As soon as the door opened, the Fatty immediately noticed a shed in the courtyard. Inside it were four paper horses and a palanquin carried by eight bearers. The horses were ghastly white, while the palanquin was painted bright red.
They followed the man inside, moving with unusual caution. As they passed the makeshift shed, Jiang Cheng took a close look at the paper horses and the palanquin. They were still unfinished, with some patches of color yet to be painted.
More importantly, their surfaces had already grown damp. Clearly, with the Paper Figure Maker dead, no one was looking after them.
A strange, terrifying suspicion suddenly crept into Jiang Cheng's mind. Could the paper figures have escaped from this mansion because the Paper Figure Maker was gone?
Or could his death have had something to do with these eerie paper figures?
There were several houses in the courtyard. They first went to the one in the middle, which seemed to be where the Paper Figure Maker and his wife lived. It had a bed and all kinds of household items.
They searched the place from top to bottom, even opening several large wooden chests, but found no sign of a woman. Zhang Junyu closed one of the lids and shook his head. "No. It doesn't look like the woman came back."
Beyond this house, not far behind it, stood another, much larger building.
It looked nothing like an ordinary room. It was at least a meter taller.
Stranger still, it had no windows, only a black wooden door that seemed oppressive just to look at. Even under the blazing sun, the inside must have been pitch-black.
The place felt so oppressive that it was unlikely anyone lived there. It looked more like a storeroom.
The man leading them headed