A Broken Promise

At 2:30, Yu Xing arrived at the agreed location on time.

Hua Subai and Yan had arrived ahead of time, Zhang Yu and Yu Xing appeared almost at the same time, only Yan Li was a step behind.

"Captain!" Zhang Yu's eyes lit up, and his gaze quickly swept over Yu Xing's entire body. Seeing that he seemed to be uninjured, he immediately breathed a sigh of relief.

Yu Xing nodded to him, walked into the alley, sensed his surroundings, and then looked at Hua Subai: "You have the aura of a ghost on you."

The ghosts of Nanshui Town are hidden, concealed beneath a false appearance. Once someone displays a detectable ghostly aura, it means they have just come into contact with ghosts in a real setting.

"You have one too." Hua Subai stood against the wall, playing with a small wildflower he had picked from somewhere. It was quite rare to see such a tender yellow wildflower survive in this icy and snowy place.

Yu Xing had just killed an old woman who charged at him with a knife and had also met Doctor at the hospital, so it was not surprising that he still carried her scent. He was too lazy to explain and looked at Yan again.

According to the division of labor agreed upon before splitting up, he and Zhang Yu went to the hospital, Hua Subai went to investigate the strange child others were talking about, Yan investigated the preparations for the Snow Festival, Yan Li went to investigate the "Fang family."

Nightmare was in the worst condition among them. Although she didn't appear to have any external injuries, the girl's face was deathly pale, and even her lips had lost their color. Her eyes, which were the most important part of her, were dim and lacked luster. If one didn't look closely, one might even mistake her for a blind person.

Yu Xing questioned Yan with her eyes, and Yan trembled at the emotionless gaze, stammering, "I... what did I do wrong? Xing, why are you suddenly so fierce?"

"... No." Yu Xing paused, lowering her gaze. "Tell me, what's wrong?"

"Oh, I'm fine. It's just that I overused my abilities." Yan wiped the cold sweat from her forehead and explained, "The festive atmosphere in the town varies. I followed the colorful ribbons on the street all the way to the west district, where the people seemed to be the most excited. Every shop had something related to the Snow Festival, and even the altar for the performances was located in the west district."

"I sensed something amiss in a fan shop and found a round fan inside. The fan had a man embroidered with gold thread, depicting him writing at a desk. It was quite beautiful, but I felt something was off, so I used my ability to take a closer look."

She shuddered as she said this, still shaken. "Then I saw each gold thread turn blood red, and the man on the fan slowly turned his head, his eyes bleeding, and stared at me. He seemed to reach out to me, trying to pull me into the fan."

Zhang Yu listened with great interest. "And then?"

"And then?" Nightmare rolled his eyes and scratched his slightly messy wolf tail. "Of course, I threw the fan on the ground, and then the fan shop owner scolded me. Before he could make me pay for it, I ran away."

"Of course, that's not all. Next, I discovered that every shop on that commercial street had an unsettling feeling about it, exactly the same feeling that the fan gave me. I didn't use my abilities rashly anymore."

"Upon my inquiry, I learned that those items were 'offerings' prepared by the merchants for the Snow Festival, to be offered to the snow and wind on the day of the Snow Festival."

The indifference in Yu Xing's eyes had faded somewhat, and he asked a crucial question, "How should we offer it to the wind and snow?"

"I asked, but the vendors told me the answer was with the guide." Yan shrugged. "They recognized me immediately as part of a tour group and were quite enthusiastic, always crowding around me, but they just wouldn't give me the answer directly. Instead, they told me that the festival customs needed to be shared with us by the guide, otherwise it would spoil the novelty of our trip."

"If that's the case, how could you overuse your abilities?" Zhang Yu clear logic, directly seized upon the loophole in Yan's words and asked with some suspicion.

"... Because..." Yan rubbed her temples sheepishly, "I figured I couldn't find anything out, so I left that street. But I wasn't quite willing to just leave like that, so I turned back and took one last look."

