"Hey, are you getting anything over there at the County Clerk's Office?" Sam asked.
"I'm not sure it counts as a gain." Dean started the car, and the engine made a familiar roar. "Frank's wife, Jessie, suffered from bipolar disorder. She stopped taking medication in 1988 and then disappeared. Two weeks later, someone found her in a motel outside the town and hanged herself."
"Is it possible that Frank killed her?" Sam frowned.
"No, Frank was working the night shift when she disappeared. Dozens of people in the factory can testify, and the alibi is very solid." Dean shook his head, lightly stepped on the accelerator, and the Impala drove forward slowly, but the speed was ridiculously slow, only 20 miles.
"Frank How is it over there?" Dean looked at the road ahead intently and tried to sound calm.
"It's very clean. I've searched it inside and out." Sam shook his head, "There's no electromagnetic anomaly, no curse bag, no sulfur residue, nothing."
"So it's most likely not a ghost, a witch, or a demon."
"Heh..." Sam sneered.
"After excluding 3, there are 97 left." Dean twitched the corner of his mouth.
"Yeah." Sam finally noticed something was wrong, looked down at the speedometer, and said with a speechless face, "Brother, you only drove to 20 mph?"
Bai Haorui leaned back in the back seat and couldn't help but laugh, "You are doing pure algebraic progress, my brother? It's not much faster than walking."
"So?" Dean said stiffly, scratching his neck.
"This is the speed limit."
"What? Is it illegal to drive safely?" Dean rolled his eyes.
As he said that, he drove through the intersection, missed the hotel where they were staying, and continued to drive forward.
"Brother, where are you going?" Sam looked confused, "Our hotel is right there."
"Sam, I don't want to turn left when there is an oncoming car. I don't want to commit suicide." Dean's tone was filled with a trace of unnoticeable panic. When he said the words, he himself was stunned for a moment.
"What did you just say?" Sam frowned even more tightly.
"What did I just say?..." Dean murmured to himself, his eyes full of confusion, "It's a bit strange."
At this moment, the EMF detector placed on the center console suddenly started buzzing wildly. The beeping sound pierced the silence in the car, and the pointer hit the head.
"Did you hear anything?" Sam picked up the EMF meter and shook it around. Finally, when the meter was pointed at Dean, the buzzer reached its peak in an instant and was extremely harsh.
Dean's face instantly turned pale, he was panicked, his hands and feet were cold, and his voice was trembling. "I'm possessed by a ghost? I'm possessed by a ghost?!"
As he spoke, he reached out to pull off his clothes, and his whole body fell into an extreme panic.
Bai Haorui sat in the back seat and immediately reached out his hand, placing his fingertips firmly on Dean's shoulders. He closed his eyes, and Spiritual Sense instantly spread out, sweeping across Dean's body like a tide, from the meridians to the internal organs to the soul, without sparing any trace.
A few seconds later, he opened his eyes, frowned, and his tone was serious, but with a soothing power. "It's not possession. Dean, calm down, it's not possession."
"What is that?!" Dean suddenly looked back at him, his eyes full of fear and pleading, like a drowning man grabbing the only driftwood.
"This breath is exactly the same as that on Frank's corpse." Bai Haorui's fingertips gently pressed, and Pure Yang True Fire was slowly injected into Dean's body, soothing his restless mind, "What are you infected with, Dean."
Early the next morning, the sun was shining brightly. In the parking lot outside the hotel, Sam was leaning against the Impala, talking on the phone with Bobby, his brows furrowed and his tone urgent.
Suddenly, there was loud music coming from the Impala, and the drum beat of "Eye of the Tiger" shook the car windows. Dean was lying in the front seat, playing the air drum crazily to the rhythm. He was so high that he didn't notice Sam outside the car at all.
Sam shook his head helplessly, hung up the phone, walked over and knocked on the roof of the car.
Dean was startled by the knock on the door. He almost jumped up from his seat and hurriedly turned off the music. When he saw it was Sam, he breathed a sigh of relief, rolled up his sleeves, revealing the dense red scratches on his left arm, and shook it at Sam: "Brother, look at this."
