Even if she racked her brain, she still couldn’t make sense of it.
After getting out of the vehicle, Hua Qi’an glanced toward the driver’s seat.
The man looked to be in his late twenties or early thirties; for a bus driver, he was certainly considered quite young.
At the moment, he was anxiously leaning against a nearby wall, shrouded in swirling smoke.
After thinking it over, Hua Qi’an still didn’t approach to ask him what he’d meant by those words earlier.
Considering the driver had mentioned an accident had occurred on this route before, and she had just seen a “nonexistent” person on the bus.
Maybe, it really was just as she suspected…
Hua Qi’an figured if she went to ask bluntly, the driver might not be able to handle it, so she gave up.
Thinking along these lines, that old lady’s sudden comment about seeing her dead granddaughter in Hua Qi’an’s features… Could it really be true?
With thoughts tumbling chaotically, Hua Qi’an walked out of the bus terminal.
This was, after all, a desolate area, and catching a cab here was all but impossible.
Hua Qi’an decided to follow the navigation on foot toward the area where the haunted house was located.
She checked the time; there was still plenty to spare.
Adjusting her backpack straps, Hua Qi’an picked up her pace.
The last time she’d come here, it had already been quite dark, so she hadn’t gotten a good look at the surroundings.
Now that it was daytime, she finally took in the chill of the abandoned scenery.
The hustle and bustle of days gone by seemed to linger just yesterday.
Shops lined both sides of the street, but now all that remained were dust-covered shop signs—row after row, empty buildings.
By the time she reached the front gate of the mansion, Hua Qi’an had already passed countless deserted buildings.
The doubt that had taken shape in her heart earlier now completely surfaced.
“……”
Could it really be?
Ever since she’d heard that old lady’s story, this question had been nagging at her.
Although she hadn’t fully believed every detail of the tale…
Suppose, for a moment, the story was true.
A rich man drowned himself, the whole family fell ill.
But… for the entire area’s residents to move away? Was that really possible?
She knew many people were superstitious about such things, but surely there had to be those who didn’t believe any of it.
If all it took was a single family’s tragedy to clear out everyone within several kilometers, that was just too strange…
There had to be some hidden reason outsiders weren’t privy to.
Hua Qi’an pressed her fingers to her brow in frustration.
If only she could meet someone who had lived here back then, everything would be so much simpler.
But from the online traces she’d seen, asking directly about the mansion or the surrounding area would only get her posts shadow-banned or deleted…
“…Huh?”
Shadow-banned and deleted?
Hua Qi’an’s lips parted in surprise.
Wasn’t half the answer right in front of her?
Only one kind of people had the power to control the entire Internet’s narrative.
Likewise, only by their order could all the residents within several kilometers be forced to move out.
She called it half the answer because, for now, she only understood the surface explanations for these oddities…
As for the deeper question—what exactly happened back then—she still didn’t have any real leads.
The outer courtyard gate of the haunted house appeared before Hua Qi’an’s eyes.
She was struck speechless.
What on earth?
Compared to just a few days ago, the main gate of the haunted house looked utterly different.
The lock had been smashed, its broken pieces scattered all over the ground.
Judging from the dust on the fragments, the lock must have been broken several days ago.
With the lock ruined, the iron gate now gaped open wide enough for an adult woman to slip through.
There were visible signs of deformation on the edge of the iron gate.
Looked like it had been kicked more than once.
Good thing this place had no owner…
Could it be, someone else had already broken in?
A cold sweat broke out on Hua Qi’an’s skin.
She remembered, when she’d left the mansion…
Lin Yanqiu’s sharp-featured face suddenly flashed through Hua Qi’an’s mind.
She took a deep breath. Alright, now she had an answer.
After one more glance at the battered edge of the iron gate, Hua Qi’an swallowed.
It seemed Lin Yanqiu had really gone easy on her.
Hua Qi’an slipped through the gap and entered the courtyard.
The yard itself was just as she remembered.
So she followed the familiar path toward the house.
She planned to check the drawers inside the rooms first.
See if there was any useful information hidden inside.
A few days ago she had indeed been in the rooms, but only taken some general photos—she hadn’t touched any drawers or the like.
Hua Qi’an turned on her phone’s camera and started screen recording.
Might as well make a little extra money while she was at it.
And if she happened to catch anything those people didn’t want outsiders to see… well, if they paid her hush money, all the better.
Whichever way she looked at it, there was nothing to lose.
“Hello, everyone. Today we’re making a second exploration of this mansion, delving into its hidden secrets.”
Hua Qi’an spoke calmly, but filming was just a habit; all her attention was focused on reality.
Unlike her last visit, when the villa’s main door had been tightly shut.
This time, the door was wide open.
Almost as if it were welcoming someone’s arrival.
Much as Hua Qi’an wanted to think so, it was far more likely that Lin Yanqiu had left it open.
She certainly hadn’t tidied up any traces when she left.
By her calculations, this house must have been airing out for two or three days; sure enough, the choking dust in the air had mostly dispersed.
Hua Qi’an filmed the mansion’s interior, noting how little it had changed since her last visit.
At the same time, she planned her investigation route.
She decided to start with the floor most likely to yield information: the second floor.
Since the second floor was made up of bedrooms—places where people rested and slept—it was bound to reflect something of the owners’ lives.
With this in mind, Hua Qi’an headed upstairs.
…
At the mansion’s outer gate.
“Liuzi, are you sure there’s really no one in this place?”
A burly man with broad shoulders and a thick neck lowered his rough voice to question the scrawny, sharp-featured man beside him.
The smaller man looked every bit the clever, wiry monkey. “Don’t worry, Second Brother!”
He puffed out his chest to the man addressed as Second Brother.
“Who am I, He Xiaoliu?”
“I heard ages ago this area’s been a no-man’s land for years!”
“But unlike all the other houses, this one—just yesterday I went in to check it out, and there’s a ton of priceless furniture left behind!”
Wang Lao’er nodded, half-believing, half-doubting.
“Those rich folks must’ve been kicked in the head by a donkey. To just walk away from a place like this!”
“…You’re really sure there’s no one inside?”
He Xiaoliu sneered, “The power’s been cut in this house!”
“Even if someone is inside…”
He drew a finger across his neck in a slashing motion.
“If you died in a place like this, I bet nobody’d ever know…”
He grinned darkly as he spoke.
“I swear, we clear out all those treasures and sell them—we’ll never have to worry about the rest of our lives—”
Hearing his oath, Wang Lao’er’s eyes gleamed with greed.
The two of them squeezed through the gap in the main gate.
“You did this to the lock?”
Wang Lao’er squeezed in with difficulty and glared at He Xiaoliu.
The latter shrugged.
“It was already like this when I came by a couple days ago.”
“I only got the idea to check it out when I saw the lock. Didn’t expect to find a place abandoned for who knows how many years—heh heh heh…”
Wang Lao’er nodded knowingly.
Once inside, he sniffed the air, then waved a hand before his face as if to dispel a smell.
“What’s with this rotten fish stink?”