Xiao Ying felt that malice directly.
His heart stopped, and at the same time, he stopped breathing. Terror gripped his mind, leaving him unable to think.
A few seconds later, those feelings and visions finally receded like a tide.
I fared a little better than Xiao Ying.
While Xiao Ying lay on the ground, trembling uncontrollably, I could still stand upright beside him.
The scene was too blurry for me to make out what those figures were.
Were they Shen Xiaorong and the ghosts from the Longevity Cemetery?
It didn't seem so.
They didn't have that kind of malice about them.
From Xiao Ying's gradually returning consciousness, I caught a glimpse of some of his memories.
He'd had these hallucinations many times before. In fact, he'd been seeing them since he was a boy. But until then, all he'd seen was a forest.
The naturally intricate greens, the layered scenery, the sense of mystery—all of it gave Xiao Ying the illusion that it was beautiful.
As he grew older, he began to question these visions appearing in his mind.
He started by learning to paint, thinking the hallucinations were inspiration for his art.
He had no talent for painting whatsoever.
After Shen Ankang died, the hallucinations changed.
Xiao Ying sensed that there was someone in the forest. They were watching him.
Not long after, he saw blurry figures standing among the trees. The feeling of being watched and their malicious gazes grew clearer.
Xiao Ying couldn't help remembering what Shen Ankang had said.
It seemed the Shen family had secrets he didn't know about. Shen Ankang had never acknowledged him.
The Xiao family, the Guan family, even Shen Ankang's several wives and distant relatives all thought that Shen Ankang had agreed to take Xiao Ying in, providing him with food,