"I just finished a phone call with Bobby." Sam said in a heavy tone.
"Then what?" Dean picked up the donut on the passenger side, smelled it, and threw it back with a look of disgust, as if it was some dirty thing.
"Well, you're not going to like the results."
"What's the result?" Dean had a bad premonition in his heart.
"This is Ghost Sickness."
Dean was stunned for a moment and repeated, "Ghost Sickness?"
"Yes." Sam nodded, "I know you haven't heard of it. Some cultures believe that specific ghosts can infect living people with a disease. This is why people no longer keep corpses at home, but send them to funeral parlors."
"Okay, let's get to the point." Dean's tone was a little impatient, but his fingertips were trembling slightly.
"The symptoms are anxiety at first, then inexplicable fear, then extreme panic, and finally cardiac arrest." Sam looked at him and said in a heavy tone, "Does this sound familiar?"
"Yes, but Sam, we haven't seen a ghost in weeks." Dean frowned.
"There is a high probability that you did not get the infection directly from the ghost." Sam explained, "Listen, once the ghost infects the first person, Ghost Sickness will spread like a common cold, coughing, shaking hands, or even just physical contact, anything is possible. Frank·O'Brien was the first to die, which means he is likely to be Patient Zero."
"Our exclusive explosive monkey." Dean twitched the corner of his mouth, smiling uglier than crying.
"Yes. Also, Frank went to Maumee over the weekend to participate in a softball game. That's where the other two victims were infected by him. They are both members of the opposite team."
"Are they also from Fighting Cocks?"
"Cornjerkers's."
Dean's face turned even paler. "So, the ghost infected Frank, Frank infected those two people, and I was infected from his corpse?"
"Yes."
"So now I have 48 hours before I'm going to freak out and have my heart stop?"
Sam was silent for a moment and then said, "To be more precise, there are only 24 hours left. We met the coroner at 8 o'clock on Monday morning, and it has been a day now."
"That's great." Dean leaned back on the seat and closed his eyes, his tone full of despair.
"Yes."
"Then why me? Not you?" Dean suddenly opened his eyes and looked at Sam, "You were sprayed with spleen juice on your face, Haorui even reached out and took his heart. You guys have had more contact with me than me!"
"Well, Bobby and I also have a theory." Sam's tone paused, "The three victims all have common personality traits. Frank is the school bully, and the other two, one is a high school vice principal who is famous for being strict, and the other is a nightclub security guard."
"So?"
"To put it bluntly, they are all assholes."
Dean exploded instantly. "So you say I'm a bastard too?"
"No, no, no, it's more than just this." Sam quickly explained, "The three victims all used fear as a weapon to hurt others. Now this disease is just treating others in their own way."
"I never scare people." Dean retorted with a frown.
"Dean, what we do is to scare people." Sam said helplessly, "We hold fake badges, rush into other people's homes, use our identity as federal agents to scare people, and make them tell the truth. Isn't this using fear as a weapon?"
"Okay, then you and Haorui are also bastards." Dean looked at Bai Haorui, who had just walked over, with an indignant tone.
Sam and Bai Haorui looked at each other and couldn't help laughing.
"Obviously, we are not." Sam smiled and shook his head.
Bai Haorui opened the car door, got in the passenger seat, and handed Dean a yellow talisman filled with red runes. The runes on the talisman paper were sharply drawn with a faint pure Yang aura, which he drew with True Fire's fingertips.
"This is Clear-Heart Soul-Subduing Talisman. If you stick it on your body, it can temporarily suppress your fear and relieve symptoms." Bai Haorui looked at him and said in a gentle tone, "I also called Bobby just now. He is on his way here and he also checked for me. This kind of Ghost Sickness information. Daoists call this thing "Fear Sickness". It is a resentful spirit that died of injustice. It turned its extreme fear before death and the resentment before death into a disease, and only took revenge on those who had hurt others with fear."
Dean took the talisman, was stunned, and put it on his chest with his backhand. As soon as the talisman touched his clothes, a faint warmth spread along his chest and spread all over his body. The restless mind just now calmed down a lot in an instant.
