Only Hearing That You Have Come

Feng Yushu walked down the semi-circular staircase with her umbrella, reached the back of the main hall, and stepped into a wide corridor.

The walls on both sides of the corridor were hollowed out, and the wooden grids embedded within displayed rows of various types and brands of liquor. From the most common banquet champagne to local rice wine, whiskey placed between white wine and dry red, and even jars of yellow wine sealed with clay could be seen; a dazzling array of all kinds of spirits filled the two long walls.

As soon as she entered the corridor, a sweet, clear fragrance of alcohol wafted toward her. Feng Yushu looked in the direction of the scent and saw a man in loose robes slumped on the ground, leaning against the wall, already breathless. A half-shattered bottle of red wine lay rolling not far away, and a pool of bright red liquid soaked the dark red glass shards on the floor.

Feng Yushu walked forward cautiously and flipped the body over with one hand, discovering that it was someone she knew.

This man was the secretary of Bai Fugui, named Liu Buzhu. Feng Yushu was a woman of leisure and did not have much contact with the people in the company; she only vaguely remembered that Liu Buzhu and several other members of the management liked to feign refinement and were keen on tasting and appreciating wine.

It seemed that Liu Buzhu had been killed by a ghost while coming here to fetch wine.

Aside from the tiny scratches on the back of his hand caused by the glass shards, Feng Yushu did not see any suspicious marks on Liu Buzhu's body. Just like Gu Yunqing and Xie Sining, who died from the Snake God's Death Taboo in He Family Village, there were no signs of external or internal trauma that could have caused his death.

The people killed by the ghost all seem to be the same, Feng Yushu thought to herself.

Silently, shadowlessly, and without a trace, their lives were taken away.

Feng Yushu did not linger on the corpse for too long; after a brief inspection, she continued forward and passed through the corridor.

I keep feeling like there's something strange about that body... is it just my imagination? Feng Yushu felt puzzled. Although there were no suspicious marks, she still felt that a vague, indescribable, and bizarre sensation lingered around Liu Buzhu, as if this were not a corpse belonging to a human, but something else that resembled a "person."

Liu Buzhu's body looked like a human, felt like a human, and the residual body temperature on the corpse was real, but Feng Yushu intuitively felt that something was missing from him—something very important, yet very easy to overlook. As for what exactly that "missing" thing was... she could not be sure, nor could she discover it.

Feng Yushu passed through the two walls of liquor and arrived at the back of the main hall.

The first floor of the castle had two major sections: the front hall and the rear leisure club, connected by magnificent corridors filled with famous wines, hung with famous paintings, or featuring ornamental fish swimming inside the walls.

The hall was geared toward social interaction, while the club focused on privacy. It contained many independent rooms with ambiguous decor, ranging from entertainment board games to gambling facilities that were in principle not for cash, though the people who had originally been using these facilities had all become corpses.

Feng Yushu sidestepped a bloated Middle-aged Man who was slumped over a pool table. The ambient lights overhead were still on, making her afraid to put down the umbrella in her hand.

"Found it..."

Feng Yushu took a few steps forward and turned off the light switch hidden beneath the curtains, and this area immediately plunged into darkness.

After doing this, she breathed a sigh of relief and continued to wander between the rest rooms while holding her umbrella. She had heard from the staff before that the monitoring room on the first floor was located in the area between the hall and the club. If something was lost or a young child went missing, one could ask the staff to check the surveillance.

But she hadn't asked in detail at the time, so she only knew the monitoring room was roughly in this area, but not where the specific entrance was.

"I'll just have to look slowly."

Feng Yushu took a deep breath, continued walking forward, and turned off the lights along the way.

She was wearing a Bluetooth headset, and the sound of rustling wind and crisp footsteps came through it.

"How is it, Aunt? Have you found the monitoring room?" Ning Zhe's voice came through.

"Not yet," Feng Yushu said in a low voice. "I'm in the vicinity, but I haven't found the door to get in."

"Hurry up, I've already exited the main gate," Ning Zhe continued.

