Gone already?” Chi Yan repeated these two words without even realizing what it meant.
He helped the butler to stand up and the butler started to tell him what happened.
It turned out that since yesterday morning, they had discovered that Chi Rong had disappeared. As Chi Yuan Shan had just passed away and his corpse had not been buried, the clan elder ordered the housekeeper to suppress the matter first and lie to the guests who came to express their condolences that Chi Rong was stricken with grief over his father’s sudden death and had fallen sick and bedridden. They had secretly sent people to search for Chi Rong.
But after searching for a day, they still couldn’t find him. One of the servants said that after Chi Yuan Shan passed away, Chi Rong went alone to the place where old grandfather Chi was in retreat. He had probably gone there to inform old grandfather Chi about his father’s death. After that, nobody saw him. No one dared to bother old grandfather Chi, so one of the servants who delivered his meal asked him about Chi Rong’s whereabouts, but old grandfather Chi replied that Chi Rong hadn’t gone there.
That night, after the butler sent away the last wave of guests who came to the funeral, he personally brought two servants into Chi Rong’s room to clean up, trying to find out if Chi Rong left any clues or letters telling them where he went.
Chi Rong’s room was covered with beige wooden floors and had to be cleaned by kneeling on the floor and mopping it with hands. The butler looked around for possible clues while a servant knelt on the floor to clean it. When he wiped the edge of the bed and stretched his hand under the bed, he touched a hard object and showed it to the butler.
Translated by The Red Oak Tree
www.theredoaktree.com
It was a round airtight iron box with a row of fine round holes on it. The butler asked the servant to open the box – inside was densely stacked with all kinds of small black worms that had died. Chi Rong had inherited his mother’s secret Gu witchcraft. The butler had served him for many years and knew something about it. He wasn’t too surprised when he saw it and asked the servant to cover the box and put it back under the bed.
That servant who saw so many dead worms didn’t look too good. As he laid on the ground trying to put the iron box back, he saw that there seemed to be something under the bed, so he raised his head and said to the butler, “Master Mao, it seems that there is still something big under Young Master’s bed.”
The butler was called Li Mao, and the servants in the Chi’s family respectfully called him “Master Mao”.
The butler was worried about Chi Rong and refused to let a clue slip by, so he told the servant, “Take it out and see what it is.”
The servant obeyed and stretched his hand as far as possible and grabbed that thing which looked like a dried tree branch and tugged it a little. That thing got stuck under the bed and couldn’t be pulled out anymore. The servant put his head on the ground and got closer to see what it was and where it got stuck.
As a result, he saw a shriveled human head, smiling at him with wide hollowed eyes.
The servant screamed in fright and instantly crawled to the other side. He trembled as he looked at Li Mao and pointed under the bed.
The butler was also taken aback by his reaction. He leaned on the ground, looked down under the bed and had a rude shock. After all, he had served in Chi’s house for many years and had seen many things including real ghosts and monsters. He quickly recognized that that thing under the bed was just a corpse, so he called two people over to move the bed away and removed the corpse.
Translated by The Red Oak Tree
www.theredoaktree.com
However, what happened later on made Li Mao drip cold sweat all over his body. After examination, the corpse had been dead for nearly a month, and that corpse belonged to no one else other than Chi Rong who had just disappeared.
The corpse of the second young master of the Chi family was hidden in his room for almost a month.
This matter was full of weirdness. After Chi Yan and his mother left, Chi Yuan Shan, officially married Chi Rong’s mother. After that and until presently, Chi Rong was the legitimate heir of the Chi family. The elders dared not take matters into their hands and could only tell the butler to suppress the matter first, and not to leak any rumors. He should only tell outsiders that Chi Rong was bedridden with his illness and cannot see the guests. They would wait for old grandfather Chi to be out of his retreat and decide personally what to do next.
Perhaps it was because Chi Yan and Chi Rong were related by blood, so Li Mao didn’t keep the news from him and told him the truth.
