TGCFNM -Chapter 138 It’s These Eyes

Chu Ling stared at Jiang Zisheng. He remained silent for a long time, as if he couldn’t speak at all.

The Ghost Scholar beside him asked in confusion, “Sir, what’s wrong?”

“I roughly understand the reason, but I still need to ask.” Chu Ling said softly, then let her gaze fall on the wooden box again. “Jiang Zisheng, you’ve never seen this wooden box before, right?”

“Sir, to tell the truth, I really am unfamiliar with it,” Jiang Zisheng said earnestly.

Chu Ling then summoned the witnesses, Xu Gensheng and the craftsmen who had worked at Jiang Zisheng’s shop. Looking at them, he asked one by one, “Do you recognize this wooden box?”

Xu Gensheng shouted angrily at Jiang Zisheng, “Isn’t this your box, boss? How can you not remember it? Chang Sheng accidentally opened your box, and you were so furious you practically wanted to kill him. Everyone saw how terrifying your gaze was back then!”

Chang Sheng said wrongedly, “I just accidentally touched it while helping move things, but boss… boss, your expression at the time was just too frightening.”

“It is indeed your box, boss.”

“Yes, boss, it really is yours.”

Jiang Zisheng found it absurd. “My own things… how could I forget? This is my wooden box?”

“Jiang Zisheng, Madam Jiang, you’ve employed these craftsmen for some time. I ask you, can their words be trusted?” Chu Ling asked.

Madam Jiang looked at the usually honest men. Their expressions seemed genuinely truthful.

Jiang Zisheng had no reply. Could this really be his wooden box?

Chu Ling ordered Wan Sanjin to pry open the lock and open the box, displaying its contents.

When the wooden door of the box was opened, inside were compartments resembling shelves, each holding exquisitely crafted wooden figurines, about the size of a palm, incredibly lifelike.

Jiang Zisheng murmured in astonishment, “What… are these things?”

“I saw you play with them with my own eyes,” Xu Gensheng said angrily. Then his expression froze, and in disbelief he stared at one of the figurines—it was clearly newer than the others.

He carefully took it out. The features of the figurine were so vivid and familiar, and the clothes it wore were so recognizable… “Sister? Is this my sister?”

Uncle Song also stared in shock at the figurine placed at the topmost shelf and carefully picked it up.

The figurine sat in a wheelchair, hair arranged in a young woman’s bun, with a gardenia pinned on it, looking up with a face full of happiness.

Wan Sanjin then took out each figurine one by one, letting everyone see carefully:

“Florist’s daughter: Zhizhi. Xia family daughter: Xia Rouyan. Widow Sun, Ren family daughter: Ren Jiao’er… and the last one: Taoniang.”

Wan Sanjin looked at Jiang Zisheng. “Five people in total died. There are five figurines in this wooden box, each corresponding to a deceased person. This box was found in the carpenter’s workshop. All the bystanders can testify. And these figurines weren’t made by ordinary hands—ordinary people couldn’t carve them so vividly.”

Madam Jiang hurriedly pulled Jiang Zisheng back, anxiously defending him: “My husband can’t carve figurines! He’s never carved anything in his life! I sleep beside him, how could I not know?”

“Perhaps… he really didn’t carve them,” Chu Ling said softly.

Jiang Zisheng looked up at her, a trace of shock in his eyes.

Chu Ling, however, narrowed her eyes and looked at him coldly. “You feel it yourself, don’t you? From the first victim, Zhizhi, you should have sensed something was wrong, right?”

Jiang Zisheng painfully grabbed his head, crying out, “It’s Jiang Zixin… it’s him… it’s him!”

Jiang Zixin?

Who was that?

Chu Ling slowly stood up and walked from behind the desk to Jiang Zisheng, looking down at him. “If you have no memory, then I will help you remember.”

“The first victim, Zhizhi. A dark shadow broke into her home and killed her. The weapon was a carving knife that slit her throat. She bled to death, and afterward, her body was cruelly mutilated.”

Chu Ling took the wooden figure from Uncle Song and handed it over to Xiao Hua, who pried it open with force.

