for a long time with Li Muzi, and drank to the end. Tears streaming down his face, he said, "You all said I was a workaholic, but do you know? Whenever I don’t work, I think of the scene where my parents were buried in the sea. Those days, the weather was not good and many fishermen did not go to sea, but my parents secretly went out to sea to pay for my tuition."

He burst into tears, and her heart was touched.

She felt, this man was a man worthy of entrusting her life to. At the same time, he also needed someone to comfort him, to accompany him to chat.

So, Li Muzi and Wu Hua, at this time, formally confirmed the relationship.

Until one week ago, when Wu Hua died.

He died in a car accident.

One night he worked late, and just outside the university gates, was killed by a suddenly accelerating car.

There was no camera in that place, and that late at night there were no witnesses, so the police couldn't find out who killed him.

She loved him passionately, so she dissected his body, cut off his two palms and scalp, and ate them.

According to the Miao sorceress ceremony, she could stay with him all her life.

Of course, after doing so, she always had nightmares. In her dreams, Wu Hua boiled her and then ate her, and this is why she found me.

Facing the mirror, she said: “In fact, even without you, if I have nightmares for a lifetime, I will not regret it. Because I love Wu Hua, I love him deeply. I can't leave him.”

I was a little touched by her words. This woman had deep feelings.

As for Wu Hua, I could only say that god was too unfair. He worked hard to love the people around him, but unexpectedly, alas, such was life.

I got up and said to her, "Professor Li, thank you for opening your heart. This matter, I buried in my belly, and will never tell others."

"That's very good, sir. You walk slowly. When I finish this sacrifice, I’ll be ready to go home. I have decided to resign and go to my hometown. Without Wu Hua, I do not want to stay any longer," she said.

I intended to try to persuade her, but I did not say anything, and turned to the door. When I came to the door, I closed it for her. At that moment, I inadvertently glanced at her. I found that her expression in the mirror was a very strange smile, filled with evil and horror. It made me shudder.

I quickly closed the door.

In fact, I thought this matter was really not so simple. Li Muzi relationship with Wu Hua didn’t seem so pure.