Chapter Three: He Was in the Coffin

Only seven deducers were left in the yard.

They sat around the large table. Starting from the empty seat, the order was Wei Fan, Xiao Xuechen, Ju Lan, Yu Xing, Carlos, and the two men.

The two men, who looked alike, glanced at them and took the initiative to speak. "Hello. We were rude to you at the village entrance. We just didn't want any innocent people to get hurt."

"Sounds pretty presumptuous of you." Xiao Xuechen rested her chin on her hand, her gaze toward the two men much gentler now. "So, feng shui masters, is this place really unlucky?"

"It is." The one in black glanced around. "We're cousins. I'm Xu Hong, and my younger brother is Xu Yuan. We were hired by someone to investigate the haunting in his hometown."

Hired?

Yu Xing's lips curled. He figured there was no need to ask. Surely the client's name was Zhou Yongsheng, too...

Xu Hong continued, "Before coming here, we looked at the feng shui layout. The village entrance faces south, and the mountains block out the sky. There are only a few hours of sunlight each day. It'd be a good place to bury someone, but for the living to reside here..."

He abruptly fell silent, because the village chief had come out of the kitchen.

The chief sat down in the empty seat with a hearty smile, finally remembering to introduce himself. "I'm Zhou Facai. You can call me Chief. Everyone in our village is surnamed Zhou, so calling us Brother Zhou gets confusing."

Everyone played along and acknowledged him.

They chatted with the chief, mostly remarking on how difficult it was to get into the mountains and how nice the air was. From the names they used for one another, Xu Hong and Xu Yuan learned the names of the other five.

After about twenty minutes of conversation, Yu Xing decided the time was right to ask something useful.

"Chief, I'd like to ask you a few things." Yu Xing looked at the hospitable chief with sincere, wide eyes. The trust in his gaze warmed the chief's heart, and he replied boisterously, "Go ahead, young man! What do you want to know?"

The others pricked up their ears.

Yu Xing asked, "Is this village... not connected to the internet? The signal isn't very good either. Since I got here, I haven't been able to make a phone call."

The chief paused, then replied, "That's right. We're in the mountains, so the signal's no good. Well, at least it gives you city folk a few days to look up and enjoy nature!"

In other words, the signal had always been bad.

So...

Where had the private messages from Zhou Yongsheng that Yu Xing and Carlos received been sent from?

According to the implanted memories, Yu Xing had still been in contact with Zhou Yongsheng on his phone after getting off the plane and making his way toward Guan Family Village.

Yu Xing asked another question. "Then why aren't the villagers out and about? It's only just past dusk. Do they go to bed this early?"

"You've hit on something there." The chief slapped his thigh and lowered his voice mysteriously. "As the saying goes, every mountain has its own customs. In our village, no one goes out at dusk."

What kind of custom was that? Xiao Xuechen's expression shifted, and she exchanged a glance with Wei Fan.

"When do they go out, then?" Carlos turned the little paper figurine in his hand. He was curious and wasn't shy about asking.

"In a little while." The chief looked up at the sky and chuckled. The shadow across his face made the square-faced middle-aged man look positively sinister. "At night, when the candles are lit, everyone goes out."

...When the candles are lit?

Yu Xing glanced around. It was already dark, yet the chief's home had no lights on. Did this village not even have kerosene lamps? It was incredibly backward...

"Chief, I'd like to ask you about someone else." Yu Xing set aside his various suspicions about the village. "Do you know where Zhou Yongsheng lives?"

"Oh? So you know Xiao Sheng!" The chief looked surprised.

"That's right! I'm... I'm his classmate!" Ju Lan was as eager as if she'd lost her boyfriend. "Where is he? I want to go see him."

"Hahaha, Xiao Sheng's made something of himself! He studied in a big city, and even the way he talks is different now. He's always bringing up things like... like the bizarre school of painting. Hahaha, I can't make heads or tails of it. I'm old, that's all!" The chief still didn't tell them where Zhou Yongsheng lived, rambling on instead.

Just then, a woman called from the kitchen, "Dinner's ready! Zhou Facai, come give me a hand!"

"Coming!" the chief called as he started to rise. Xiao Xuechen immediately stood too. She noticed that the slightly shy painter, the cheerful Magician, and the quiet younger brother of the feng shui duo had all stood up at the same time.

She smiled to herself. They must have had the same idea... They wanted to see if the kitchen was normal. There were quite a few clever people in this deduction. That was good news!

"Chief, we can't just sit around and let you feed us. Let us help carry the dishes." She headed toward the kitchen as she spoke, not giving the chief a chance to refuse.

"Sure, sure. Sorry for the trouble." The chief didn't object. He went into the kitchen with them.

Yu Xing brought up the rear, where it would be easiest to run back if anything happened.

The sky was growing darker. He followed the others to the kitchen doorway. A red glow spread across the wall, showing a woman's shadow swaying from side to side, as if dancing with the flames.

The kitchen used a wood-burning stove.

A few sparks drifted through the air. With her hair tied up and dressed in cloth clothes, the woman had her back to them as she tidied the bowls and chopsticks.

The firewood beneath the stove had mostly burned down. Heat washed over them, and its ruddy light illuminated the entire kitchen.

Strangely, a white candle had also been lit on the stove.

The candle stood in an exquisite dish of unknown material. Its faint glow seemed pointless. Why had anyone bothered to light it?

The moment Yu Xing saw the dish, a chill swept over him.