The butler hesitated and looked at Chi Yan, “Eldest Young Master, after discussing, the elders said that the body of Second Young Master can’t be left unattended. So we are preparing to hold a simple funeral for the Second Young Master today under the guise of working for Master and give Second Young Master a proper burial. If you are not busy, may I trouble you to also give Second Young Master a send off?”
Chi Yan shook his head and lowered his eyes, “We had never been on good terms, and he might not want me to attend. I think just forget it.”
The butler naturally knew what was going on between Chi Yan and Chi Rong, so he sighed after hearing this and did not force him.
But he didn’t expect Chi Yan to suddenly call out his name, “Li Mao.”
Translated by The Red Oak Tree
www.theredoaktree.com
The butler raised his head and heard Chi Yan speaking softly to him, “The He Jia village incident, did Chi Rong want to harm me?” His voice was dull but determined.
The butler opened his mouth, trying to find the right words and finally said, “…I only know that the Second Young Master did set up a plan to let Eldest Young Master return, but it shouldn’t have any malicious intentions. Other than that, I am not very sure.”
Chi Yan sneered from the bottom of his heart. That incident at He Jia Village was clearly a death trap for anyone who entered it. Let him return? If he hadn’t met that strange thing in the Nuo Shen Temple by chance, he would have been dead by now. Besides, if Chi Rong tried to entice him to come back, why did he tell him to leave quickly twice when he talked to him?
He shook his head, turned around and left without looking at the butler. Xu Rui was still waiting for him at the door.
Chi Yan nodded to Xu Rui, and both of them left Chi’s house and returned to Xu’s house. It was already lunch at this time, and the Xu siblings asked Chi Yan to stay for lunch. It was hard to refuse goodwill so Chi Yan asked the driver to rest and pick him up later in the afternoon. Then he called Ye Yingzhi and told him that he would be at Xu’s house for a while.
While having their lunch, they heard the chaos in the main hall. Xu Xin was curious and went out to inquire. After a while, she returned and told them the news, “Hiaz, Ge, just when you and Xiao Chi went to Chi’s house for a while, something happened again. It’s that matter about the Ma clan asking us to help them find their clan leader’s son. They found the son already.”
Even when she said that they had found the missing person, her expression did not seem to be joyful or happy. Chi Yan guessed that this was not a simple matter.
Translated by The Red Oak Tree
www.theredoaktree.com
Sure enough, Xu Xin continued, “But it was his corpse that they found, and they found it in the forest in the mountains.”
Xu Rui put down his chopsticks, “What happened again? Do you know how he died?” Few days ago, Lin Er Sao’s son, Lin Zhu, also disappeared first, and then the body was found. The cause of death was still unknown.
“Precisely this is the weird part,” Xu Xin answered. “Many people saw the corpse at that time. A young Taoist master with the surname of Jiang was very surprised and panicked when he saw Ma Tian’s corpse. Clan leader Ma noticed this person and singled him out from the crowd. This Jiang Taoist master is about the same age as Ma Tian and he didn’t have a lot of experience. So after being asked a few questions, he couldn’t take it and admitted that he had a dispute with Ma Tian at the back of the mountain two days ago. He mistakenly killed Ma Tian during his impulsiveness. Afraid of being discovered by the powerful clan leader Ma, he burned Ma Tian’s body and buried it under a tree. He also destroyed Ma Tian’s soul so that he couldn’t even become a ghost to report his grievances to his relatives. He had already psychologically prepared himself mentally, but he didn’t expect to see Ma Tian’s body again today. He was so frightened and panicked and in the end, he was exposed.”
Xu Rui frowned, “Didn’t he say that he burned Ma Tian’s body?”
Xu Xin said, “Yes. He said he remembered it clearly, so they sent a few people to follow him to the back of the mountain to dig for it. After digging around a few trees, they couldn’t find remnants of the burnt remains that he mentioned. He has gone crazy now, and no one can tell whether what he said is true or false, so they are still arguing in the main hall.”
