Chapter 416: Chapter 355: Visitors
The calls seeped through the door gap, one after another. The voice wasn’t very clear, coarse and hoarse, as if someone was deliberately pinching their throat to shout.
Mi Shu put down her pen, took a deep breath, and slowly turned around to stare at the door. She couldn’t see anything, but she knew that thing was outside.
Compared to the courtyard, the room was much brighter. If she approached the door now, the candlelight behind her would cast her shadow on the door, immediately giving away her position. Mi Shu decisively blew out the two candles on the dressing table.
The next second, the light and darkness inside and outside the door changed. A vague shadow appeared on the upper part of the door paper.
As she clearly saw the shadow, Mi Shu shivered violently. The courage she had mustered up just a moment ago dissipated instantly. She had never seen such a strange and terrifying figure before. The shadow was quite burly, at least a whole head taller than her, with two heads resting on its neck.
The two heads were vertically aligned, with another growing on top. The highest head swayed unnervingly, and that eerie voice emitted from it.
"Mi Shu."
"Mi Shu?"
This thing was clearly not one of the villagers from Du Family Village—it was a ghost! What caused Mi Shu to panic even more was noticing the shadow outside gradually lowering until its head stopped in the middle of the door, clearly peeking in through the gap.
"Creak—"
"Creak—"
Short but clear friction sounds came from the door gap, as if something sharp was scraping against the door. The first thing that came to Mi Shu’s mind was a broken, sharp fingernail. However, the next second, she saw it—a thin plate with a copper hook at the front-end slipped through the gap, and after a few probing movements, it precisely hooked onto the bolt on the inside of the door, loosening the tightly secured bolt with continuous movement.
Mi Shu’s pupils constricted sharply; she finally understood how Liu Haiping had died. In a rush, she groped for a candlestick holder, tiptoed forward to break the hook, but the other party seemed to sense her, and the hook was suddenly withdrawn as soon as Mi Shu approached.
The calls from outside the door also vanished. A woman and a ghost faced each other through the door, neither speaking, and the scene became eerily silent.
Moments later, the ghost outside abruptly moved, slowly turning and walking along the wall to another side. At this instant, the shadow on the door abruptly changed. Mi Shu was stunned; she saw a head flying ahead while behind stood a whole person, one of its arms twisted and raised high in an incredibly unbelievable manner, holding something.
The next second, Mi Shu suddenly understood—it was not a ghost outside, but a person from Du Family Village. The person was holding a head like a lantern.
And the one calling her name was not the person behind, but this head!
This head was Lady Du’s head!
Although the voice was hoarse and indistinguishable, Mi Shu, upon careful recollection, found the voice very similar to Lady Du’s, not having recognized it before because she had entirely failed to consider this possibility.
It was as if the most critical layer of paper had been pierced. Once her thoughts connected, everything became clear. Mi Shu instantly formulated a bold theory that this was the Du Family Village people’s method of murder. To resurrect someone, they had to carry the person’s head and call out their name—this was a ritual, and Du Family Village had kept itself alive through this incredibly cruel and bizarre ritual to this day.
Liu Haiping and Hu Yanming had been killed this way, and tonight, they planned to help Lady Du seize her body.
The figure holding the head circled around to the window, while the original figure guarding outside moved to the door, blocking Mi Shu’s escape route.
With Mi Shu watching, both the head and the figure outside remained very quiet. Yet, as Mi Shu turned to keep an eye on the figure at the door, suddenly, the eerie call started up again: "Mi Shu, Mi Shu?"
The calls were more urgent and rapid than before, scaring Mi Shu into a shudder, but when she turned back to face the head and the figure, the calling suddenly stopped.
Cold sweat ran down the sides of Mi Shu’s cheeks, and the scene once again fell into silence. Moments later, the figure holding the head turned again, walking towards the other side.
Compared to the figure holding the head, the one blocking the door was much more obedient, silent, and not meddling with the door. Its only purpose was to prevent Mi Shu from escaping.
Through these interactions, Mi Shu understood some things; only the person holding the head had the ability to meddle with the door. She only needed to guard against this person, and the way to do it was counter to what the people in Du Family Village had said—always face it, never giving it a chance to approach from behind.
The bedroom was not small, with one door and three windows—two large and one small. The figure holding the head walked past each, but under Mi Shu’s tight guard, there were no opportunities.
Mi Shu’s desperate desire to survive overwhelmed everything else; she hoped to live and see Tong Han’s face once more.
Finally, the figure chose to leave, staggering as if intoxicated, and only then did Mi Shu dare to creep toward the door, peeking through the crack. Utilizing the sparse moonlight from the courtyard, Mi Shu vaguely made out two figures walking backward toward the boudoir, retracing their steps out of the courtyard. One of them was carrying a human head, clearly that of a woman, its long hair tied with hemp rope and suspended, swaying eerily like a lantern.
