Chapter 449: Chapter 385: Resentful Infant
"What’s that?" Mi Shu couldn’t help but feel tense.
Cheng Cha turned around, walked to the main gate of the house, and gently pulled open a crack in the door that had been closed. Everyone followed suit and peered through the gap at the street outside. What they saw gave them a shock. The once bustling street was now eerily desolate and dilapidated; the shops along the street were in ruins, windows shattered, many signs had fallen to the ground, and not a single person could be seen—dead silence pervaded. It was clearly a ghost town!
Even more spine-chilling was the sight of clothes scattered all over the street. Many were in complete sets, giving off the impression that people had been there one second and disappeared the next, leaving only their clothes behind.
"The townspeople have all been eaten by the Ginseng Essence. The townspeople we saw before were all impersonated by Resentful Infants; they were mimicking human life," Cheng Cha slowly closed the door.
"So if we shout the wrong thing, we would... we would draw those Resentful Infants to us?" Mi Shu had gone pale, truly shaken by the scene just witnessed.
"Correct, those Resentful Infants are far more dangerous than Ginseng Essence. While we search for the Ginseng Essence, the Resentful Infants are also searching for us."
Cheng Cha’s words made the atmosphere even more tense. Recalling those bizarre townspeople, everyone had a very ominous feeling.
"Don’t worry too much. Those things aren’t as smart as we think. After all, they aren’t complete humans. As long as we’re careful and avoid them..." Cheng Cha paused, then continued, "If we’re discovered, we won’t be killed immediately. The Resentful Infants will force us to play their games, and as long as we win, we can escape."
"And if we lose?" Tong Han furrowed his brows.
"The first time, you can give up the Red String to save your life. If it’s the second time, you disappear and vanish forever from this world." Cheng Cha took a deep breath, "In the previous mission, I found the clothes of a missing teammate, just like those on the street outside. Only the person was gone."
Yang Xiao nodded slowly; he pretty much understood that ’disappeared’ meant being caught and eaten by the Ginseng Essence.
"It’s about time. Let’s get started." Cheng Cha turned and walked to the incense burner, unwound several red strings from one of the burner’s legs, and handed each person present one, "Tie it on the left wrist for men and on the right wrist for women. Unless you find the Ginseng Puppet, do not remove it."
Rolling up his left sleeve, Cheng Cha wrapped the red string around his left wrist. The others did the same, rolling up their sleeves, and soon, a red string was wound around everyone’s wrist. After making sure it was correct, Cheng Cha lit an incense stick and placed it straight up in the incense burner, signifying the start of the mission.
"We have the time it takes an incense stick to burn to find that thing. Try to spread out as much as possible; the more people gather, the easier it is for the Resentful Infants to target us," Cheng Cha emphasized in the end, "If you lose the Red String, do not run around at will. Return here, and remember not to speak to anyone on the way. Just stay in front of the incense burner, do not leave, and wait for the mission to end. This place is absolutely safe."
"Understood," everyone nodded.
"Then let’s start," Cheng Cha said, forming a circle with everyone, eyes closed, hand in hand, with the incense burner in the middle. Soon, a cold and resentful aura appeared around them, as if seeping from the ground. Yang Xiao’s back bristled uncontrollably until, not long after, the aura quickly dissipated.
The group opened their eyes and, without wasting a word, exchanged glances before quickly scattering and running off.
Yang Xiao ran out and soon came back by himself; he stayed in the front yard, aware of how darkness lurked under the light. The intelligence of the Ginseng Essence was clearly not comparable to those Resentful Infants outside. Putting himself in the shoes of the Ginseng Essence, he would choose to stay in the front yard, and specifically in the most conspicuous place.
He first examined the incense burner and the several stone columns and statues around it carefully. Cheng Cha had said that the Ginseng Essence could only disguise itself as other objects and could not make things disappear and replace them. This meant that whatever the Ginseng Essence was impersonating was an addition, something that hadn’t been in the courtyard before.
There were more than one incense burner in the yard, exactly seven, with varying amounts of mottled red marks that looked like dried bloodstains. Out of the seven, only the one in the middle was lit with incense.
Good, there were seven incense burners, no more, no less.
Next were the nearby statues. The statues also bore bloodstains. There were Stone Doll Statues and statues of old men with topknots on their heads, as well as statues of women wearing cloth skirts. Yang Xiao counted each one, and all was in order. It seemed that the Ginseng Puppet was not here.
Yang Xiao turned and walked towards the wall, where there were several water jars of different sizes and a few very large pieces of wood standing upright. He had paid particular attention to these earlier and memorized their number very clearly. Counting them one by one, there were also no discrepancies.
After some thought, Yang Xiao decided to enter a nearby room for safety. Upon entering, he left the door slightly ajar, as the Ginseng Essence was, for the moment, not known to kill people. He had to guard against the Resentful Infants in the street outside.
The room was fairly bright, with several red candles burning dimly. Now, Yang Xiao was extremely sensitive to the color red. Fortunately, there wasn’t much red furniture inside the room; most of it was black, which saved him a lot of trouble. His attention centered on an elaborately carved wooden bed and a large wardrobe along the wall. These two pieces of furniture were the only ones with a significant amount of red and were sizable enough to meet his criteria. Yet after probing several times, Yang Xiao found nothing amiss.
He pretended as though he had discovered nothing and pushed the door open to leave, planning to hide in a dark spot. After all, the Ginseng Puppet wasn’t dumb; realizing it was under suspicion, it might flee, and he could catch it in the act. However, just as he stepped out of the door, Yang Xiao suddenly furrowed his brow. He saw that the courtyard gate not far away had been opened at some point, opened to about a third of its size, allowing a direct view of the desolate street outside from his position.
This was not a good sign. After confirming there was nothing unusual nearby, Yang Xiao cautiously approached, but before he got too close, he couldn’t help but tense up. He saw several small prints on the ground behind the door, the impressions wet and glistening. They were not shoe or footprints, but countless handprints, with distinct fingers that were short and thin—clearly, those of a small child!
The handprints were numerous, layered atop each other in a mess. As Yang Xiao got to the gate, he saw it was covered in the same handprints, and he immediately envisioned a horde of Resentful Infants crawling upside down from the street, quietly pushing open the courtyard gate; they had already entered this residence.
He was sure they had crawled upside down and not with hands and feet because only handprints were found on the ground, not footprints.
This image, which passed through his mind, sent chills down his spine and made beads of cold sweat form on his forehead. What was even more chilling was discovering that some of the Resentful Infants had crawled to the outside of the room he had just been in. Judging by the handprints, they appeared to have lingered there for a moment before crawling off in another direction.
Yang Xiao took a deep breath, feeling fortunate that he had been cautious. By moving silently and closing the door behind him after searching the room, he had avoided being ambushed by several Resentful Infants.
Being wholly focused on the hunt for the Ginseng Essence and then turning around to suddenly encounter several Resentful Infants staring at him with their limbs inverted would have been too much to bear!
It was not safe to stay here any longer, so Yang Xiao turned and walked in the direction opposite from where the handprints disappeared, thinking he must warn his teammates to be cautious if he encountered them.
Two courtyards away from where Yang Xiao was, Mi Shu was hiding in a thicket of bushes, not daring to make a single move. She watched fearfully through the gaps in the leaves, fixating on the scene outside. Not far from her was a small pond with rockery and a simple wooden bridge connecting both sides of the water. Yet the serene scenery was now utterly shattered as she observed a group of awkwardly posed people walking across the bridge. However, from the reflections in the water, it was evident that these were actually inverted children, black all over, supporting themselves with their hands as they moved forward.