With that one glance, she activated her ability.

As the layers of concealment were peeled away, a scene of carnage and bloodshed suddenly unfolded before her eyes.

The once bustling shops were now eerily silent; snow covered the eaves, icicles hung from the ceiling, and the dripping water was not from melting snow, but from a thick, dark red substance.

Those objects she had sensed were ominous—the swaying lucky cat, the fluttering Red Lantern, the exquisite landscape painting—each entangled with countless streams of blood energy, like the wailing and howling of endless vengeful spirits.

A cacophony of sounds suddenly filled her ears: the wailing of a baby echoing through the heavens, the piercing screams of men and women, the soft sighs of an old man, and the snickers of someone else.

Wait, a snicker?

Goosebumps suddenly crawled all over the back of my back.

The instinct to save his life made Nightmare immediately cut off his abilities. The noise returned to his ears, but the chaotic echoes in his mind still lingered.

In fact, her glance lasted only two or three seconds, but when she came to her senses, she realized that her whole body was trembling, her legs felt as if they weighed a ton, and she couldn't take a single step.

"I barely made it back before I dared to rest when I saw Boss Hua. The West District is terrifying; every single item from the Snow Festival is tainted with human lives." Nightmare touched her chest. "So many lives."

Sometimes, a dead person, an obsession, or a vengeful spirit can transform into a terrifying tale of a vengeful ghost seeking revenge.

There were dozens of such items in the shops in the western district.

No one knows exactly how many people died.

If all those vengeful spirits were to erupt simultaneously, even the most skilled diviners would find it difficult to escape unscathed.

Hua Subai suddenly exclaimed, "As expected of a Nightmare, those eyes are too perfect."

The small yellow wildflowers on his fingertips were still shivering in the cold wind, but he didn't care at all, only giving a friendly smile, "For anyone else, it would be almost impossible to find out these things in such a short time, only Miss Yan can do it with just a glance."

"Miss Yan's extreme methods must mean she's in poor physical condition. She should take a good rest now; the tour group will be gathering soon, and who knows what we'll encounter."

Nightmare nodded, looking slightly tired. "Mm."

She revealed all her findings without reservation, which was the price she paid for asking to travel with her.

As for others... how much they want to say, how much they want to reveal, that's another story.

Like Hua Subai, he clearly experienced something with that little boy, but now, he showed no intention of mentioning it specifically, only saying hastily, "That child has nothing to do with the main storyline, and he's no longer here. We don't need to think about him anymore."

Yu Xing understood instantly. "You killed someone?"

Hua Subai clenched her five fingers together, crushing the small yellow flower in her palm into powder, and smiled, "Yes, A Xing, I'm afraid you won't bring up the hospital here anymore."

Others might not understand, but Hua Subai saw it clearly: Yu Xing had died once.

He would never easily share information that Yu Xing would risk his life to obtain.

Seeing that the captain tacitly agreed, Zhang Yu also remained silent.

However, he didn't remain silent for long before he couldn't help but say, "Yan Li is seven minutes late. I remember he went to inquire about the Fang Mansion, right? Why isn't he back yet?"

Yu Xing turned his head and looked through the thick alley wall at a certain point in the void.

People of Yan Li's caliber are unlikely to get into trouble unless they deliberately put themselves in a fatal situation.

Moreover, Yan Li's initiative to "ally" with him clearly indicates some kind of calculation, so even if he had discovered some particularly important information, he wouldn't just disappear without a trace.

The most likely reason for breaking the promise is... that something came up that got in the way.

The Fang Mansion, his "home," is it really that powerful? Even Yan Li was able to be trapped there.

Yu Xing blinked and twitched her finger.

He sensed that the man he had killed outside the town, named Meng Dao, seemed to be near the Fang Mansion and had been there for some time.

Yan Li and Meng Dao, could they be together?

Or, besides these two, were there other strategists who also went to the Fang Mansion and were collectively tripped up?