"Don't go off on your own! Slow down!"
Old Wei grabbed Uncle Bai and hurried after
"I was just going to ask for directions — why are you two coming along?" Chen Ge didn't want to reveal
"There's not a single living person in this village. Who exactly are you going to ask for directions?" Old Wei was genuinely worried Chen Ge might do something rash — like bash down a door with his iron hammer and charge into one of the nearby houses.
"You'll see in a moment." Chen Ge gestured for Old Wei to stay quiet. He stood guard at the corner, silently counting his heartbeats, his grip tightening on the Skull Crusher.
A full minute passed, and the red burial shroud still hadn't appeared. Chen Ge leaned sideways and peeked around the corner — the shroud was long gone.
"Ran away?"
It must have heard Old Wei's voice and hidden itself.
Chen Ge put away the Skull Crusher and leaned against the wall, thinking about what to do next.
"Living
A three-star horror scenario meant there had to be a Red Coat hidden somewhere inside.
That was exactly what Chen Ge worried about most. He knew full well how much weight those two words — Red Coat — carried.
"There's no better option for now. I'll keep investigating while looking for straggling ghosts to feed to Xu Yin. If he can become a Red Coat tonight, then even if this mission ends in failure, it won't be a total loss."
Chen Ge was an optimist at heart, but what he feared was running into a Red Coat vengeful spirit with a bad temper. Xu Yin had devoured so many ghosts in this village — it was entirely possible that would provoke one.
He mentally tallied every ghost in his possession. The only one worth relying on was still Xu Yin alone.
The newly acquired
"I need to be more careful now." Chen Ge reminded himself repeatedly, committing it to memory before turning to Uncle Bai. "The monsters in the village are starting to wake up. You've been to Living Coffin Village before — do you know if there are any special buildings around here?"
"There's an ancestral hall at the deepest part of the village — outsiders are forbidden from approaching. The village has a lot of wells, but the people of Coffin Village would rather cross the mountain to fetch water than draw from a well. They avoid the well openings entirely." Uncle Bai wracked his memory. "There's also something strange — this village has no village chief. The one in charge is a woman, not very old, living alone in the largest house in the village."
"I understand that outsiders can't enter the ancestral hall, but why are they so afraid of the wells? Is it something in the water — maybe it causes deformities if you drink it?" Chen Ge wasn't quite following.
"The water is fine. My father tested it using captured animals. But no matter what, the people of Coffin Village refuse to use it, and they also block us from going near the wells to investigate." Uncle Bai couldn't explain the reason either.
"We'll keep an eye on these places. The more they don't want us getting close to something, the more likely it is hiding the truth."
"Alright, so where do we go now?" They had lost all sense of direction. White paper lanterns swaying up and down the streets gave the whole place an exceptionally eerie look.
"One step at a time."
The three of them retraced their steps, but the old house they had seen before was nowhere to be found. As far as the eye could see, every doorway was hung with white lanterns.
"We're completely trapped now." Uncle Bai pulled the jade pendant out from under his shirt, clutching it tightly in his hand. "We can't just stand around in the street all night. Why don't we duck into one of the nearby houses and rough it out till morning?"