Chapter 54: The Strange Characters

It is the dead of night!

Under the hazy moonlight, inside the car, the old man, Liu Qingya, and I were all wide awake, our expressions tense as we kept our eyes fixed on my courtyard.

"Ding!"

The notification sound of a mobile phone chimed, signaling that it was already past eleven o'clock.

Around this time last night was roughly when Jiang Hao had slipped out.

We waited quietly inside the car.

"Old Zhang, keep your eyes closely on him. I'll figure out a way to memorize his route," I reminded him.

"Little Brother Jiang, wouldn't it be better if you tailed him while I memorized the route?"

Zhang Yuxuan said with a wry smile, "You know as well as I do that if something actually happens, there's no way I can handle it."

The old man was scared!

If evil spirits were truly at play, he didn't dare to face a supernatural entity head-on.

"Then we'll do it your way."

I didn't object. Zhang Yuxuan was nothing more than a fraud; expecting him to handle this sort of thing was clearly out of the question.

It was my fault for not thinking it through thoroughly.

Another half-hour or so passed, yet there was still not a single sound coming from the courtyard.

To be honest, even though I had caught up on sleep during the day, by this hour of the night, it was becoming rather difficult to stay awake.

"Little Brother Jiang, do you think last night was just a coincidence and nothing is actually wrong?"

The old man asked.

"What do you think?"

I gave the old man a sidelong glance.

This old fellow probably just didn't want to exert himself.

After all, this was my personal affair, and there was no service fee involved—it was essentially working for free.

"Jiang Chen!"

"Little Jiang!"

"..."

Suddenly, the voice of my stepmother echoed from inside the courtyard.

I hurriedly got out of the car, pushed open the courtyard gate, and rushed in.

"Jiang... Jiang Hao is gone," my stepmother said to me in a rush. "I kept my eyes on the movement in Jiang Hao's room the entire time and didn't dare to sleep."

"But there wasn't a single sound from Xiao Hao's room. When I finally pushed his door open and walked inside, it was completely empty. There was nothing there."

My stepmother was so anxious that her words were coming out jumbled.

"Where's my dad?"

I asked.

"Your dad?" Hearing this, my stepmother hurriedly scanned the room. "Your dad... your dad seems to be gone too!"

***

???

Both of them were gone?

"Aunty, wait here. I'll go look for them. The moment either Jiang Hao or my dad comes back, contact me immediately,"

I told my stepmother before bolting out of the courtyard.

In a single night, both of them had vanished.

Was it a coincidence?

I couldn't be sure.

Either Jiang Yuanshan and Jiang Hao had both been lured away by something, just like before,

or Jiang Hao had left, and Jiang Yuanshan had anxiously chased after him.

Between these two hypotheses, the second one seemed rather unlikely. If Jiang Yuanshan had genuinely gone after Jiang Hao, he certainly would have given us a heads-up beforehand, or at the very least left a warning.

Since he left no clues behind and simply disappeared, it was certain that he had also met with misfortune.

Stepping out through the courtyard gate, I got straight into the car and instructed Liu Qingya to drive us to the ancient tomb beneath the river.

This was already my third time setting foot in the underwater ancient tomb!

Aside from this place, I truly couldn't imagine where else Jiang Yuanshan and Jiang Hao could have gone.

If there was genuinely a problem, it had to stem from the ancient tomb beneath the river—of that, I was certain.

The car could only take us halfway. The remaining distance had to be covered on foot.

Our equipment this time was inadequate, consisting solely of the flashlights on our mobile phones.

When the few of us descended into the underwater tomb, the lighting inside was exceptionally dim, barely enough to make out the path beneath our feet.

Although a faint, rotting stench still lingered within the passageway, it was already much better than during our previous visits.

Upon entering the passageway, we quickly reached the location of the Eight Trigrams Gate.

This time, without a second thought, I led the way directly toward the Gen Gate.

Gen represents the mountain, the foundation of earth and stone.

This direction corresponds to the northeast, which precisely aligns with the location of our village.

The greatest possibility for their disappearance lay in this direction. Leaving this aside, I simply couldn't think of anywhere else they could be.

A stone door stood before the Gen position.

This stone door weighed hundreds of pounds, and frankly, relying solely on the three of us, we probably wouldn't have been able to budge it.

Moreover, there was not the slightest sign of the stone door having been tampered with or damaged.

Last time, it had been forced open single-handedly by the fangshi wearing the bronze mask.

For me, the difficulty was far from ordinary.

Still, I had to give it a try. I raised the rune-inscribed greatsword and brought it down heavily upon the stone door.

This attempt proved unexpectedly smooth. The rune-inscribed greatsword cleaved into the stone door as easily as a knife slicing through tofu.

This sword was undeniably sharp!

The stone door was certainly heavy, but in my eyes, it was nothing special.

***

Lifting the rune-inscribed greatsword, I slashed and hacked away. After spending roughly half an hour, I finally broke through this stone door.

Inside lay another gloomy passageway.

The three of us stepped inside.

This passageway actually contained some fresh air, sparing us from any breathing difficulties.

Following this passageway, we walked all the way to the end.

Unlike the stone doors we had seen previously, this place featured a painting hanging on the wall.

The content of the painting was identical to the one I had previously seen deep within the Qinling Mountains, inside the cave infested by the half-demons.

The figures depicted in these two paintings bore an uncanny resemblance to my own appearance.

The so-called Gen position signifies the mountain; the mountain represents earth and stone, serving as a solid foundation.

Some texts on feng shui also mention that the Gen position corresponds to the master bedroom.

Such a theory holds a certain degree of validity, though it is not entirely absolute.

The master bedroom is typically inhabited by the master and mistress of the house, and the master of the house serves as the pillar of strength and the steadfast foundation for the family. Once misfortune befalls the master, the entire household collapses.

Of course, specific feng shui layouts require referencing many other factors; one cannot simply conclude that one must live in the Gen position based on this single axiom alone.

I bowed deeply to the portrait!

Then, leading the others, I continued deeper inside.

The passageways here seemed endless. After winding our way through a long and distant path, we finally found another, larger space.

Several merman tallow candles were placed here, with an antique-style table set up in the center.

Only, the table was completely bare, vacant of anything at all.

Just as I was preparing to leave, the rune-inscribed greatsword in my hand suddenly began to hum vibrantly.

Abruptly, a gust of wind seemed to sweep through the room.

Several large characters materialized on the table—these characters were written in a specialized script somewhat resembling the inscriptions on the sword in my hand, and I couldn't recognize a single one of them.

I turned on the camera function on my phone and snapped a picture of these characters.

Since I couldn't read them, I would wait for an opportunity later to seek out someone capable of deciphering this script to explain it to me.

With this task completed, there seemed to be nothing else of note within this space.

Without lingering, the few of us pressed on without stopping toward the next location.

This time, it didn't take long.

I located a chamber housing a coffin.

Lately, seeing coffins at every turn had left me feeling somewhat unnerved.

Clutching the rune-inscribed greatsword, I slowly approached the coffin.

The lid of this coffin had already been pushed open, and lying inside were two people: one was Jiang Hao, and the other was Jiang Yuanshan.

The two of them lay quietly side by side within the coffin, their eyes closed and their complexions rosy, as if nothing at all had happened.