The figure was hollow—inside fell a carving knife.

Chu Ling held the knife in her hand and looked at Jiang Zisheng: “Do you remember now?”

Jiang Zisheng opened his mouth, eyes wide with shock: “I… the knife I lost…”

Chu Ling continued, “The second victim, killed half a year later, was the first of the three victims in that spree: Xia Rouyan. The same way—a shadow entered her home, strangled her with wire, and then brutally mutilated her body.”

Xiao Hua pried open another wooden figure. Inside fell wire and a carving knife.

“Your father, being a carpenter, must have brought you to the Xia household. Later on, whoever was scouting—whether it was you or Jiang Zixin with your memories—I don’t know, but the killer knew the way,” Chu Ling said.

Jiang Zisheng had by now collapsed to the ground, completely dazed.

Chu Ling continued: “The third victim, Ren Jiao’er, was stabbed in the throat with a hairpin, dying from excessive blood loss.”

Xiao Hua opened it: gold hairpin and carving knife.

“The fourth victim: Widow Sun, strangled to death with a red cord.”

Xiao Hua opened it: red cord and carving knife.

“And the final one: Taoniang. Strangled to death with fine wire wrapped in a hairband, suffocating.”

Xiao Hua opened it: hairband, wire, and carving knife.

Chu Ling, holding the five carving knives, asked: “Don’t you find it strange that your carving knives kept going missing? Did you ever question it? Did you ever wake up covered in blood and feel terrified?”

“Jiang Zisheng, you’re lying!”

Jiang Zisheng suddenly raised his head, furious: “It wasn’t me—it was Jiang Zixin living inside me. It was him, him, not me, not me!”

“Do you know why your parents moved around with you, why they didn’t let you meet girls, why they only arranged your marriage after thinking your condition had stabilized? You knew all along, didn’t you?” Chu Ling sneered. “Stop pretending to be innocent.”

Jiang Zisheng panicked, shaking his head: “Not me, not me!”

Chu Ling returned to her seat with the carving knife, looking out at the bewildered townspeople: “To put it simply, inside his ‘host shell’ live two souls. One is Jiang Zisheng—the gentle, kind person his parents speak of. The other is Jiang Zixin—a soul who, whenever he sees a woman he likes, must capture her likeness in wood—he is the killer.”

Xiao Hua froze. “Sir, what do we do? Call an exorcist to pull the soul out?”

Chu Ling smiled. “Xiao Hua’s question is also everyone else’s. But as I said before, Jiang Zisheng claims he knows nothing, and I don’t believe it… He must remember waking up in blood, forcing himself to ‘lose’ a day’s memory, delaying everything by a day—so he can feel innocent.”

“But by day he is one person, by night another. How could the traces of what was done vanish, and how could he know nothing? That’s why he stopped being a carpenter—he knows his condition hasn’t healed, so he no longer uses the carving knife.”

Chu Ling struck the courtroom block, her gaze icy:

“Since you knew your condition, why didn’t you lock yourself away? Why not surrender? In the end, you think you’re innocent—but were those women not innocent? If you had confessed early, you could have treated yourself, restrained yourself, avoided harming anyone. Yet you pretended not to know. You’re selfish.”

Jiang Zisheng suddenly looked up, pleading: “I… it wasn’t me, I didn’t… it was him, him…”

“It was your own hands that did it,” Chu Ling said sternly, clutching the five carving knives. “Five lives, and you think claiming innocence lets you escape? You could have prevented it!”

“I… I can’t control him, I can’t!” Jiang Zisheng shouted, suddenly breaking free and lunging at Chu Ling.

Chu Ling swung the courtroom block and, feigning casualness, tugged Jiang Zisheng’s right sleeve, then punched him away.

“Phew…” Chu Ling blew on her fist. Even a county magistrate has to know self-defense these days.

“Those bite marks on your right arm—what about them?” Chu Ling gritted his teeth. “You’ll never remove them, and yet you still claim ignorance?”

Jiang Zisheng looked up sharply, revealing a pair of sharp, terrifying eyes.

Zhang Ercai panicked: “It’s these eyes… it’s these eyes!”