He looked up at Bai Haorui and asked angrily, "So... why the hell are you and Sam okay? I'm the only one who co-wrote it, right?"
Bai Haorui looked at him with a gentle tone, but with a narrow smile, "Maybe you are the most bastard among us."
"Fake!" Dean's hair suddenly exploded, and he stretched out his hand to push him, "Can you please die? You are definitely much worse than me!"
Bai Haorui smiled and dodged, and the tense atmosphere in the carriage finally relaxed a little.
Sam was specially moved to a room on the first floor. Dean refused to go up to the fourth floor, saying it was too high and he would fall to death.
In the room, Dean was sitting at the table, with a thick ancient book on demon hunting spread out in front of him, but his eyes were fixed on the ticking wall clock on the wall, his fingertips were trembling, and his eyes were full of anxiety.
He lowered his head and wanted to continue reading, but the words in the book seemed to come alive, twisting and turning into the face of the devil in Hell, and the monsters in the illustrations seemed to be crawling out of the book.
The faint sound of iron chains and the low roar of the devil came to my ears, which were exactly the same as those in Hell.
Dean instantly fell into panic, grabbed the wall clock irritably, and threw it to the ground.
There was a loud "bang", glass shards of the wall clock splashed on the floor, and the ticking finally stopped.
The screen fades to black, accompanied by the lingering sound of shattering glass.
When Sam pushed the door and walked into the room, he saw the broken wall clock on the ground. Dean was sitting on the sofa, holding a can of beer and drinking it in big gulps. His face was pale and his eyes were distracted.
"Are you okay?" Sam walked over, looked at the debris on the ground, and frowned.
"Oh, very good." Dean twitched the corner of his mouth and took another sip of beer, "Did you find anything?"
"Yes, Jessie·O'Brien's body was cremated, so she is definitely not the ghost we are looking for." Sam shook his head and walked to him, "Hey, don't arrest her."
He saw Dean's left hand scratching his left arm frantically again. The original scratches were already bleeding, and the new scratches were stacked one on top of the other, which was shocking.
Dean stopped his movements, hid his arms behind his back, and said in a tone of indifferent tone, "Great, my head is on the guillotine again, I almost forgot about this feeling."
"Yes."
"I'm so happy."
"We will continue to search and we will definitely find a way." Sam said firmly.
As soon as he finished speaking, Dean suddenly began to cough violently. The cough was heartbreaking. He bent over and could hardly breathe, as if something was blocking his throat, and his face turned red from holding back.
"Are you okay? Hey!" Sam panicked instantly and rushed over to help him.
"I... I..." Dean covered his throat and struggled to spit out a few words, turned around and rushed to the sink, bent down and retched.
A few seconds later, he actually vomited out a piece of filth with sawdust, which fell into the sink, which was particularly conspicuous.
Sam's eyes widened instantly, with a look of shock on his face.
Bai Haorui had just come back from buying food. He opened the door and saw this scene. He immediately rushed over, held Dean's back, and slowly injected Pure Yang True Fire from his fingertips into his body, traveling along his meridians, warming his internal organs and dispersing the cold and cold air in his throat.
Dean's suffocation finally eased. He gasped for air and leaned against the sink, exhausted.
"We have been ignoring the biggest clue, which is you." Sam looked at the sawdust in the sink, his eyes lit up, as if he had grasped something key.
"I don't want to be used as a clue." Dean's voice was crying, with a broken face, "I just want to cure this damn disease!"
"What are these scratches, this sawdust, and this disease telling us?" Sam said in an excited tone, "It's replaying it, Dean! This ghost is asking you to replay his experience before his death!"
Dean was stunned for a moment, looking at the sawdust in the sink, his pupils suddenly shrank.
The gloomy abandoned sawmill stood on the roadside at the edge of the town, surrounded by grass. The rusty iron gate hung crookedly, and there was a biting cold feeling inside. Even in broad daylight, the sun could not shine in.
