Цветок весенней реки, лунная ночь

Глава 16

Ningxia immediately called Fang Jian.

"No need to pick me up. I'll be waiting for you downstairs at eight o'clock tomorrow morning!" Fang Jian was overjoyed and quickly replied.

"Okay!" Ningxia hung up the phone, packed her things in her backpack, and went to bed.

Ningxia slept soundly through the night, waking up to the sound of her alarm clock at seven in the morning.

A ray of sunlight slanted in through the window, and the sky was a clear, cloudless blue; it seemed like today would be a lovely day.

At 5:55, Ningxia appeared at the gate dressed in pure white.

"Ningxia!" Fang Jian seemed to have arrived some time ago, carrying a travel backpack. "You look energetic! You seem to be in a good mood!"

"Thank you!" Ningxia adjusted her white travel hat.

At exactly eight o'clock, a white sedan appeared at the street corner and slowly drove towards the residential building in Ningxia.

"Wow! An Audi!" Fang Jian exclaimed enviously when he saw Lin Wei's car.

Ningxia glared at him and beckoned to Lin Wei, who was getting out of the car.

"Ningxia!" Lin Wei looked at Fang Jian and smiled. "I thought your friend was a girl!"

Fang Jian looked embarrassed and didn't say anything.

"Oh! He's my online friend, Fang Jian! Lin Wei!" Ningxia hurriedly introduced.

"Hello!" Lin Wei smiled.

"Hello!" Fang Jian said coldly.

"Get in the car! It might take more than three hours to drive there!" Lin Wei put Ningxia's backpack into the car and then tried to help Fang Jian put his backpack in as well.

"No need, I can do it myself!" Fang Jian seemed afraid that Lin Wei would touch his things, so he quickly put his backpack in the back seat.

"You seem to be in a good mood today!" Lin Wei said with a smile as he helped Ningxia fasten her seatbelt.

Ningxia was a little embarrassed and laughed.

"Cough cough cough..." Fang Jian's deliberate coughing came from the back seat.

Ningxia felt a little awkward. Lin Wei smiled and drove away.

As Ningxia drew closer to the funerary goods shop, her anxiety grew. Would the situation she encountered today be different from the previous two times?

"Turn in from here!" Ningxia called out to Fang Jian and Lin Wei, who were walking towards the archway.

The three of them turned into the secluded alley, and immediately the noise on the bluestone road disappeared, replaced by a quiet that was unsettling.

Apart from Ningxia and her two companions, there was no one else in the alley; it seemed this alley wasn't a place frequented by locals. The alley appeared to stretch upwards, all the way to the foot of a distant mountain.

After turning a few more corners, Ningxia finally stopped under the eaves of a small house near the end of the alley. This place was far from Black Town, surrounded by a vast expanse of uncultivated wasteland, with a dense forest enclosing the edge of the wasteland.

Fang Jian and Lin Wei looked around at the place Ningxia had brought them to, and a strange feeling suddenly welled up in their hearts.

The house in front of me was dilapidated and in ruins. The thick layer of dust was almost enough to cover the tops of my feet. Countless spider webs formed a dense net that completely sealed off what could no longer be called a door. Only through the gaps in the spider webs could I see the equally dilapidated and old-fashioned interior.

The scene here and now is even more ancient and chilling than the old house behind the Gutan Clubhouse. A chill unconsciously spreads from inside the house.

"Ningxia! You bought your dowry here?" Fang Jian looked at the scene inside the room in disbelief.

Ningxia looked at his bewildered expression and nodded firmly.

"Are you sure you're not mistaken?" Lin Wei frowned.

"If I remember correctly, I really bought it here!"

Lin Wei and Fang Jian exchanged glances, their eyes conveying their shared thoughts, before looking at Ning Xia, whose face was filled with confusion.

"Let's go in and take a look!" Lin Wei found a wooden stick nearby and used it to pry open the thick cobwebs surrounding the door, sending a cloud of black ash flying out. Fang Jian also found a broken broom and followed Lin Wei, lifting the dense cobwebs in front of them as they entered the house.

Ningxia went in last. The interior was still the same as when she first came. The three shelves were piled with unsold paper funerary objects of various colors that had faded. Even the coffin on the ground was still in its original place, but it was covered with a thick layer of black ash. The four corners of the coffin were connected to the legs of the offering table on the opposite wall by countless spider webs.

A sliver of sunlight slanted in through the back door, exposing the thousands of dust particles to the light, which formed a thick barrier, instantly creating an eerie atmosphere throughout the room. Lin Wei and Fang Jian stopped destroying the cobwebs and simply stood in the room watching Ningxia's actions.

Ningxia suddenly had a strong feeling. She walked straight to the back door, which was locked with a large iron padlock. Ignoring the dust and cobwebs on it, she shook it hard, which sent up a cloud of dust. The iron padlock immediately made a dull sound.

