Su Wan, an ancient book restorer, found six copper buttons numbered 1 to 6 in the secret compartment of her grandmother's camphor wood box. Half of a blue-gray fingernail was stuck in the groove of the sixth button. On the thread-bound notebook at the bottom of the box, there are locust leaves stuck next to the intermittent music score. When the sun shines, the veins of the leaves turn red and see out the words: "Before the seventh note falls, wrap a red rope around the door latch."
On the night when my grandmother disappeared, the clock in the old house struck seven times. Police photos show that the wall is full of little figures sewn with locust flowers, all with copper buttons on their chests. Only the number 7 is empty, and the three characters "Huaianli" are spelled out in blood on the wall.
While repairing the music score, Su Wan discovered a group photo of the Republic of China Women's School in the mezzanine - the seventh girl in the third row wearing a blue shirt, the collar buttons were the same as those in the box, and her face was 70% similar to hers. Every midnight, the sound of cloth shoes can be heard on the stairs, and the moonlight under the door is mixed with dark green broken leaves.
A button-shaped red mark suddenly appeared on the back of her neck, which felt as hot as a soldering iron when touched. In my grandmother's medical records, under the prescription of "seven sections of Sophora japonica root combined with bone buttons", the word "living person" can be faintly crossed out.
Six skeletons were excavated from the old school site and were entangled with locust tree roots. The third ribs all had circular indentations. The missing seventh skeleton is located directly opposite the old locust tree of Su Wan's old house. When she found the seventh button in the tree hole, the number 7 on the back oozed blood beads, and a sapling grew out of it as soon as it hit the ground. The pattern of the leaves exactly matched the mark on the back of her neck.
On the last page of the notebook, the seventh verse of lyrics written by Rouge glowed red: "Sewing the bones together will serve as tree fertilizer, and the seventh girl will never bloom."