Chi Yan suddenly interjected, “Xiao Xin, I want to ask you, did they mention when Ma Tian died based on the condition of the body? Is it like Lin Zhu the last time, when the actual time of death was in fact much earlier than his disappearance time?”
Translated by The Red Oak Tree
www.theredoaktree.com
Xu Xin nodded, “That’s right, how did you guess?”
Chi Yan didn’t speak, he just felt cold all over. He thought of something suddenly.
Li Mao didn’t lie. It was just that Chi Rong, whom he had been talking to these few days should no longer be a human being.
So it all made sense.
When Chi Rong was still alive, for some reasons, he suddenly wanted Chi Yan to come back. But when he came back, he was already dead. Chi Rong realized this and sensed that something was wrong, so he kept telling him to leave this place.
As for why Chi Rong himself didn’t leave was because he knew that he could not leave anymore.
It was not that Chi Rong died suddenly for some reason and turned into a dried-up corpse that seemed to have been dead for nearly a month. The fact was he had been dead for nearly a month. Calculating the time of his death, it should be when the He Jia Village incident was triggered when the two police officers disappeared. If what Li Mao said was true, then it could be assumed that Chi Rong set up a trap in He Jia Village in order to entice him back, or even kidnapped him back without anyone knowing it. But this trap was made used by someone else who turned it into a death trap for himself and Chi Rong died in the process..
The more he thought about it, the more he felt that this speculation was more logical, but there were still some missing details, like about his father’s death and the death of Lin Zhu and Ma Tian. He also needed to get more information through Yingzhi ge ge.
Chi Yan couldn’t sit still anymore after thinking about all these. He hurriedly contacted the driver to pick him up and said to Xu Xin and Xu Rui, “I have to go back quickly to do something. Please be more careful and it’s best to bring with you wherever you go, some magic tools to drive away ghosts and keep you safe. Wait for my call.”
If his guess was true, then…
This place was no longer safe to stay.
Gone already?” Chi Yan repeated these two words without even realizing what it meant.
He helped the butler to stand up and the butler started to tell him what happened.
It turned out that since yesterday morning, they had discovered that Chi Rong had disappeared. As Chi Yuan Shan had just passed away and his corpse had not been buried, the clan elder ordered the housekeeper to suppress the matter first and lie to the guests who came to express their condolences that Chi Rong was stricken with grief over his father’s sudden death and had fallen sick and bedridden. They had secretly sent people to search for Chi Rong.
But after searching for a day, they still couldn’t find him. One of the servants said that after Chi Yuan Shan passed away, Chi Rong went alone to the place where old grandfather Chi was in retreat. He had probably gone there to inform old grandfather Chi about his father’s death. After that, nobody saw him. No one dared to bother old grandfather Chi, so one of the servants who delivered his meal asked him about Chi Rong’s whereabouts, but old grandfather Chi replied that Chi Rong hadn’t gone there.
That night, after the butler sent away the last wave of guests who came to the funeral, he personally brought two servants into Chi Rong’s room to clean up, trying to find out if Chi Rong left any clues or letters telling them where he went.
Chi Rong’s room was covered with beige wooden floors and had to be cleaned by kneeling on the floor and mopping it with hands. The butler looked around for possible clues while a servant knelt on the floor to clean it. When he wiped the edge of the bed and stretched his hand under the bed, he touched a hard object and showed it to the butler.
Translated by The Red Oak Tree
www.theredoaktree.com
It was a round airtight iron box with a row of fine round holes on it. The butler asked the servant to open the box – inside was densely stacked with all kinds of small black worms that had died. Chi Rong had inherited his mother’s secret Gu witchcraft. The butler had served him for many years and knew something about it. He wasn’t too surprised when he saw it and asked the servant to cover the box and put it back under the bed.
That servant who saw so many dead worms didn’t look too good. As he laid on the ground trying to put the iron box back, he saw that there seemed to be something under the bed, so he raised his head and said to the butler, “Master Mao, it seems that there is still something big under Young Master’s bed.”
