Book Synopsis
Book Tags
Donation Rankings
Comment
0 Comments
You May Also Like
墨書 Inktalez
Outside was the main room, which was shrouded in darkness.
Ye Chenfeng felt that when he entered, the door had been locked. But how did it open? It wasn't easy to just open that door; a key was required. Even with a key, there should have been some noise when it turned in the lock, yet they heard nothing as the door opened silently.
He tried to comfort Ding Li, getting out of bed, thinking to himself: Damn it, I'm going all out. What he said to her felt like a farewell. "Lily, if something happens to me, you need to run as far away as you can and never come back here."
As soon as he said that, Ding Li was so frightened that she burst into tears, sobbing and shouting, "No, Ye Chenfeng! I don't want you to die. Don't go out; I'm scared."
Hearing Ding Li cry like that made Ye Chenfeng feel even more guilty and anxious.
"Stop saying such nonsense. Who said I'm going to die? Just stay quiet and don't make a sound while I check things out."
"Okay." Ding Li quickly stopped crying, thinking to herself that if he wasn't going to die, why did he sound like he was saying goodbye?
Ye Chenfeng pondered what that shadow might have been earlier and didn't pay much attention to Ding Li. As long as she stayed inside quietly, there shouldn't be any trouble. He stepped outside and walked toward the main room.
He noticed that the portrait of his grandfather on the wall was missing. Then he saw that his grandmother's door was ajar, gently swaying back and forth.
To be cautious, Ye Chenfeng went to the kitchen and grabbed a knife from the utensil cabinet.
Even with the knife in hand, he still felt unsafe and hurried back to the bedroom to grab the Ghost-Collecting Gourd. He glanced at Ding Li; she looked terrified, curled up in the corner. When she saw him come in and then go out again, she remained silent, watching him with worry in her eyes.
With the Ghost-Collecting Gourd in hand, Ye Chenfeng carefully pointed the end with talismans toward the front and walked toward his grandmother's room. At this point, dawn was approaching; a faint light appeared on the horizon. A rooster crowed from a nearby farm, occasionally accompanied by distant barks from dogs.
Earlier, Ye Chenfeng and Ding Li had broken his grandmother's Carved Canopy Bed. Now he saw that the room was in disarray; a fake scarecrow lay sprawled on the bed. He couldn't be bothered to look closely and simply crouched down with the Ghost-Collecting Gourd to peer under the bed.
Just as he leaned down, a voice startled him so much that his scalp tingled, nearly making him bolt for the door.
The person asking the question was Grandma, lying on the bed, just like the scarecrow he had seen when he entered the room. She propped herself up, her sleepy eyes squinting as she looked at Ye Chenfeng, who was on the ground with his rear end sticking up. "What are you doing, dear?"
It wasn't Grandma; it was the scarecrow.
How could a scarecrow talk? Ye Chenfeng stood up, nervously raising the Ghost-Collecting Gourd and shouted at Grandma, "I'm not afraid of you! You're a monster! Look at this—it's the Ghost-Collecting Gourd!"
"Are you alright, dear? I really don't understand you young people. Staying up all night and doing all sorts of strange things," Grandma said as she shakily got up and dressed. She was surprised by Ye Chenfeng's behavior and seemed completely unaware of what had happened last night. With wide eyes, she asked, "Who broke my Carved Canopy Bed?"
From the moment Grandma got up to when she saw the Carved Canopy Bed with a hole pried open, Ye Chenfeng didn't say a word. He gripped the Ghost-Collecting Gourd tightly, nervously staring at her. No matter how he looked at it, Grandma didn’t seem like a disguise or a scarecrow turned monster; she appeared to be a real person made of flesh and blood standing right in front of him.
Ye Chenfeng felt confused.
As Grandma questioned who had broken the Carved Canopy Bed, he swallowed hard, his expression awkward as he stiffly pointed out, "There's a hole under the bed."
"A hole?" Grandma hunched her back and trembled as she walked to where Ye Chenfeng pointed but couldn't bend down to look; she was too old for that.
Reluctantly, Ye Chenfeng crouched down and shone his flashlight into the space beneath the bed. "It's right in the corner," he told her. In his memory, there indeed was a terrifying hole in that corner, but when he shone the flashlight inside, there was no hole at all—just a bunch of stuff crammed under the bed.
Slippers, old cardboard boxes, and various odds and ends.
These miscellaneous items were covered in spider webs, looking like they hadn't been cleaned in ages.
Ye Chenfeng's mind became chaotic; he felt dazed and hesitated before straightening up to glance suspiciously at Grandma, who was watching him.
"Where's the hole? Find something to fill it."
"There... there’s no hole." Ye Chenfeng was baffled. In just a short while, based solely on his grandmother's abilities, she couldn't possibly have blocked the hole. And the things under the bed needed someone to move them. Even if she could manage that, what about the Spider Web?
Could she really command spiders to come and spin webs to create a fake scene?
The thought was too amusing.
Ye Chenfeng chuckled to himself, but then again, if nothing had happened, Shen Binghan should have been here.
Seeing him silent, his grandmother pouted and said, "I'm going to make some lotus leaf porridge and fry a couple of pancakes."
"Okay."
Ye Chenfeng replied as his grandmother walked ahead. Instead of heading to the kitchen, he made a beeline for the small room where Shen Binghan rested.
