Translator: Cinder Translations
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"It's him?!" Fatty was stunned for a moment upon hearing this, then felt a chill run down his spine, a wave of dread surging in his heart.
Butler Zhou was Xuanji's father. Combined with what they had seen and heard in the Huang residence—the bizarre ghost operas, the deranged Master Huang—a terrifying hypothesis gradually emerged.
This was a meticulously planned revenge.
A father's revenge against the murderer of his daughter.
"Doctor," Fatty said quickly, "How did you figure out Butler Zhou was involved?"
More than the answer itself, Fatty was curious about how the doctor had deduced this conclusion based on the current clues.
"I went to the kitchen in the residence earlier," Jiang Cheng said, walking along the roadside, trying not to attract attention. "I tasted the food prepared in the kitchen. Except for the portion prepared for us, the rest was very bland."
As if not expecting Fatty to understand, he continued to explain, "Opera performers tend to have a light diet. They need to protect their voices, and over time, this becomes a deeply ingrained habit."
Fatty exclaimed, "So you had already guessed their identities?"
"No," Jiang Cheng replied. "I just thought it was strange at the time."
"Doctor," Fatty followed behind Jiang Cheng, asking, "Should we go back now, or should we check out Luogu Alley?"
"Let's go to Luogu Alley."
"Alright."
Standing in front of Luogu Alley, Fatty couldn't help but feel surprised. The name "Luogu Alley" suggested it was just a small lane, but upon arrival, they found it was a sprawling network of streets with at least a hundred houses.
If they had to search each one, they probably wouldn't finish before dark.
But to Fatty's delight, after asking a few nearby vendors, a hunched-over, one-eyed vendor pushing a cart of candied hawthorn sticks thought for a moment and said, "Are you talking about Master Zheng?"
"There," he pointed to a side road, "They live in the second turn, House C. Go in from here, take the first left, and the largest courtyard is theirs."
Following the vendor's directions, the two quickly found the corresponding courtyard. Whether it was psychological or not, just standing outside the gate, Fatty felt a cold breeze sweep past him.
"Find a safe place and wait for me," Jiang Cheng said, pulling out the half pouch and stuffing it into Fatty's arms. "If I'm not out in 10 minutes, go back and call for help."
"Doctor, let me go in with you. If something happens, at least there's someone to help you," Fatty volunteered.
In the end, Jiang Cheng accepted Fatty's suggestion. The two chose a secluded spot and climbed over a broken wall into the courtyard.
The courtyard was eerily quiet, seemingly empty.
Finding the largest room, Jiang Cheng carefully pushed open the door. It was a storage-like room, but it had been partitioned into several areas with wooden boards.
Jiang Cheng found a table with scattered pieces of paper. Upon closer inspection, they turned out to be rough sketches of maps.
The maps were incredibly detailed. After looking at them for a while, Jiang Cheng even found the room they were staying in on one of them.
"Doctor," Fatty said in surprise, "This looks like a map of the Huang residence," he pointed to a building, "Doesn't this look like the pavilion where Young Master Huang lives?"
Of course it did.
Because it was.
These people had drawn detailed maps of the Huang residence's interior, including areas Jiang Cheng and Fatty had never been to. On the map representing the lake, they found a red circle.
Fatty blinked and asked, "What's this?"
"It's the shoal in the middle of the lake," Jiang Cheng said, putting the map back in place.
Fatty thought for a moment and immediately realized this was the spot where the fake Young Master Huang (actually Master Huang) performed his ghost operas at night. Previously, they hadn't known and thought it was a ghost floating on the lake.
In the "Bride Carrying" opera, Jiang Cheng had also been there, so he remembered it clearly.
As they continued their search, they found a wooden door at the back of the room. Pushing it open, light streamed in, revealing a scene that made Fatty's hair stand on end.
Against the wall stood a row of paper figures.
Dressed in bright red paper clothes and wearing green melon hats, the paper figures had their mouths uniformly stretched into grins, their eyes exaggeratedly upturned, giving them a gleeful, animated expression.
What was even more terrifying was that the paper figures all turned their heads in unison, staring at the door as if they might come to life at any moment.
Shifting his gaze, Jiang Cheng's expression also changed. At the back of the room... there was actually a white paper sedan chair.
The sedan chair was stark white, surrounded by four paper figures acting as bearers.
Two plain white paper lanterns were held by the two leading paper figures.
For a moment, the scene was extremely eerie.
"These..." Fatty's eyes widened, feeling as if the air he breathed in was cold, "These are what we saw before..."
He couldn't finish his sentence, feeling the surroundings were too sinister. He shivered involuntarily, as if... as if these paper figures were alive, watching them, listening to them speak.
Jiang Cheng walked toward the paper sedan chair. As he lifted the curtain, Fatty's heart clenched.
Inside the sedan chair sat another paper figure.
A paper bride dressed in red, wearing a bridal veil.
The bride's hands rested on her legs, seemingly pressing down on something, but from Fatty's angle, it was unclear.
Fatty instinctively felt that this bride would come to life sooner or later.
There was no basis for this, just his intuition.
But thankfully, by the time the doctor took out a bright red lacquered box from the paper bride's hands, the bride hadn't moved, nor had she transformed into a green-faced, fanged demon or a rotting-faced ghost to pounce at them.
Opening the box, they found a book lying quietly inside.
The book looked very old, slightly damp, with half of the cover already rotten. The pages inside had yellowed, but the text was still legible.
Fatty craned his neck to look, feeling the book resembled a martial arts manual from a wuxia novel.
"Doctor," Fatty said, watching Jiang Cheng silently read without speaking, feeling as anxious as if a cat were scratching his heart. He swallowed hard before asking, "What... what's written inside?"
Taking a deep breath, Jiang Cheng looked at Fatty, his eyes revealing something the latter couldn't understand. Fatty unconsciously swallowed again, not daring to say anything more.
"Xuanji was indeed killed by Master Huang," Jiang Cheng said. "Butler Zhou wanted to use the murderer, Master Huang, and us to summon his daughter's spirit."
Fatty's eyes widened in shock, "Summon her spirit?"
Nodding, Jiang Cheng flipped through the book, explaining, "This book records a method to summon the spirit of a murdered person by reenacting the victim's death through a ritual using paper figures at midnight."
Fatty swallowed hard, whispering, "The ritual you're talking about is..."
"The human skin drum," Jiang Cheng replied.
(End of the Chapter)
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