Chen Xiaomeng’s gait slowed down. She remained in the range of the light. She also noticed something was wrong and wondered if this was a ghost’s trap.
The giant building rose before them. Everything appeared as black silhouettes. It felt like they could move at any moment. As they approached the building, suddenly, Zhou Rong heard a strange sound.
It sounded like fabric rubbing against branches or stones. He turned to the source. A few seconds later, his eyes widened. Under the corner of the wall, there was a shrunken, wrinkly face!
Jiang Cheng and Chen Xiaomeng discovered it as well. Bei Qian was no longer as proud as before. His eyes were bloodshot, and he closed his hands over his mouth. He hid in the corner, his body shivering. Thankfully, other than some dirt, they couldn’t detect any wounds on his body. In other words, the blood came from someone else.
Bei Qian’s gaze was transfixed at one spot. Jiang Cheng moved the oil lamp to where Bei Qian was looking at. It was the window. There was a small tree in front of the window. The tree was split in the middle. A branch protruded out, forming a natural spike. At that moment, a body was hanged from the tree. The branch pierced in from the mouth and exited through the lower body. The stomach was slashed open. Organs fell out with blood.
It was Jiang Zhongyi…
His dangling hand gripped a roughly-hewn, wooden cross that had been dyed red. Zhou Rong was stunned. This scenario was heavily coloured by religion. If he were not in the nightmare realm, he would have thought he had returned to the Dark Ages. Due to the angle, they couldn’t see Jiang Zhongyi’s eyes.
Zhou Rong slowly raised his head. He noticed that the second-floor window had been shattered. Some wooden splinters extended outwards. It looked like Jiang Zhongyi jumped out from the second-floor window. Then, he was unlucky enough to impale himself on the tree branch. However, this was in the realm of nightmares, and Jiang Zhongyi was not dumb.
If he merely carelessly fell from the second floor, the falling power wouldn’t be enough to have an entire person skewered. This felt more like Jiang Zhongyi was shoved out the window by a giant force.
About half an hour ago, the village head sent people over to deliver food. It was the tanned man from before. The man didn’t say much. He put down the things and left. However, Bei Qian noticed something unusual. By then, the sky was darkening. The villagers had shown how much they feared the night. Even if the tanned man ran at full speed, he wouldn’t reach his home before the night came… unless…
Bei Qian didn’t make a fuss. He told Lee Lu to stay and brought Jiang Zhongyi with him. They tailed the tanned man and wanted to see what was going on. As they expected, after the man left their courtyard, he made a U-turn and came to a secluded part of the fence. There was a hole in the fence. He entered the courtyard again. Then, he walked straight to the abandoned building. He entered the building by jumping through the window.
Seeing this, Bei Qian suggested that they return and wait for everyone before deciding what to do next. However, Jiang Zhongyi insisted that this was the best chance to look for clues. If they missed this opportunity, it might not come again. Bei Qian couldn’t argue with him, so he went along with it. Jiang Zhongyi entered the building while Bei Qian stayed out to keep watch for him. He even told Jiang Zhongyi to be careful. A trace of sadness and regret appeared in the old man’s eyes.
The group knew he was bullshitting. With Jiang Zhongyi’s timid nature, he wouldn’t have entered the building alone. Bei Qian must have threatened and confused him to make him enter the building.
They had no way to deal with the corpse. If they wanted to carry the corpse with them, they had to saw off the tree. The group made a quick observation and decided to leave. There had to be something wrong with this isolated building.
When they returned and told Lee Lu that Jiang Zhongyi was dead, she looked sad. However, when Lee Lu heard that there was something suspicious about the tanned man, Lee Lu’s expression changed dramatically. Then, she rushed out the door and started puking. The others were unfazed. After all… only Lee Lu ate the food brought over by the man. It was meat soup.
Yu Man leaned against the door. The many incidents brought nervousness to her face. They had been in the village for one day and one night but they had lost two teammates already. She went to the other house to light the stove and carried some charcoal back. The group decided to stay together that night. Since there were only three males and three females left, the sleeping arrangements were easily-decided.
Jiang Cheng unwillingly took out a few steamed buns from his clothes. Yu Man and Lee Lu stared at them until their eyes fell out. He originally planned to give each of them half, but before he could do that, Chen Xiaomeng snatched everything from him. Thus, each person had a steamed bun. For this, Jiang Cheng grumbled for a long time.
“Something must be wrong with that building,” Lee Lu said with a pale face. After her vomit session, she looked so frail and weak.
Bei Qian sat down and shook his head, “It’s more than just that building.” He raised his head. “Consider this. With this courtyard’s central location and the fading lavishness of the place, who could have afforded to stay here?”
“The bigger families of Little Ravine Village,” Chen Xiaomeng tossed a wood into the flame. “Like the Qian Family who had a village head.” The rest didn’t need more than that to understand the meaning. Before Jiang Zhongyi’s tragedy, some of them had already suspected the origin of this courtyard. Bei Qian merely brought it to the surface.
“If this really were the Qian Family’s courtyard, it would explain why Zhao Xiangmei would kill people here.” Lee Lu said, “She might have confused us as the Qian Family members.”
Then, this brought up another issue. The current village head didn’t tell them this was the former Qian Family home. He also didn’t warn them of the risk of staying here. This made the village head a suspect too.
After all, based on the words of An Ping Inn’s boss, the experts hired by Little Ravine Village had all mysteriously disappeared. Those experts had once stayed in this courtyard. Similar to the travellers.
After a quick discussion, they came up with three points of interest.
First: Who was this courtyard’s previous owner?
Second: Zhao Xiangmei’s real identity.
Third: Why would the ghost hang the corpses around An Ping Town after killing them?
They had asked the village head about the second and third questions, but they didn’t get any valuable information. However, the village head had to be able to answer the first inquiry. They decided to question him the next morning.
Actually, there was a fourth issue that no one wanted to bring up… There had to be a clue hidden inside that large building that shared their courtyard.