Just as Lu Jiuchuan and Tang Ci climbed out the window, the sound of footsteps reached the door of the study. The wooden door creaked open, and the two squatted outside the window, holding their breath and listening intently to the sounds inside.
Qin Feng walked to the bookshelf, casually pulled a book out of it, and the bookshelf suddenly parted in front of him, revealing a hidden door. He picked up a candle with his right hand and walked down the steps, leaving the two of them with only his slender, tall back.
The bookcase door closed slowly after he entered the secret room, as if nothing had happened.
Lu Jiuchuan gently grasped Tang Ci's wrist and whispered, "Let's retreat first."
The two quickly left the courtyard.
The weather outside was sunny, but Lu Jiuchuan felt that the alleyway exuded a strange gloom. It was probably because the old trees by the roadside had too many leaves, blocking out the sunlight and casting a large shadow over the entire alley.
A moment later, the two walked out of Xiushui Lane. The streets were bustling with people, the sun shining brightly overhead, and the lively atmosphere of the main street contrasted sharply with the quiet Xiushui Lane.
Lu Jiuchuan led Tang Ci toward the inn.
After reaching a secluded corner, Lu Jiuchuan pressed his earpiece and whispered to Xiao Lou, "During our investigation, the mayor suddenly returned home. We didn't have time for a thorough search, but we used Drone to photograph the key documents in his house. Bring them to the inn for you?"
Xiao Lou asked, "Do you still have time for your Invisibility Cloak?"
Tang Ci glanced at the countdown timer and said, "Five minutes left."
Xiao Lou said, "Five minutes should be enough. You guys go through the alley behind the inn. Hanjiang and I are staying in the second room from the left on the second floor. I'll open the window, and you can use your Lightness Skill to fly in and hand the drone over to me."
Lu Jiuchuan said "Okay" and quickened his pace with Tang Ci.
The two invisible figures moved freely through the town. The townspeople only felt a gentle breeze pass by. In the blink of an eye, Lu Jiuchuan and Tang Ci arrived at the alley specified by Xiao Lou. Lu Jiuchuan looked up and saw that the window of a guest room on the second floor was wide open. He and Tang Ci jumped and leaped directly into the room.
Xiao Lou and Yu Hanjiang are waiting for them.
Noticing a gust of wind blowing in, Xiao Lou hurriedly asked with concern, "Ninth Brother? Are you alright?"
Lu Jiuchuan said, "Things went relatively smoothly. Qin Feng shouldn't have discovered us?"
Tang Ci said, "Not necessarily. The lock on the cabinet was opened with a master key, and all the documents have been restored. But as for the secret room in the study, although we didn't go in, he might be able to tell whether the mechanism had been opened or not. We can't be sure if he tampered with the mechanism on the bookcase."
Yu Hanjiang frowned and said, "If he finds out that someone broke into the study and opened the secret room, wouldn't he destroy the evidence? Mr. Tang used a drone to film the scene inside the secret room?"
Tang Ci said helplessly, "The situation was urgent, and that was the only thing we could do."
He took out the drone, handed it to Xiao Lou, and opened the surveillance footage.
The surveillance camera, about the size of a card, began playing back the footage that had just been recorded.
In the scene, the viewer's gaze follows a dark staircase down to a spacious, secret room. The walls are made of blue stone bricks, and kerosene lamps are lit on the walls. Although the light is dim, the furnishings inside can still be seen.
To Xiao Lou's astonishment, the walls around the secret room were covered with rattle drums!
Red rattle drums, originally children's toys, when hung densely in a cold, underground chamber, involuntarily evoke images of "torture instruments in a prison cell"...
Xiao Lou and Yu Hanjiang exchanged a glance, and the latter lowered his voice and said, " Qin Feng is highly suspicious."
Looking at the image, Lu Jiuchuan couldn't help but complain, "The whole room is full of rattle drums. Does he have some kind of obsession with rattle drums? Did he get into a fight over them when he was a kid... or is the rattle drum a toy that holds special sentimental value for him?"
