Translator: CinderTL
"No, it's inside. Inside," the young man stammered, his face turning pale as he seemed to recall something. After a long pause, he continued, "In short, just don't go in. Brother Wu promised me you'd only search for clues outside."
Jiang Cheng and the others exchanged glances and nodded. "Alright."
Promises are the cheapest currency, especially in a Nightmare.
They only needed the young man to lead them to the crime scene. Whether they entered, how they entered, or what they did once inside was entirely up to them.
Following the man, they entered a winding corridor, making several turns.
At the end of the corridor was a slightly ajar wooden door. Pushing it open produced an unavoidable, grating sound that made everyone's hearts clench.
They had been extremely cautious along the way.
After passing through the door, the layout became more familiar, and the surroundings opened up. Several low buildings stood not far away.
If they remembered correctly, they had been here before.
The Feng Clan Ancestral Hall and the Celestial Master's Altar were nearby.
The young man lowered his voice and pointed with a finger toward the buildings in the distance. "It's over there, the second-to-last courtyard, the largest one."
Following the man's finger, they saw a blurry silhouette of a building in the distance. It occupied a larger area than the other structures nearby.
Whether it was due to the lighting or not, the building's color tone was noticeably darker than the surrounding structures. The light seemed to be swallowed up by its surface.
Zhao Xingguo swallowed hard.
"Don't stay too long," the young man warned before leaving. "Take a quick look and leave immediately. Even though no one's around, don't make any noise. If you get caught, you're finished."
After agreeing to meet at the gate shortly, the young man departed. It was clear he harbored an inexplicable dread toward the building.
"Something feels off here," Zhao Xingguo said, cautiously scanning their surroundings. Though everything looked the same as when he left, he sensed something amiss.
"Stop wasting time with idle chatter. If there was nothing wrong here, why would we be here?" Fu Fu seemed impatient, not even bothering with pretense toward Zhao Xingguo.
Having already suffered under Fu Fu's hand, Zhao Xingguo didn't dare retort. Setting aside her Night Watcher background, Luo He and Fu Fu's individual reputations alone were enough to inspire fear.
Especially that man named Luo He. He looked aloof and gentle, yet his abilities were so formidable that even Ghosts found him troublesome.
Zhao Xingguo had never seen anything like this before, not even heard of it.
Noticing Jiang Cheng staring in another direction, Zhao Xingguo asked curiously, "Mr. Jiang, what are you looking at?" He followed Jiang Cheng's gaze, which was fixed on the direction they had come from.
After a moment of thought, Jiang Cheng turned away. "Do you remember what Crippled Liu said?"
The sudden mention of Crippled Liu made Zhao Xingguo's face stiffen. Even Fu Fu, who had remained aloof from their group, stopped walking and turned to look at him.
"What did he say?" Zhao Xingguo asked awkwardly.
"He said that the gates of Feng Manor would close at nightfall, and no matter who knocked, they wouldn't open," Jiang Cheng recalled Crippled Liu's sinister tone, raising his eyes. "No one can call open the gates of Feng Manor at night."
Step.
Step.
Step.
Fatty, watching Huai Yi pace back and forth in the room with his hands behind his back, said irritably, "Can't you stop walking? You're making my eyes spin."
"But I was worried about them too!" Huai Yi protested. "By the way, there's something I've been puzzling over, and I wanted to..."
Huai Yi had originally intended to say "discuss with you," but when he noticed Lin Wan'er watching him, he swallowed the words and changed them to "ask for your advice."
Hearing the word "advice," Fatty sat up straight, nodded solemnly, and said, "Ask away."
Huai Yi found a wooden chair and sat down, his expression strange. "Have you ever considered how that straw doll ended up in Chen Qiang's backpack?"
"How could he possibly carry something like that on him?" Huai Yi frowned, muttering to himself. "From what I've observed, Chen Qiang isn't careless. He wouldn't make such a mistake."
"So you think someone deliberately planted the doll in his backpack?" Huai Yi's words opened a new line of thought for Fatty.
"That's impossible. Chen Qiang never lets his backpack out of his sight, and I've never seen him open it in public." Fatty paused abruptly.
At the same moment, Huai Yi's gaze turned peculiar. His eyes swept past Fatty's side, then drifted away without settling on anything.
For someone like Chen Qiang, trying to stuff a straw man into his bed while he was awake was impractical and too risky. But what if they did it while he was asleep?
That night, everyone slept in separate rooms, each with a door that could be locked from the inside.
Only two people shared a room with Chen Qiang.
One was Huai Yi, who had raised the question earlier. The other...
Fatty slowly shifted his gaze. Pi Ruan was leaning against the wall beside him, head bowed, wrapped in a tattered blanket, already asleep.
Now that they had entered Feng Manor, everyone seemed to have shed their inhibitions. Zhao Xingguo, driven to desperation, pushed open a pitch-black wooden door and was the first to enter.
If both of the brothers he had brought with him died here, he wouldn't have the face to leave alone.
"This is..." The young man pointed at the courtyard Zhao Xingguo had led them into, and a strange expression crossed Zhao Xingguo's face. He noticed many red objects in the corners.
Upon closer inspection, he realized they were Red Paper and red lanterns. Each lantern and sheet of paper bore a large, bold character for "Longevity."
The crimson hue was so intense it was almost blinding.
Jiang Cheng picked up a lantern lying on the ground. It was very old, as if it had been abandoned here for some time. "This must be some kind of Feng Family hall, where Master Feng's birthday banquet was held," he said, dropping the lantern.
"Look over there," Fu Fu said, lifting her chin. They were standing directly across from a grand-looking building.
White cloth hung on either side of the building, inscribed with words of mourning. Several unlit white lanterns lay scattered on the ground, not yet hung up.
"It seems Master Feng's body is being kept here," Jiang Cheng said. "The last event held here was a birthday banquet. With the sudden tragedy, the Feng Family didn't have time to prepare properly. They simply removed the festive decorations and replaced them with mourning arrangements."
Fu Fu stepped over the scattered ghost money and walked toward the building. "Since we're already here, let's take a look inside."
The hall-like building still had the old-fashioned wooden gate, with an openwork design on the upper panels covered with paper.
As Zhao Xingguo approached, the eerie atmosphere unique to grand old mansions washed over him.
He poked a hole in the paper covering the gate and swallowed nervously, peering inside. The room was dark, and he could only make out vague outlines.
As his gaze swept across the room, something suddenly moved in the darkness—a slight swaying motion, as if blown by the wind.
It was suspended high above the ground.
Zhao Xingguo leaned forward, straining to see more clearly.
Perhaps it was his good fortune, but the clouds that had been obscuring the moonlight suddenly parted, and a flood of moonlight poured into the room, illuminating its interior.
In the next moment, Zhao Xingguo finally saw what it was.
A pair of legs, dangling in mid-air.
(End of the Chapter)
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