Dean stood beside the Impala, looking at the dark sawmill building, backing away, shaking his head like a rattle. "I won't go in. This place looks haunted at first sight, and there are definitely monsters, so I won't go in."
"Dean, do you think it's more terrifying for us to leave you here alone or for you to follow us in?" Sam looked at him with a helpless tone.
Dean's hand holding the whiskey bottle was shaking. He looked at the deserted open space around him, then at the dark sawmill, and finally gritted his teeth. "Okay, let's go. This place is indeed a bit scary, right?"
Sam handed Dean a gun filled with salt bombs. Dean immediately waved his hand and backed away, as if the gun was some kind of scourge. "Oh, I won't bring this, it will misfire and kill me. I'll just use the flashlight."
Sam had no choice but to take the gun back and handed him a strong flashlight.
Bai Haorui took out two amulets from his arms and handed them to Dean and Sam respectively. He held the peach wood sword behind his back tightly. The sword body was surrounded by a layer of faint purple flame.
"I'll go ahead, you guys follow me." Bai Haorui looked at Dean, with a comforting smile on his lips, and a hint of ridicule in his tone, "Dean Xiaobao, don't be afraid, uncle is here."
Dean looked at him and rolled his eyes, but still followed him obediently, holding on to the corner of his clothes tightly, like a Xiaobao treasure who was afraid of the dark, not daring to take a step away.
The inside of the sawmill was dark and damp, with abandoned machines and scattered wood chips everywhere. The air was filled with the smell of rust and rotting wood chips. The sun shone in through the broken windows, casting mottled light and shadow, like a monster with teeth and claws.
Bai Haorui was walking at the front, Spiritual Sense had already spread out, sweeping across the entire sawmill, capturing every trace of evil breath. The peach wood sword in his hand was slightly hot, and the purple flame became more obvious. Obviously, this was the nest of the resentful spirit.
The EMF detector in Dean's hand has been buzzing crazily since he entered the door, and the beeping sound is particularly harsh in the empty factory building.
"With me here, EMF is useless, right?" Dean's voice was trembling, and he followed Bai Haorui closely, the light of the flashlight flickering everywhere.
"That's right." Sam said helplessly, "Let's go, be careful."
The three of them walked not far inside when Sam suddenly stopped and bent down to pick up something on the ground.
Dean was so frightened by his actions that he almost jumped up. The light of the flashlight directly hit Sam's face. "What?! What?!"
"Don't panic, it's a ring." Sam pushed away his flashlight helplessly and picked up the ring. On it were the words engraved, "To Frank, I love you Jessie." It's the wedding ring of Frank·O'Brien."
"Why is Frank's ring here?" Dean frowned, his eyes full of confusion.
"I don't know." Sam shook his head and put the ring away.
The three of them continued walking inside and entered a room full of lockers. The sound of rustling came from inside, which was particularly clear in the quiet room.
Dean instantly tensed up and hid behind Bai Haorui. The light of the flashlight was pointed in the direction of the locker. His hands were shaking so hard that even the light was shaking.
Sam made a silent gesture to the two of them, counted to three, and suddenly opened the door of the locker in the middle.
"Meow--"
An orange cat jumped out of the locker and ran away without a trace.
Dean let out a deafening scream and almost collapsed on the ground. He grabbed Bai Haorui's arm tightly. His face turned pale and he even stopped breathing. It took several seconds before he gasped for air.
"That cat is too scary!!" Dean's voice was trembling with a cry.
Sam turned around with a serious look on his face and walked away quickly, pretending not to recognize him.
Dean grabbed Bai Haorui's arm and followed him tremblingly, not even daring to turn his head around.
Bai Haorui:
Hahaha, it made me laugh so hard. Dean·Winchester, who is not afraid of anything, is now scared like this by a cat... wait until he recovers.
"Wait, look at this." Sam stopped and picked up the work badge on the ground, "Luther·Garland."
Dean followed his gaze and looked at the painting on the table next to him. It was a sketch of a woman with delicate features. She was Jessie, Frank's wife.
"Hey, this is... this is Frank's wife." Dean's eyes lit up.