Ning Zhe had now walked out of the castle hall through the main entrance and began to search along the outer wall for the hidden compartment that housed the Power Grid Main Switch.

The design of hidden compartments was not uncommon in modern architecture. For instance, in residential buildings, there were always some remote, unused corners that were too small for appliances like washing machines or air conditioner units, and leaving them empty felt like a waste. Conscientious renovation companies would consolidate facilities like gas meters and electricity meters into these spaces to form a small compartment, which saved space and was convenient for residents.

It was only difficult for Ning Zhe right now.

Bishuiwan Manor was positioned as a high-end property, and both the exterior and interior designs took aesthetic factors into account. The hidden compartments for water meters and circuit breakers were also hidden particularly well. Without design drawings or knowing the exact location, it was hard to find them even when standing right in front of the compartment door, as one might mistake it for just a piece of the outer wall.

Ning Zhe had no choice but to walk around the outer wall and search slowly.

Ning Zhe picked up his phone and glanced at the time:

June 5, 2018, the 22nd day of the fourth month of the Lunar Calendar, 23:07 late at night.

"Is it this late?" Ning Zhe looked up at the pitch-black sky; there was no moon, not even a single star.

Perhaps because the ghost had already killed almost everyone in the manor, the surroundings were deathly quiet. Occasionally, he could see one or several corpses lying on the ground, looking as if they had died while trying to escape.

Along the way, Ning Zhe once again verified the accuracy of the rules provided by Baizhi:

--These corpses were all lying in places illuminated by light.

In dark, sheltered places like under tree shade or inside pavilions, Ning Zhe hadn't encountered a single corpse. Only where there was light were there corpses, which once again confirmed the fact that the ghost needed light to kill.

But what exactly was going on with the ghost being afraid of light?

Ning Zhe vaguely felt that whether he could solve this mystery might be the key to breaking the rules and escaping Bishuiwan Manor.

Time always passed quickly when there was work to do, especially since the castle covered an astonishingly large area. Coupled with the fact that Ning Zhe had to search for the hidden compartment, his pace was not fast. Nearly an hour passed, and he still hadn't found anything suspicious.

"I have absolutely no progress on my end," Ning Zhe said with some helplessness. "How about you, Aunt? Have you found the monitoring room?"

"Not yet, but soon." Feng Yushu's voice sounded slightly breathless, as if she had been running. "It's just too big here; I almost got lost... but don't worry, I just flipped through a paper floor plan of this castle on an engineer's desk. I know where the monitoring room is now. Once I get in, I'll be able to point out the path to the circuit breaker for you."

"OK, I'm counting on you." Ning Zhe looked up at a nearby street lamp and breathed a slight sigh of relief.

However, his nerves hadn't even been relaxed for two seconds before they became incredibly tense once again.

Because directly beneath the street lamp, a person standing upright had just caught Ning Zhe's eye.

"A ghost..." Ning Zhe whispered to himself.

"A ghost?!" Feng Yushu was immediately startled. "You encountered a ghost? Aren't you holding an umbrella?"

"Yes, I'm very sure I'm holding the umbrella..." Ning Zhe said softly while putting his phone into his pocket. "I'm holding the umbrella, that's right, I am indeed holding the umbrella, but the ghost still found me. It's standing right under the street lamp now, not moving at all."

"It is looking at me."

"It is observing me."

"It seems to be confirming something."

"...Alright, it is coming over."

Ning Zhe gripped the umbrella in his hand tightly. He watched as the stiff corpse beneath the distant streetlamp leaped high into the air and landed heavily, the casual shoes on its feet making a dull thud against the lawn.

He instinctively turned his head, wanting to flee toward the rear, but a flash of bright red made Ning Zhe stop in his tracks.

A young girl dressed in a Wedding Dress, her waist wrapped in red cloth, her pale face devoid of any features save for a pair of cherry lips as red as blood, had appeared behind him at some unknown moment.

"He Nianjun?" In an instant, Ning Zhe felt a chill spread through his Chest Cavity.