"Ningxia! What are you doing?" Fang Jian rushed forward to stop her. Ningxia forcefully shook him off and shouted, "There's an alley behind us!"

"Wait a minute!" Lin Wei stepped forward and used the broken piece of wood in his hand to pry open the iron lock on the door.

"Come and help!" Lin Wei seemed to be struggling, and Fang Jian said.

"Okay!" Fang Jian and Lin Wei used their tools to pry open the dark, ancient iron lock.

"It looks like it's rusted to death!" Fang Jian shook his head and stopped.

"Get out of the way!" Lin Wei suddenly pushed Ning Xia and Fang Jian aside and kicked the wooden door hard.

The wooden door made a tearing sound, and the door panel cracked slightly.

"Me too!" Fang Jian kicked again, and with a "crack," the edge of the wooden door broke off, teetering on the verge of collapse.

"Again!" Lin Wei shouted, kicking hard at the same time as Fang Jian.

"Get out of the way!" Lin Wei pulled Ningxia aside, and the broken door panel fell inward with a loud crash. A thick layer of dust, as thick as cotton wool, covered the three of them.

Suddenly, the light shining through the broken door illuminated the entire room, and the three hurriedly escaped the swirling dust and arrived at the back door.

The back gate led to a long passageway flanked by high, reddish-brown walls. Beside the walls stretched a dense grove of trees, their towering branches almost completely obscuring the passageway, creating a natural roof over the walls. No wonder the walls were invisible from the outside. Directly ahead, the high walls continued, seemingly a dead end.

"Cough cough cough..." Fang Jian and Lin Wei coughed up the countless ash particles they had just inhaled, while Ning Xia walked forward without saying a word.

Lin Wei followed, and Fang Jian hurriedly caught up: "Isn't this a dead end?"

Under Ningxia's persistent guidance, we arrived at a small recessed section of the wall, where a hidden, dark red, mottled wooden door appeared on the right side of the wall, invisible from the front.

A small crack appeared between the two intact wooden doors. Ningxia pushed hard, and the door opened, revealing an abandoned garden inside.

Everything in the garden, like the houses at the alley entrance, was dilapidated and overgrown with tall weeds, obscuring its original appearance and exuding a strong sense of desolation. The entire garden was about two hundred square meters, surrounded by a typical Jiangnan garden wall with white walls and gray tiles.

Scattered among the weeds were fragments of statues. Fang Jian bent down to examine them: "They're plaster casts!"

"Ningxia! How did you know there was something special here?" Fang Jian looked at Ningxia with great doubt. Lin Wei was equally incredulous at Ningxia's unusual behavior, frowning and looking at her in confusion.

"I don't know! I feel like I've been here before!" Ningxia couldn't explain why some inexplicable force had brought her here.

Fang Jian and Lin Wei exchanged another glance but remained silent.

"There's a road over there!" Ningxia suddenly pointed to a wall to the south, and sure enough, a round doorway peeked out from among the tall weeds.

The three of them walked across the rampant, overgrown weeds and arrived at the round doorway, a moon gate, the most common decorative door in Chinese gardens.

Behind the moon gate lies another garden, much larger than the one inside, and surprisingly, it features a pond in the center. Beside the pond stands a cluster of small, exquisite artificial hills. Beyond the pond is a long, winding corridor that extends to several side buildings in the distance. Each side building is almost entirely two to three stories high, occupying a vast area. As far as the eye can see, the buildings within the garden cover nearly half the mountain. Along the mountainside, a gray-white wall, hidden among the dense forest, is faintly visible. This is an ancient manor concealed in the woods.

Lin Wei was extremely surprised: "Strange! Why does it look somewhat similar to our ancestral home?"

"Wow! This is a typical royal garden! Who built such a large residence here? Only royalty and nobility could afford such a place!" Fang Jian exclaimed in astonishment at the sight before him. "I've never heard of a garden like this in the area before!"

"Let's go check out the main gate!" Lin Wei suggested, also filled with curiosity, and walked towards the main gate with Fang Jian. Ning Xia slowly followed behind them, looking at the scene before her. A sense of familiarity welled up in her heart. Why was it so strange, why did she have such an odd feeling? Suddenly, she thought of something, turned around, and looked at the garden behind her from the angle of the main gate. The pond, the rockery, and the protruding eaves of the three-story building behind it were almost identical to the scene she had seen before. It was the background of the photo Liu Fang had taken ten years ago! Could this be—

"Wei Mansion!" Fang Jian shouted from the gate.

Sure enough, this is the Wei family compound! It's the location where Liu Fang and others filmed "The Legend of the Ancient Mirror" ten years ago, and it's also the extremely eerie "Qilin Pavilion" mentioned in "The Legend of the Ancient Mirror"!

Fang Jian rushed over and said to Ningxia, "I know! This is—"

"Qilin Pavilion!" Ningxia continued his words.

"You really are a bit..." Fang Jian looked at Ning Xia in surprise, not finishing his sentence.

