"Come on, let's follow and take a look." Yu Chengmu started after the footprints and walked into the village.
The strange footprints soon parted from the villagers' tracks and headed down a path on their own. Judging roughly by the prints they'd left behind, there were quite a few of those ghostly things—at least a dozen.
There was no way that number could be explained by the corpses in the few coffins from last night.
They followed the tracks all the way to a secluded courtyard on the edge of the village. The footprints disappeared in front of its gate.
The courtyard was larger than any of the villagers' houses they'd passed, though it looked somewhat dilapidated. A closer look revealed signs that someone lived there, and the area in front of the gate had been tidied up.
"The wall around this place is really tall." The Fatty walked around to have a look. The wall was high enough to block their view of the inside, which only made them more curious.
Jia Jinliang pretended he was about to knock, but Yu Chengmu stopped him with a scolding. "Don't be foolish. Do you know what you're doing?" Yu Chengmu's whiskers quivered, making him look very convincing.
"Elder, what would you have me do?" Jia Jinliang replied with a chuckle. His acting was even more natural than Yu Chengmu's, and a hint of defiance flashed in his eyes.
Yu Chengmu walked over, rose onto his toes, stretched out his arm, and felt around above the doorframe. Before long, he seemed to touch something. He gave it a tug, and a beam of light suddenly shone toward them.
It was a mirror embedded above the gate, its style old-fashioned, with Bagua patterns around it.
A piece of cloth had covered the mirror,