The Old House in the Woods

The Old House in the Woods

Using the immigration bureau's network platform, Xu Huo contacted private investigators near the two families' homes and hired them to look into the families' pasts.

The doctor who had appeared at the Seventeenth Hospital hadn't taken the children away right from the start. They had all died only after a certain amount of "growth," which showed that the "doctor" wasn't focused on watching over one or a few "saplings," but was casting a wide net.

Shang Shuming might have been one of the young fish caught in that net. As for whether the person who later appeared before Peng Ya and the others was really "Doctor Shang," that was less certain.

By this point, Xu Huo had begun to suspect that the doctor who first appeared at the Seventeenth Hospital hadn't been acting alone. He might have had plenty of companions, who were also seeking out and cultivating successors. "Doctor Shang" might not have been the doctor from back then, just as he might not have been the real Shang Shuming. Perhaps "psychiatrist" was simply the identity they used while moving between different worlds.

The only thing that could be confirmed was that Shang Shuming had become one of them. The question now was whether any of the children taken from the Welfare Institute had been chosen in the same way.

As the sky gradually darkened, Xu Huo planned to spend the night there. Just as he was about to move a table over to use as a bed, a tremendous pounding suddenly sounded from outside. A strange smell drifted in, and the scene before his eyes changed in the next instant.

In the pouring rain, he found himself face-to-face with a deathly pale face.

They stared at each other without moving.

Suddenly, a