The one holding the head was also clear to Mi Shu— it was Miss Du who had taken over Liu Haiping’s body!
Tonight, she carried her own mother’s head to kill herself, to take over her body.
Although Mi Shu couldn’t see Miss Du’s eyes, she knew they must be filled with deep malice; the people of Du Family Village were nothing less than monstrous beasts.
Once she was sure the two had left, Mi Shu finally exhaled in relief. She slowly walked to the vanity, intending to sit and rest for a moment, but suddenly, she stiffened. A thought occurred to her; while the footsteps of those who had come were disorderly, there had been more than just two people.
Someone was still nearby, but... why? Could it be they still thought she would open the door and run back to the room where her teammates were or perhaps proactively check the situation herself?
But, per the Du Family’s assigned task, she was supposed to stay inside the boudoir copying scriptures all night long, and it was not mentioned that she could leave.
Faintly, Mi Shu had a very bad feeling, as though this ordeal was not yet over. Now that it was quiet, she began to feel the terrifying silence surrounding her, especially without the illumination of candles. The room was almost pitch-black, and the corners further away seemed to be covered in a layer of dark mist, turning everything into vague, dark silhouettes. At a glance, it all looked strangely unfamiliar.
What worried her the most was the location of the folding screen; Cheng Cha had spoken of her previous visit here, the level of danger was astonishing. If not for some luck, she might have died here. Compared to Cheng Cha’s understanding of these ghostly things, she was significantly inferior. If she really encountered them, she feared it would likely be a death without life.
"Rustle, rustle..."
Before Mi Shu could continue pondering, sudden footsteps sounded from the courtyard, and this time there were many more than before. Mi Shu’s face instantly turned pale; there had to be at least a dozen people, no, perhaps even more!
People from Du Family Village dared not venture out at night lightly; these must be the people residing in the Du Family Ancestral Home, from Patriarch Du’s lineage, and judging by the number of them, it seemed all had come.
Soon, the space outside the room, as well as outside all three windows, was filled with figures. And that wasn’t all— there was also the sound of footsteps on roof tiles. These people... these people had actually formed a human ladder and climbed up to the roof!
Mi Shu stood in the center of the boudoir, her gaze ceaselessly sweeping across the doors and windows around her; she had to locate Miss Du with the human head, for she was the real threat.
But in the next second, Mi Shu was stunned; she saw that almost simultaneously, these rigid figures all raised their right hands in unison, each holding a human head.
Perhaps they weren’t human heads but merely lanterns shaped like them. However, at this moment, none of that mattered anymore. Suddenly, the doors, windows, and the roof tiles all started to make noise concurrently. These people were beating on the doors, tapping on the windows, striking the tiles, creating a bizarre rhythm that Mi Shu had never heard before.
The entire boudoir trembled with this rhythm, creating an indescribably eerie scene. Mi Shu was almost driven mad. She could only kneel on the ground, covering her ears tightly, yet at that moment, she faintly heard someone calling her name. It sounded like only one person calling, but the voice seemed to come from all directions. Mi Shu kept adjusting her angle, but the crazy thumping drowned out everything.
She couldn’t find it; she couldn’t identify where that deathly summoning voice was coming from. Soon, she heard a sharp scraping noise.
They had started to pry the door. Once they got in, her death was certain. Mi Shu struggled to her feet and rushed to the back of the door.
Nothing.
Then, staggering, she moved to the window near the door, also... also nothing. She checked one door and three windows consecutively but saw no copper hooks extending inside. Yet... yet she was now highly strung and panicked, especially since these bastards had blocked the doors and windows with their bodies, blocking any moonlight from entering, and the room was growing darker, making everything indiscernible.
She suspected this was all a feint—an attempt by these bastards to exhaust her physically and mentally until she could no longer run or exhausted, and that was when they would really begin to pry the door and rush in to kill her and steal her body.
The pounding outside was like demonic noise piercing into her brain; her footsteps became increasingly weak, near collapse. Mi Shu had not anticipated facing such a predicament upon her arrival. She was going to die here, undoubtedly, and she acknowledged she had done quite well already. Perhaps... perhaps this was fate.
But before she died, there was one last thing she had to do—she couldn’t die in vain; she had to make these bastards pay. This was a perfect opportunity to wipe them out completely, to clear the path for her brothers who still had a chance to survive.
In the moment just before the doors and windows were pried open, Mi Shu bit her tongue sharply. While her spirit was briefly restored, she staggered forward and threw herself at the folding screen.
"Miss Tong, I owe you nothing now..."
(Author’s note: Hold your excitement; please read the message below from the author.)
