Although it was an old case twenty years ago, after all, it involved human life and directly triggered the demise of a festival, so it is easy to find traces of such a sensational case.

Ma Xiaochao led Liu Mengwei to the archives, followed the time into the deepest corner, opened the dusty case file for 20 years, and finally found Jasmine.

A black-and-white photo of her facial features that had been blurred immediately caught her eye, but she could still vaguely see that her face was soft and dignified. The girl in the photo is thin, with shackles in her hands, and her eyes are misty, like a lone injured young bird. She stood under a tall statue of a woman, making her weaker and more helpless and helpless. Her eyes are unfocused, wandering as if looking for someone standing outside the photograph, but unfortunately finding nothing.

The statue in the background of the photo, with open sleeves and flowing skirts, is like rippling water, as if there is no wind and is automatic, floating like a fairy, and it is naturally the flower god in the flower temple. Although Lin Xuerou's painting is simple and does not have many details, the silhouette of the figure, the direction of the hem, and the posture and movement are basically the same as the statue of the god of flowers in this photo. At this point, Liu Mengwei has been able to determine that the picture of the ancient lady painted by Lin Xuerou is the flower god in the flower temple east of Xibaozhuang.

But the jasmine she painted did not have the same recognizable features as the girl in the photo. After flipping through all the photo materials, Liu Mengwei found a relatively clear photo, which happened to be taken from the girl's right side, and clearly recorded the right half of her face. There were no marks there, not birthmarks, scars, or moles, and her young, delicate face was clean.

Liu Mengwei could only continue to look through the archives in her hand.

A few dirty dresses stained with blood, a candlestick with spikes, the body of a young man with severe burn marks, fingerprint specimens, blood samples, interview records, interrogation transcripts, and other thick piles of materials have been sleeping in the archives in this file bag numbered CRF19980321XE for twenty years.

Jasmine was actually an orphan, and she was adopted by an elementary school teacher in Xibaozhuang, so she became the teacher's daughter. But in fact, this teacher named Bai Yuyang does not meet the conditions for adopting a child. Therefore, Jasmine has never been able to enter the household registration system, without any identity documents, and she lives quietly in an unknown place.

She never went to school, but her father was a teacher and may have been teaching her in private, or her father, who was an intellectual, believed in the idea that "a woman's lack of talent is virtue" and believed that it made no difference whether she read or not.

There are several transcripts in the case file. The recorder's handwriting is neat and beautiful, horizontal and vertical, and the pen is sharp, as if he had written a prose poem in one go. Among them, there are questions and answers, and there are answers.

Q: Where were you on the night of March 21st?

Answer: Flower Temple, I am the maid of the god of flowers, and my father asked me to stay there and talk to the goddess of flowers.

Q: What happened that night?

A: I don't know, I'm so scared, where is my dad?

Q: Were you the only one in the temple at that time?

A: Yes.

Q: What happened later? Is there someone coming again?

A: Yes.

Q: Who's coming?

A: I don't know, I don't know him.

Q: Is this the person in the photo? (A photo of Li Youlin is shown here)

A: I don't know, where my dad is, I want to go home.

Q: What did he do to you?

Answer: He's going to arrest me.

Q: And then? What happened?

A: I was so scared of him, I ran away and he kept chasing me.

Q: Did you get caught by him?

A: Caught, I was caught by him.

Q: And then what did he do to you?

A: He grabbed me, he grabbed me and I wouldn't let me go.

Q: And then what did you do?

A: I want to run away, I want to go back to my father.

Q: Do you have any impressions when you look at this? (A photo of the candlestick is shown here)

Answer: Candles, I took the candle on the table of the flower goddess.

Q: What do you do with candles?

Answer: It was given to me by the goddess of flowers.

Q: There is no flower goddess Niang.

A: Yes.

Q: There's no flower goddess, it's just a sculpture, it doesn't move.

A: Yes.

Q: What did you do after taking this candlestick?

A: I hit him.

Q: How did you hit him? How many hits?

A: I don't remember, several times.

Q: Did he let you go?

Answer: Let go, he lay on the ground, and let go of me.

Q: What about the candles on it?

A: The candle fell to the ground.

Q: What happens after it drops?

A: After that, it fell to the ground.

Q: Is the candle still burning when it falls to the ground? Is the fire out?

Answer: No, the temple of the goddess of flowers is always on fire.

The text is so detailed that it almost perfectly reproduces the situation at that time. Closing her eyes, Liu Mengwei seemed to have entered a narrow dark room, the dazzling white light shining directly into her eyes, the cold inquiry, urging, and cheering were as overwhelming as an impatient rainstorm.

The girl locked in the chair had eyes as clear as morning dew, and helpless as a mournful fawn bitten by the neck, and her answers were sometimes contradictory, sometimes vague, sometimes repetitive, sometimes incorrect. Under the weight of thunderbolts, she could only let the flood of tears pour down, crying until her eyes dried up and her voice hoarse.

Liu Mengwei fell into the blue and blackened deep sea, and fear began to feel suffocated as the long sea water invaded her heart and lungs, and her chest was like a thousand pounds of weight. As her hand ran over the yellowed pages again, she finally saw Jasmine.

I am afraid that the recorder did not know when he had the magic to imprint the intense thoughts of a dying man into these papers of his pen.

In fact, every piece of paper that is written on it has its own story and emotions with it to a greater or lesser extent, but too few people can read it.

In order to capture that misty soul in the chaotic ocean of consciousness, what kind of powerful spiritual power is needed?

Do you believe that there are ghosts in this world? They are actually everywhere, sometimes dissolving in every breath of air you breathe, sometimes turning into a cloud of wind that crashes against you, sometimes enveloping you like the warm winter sun. They are scattered in the memories of the people with whom they have been in their lives, and occasionally or often come out to haunt them, to make you sad, nostalgic, remorseful, painful, fearful, this is what their ghosts are capable of.

Turn to the last page of the file, where there is a notice of the court's decision.

"Suspect Bai Jasmine, female, 18 years old, birth unknown, unemployed. Gang up with Wang Jinlong, Zhao Qiang, Chen Weidong, and others from Xibaozhuang in Yunhe City to carry out hooligan criminal activities. At 9:30 p.m. on March 21, 1998, in the Flower Temple, he stabbed to death Li Moumou, a villager in Dongbaozhuang, with a candlestick on the desk, and attempted to burn the body of the victim Li Moumou to cover up the evidence of the crime. This court finds that the facts of the above-mentioned crimes are clear, the evidence is conclusive, the crimes are particularly serious, the methods are very heinous, and they seriously endanger public order and disrupt social order. On the basis of the defendant's crimes, articles 160 and 232 of the "Administrative Law" and the provisions of the Ministerial Committee on the severe punishment of criminals who seriously endanger public order, the people's court sentenced Bai Jasmine to death for the crimes of hooliganism and intentional homicide, and deprived her of political rights for life. ”

The dark wilderness, the sound of the murderous wind, and the whimpering like a ghost crying around him made people feel chills all over their bodies. Of all these people, only one girl, who was as pure as jasmine, did not cry, she opened her fawn-like black eyes, and looked vacantly ahead.

"Bang-" The gun in the back of the head rang out. Sometimes, the rigid laws of physics also want to be naughty and take those unusual paths.

The bullet ripped through the hard skull, shredded the brain, and then pierced through the corner of the right eyebrow, leaving a bloody hole the size of a broad bean