The butler was called Li Mao, and the servants in the Chi’s family respectfully called him “Master Mao”.
The butler was worried about Chi Rong and refused to let a clue slip by, so he told the servant, “Take it out and see what it is.”
The servant obeyed and stretched his hand as far as possible and grabbed that thing which looked like a dried tree branch and tugged it a little. That thing got stuck under the bed and couldn’t be pulled out anymore. The servant put his head on the ground and got closer to see what it was and where it got stuck.
As a result, he saw a shriveled human head, smiling at him with wide hollowed eyes.
The servant screamed in fright and instantly crawled to the other side. He trembled as he looked at Li Mao and pointed under the bed.
The butler was also taken aback by his reaction. He leaned on the ground, looked down under the bed and had a rude shock. After all, he had served in Chi’s house for many years and had seen many things including real ghosts and monsters. He quickly recognized that that thing under the bed was just a corpse, so he called two people over to move the bed away and removed the corpse.
Translated by The Red Oak Tree
www.theredoaktree.com
However, what happened later on made Li Mao drip cold sweat all over his body. After examination, the corpse had been dead for nearly a month, and that corpse belonged to no one else other than Chi Rong who had just disappeared.
The corpse of the second young master of the Chi family was hidden in his room for almost a month.
This matter was full of weirdness. After Chi Yan and his mother left, Chi Yuan Shan, officially married Chi Rong’s mother. After that and until presently, Chi Rong was the legitimate heir of the Chi family. The elders dared not take matters into their hands and could only tell the butler to suppress the matter first, and not to leak any rumors. He should only tell outsiders that Chi Rong was bedridden with his illness and cannot see the guests. They would wait for old grandfather Chi to be out of his retreat and decide personally what to do next.
Perhaps it was because Chi Yan and Chi Rong were related by blood, so Li Mao didn’t keep the news from him and told him the truth.
The butler hesitated and looked at Chi Yan, “Eldest Young Master, after discussing, the elders said that the body of Second Young Master can’t be left unattended. So we are preparing to hold a simple funeral for the Second Young Master today under the guise of working for Master and give Second Young Master a proper burial. If you are not busy, may I trouble you to also give Second Young Master a send off?”
Chi Yan shook his head and lowered his eyes, “We had never been on good terms, and he might not want me to attend. I think just forget it.”
The butler naturally knew what was going on between Chi Yan and Chi Rong, so he sighed after hearing this and did not force him.
But he didn’t expect Chi Yan to suddenly call out his name, “Li Mao.”
Translated by The Red Oak Tree
www.theredoaktree.com
The butler raised his head and heard Chi Yan speaking softly to him, “The He Jia village incident, did Chi Rong want to harm me?” His voice was dull but determined.
The butler opened his mouth, trying to find the right words and finally said, “…I only know that the Second Young Master did set up a plan to let Eldest Young Master return, but it shouldn’t have any malicious intentions. Other than that, I am not very sure.”
Chi Yan sneered from the bottom of his heart. That incident at He Jia Village was clearly a death trap for anyone who entered it. Let him return? If he hadn’t met that strange thing in the Nuo Shen Temple by chance, he would have been dead by now. Besides, if Chi Rong tried to entice him to come back, why did he tell him to leave quickly twice when he talked to him?
He shook his head, turned around and left without looking at the butler. Xu Rui was still waiting for him at the door.
Chi Yan nodded to Xu Rui, and both of them left Chi’s house and returned to Xu’s house. It was already lunch at this time, and the Xu siblings asked Chi Yan to stay for lunch. It was hard to refuse goodwill so Chi Yan asked the driver to rest and pick him up later in the afternoon. Then he called Ye Yingzhi and told him that he would be at Xu’s house for a while.