"That's a bit strange, isn't it?" Ningxia looked at him, a strange light flashing in her eyes.

Just as Fang Jian was about to say something, Lin Wei walked over and suggested, "Let's go inside the house and take a look!" The three of them then walked towards the nearest building.

As the three figures disappeared through the threshold of the vermilion gate, a shadowy figure, illuminated by the setting sun, appeared obliquely on the ground amidst the desolate garden and overgrown weeds.

"This is the living room of this family!" Fang Jian introduced the spacious hall to Ningxia and Lin Wei, then pointed to the passageways on both sides of the hall, "There's another living room in the back!"

The house has three floors and forms the largest courtyard, which has two sections. In total, there are probably more than thirty rooms.

"There's a Buddhist shrine in the back!" Lin Wei said, glancing at the scattered incense ash in the back hall. A strange fragrance still lingered in the hall, undiminished for years. He pushed open a door on the left side of the hall, revealing a corridor leading to another building. Along the corridor were flowerbeds of various sizes, now overgrown with rampant weeds. Slowly walking along the corridor towards the building, he saw that the ceiling, painted with various deities, was dilapidated from years of neglect, exuding a sense of desolation and loneliness. Pushing open a door at the end of the corridor, he found a small courtyard, only two stories high and quite small. The courtyard was in ruins, cluttered and broken, with many items, their original colors unrecognizable, scattered everywhere, a scene of utter chaos.

The courtyard was quiet, with only the occasional whistling of the wind.

A strange and peculiar feeling suddenly filled Ningxia's heart, and she involuntarily walked up the stairs to the second floor.

Walking through the dark stairwell, Ningxia arrived at the door in the middle of the north side of the second floor and pushed it open...

Fang Jian was greedily taking pictures of the various parts of the building in the hall with his digital camera when he suddenly heard a shrill scream.

"Did you hear that?" Fang Jian turned around and asked Lin Wei.

But behind him was empty; Fang Jian was all alone in the hall. Ning Xia and Lin Wei were nowhere to be seen!

"Oh no! Ningxia!" Fang Jian reacted quickly and ran towards the source of the sound on the left side of the hall.

At the same moment, Lin Wei, who was in the flowerbed outside, also heard Ningxia's piercing scream and ran desperately towards the house to the left of the main hall. He ran through the long corridor, into the smaller courtyard, and saw a clear line of footprints at the top of the stairs. He hurried up to the second floor and saw the door in the center of the room open. Fang Jian swallowed hard, mustered his courage, and rushed inside...

Lin Wei walked through the messy hall, followed a line of footprints, and rushed into a side room on the first floor.

"Ningxia! Ningxia!" Lin Wei spotted Ningxia lying on the ground at a glance, quickly helped her up, and pinched her philtrum hard.

Ningxia groggily opened her eyes, and upon seeing Lin Wei's anxious face, she cried out in panic, "I saw her! I saw her!"

"Don't be afraid! Don't be afraid! Who did you see!" Lin Wei quickly hugged her and comforted her with a solemn expression.

"That woman! That woman in red!" Ningxia looked behind her in fear. "She's right next to me!"

"No! Absolutely not!" Ningxia broke free from Lin Wei, stood up, looked around the room again, and suddenly cried out to Lin Wei in fear, "She's standing right next to the back window!" After saying that, she looked at Lin Wei with extremely confused eyes, revealing a great fear.

Suddenly, another scream rang out, and Lin Wei and Ning Xia heard it simultaneously: "Fang Jian!"

Fang Jian's scream came from behind the house. Lin Wei pulled Ning Xia through the main hall to the courtyard in the backyard, pointing to the entrance of the stairwell and saying, "Let's go up and take a look!"

Lin Wei frowned, walked to the room in the center of the second floor, and said to Ning Xia, "You stay here for now! I'll go take a look!" After saying that, he picked up a broken chair leg from the ground and walked towards the room.

Lin Wei followed closely to the door, lifted a chair leg, and rushed into the room.

"Look!" Fang Jian, standing at the door of the room, looked at Lin Wei as if he had met a savior. He pointed to something in the room with a trembling voice, his face pale, and he was almost crying.

Lin Wei gasped in shock upon seeing this. Ning Xia, who had heard their voices, walked in from the corridor, saying in fear, "What did you see! Is it...?"

Lin Wei was too late to stop Ningxia. Ningxia looked through the doorway and let out a piercing scream.

In that room, hanging from the rafters, something swayed in the wind blowing in from the opposite window. It was a person, a body that had been dead for some time, suspended from the rafters. The clothes were almost completely shredded, and the skin was a horribly dark purple. A head was piled up around the neck, bound by a thick rope. "Piled up" is the only word to describe it, as the head was swollen like a balloon, making it impossible to recognize its original features. An extremely foul stench filled the entire room.

Lin Wei steadied Ningxia, whose body was limp, and quickly instructed Fang Jian, "Why aren't you calling the police yet!"