Chapter 844: Chapter 621: Identification
Before he could react, in the blink of an eye, a living person disappeared on the spot, leaving only the broken window frame behind.
...
Soon after, another petite figure approached the courtyard gate. She had vigilant wide eyes that looked inside for a long time; the courtyard was completely silent.
The newcomer was Chang Chuchu. She was ranked fourth, which theoretically was not a bad ranking, but standing outside the courtyard gate, she was already filled with caution. The environment inside the courtyard was strikingly different from her memory, not just in appearance, but a feeling.
This place seemed to have gained some very strange and horribly terrifying elements.
Just like everyone before her, she also followed the route set by Xiang Fengchen, first turning left and arriving at the first marked area. Here, she also noticed a well and a house built from rubble.
After a careful investigation near the well, Chang Chuchu found footprints left behind and some scattered ash on the edge of the well.
The ashes were a distinct gray-white color. Sniffing them closely, Chang Chuchu confirmed that they were a mixture of bone ash and incense ash. Given the overturned wooden boards at the scene, it was not hard to deduce that someone had sprinkled the ash into the well.
She cautiously peered down the well - it was deep and very dark, and she couldn’t see any problem at the moment, unclear who had done it, but it was undoubtedly one of the previous three people. Since someone had already tried, she didn’t bother wasting her effort and turned to walk toward the stone house.
The door of the stone house was open. Chang Chuchu didn’t rashly enter but cautiously walked a circle around the house. Unsurprisingly, she discovered the broken window frame.
The break appeared very fresh, and even the broken edges had no time to grow moldy yet.
The state of the window frame intrigued her. Most of the fragments were inside the house, with scarcely any outside. Chang Chuchu mentally reconstructed the scene – someone must have been standing outside the window, smashing the window frame with a fist or an elbow.
Who would be so rash?
Chang Chuchu quickly ruled out Fang Zhou, the timid newcomer, as someone who dares to do such outrageous acts where ghosts appear. The most likely suspect was the senior, Nalan Shuo, followed by Lou Huixiang. Nonetheless, either of them indicated that they encountered an extremely critical situation, either chased by a ghost or having seen one.
Judging from the traces left on the scene, this brave individual probably fell, but for Chang Chuchu, this wasn’t a bad thing. Someone had died here, and there were ashes leftover. According to Xiang Fengchen, this place was considered safe, and she just needed to move to the next area to inspect.
The first area did not bring her a sense of threat. She had a feeling that the truly terrifying thing had already left.
Shortly after, she arrived at the second suspicious area designated by Xiang Fengchen. Looking around, Chang Chuchu couldn’t help but feel a headache. This place was a small garden, seemingly built for leisure and play for the attic’s master, with excellent privacy, filled with winding corridors and semi-hollow walls, appearing like a small labyrinth at a glance.
The darkness of the night was unlike before. The waxing moon above gradually waned, and the once bright moonlight had thinned considerably, casting the entire garden in a dim shadow.
Like the rest of the estate, the garden, eroded by the years, had become dilapidated, and one could clearly see parts of the corridor walls damaged and collapsed. From these sinister cracks, an uneasy feeling seeped out.
Instinct told her that entering this place was unlucky, but reason forced her to stand here. She knew well that to survive, she had to abide by the rules set by Xiang Fengchen.
No one would escape tonight, because fleeing was futile. Breaking the rules and being caught by the people of Earl Mansion would lead to death, and a particularly gruesome one at that.
Instead, honestly staying and completing her designated tasks could give her a slight chance of survival. Now every person remaining was precious. She believed that the previous three hadn’t died, at least not all of them. The reasoning was simple: if including her, the four-person vanguard were all wiped out, then the remaining three, including Xiang Fengchen, definitely couldn’t handle it.
They hadn’t yet found the Great Mage who had escaped Earl Mansion’s pursuits. Their mission hadn’t yet reached the moment of revealing the truth. Xiang Fengchen wasn’t that foolish.
Taking a deep breath, Chang Chuchu closed her eyes for a few seconds then suddenly opened them. Now, she was about to walk into this ruined garden, with a clear mind, to do what she should.
"Click."
"Click."
"Click."
The sound of footsteps echoed through the corridor, growing stronger towards the deeper areas. The echo from the walls amplified the footsteps, making it briefly sound like many people were following behind her.
The Paper Lantern she held was nearly the only source of light, its vibrant red candle flames flickering, casting Chang Chuchu’s face in alternating light and shadow.
Before long, she almost reached the depths of the garden. After turning a corner at the end of the corridor, the space in front of her suddenly widened. Surprised, she looked at the scene before her - it resembled a small ancestral hall, with six clay statues standing on each side. These statues were indeed human figures, but what was bizarre was that each statue wore an overly large and exaggerated mask.
The masks not just covered the face, but even the entire head and part of the neck, as if intending to hide something.
Due to the statues’ disrepair over the years, the paint had long peeled off, with some even missing arms and parts of the body. In such an environment, Chang Chuchu couldn’t determine whether these clay statues were the same as those she had seen in the Land Temple that night.