Yu Hanjiang said, "Many assassins have the habit of using specific props as their identity markers."
Xiao Lou zoomed in on the footage from the drone's surveillance camera, carefully compared it, and said, "The drumheads of these rattle drums don't just have tigers; they also have patterns of all twelve zodiac animals..." He paused, then turned to look at everyone: "Do you think the mayor is the most likely culprit?"
Tang Ci said, "The clues are too obvious, it can't be that simple, can it?"
Yu Hanjiang added, "Given the Guardian's personality, it's unlikely we'll find the killer right away; it might just be another distraction. However, this mayor definitely has some connection to the killer."
Tang Ci swiped his finger lightly, bringing up another set of data taken by the drone.
The camera showed a stack of notebooks, with Lu Jiuchuan rapidly flipping through them. The drone clearly captured the contents of each page, and in one of the notebooks, over 90% of the names were marked with a red cross.
Xiao Lou paused, then asked, "Is this a murder record book? Or is it that he crossed out the names of the dead?"
The order of events is important. If someone's name is crossed out first, and that person dies later, then the murderer is "planning a murder," and the list is a list of enemies he wants to take revenge on. Conversely, if someone's name is crossed out after they have died, then the list is likely just a record of the dead residents of the town.
Yu Hanjiang said, "This information is very important. We can follow this lead to investigate further. Besides the Zhao and Chen families who were wiped out..."
"Many names have been crossed off the register. We need to find out whether these people are alive or dead, and what the cause of death was." He looked at Lu Jiuchuan and said, "Time is of the essence, and the murderer is extremely brutal. We must be careful during the investigation."
Lu Jiuchuan nodded: "Don't worry, leave it to us."
Xiao Lou said, "There are too many people to investigate. You two can't handle it all. I'll get two more people to help you." He pressed his earpiece and said, " Long Sen, Qu Wanyue, you two will use your Chameleon cards to go out with Ninth Brother to investigate. I will tell you the location you need to go through the earpiece channel. You need to find out the fate of some people."
Qu Wanyue quickly replied, "Understood."
This roster, besides names and birth dates, also recorded everyone's specific location in the town, which made the investigation easier. Long Qu and his companion crawled along the ground using chameleon cards, while Lu Jiuchuan and Tang Ci pretended to be sightseeing in the town. Following Xiao Lou's instructions, the four of them circled the entire town, checking each house one by one.
The afternoon passed quickly. The four-person investigation team visited the residences of all the people listed on the roster, and then they were surprised to find that some people were dead, while others were still alive.
Lu Jiuchuan said, "The person named Lin Zhaokuan on the list is still alive. He is an elderly man living alone, around 50 years old."
Qu Wanyue reported: " Qi Mingwei, an old man in his sixties, lives with his son and daughter-in-law, and has a newborn grandson. I just passed by their house, and they seem quite wealthy; the yard is very grand. By the way, his son looks very familiar to me; he should be the young man who bought a rattle drum for his child when we passed through the alley behind the inn today."
Xiao Lou paused for a moment, then asked, "Are you sure it's him?"
Qu Wanyue said, "I'm not mistaken. They're dressed exactly the same. He's holding the rattle drum with the little sheep painted on it. The maid who called him home is using the rattle drum to amuse the child."
Long Sen added, "The Yu family is also here. The two brothers, Yu Liang and Yu Rui, who are on the roster, live near Xiushui Lane. I just saw them going out together."
Tang Ci said, "The people I investigated all disappeared without a trace."
It seems this register holds a hidden secret. Some of the people whose names are crossed out have disappeared—meaning they were killed by the murderer—while others are still alive and well, and will undoubtedly become the murderer's next target.
Xiao Lou asked, "With people disappearing over the years, haven't the residents of this town ever had any suspicions?"
Lu Jiuchuan said helplessly, "They all believe that this is a 'vengeful ghost seeking revenge.' Those who have never harmed anyone are not worried about this. They think that as long as they sleep peacefully after dark, no vengeful ghost will come after them. But once someone goes missing in town, everyone will talk about it in private, saying that they must have harmed someone and were being retaliated against by a vengeful ghost."