He froze, his expression unchanged, but inwardly he was astonished. It had been so long... His body was hard to provoke from the outside, yet it had reacted abnormally twice in the short time since he became a deducer!?

Fortunately, the chill came and went quickly. It wasn't as intense as when the Persona Mask first appeared. His body trembled slightly for a moment, but he soon forced himself to endure the discomfort.

Yu Xing's face had gone pale. He quietly pressed a hand to his chest. Luckily, he was at the back, and no one noticed.

But there was definitely something wrong with that dish!

Heh. His body was sensitive to certain supernatural things. It brought him pain, but... looking at it another way, it was like having a cheat skill, wasn't it?

Despite the self-deprecating thought, Yu Xing deftly squeezed his way to the front so he could get a better look.

Seven dishes sat on the counter. They were all home-style cooking, but the delicious aroma reached them from afar, and they looked so appetizing that mouths watered.

The dish holding the candle sat off to one side. It was so ornate that it didn't belong in a tiny village like this. It was octagonal, with openwork edges. Wax dripped onto it, but rather than cooling and hardening, it remained in the dish like drops of water.

"This is pretty interesting. I wonder if I'll get the chance to swipe it..." The thought popped into his head.

"Auntie, let us help." As Yu Xing was thinking about that, Xiao Xuechen stepped forward to help carry the dishes. The woman chuckled and counted out the chopsticks.

But Yu Xing had been watching the woman's movements. His eyes narrowed, and a dangerous curve appeared at their corners.

Something was wrong... He'd caught a glimpse of the woman's wrist as she moved. His gaze flickered.

Her movements were too stiff. And why wouldn't she turn around?

Don't go near her!

He saw Xiao Xuechen pass beside him and instinctively lifted a hand, but then, for some inexplicable reason, he hesitated.

That moment of hesitation cost him the best chance to stop her. He only managed to brush Xiao Xuechen's sleeve.

"Auntie, let me take that." Xiao Xuechen stepped beside the woman and reached for the bowl in her hands. The next moment, the woman turned around with a cheerful smile.

Her face was bluish-black, her skin withered. She looked like a corpse that had been dug out of the ground. Her stiff features held what was probably meant to be a friendly smile, but it only made her more horrifying. Xiao Xuechen was suddenly face-to-face with her at point-blank range, and her chest seized up.

"Ah!" She couldn't stop herself from letting out a short scream. She stumbled backward, her back slamming into Yu Xing with a thud. It was quite a hard hit.

"Huh?"

"Are you all right?"

Carlos and Xu Yuan hurried over.

"I-I'm fine..." Xiao Xuechen quickly calmed down. She'd seen ghosts before; she shouldn't have reacted like that. The problem was, she'd been way too close to that thing!

A few stray thoughts raced through her mind. Is that really a dead person? Is the chief's wife a corpse!? Wait, she was so hard...

Once the shock wore off, she suddenly realized that the person she'd hit had rock-hard pectoral muscles. Still shaken and startled, she turned around.

To her utter surprise, it was the delicate-looking, beautiful young man—ah, no, the painter who wouldn't even reveal his real name.

Yu Xing lowered his head in silence, watching the girl, whose height only reached his chest, cycle through expressions of fear, confusion, and then, inexplicably, a faint blush...

He lifted a hand.

His face was pale.

He took a step back.

He clutched his chest and let out a muffled groan of pain.

Of all the times to run into him, she'd picked the moment right after his body had acted up. He'd only just recovered, and now he'd been hurt again. Sob!

What kind of logic was that?!

His body was as fragile as broken glass right now. Just about any blow could shatter him. He really shouldn't have stayed put instead of dodging just to keep someone else from falling. To be fair, Xiao Xuechen weighed more than he'd imagined...

"I-I'm sorry, I didn't mean to." Seeing how much paler he'd turned, Xiao Xuechen began to question her existence.

Was she really that powerful?

Should she go on a diet?

No, she shook her head, casting aside her ridiculous thoughts. What mattered most now was figuring out whether the chief's wife was—

"What's wrong, young lady? Weren't you going to help me carry the bowls?" The woman in cloth clothes had now turned around completely. She held a dish in one hand and the candle dish in the other.

From this angle, she looked like an ordinary woman in her thirties. She wasn't particularly pretty, but she looked perfectly normal.

Had that just been an illusion?

Xu Yuan read the room and immediately took the dish from her. He gave the deducers who'd followed them a look that said they should go outside first and talk later.

Yu Xing raised a hand to wipe away a bead of cold sweat from his forehead, then discreetly glanced at the woman's hand holding the candle dish.

He didn't know whether Carlos and Xu Yuan had seen the woman's face just now, but he had.

That face definitely did not belong to a living person!

The chief seemed oblivious to what his guests were thinking. Still grinning, he picked up a dish and went outside with the woman.

Yu Xing picked up a plate of scrambled eggs, took a breath to steady himself, then went outside too.

Wei Fan, Ju Lan, and Xu Hong had stayed in the yard. They didn't know what had happened, but seeing the others' varied expressions made them wary.

Once the food and chopsticks had been set out, everyone sat in their previous places. Ju Lan, who hadn't noticed anything, picked up her bowl of rice and pressed on. "Chief, you didn't finish telling us. Where exactly does Zhou Yongsheng live?"

"Oh, Xiao Sheng..." The chief gave a knowing look and exchanged a glance with his seemingly kindly wife. Then he smiled. "He's in the coffin."