He pushed the door open.
A chilling atmosphere rushed out from the small room, making Ye Chenfeng shiver.
Shen Binghan was not inside.
This was the undeniable truth of everything that had happened last night.
Right, besides Shen Binghan's disappearance, there was also the matter of the phone line being cut. Ye Chenfeng thought about it and hurried to the living room to grab the phone from the coffee table.
Strangely enough, the phone line seemed perfectly fine and he could still make calls.
Ye Chenfeng dialed the phone at home, and it was his father who answered.
His father informed him that he would arrive at Grandma's House around noon today to take Grandma into the city and would also pick him up to go home.
It felt strange; everything seemed like it had just happened, yet the world had changed.
Ding Li—
Ye Chenfeng thought of Ding Li when Grandma called him for dinner. He dialed her number and sat alone on the sofa, lost in thought for half an hour.
Ding Li was exhausted, utterly worn out. After Ye Chenfeng left, she felt scared and closed the door, even pushing an old sewing machine against it for extra security.
With the sewing machine blocking the door, Ye Chenfeng couldn't push it open.
Unable to open the door, Ye Chenfeng began to panic.
He feared that Ding Li might vanish mysteriously like Shen Binghan had.
Ye Chenfeng knocked forcefully on the door, shouting, "Ding Li... Ding Li, open the door."
Ding Li heard someone calling in her sleep and woke up startled. Realizing it was a voice from outside, she quickly got up to listen and recognized it was Ye Chenfeng. She hurried to open the door.
"Where have you been?" she exclaimed as she pulled Ye Chenfeng inside, anxiously asking, "Did you find anything?"
At that moment, daylight had fully arrived. The chirping of birds from Purple Bamboo Forest filled the air, creating a lively chorus outside. The window was framed by lush greenery. Ye Chenfeng opened the window, and fresh air mixed with a hint of earthy scent rushed in. He took a deep breath without turning back to look at Ding Li and said, "I feel like I just had a nightmare."
Ding Li felt a wave of relief as dawn finally broke, and he was filled with joy. Hearing Ye Chenfeng's strange remark, he asked, "What’s going on?"
Ye Chenfeng turned around, placing his hands on Ding Li's arms. "Trust me, no matter what happens, I will protect you."
"I understand." Ding Li gazed seriously into Ye Chenfeng's eyes, which were a beautiful gray-brown with lovely double eyelids.
"Ding Li, I don’t even know how to tell you," Ye Chenfeng said, glancing at the door with concern that his grandmother might overhear their conversation. He lowered his voice and added, "I'll explain later."
As they stepped outside, Ding Li's grandmother had a twisted expression on her face, complaining about someone having killed Mao Mao so brutally.
"Grandma, have you seen my friend Shen Binghan?"
If Grandma seemed indifferent to Mao Mao's death, perhaps Ye Chenfeng wouldn't have asked her about Shen Binghan. She didn't appear to be pretending to be sorrowful, so he approached her and casually glanced at Mao Mao, buried under a tree, while inquiring about Shen Binghan's whereabouts.
"Isn't that the little monk in gray? I didn’t see him when I came home last night. Where could he have gone?"
Ding Li hid behind Ye Chenfeng, watching his grandmother and how she spoke. He truly didn’t dare to say a word and just stood there in a daze.
Grandma’s words were so ambiguous that they left everything hanging in the air.
Ye Chenfeng felt extremely frustrated. He had nothing to say; if it weren't for the Ghost-Collecting Gourd still on him, he would have thought Shen Binghan had quietly left on his own.
No sign of life or death—what was he supposed to do?
The lotus leaf porridge still smelled fragrant and delicious, but Ye Chenfeng couldn't bring himself to eat a single bite.
Ding Li also ate very little.
After the meal, Ye Chenfeng did not give up on his idea of continuing to search for Shen Binghan.
He took Ding Li to the riverside, disregarding his grandmother's objections.
The riverside in the morning, especially in autumn, was shrouded in mist. The trees on both banks were enveloped in a haze, giving a dreamlike and surreal feeling.
There was a river breeze, and Ding Li felt cold, tightly holding onto Ye Chenfeng's hand while wide-eyed at the scenery that was absolutely unseen in the county town.
"It's so beautiful."
It was indeed beautiful, but unfortunately, Ye Chenfeng had no mood to appreciate it. On one hand, he needed to protect Ding Li from harm; on the other hand, he was desperately searching for Shen Binghan's whereabouts. The rare sunrise rose slowly from the horizon, hanging high in the sky, casting a slanting beam of light directly onto the river surface.
The mist gradually dissipated, and light penetrated to the riverbed, making it possible to see the pebbles below with the naked eye. The water appeared shallow, but only Ye Chenfeng and his grandmother knew that it was actually very deep. Not long ago, a sandboat had come here to collect sand and gravel, digging the riverbed deep enough that it seemed bottomless. There were many unseen pits; once someone fell in, they would not come out alive.
Ding Li saw the rising sun and watched as the mist cleared. Finally breaking into a smile, she said, "It's so beautiful."
"Lili, are you afraid of my grandmother?"
Ye Chenfeng's sudden question clearly affected Ding Li's good mood. The smile on her face froze as she looked at him and seriously nodded while tightly pursing her lips. "I... I'm afraid of her eyes."
Comment 0 Comment Count