While having their lunch, they heard the chaos in the main hall. Xu Xin was curious and went out to inquire. After a while, she returned and told them the news, “Hiaz, Ge, just when you and Xiao Chi went to Chi’s house for a while, something happened again. It’s that matter about the Ma clan asking us to help them find their clan leader’s son. They found the son already.”
Even when she said that they had found the missing person, her expression did not seem to be joyful or happy. Chi Yan guessed that this was not a simple matter.
Translated by The Red Oak Tree
www.theredoaktree.com
Sure enough, Xu Xin continued, “But it was his corpse that they found, and they found it in the forest in the mountains.”
Xu Rui put down his chopsticks, “What happened again? Do you know how he died?” Few days ago, Lin Er Sao’s son, Lin Zhu, also disappeared first, and then the body was found. The cause of death was still unknown.
“Precisely this is the weird part,” Xu Xin answered. “Many people saw the corpse at that time. A young Taoist master with the surname of Jiang was very surprised and panicked when he saw Ma Tian’s corpse. Clan leader Ma noticed this person and singled him out from the crowd. This Jiang Taoist master is about the same age as Ma Tian and he didn’t have a lot of experience. So after being asked a few questions, he couldn’t take it and admitted that he had a dispute with Ma Tian at the back of the mountain two days ago. He mistakenly killed Ma Tian during his impulsiveness. Afraid of being discovered by the powerful clan leader Ma, he burned Ma Tian’s body and buried it under a tree. He also destroyed Ma Tian’s soul so that he couldn’t even become a ghost to report his grievances to his relatives. He had already psychologically prepared himself mentally, but he didn’t expect to see Ma Tian’s body again today. He was so frightened and panicked and in the end, he was exposed.”
Xu Rui frowned, “Didn’t he say that he burned Ma Tian’s body?”
Xu Xin said, “Yes. He said he remembered it clearly, so they sent a few people to follow him to the back of the mountain to dig for it. After digging around a few trees, they couldn’t find remnants of the burnt remains that he mentioned. He has gone crazy now, and no one can tell whether what he said is true or false, so they are still arguing in the main hall.”
Chi Yan suddenly interjected, “Xiao Xin, I want to ask you, did they mention when Ma Tian died based on the condition of the body? Is it like Lin Zhu the last time, when the actual time of death was in fact much earlier than his disappearance time?”
Translated by The Red Oak Tree
www.theredoaktree.com
Xu Xin nodded, “That’s right, how did you guess?”
Chi Yan didn’t speak, he just felt cold all over. He thought of something suddenly.
Li Mao didn’t lie. It was just that Chi Rong, whom he had been talking to these few days should no longer be a human being.
So it all made sense.
When Chi Rong was still alive, for some reasons, he suddenly wanted Chi Yan to come back. But when he came back, he was already dead. Chi Rong realized this and sensed that something was wrong, so he kept telling him to leave this place.
As for why Chi Rong himself didn’t leave was because he knew that he could not leave anymore.
It was not that Chi Rong died suddenly for some reason and turned into a dried-up corpse that seemed to have been dead for nearly a month. The fact was he had been dead for nearly a month. Calculating the time of his death, it should be when the He Jia Village incident was triggered when the two police officers disappeared. If what Li Mao said was true, then it could be assumed that Chi Rong set up a trap in He Jia Village in order to entice him back, or even kidnapped him back without anyone knowing it. But this trap was made used by someone else who turned it into a death trap for himself and Chi Rong died in the process..
The more he thought about it, the more he felt that this speculation was more logical, but there were still some missing details, like about his father’s death and the death of Lin Zhu and Ma Tian. He also needed to get more information through Yingzhi ge ge.
Chi Yan couldn’t sit still anymore after thinking about all these. He hurriedly contacted the driver to pick him up and said to Xu Xin and Xu Rui, “I have to go back quickly to do something. Please be more careful and it’s best to bring with you wherever you go, some magic tools to drive away ghosts and keep you safe. Wait for my call.”
If his guess was true, then…
This place was no longer safe to stay.
