When Jiang Ping received the commission, the ancient house on the outskirts of the city had already scared away three waves of renovation workers. Every night at midnight, the sound of hair combing could be heard in the west wing. Someone peeked through the window and saw a woman wearing a Republican cheongsam sitting in front of the mirror. Her hair was dragged to the ground, but she was holding a wooden comb with broken teeth in her hand.
The owner of the house is an old lady, who said that the house was passed down by her grandmother. When she was cleaning up the wing last month, she moved the old dressing table left by her grandmother to the window, and strange things began: when workers got up at night, they would always see the mirror light on the dressing table turning on by itself, and they could smell a musty smell of hair oil when they got closer.
Jiang Ping brought three things with him: a compass, a cinnabar pen, and a peachwood comb soaked in glutinous rice water. As soon as midnight arrived, the sound of combing hair sounded on time in the west wing. He opened the door and the compass needle pointed straight to the west - it was the mirror of the dressing table. The woman's back was turned to him, and the comb made a "squeaking" sound in her hair. Jiang Ping did not rush to do it. He first recited the sentence "Three Purities guide the way, and evil spirits appear." Then the cinnabar on his fingertips drew a "shattering evil talisman" on the peach wood comb.
When the woman slowly turned her head, Jiang Ping could see clearly that her face was blurry, with only a crack hanging at the corner of her mouth - exactly the same as the tooth marks on the broken-tooth wooden comb. "It's not your hair that you're obsessed with, but this comb, right?" Jiang Ping suddenly said, pointing to the dresser drawer, "When you broke it, the teeth of the comb got into your hand, blood seeped into the cracks in the wood, and your soul followed the comb."
The woman made a movement and the sound of combing her hair stopped abruptly.
