Chapter Forty-Four: Ink Stain

"My little brother seems to have a new mole on his face!" Hao was beside himself with excitement.

"So what if there's a mole? That's not exactly strange," I muttered.

Old Liao smacked his lips, ready to show off again. "The placement of a mole is very important, you know. In face reading and fortune telling, moles and birthmarks are crucial."

He then launched into his usual performance, talking about how a mole on the crown of the head wards off disaster, a cheek mole cares for one's surroundings, a jaw mole denotes instability... In short, a corpse with a new mole on its face was odd and truly out of the ordinary.

Hao pulled out his phone to find a photo for us. It was a Motorola flip phone, trendy a decade ago, and I wondered how he managed to stick with it in today's age of smartphones.

"Here, take a look." We crowded closer. The pixel quality was poor, but it was just possible to recognize the photo's subject—a corpse, bluish all over, utterly bloodless.

Strangely, there was a large black mole right between the brows, starkly conspicuous.

The mark felt uncanny, more like an ink blot than a mole.

At this, unease crept into my heart. In that haunted villa where Liu Juan lived, the ghostly woman had finally melted into the wall, leaving behind an ink blot almost exactly this size.

A haunted house... Real estate sales... Could these clues be connected?

Looking at the photo, I felt the thread of Sun Xing's spectral presence unravel before us, each clue emerging like silk stripped from a cocoon.

"Let's go to Lijing Garden," I said, beckoning Hao and Old Liao.

Unexpectedly, Hao dropped to his knees with a thud, his face trembling. "Boss Zhang, if my brother returns home safely, you can count on me for anything you need in the future."

He was a true man, his brotherly devotion genuinely moving. I hurried to help him up. In our line of work, the more friends, the more paths, and I was glad to befriend such skilled and unusual people.

We got in the car and headed straight to Lijing Garden. At our destination, Old Liao and I walked ahead, and he sidled up to me, whispering in a mosquito-like voice, "Try to get along with the Xiangxi factions; it might help you solve the mystery of your origins."

He had a point. Grandpa and I originally came from Hunan; perhaps the Yin-Yang Embroidery tradition was part of the Xiangxi underworld powers long ago.

We rang the bell at Building 44 in Lijing Garden—no answer. I surveyed the house and was surprised to see some so-called "magical objects" for warding off evil had been arranged around it. But these were clearly fake, cheap imitations.

Someone unfamiliar wouldn't notice, but Old Liao was carrying genuine Daoist implements; a simple comparison revealed the difference.

I couldn't help but smile. Liu Juan had been through a lot. Though the haunting had been resolved and her own troubles had eased, now she wanted to return to normal life. Setting up some mystical paraphernalia was understandable.

Soon, the villa door creaked open. Liu Juan, her hair still damp, peered at us curiously, then broke into a broad grin. "Masters, what brings you to my home today?"

Old Liao chuckled and improvised, "We're here for a follow-up, checking if you've encountered anything strange since our last visit."

"No, nothing at all. After you all came last time, everything's been perfectly normal."

"Is that ink blot still on the wall?"

"It is... You told me not to touch it, so I haven't dared paint over it. I just hung a painting in front of it."

I looked at the wall in the living room. A sunflower oil painting hung at an odd height—too low for comfort, clearly meant to cover the ink mark.

The three of us approached, advising Liu Juan to return to her room. Old Liao slowly reached out, lifted the sunflower painting away.

The ink blot remained, but it had subtly changed. It was no longer just a blot, but had transformed into a symbol—a small swastika.

Old Liao stared at it for a long time, saying that in Theravada Buddhism, the swastika symbolized "perfect virtue," but it obviously had nothing in common with this sinister thing.

Hao looked at me with a strange expression, making me a bit uncomfortable.

"It was just a black spot last time, I swear."

Old Liao nudged me, "Didn't you say you have a connection to this thing? Why not try again?"

I thought it over. Last time, touching the ink blot had let me glimpse events from years past in this villa. Maybe I'd have another reaction if I tried now.

I steadied myself, slowly brought my finger closer to the swastika. The instant I touched it, my vision plunged into darkness.

...

Cold to the touch, a damp floor, pitch-black surroundings. It was as if all my senses had been stripped away, and I lay silently in the void.

"Plop, plop," footsteps echoed. A pair of black boots appeared in my line of sight. Powerless, I forced my eyelids open and saw a mysterious man in a black cloak suddenly standing before me.

This was the figure I'd seen in my dreams, the stranger in the bronze mirror!

"Who are you?" I gritted my teeth, asking fiercely.

He didn't answer, only shook his head silently and turned away, vanishing once more into endless darkness.

I looked down at the spot where he'd stood. Beside it was a small pool, bubbling in the center. Black steam began to rise, the water evaporating, slowly disappearing until only a shadowy ink mark was left on the ground.

A swastika!

As the symbol grew larger, I felt the ground and walls spin wildly.

Suddenly, I was yanked back to reality.

As my finger left the wall, my mind gradually cleared. For my own reasons, I didn't tell Old Liao and Hao about the dream and the mysterious stranger.

After regaining my composure, I turned to Hao. "Do you recognize this mark?"

Hao opened his long robe, revealing his scarred face, leaning in to study the mark closely.

After a while, his expression sagged, and he shook his head.

"I've never seen anything like this, but my gut tells me it's something evil."

The trail had gone cold again, and even Old Liao, usually so optimistic, grew dispirited.

"That woman," Hao said, frowning, "may have had contact with my brother."