"Things are getting more and more interesting." Sam frowned.
"Yes, but how interesting is it?" Dean looked confused.
Dean reached out and pulled the painting off the wall.
The moment the painting was torn off, all the machines in the sawmill suddenly started automatically!
The piercing roar instantly filled the entire factory, the conveyor belt rotated rapidly, the huge saw blade rotated crazily, making a tooth-aching sound, and sawdust flew everywhere.
Dean suddenly looked towards the corner of the factory building, his face instantly turned pale, his whole body was shaking like chaff, his pupils were full of extreme fear, as if he had seen the most terrifying thing.
Sam and Bai Haorui followed his gaze and looked back, and saw a tall ghost figure standing in the shadow of the corner, covered in wounds, with chains wrapped around its neck, eyes full of resentment and coldness, staring at them.
"Hey!" Sam immediately raised the gun and pulled the trigger at the ghost.
The salt bomb passed through the ghost's shadow and had no effect.
When they turned around, they found that Dean had turned around with a scream and ran out of the sawmill like crazy, even his shadow was gone.
"Damn it!" Sam cursed.
Bai Haorui immediately spoke, "You continue, I will chase Dean! In his current state, it is too dangerous to be alone!"
Before he finished speaking, he turned around and quickly chased after her.
Sam fired a few more shots at the ghost. Watching the ghost disappear into the shadows little by little, he immediately turned around and chased after him.
Outside, Dean was hiding behind the Impala, holding a bottle of whiskey and gulping it down. His hands were shaking so much that he could hardly hold the bottle, and his face was covered with cold sweat.
"It seems we have found the right place." Sam walked over and sighed.
Bai Haorui squatted beside Dean, stretched out his hand, and Pure Yang True Fire with his fingertips gently brushed his body, dispelling the evil aura on his body. Dean finally recovered slowly, hugged Bai Haorui, buried his head on his shoulder, and his whole body was still shaking uncontrollably.
When the three returned to the small town police station, Deputy Sheriff Linus was sitting at his desk, looking at documents. When he saw the three coming in, he stood up with a smile and handed a folder to Sam.
Dean was leaning against the wall, swaying, his eyes were distracted, he was still holding the bottle of whiskey in his hand, his face was pale, and his whole person looked soft.
"This is Garland's file." Deputy Sheriff Linus looked at Dean with confusion on his face, and asked Sam in a low voice, "He... is drunk?"
"No." Sam shook his head, opened the folder, and frowned, "Deputy Sheriff, the file says that the cause of death of Luther·Garland was physical trauma. What does this mean?"
"That guy died 20 years ago, and I wasn't here yet. Sorry." Linus shrugged, looking helpless.
"Then can we talk to the Sheriff? He is friends with Frank and should know Luther."
"Well, he took sick leave today and didn't come to work." Linus shook his head.
"Okay, if you see him, can you ask him to call us? We live in Bluebird Motel." Sam closed the folder, "Can I take this?"
"Of course."
After the three people walked out of the police station, the intercom on Linus's desk suddenly rang, and the voice of Chief Britton came from inside. It was intermittent and full of panic, as if he was talking to someone or talking to himself.
"Who was it just now?... Who were they?..."
Linus picked up the walkie-talkie. "Sheriff? It's those three FBI agents. They came to ask about Luther·Garland's case."
The intercom was silent for a few seconds, and then the police chief's voice came again, with hysterical panic. "What do they want? They know it! They all know it!"
"Sheriff? Sheriff?" Linus shouted several times, but there was no response from the intercom.
Bai Haorui stood by the car and closed his eyes. Spiritual Sense instantly glanced in the direction of the Sheriff's house and frowned instantly.
"The Sheriff has also been infected and is now hallucinating. The situation is very bad." Bai Haorui opened his eyes and said in a serious tone, "The disease on his body has almost reached the critical point of outbreak, and it is exactly the same as Frank before his death."
Sam's face changed. "Damn it, we must find Luther's brother as soon as possible and ask what happened that year. Only by knowing the cause of his death can we find a way to eliminate him."