The idea of a vengeful ghost has completely brainwashed the people in the town.
Lu Jiuchuan said, "It's said that some people in town have actually seen a vengeful ghost. We just passed by a house and heard a child crying. The elders told the story of the vengeful ghost to scare them, and they told it in great detail..."
Tang Ci then recounted the story the old man had told everyone: "Three years ago, on a rainy night, the wedding procession was possessed by a vengeful ghost. The ghost's face was as white as paper, its lips as red as blood, and it was dressed in white with long hair that covered its face, making it impossible to see its features. The hair could fly around wildly and suddenly stretch out several feet long, wrapping around a person's neck."
Xiao Lou: "..."
The rumors are getting more and more outlandish.
Ye Qi couldn't help but complain: "This female ghost sounds a lot like Nie Xiaoqian from A Chinese Ghost Story?"
Shao Qingge interjected, "The legend of the vengeful ghost probably didn't appear out of nowhere. The murderer is using this method to confuse the public and cover up his crime. Perhaps, that vengeful ghost is him in disguise."
Xiao Lou agreed with CEO Shao's guess, saying, "The murderer started committing crimes three years ago. According to the records, a total of 53 people have gone missing in the past three years. Apart from the Zhao and Chen families who were brutally murdered, the others were scattered elderly people living alone who died without much attention. There are currently 34 people on the list who are still alive."
Yu Hanjiang said, "The murderer has killed so many people, his mind is already twisted, we have to find a way to stop him."
Lu Jiuchuan said, "The problem is that the killer operates at night, and once night falls, we can't enter the normal town; we're forced to go into Ghost City. Ghost City and the town at night are two different spaces. We can't find the killer in Ghost City, so the killer can continue to kill indiscriminately without worrying about being disturbed by us."
Tang Ci added, "If we had notified the 34 surviving people in advance to be careful, they certainly wouldn't have believed us."
Ye Qi scratched his head and said, "This is really troublesome. We are all strangers from out of town. If we suddenly pop up and say,'Someone is going to kill you, run!' they'll think we're crazy, right? How can we give them a warning?"
Liu Qiao suggested, "How about we put a rattle drum in each house and stick a note on it with a message written in large, blood-red characters: 'Tonight at midnight, vengeful ghosts will come to claim lives'? Would that scare them away?"
Everyone: "..."
Xiao Liu's wild idea sounds like a prank.
Of course, someone who has done something wrong might actually be scared away by her method. But it's more likely to backfire, because it might provoke the killer, making him even more brutal and causing the entire town to perish.
Xiao Lou lowered his head and thought for a moment, then suddenly came up with a plan: "His method of killing is to manipulate people's will and lure them to Mass Grave at the top of the mountain. Although we can't enter the town at night and encounter the killer, we can intercept him on the way."
Lu Jiuchuan laughed and said, "Great idea! We can ambush them in the mountains outside the town; firstly, we can rescue them, and secondly..."
"Come on, maybe we can catch the murderer on the spot. Even if we don't, at least we can find some clues."
As dusk approached, the setting sun painted the evening glow with a fiery hue. Xiao Lou stood by the window, glancing at the distant sky with a worried expression: "It's getting dark. Everyone, let's eat our fill and get some rest. We'll prepare for our operation tonight."
He looked at Yu Hanjiang, who understood and immediately said, " Xiao Lou, Long, Qu, Mo, and Qiao, a six-person team, will infiltrate the town to investigate the secrets of Ghost City at night. Ninth Brother, Mr. Tang, Hua Ying, and Senior Gui will go into the woods to intercept the murderer. CEO Shao and Xiao Ye will hide as liaisons, operating the Peach Blossom Spring outside the town, ready to teleport teammates in case of danger."
As night falls, what survival challenges will they face?
Xiao Lou always felt that things weren't that simple.