### Chapter 246: Ghost Gate and Coffins
The village was eerily quiet. Even the old folks chatting outside were intentionally whispering. They didn’t dare to roam around at night; daytime had its own quirks, but at least you could still see the light. Otherwise, this place would be utterly unlivable.
Zhao Mingyue pondered, “There’ve been such bizarre happenings here, yet there’s absolutely no news about it online?”
Noticing Lu Liangting’s anxious expression, she hastily spoke up, “I’ve gathered some info too. Let’s hear about your findings first!”
“Corpses, and a Ghost Gate,” Lu Liangting frowned, organizing his thoughts. “In that house, there’s a Ghost Gate, and it’s not that no one lives there—the whole family has kicked the bucket! Walking in there is like falling for an illusion. The cops from yesterday totally got fooled.”
The scene was too complicated for Lu Liangting to explain in detail; you really had to see the eerie spectacle to grasp how weird it was.
It wasn’t exactly dangerous; the strangeness was just overwhelming.
“As soon as I stepped in, I caught a whiff of bl**d. If it weren’t for Old Yang, I wouldn’t have broken through that illusion.”
“It’s not just that family’s corpses; there are others too.”
“I suspect it’s intentionally staged; someone cleaned up the scene.”
“But that’s not even the point! The real issue is that Ghost Gate—it’s completely different from the one we saw in Tianchang City.”
His urgency revolved around that Ghost Gate.
“Let Bai Yu take a look; she should be able to spot something out.”
“Bai Yu said she’s on board.” Zhao Mingyue gestured for Lu Liangting to walk along with her, filling him in on what she had discovered.
“Geez, I really don’t get why all the villages in Tianchang City are like this. This one’s super strange, full of secrets!”
“Like the Summer family coming back from the dead, attacking villagers at night, that out-of-control Ghost Gate, and poor old Store Manager.”
“Let’s check it out.”
Following Lu Liangting toward that courtyard, they pushed the door open, and sure enough, a wave of bl**d odor hit them. Next came the mental influence of the Evil Ghost, similar to a ghostly wall, and with the evil spirits hiding inside? No wonder the police and villagers fell for it.
Angsty resentment spilled everywhere in sight—this place was definitely not just a handful of ghosts.
Lu Liangting closed the door behind him and pointed to the house in front. “The Ghost Gate is right there. You’ll see.”
The courtyard wasn’t large; there were blankets airing out, various farming tools piled at the base of the wall, and two persimmon trees leaning towards the wall. There was even a small vegetable garden, making it look just like a normal villager’s home—at least to Bai Yu, aside from the resentment, it seemed mundane.
There were definitely living people around—nothing here felt like an intentional disguise.
As of now, she could tell that there was red clothing, but no clear vibe from the Evil God or Evil Spirits.
Zhao Mingyue slowed her pace. Even in broad daylight, the courtyard felt unusually eerie. The resentment from the Evil Ghost made it seem wrapped in a black filter, freezing everything in time and evoking the sensation of stepping into an old, yellowed photo.
She noticed a detail—the courtyard looked pretty shabby, yet it was modern living. But there weren’t any electrical appliances, not even a lightbulb. The wires on the wall were just long disconnected, as if nobody had used them for ages.
It was certainly a courtyard, but unlike the traditional ones she was used to, this felt more like two family yards awkwardly combined. Just the main entrance had two doors, with two symmetrical living rooms facing each other, and the kitchens on both sides were identical. The little storage rooms next to the kitchens had doors facing one another too.
If you placed a mirror in the center of this courtyard, you wouldn’t notice the difference at all.
Two symmetrical persimmon trees, identical sweet potato cellars, small rooms on either side of the entrance, with every brick and tile, every arrangement of items, and even the garbage stacked symmetrically.
“Does this person have some sort of mental illness? Why is everything so symmetrical?”
“What about the inside of the house?”
“If there really is someone living here, don’t they need electricity? Why are all the wires cut?”
Zhao Mingyue muttered.
A few steps brought her to the kitchen, where everything was spotless. Wood was stacked neatly in the corner, and instead of a gas stove, there was just a wood-burning stove. Judging from the ash above, it had probably been used recently.
On the wooden table by the wall, there were bowls, chopsticks, and a kn*fe; the open cupboard revealed some unspoiled vegetables. In stark contrast, a piece of rotting, foul-smelling pork hung on the wall.
From the details, this person didn’t seem dirty; everything was organized well. How could they allow a piece of decaying, stinky meat to rot in the kitchen?
As she entered the kitchen, Zhao Mingyue took care to search thoroughly. Everything was spotless.
“How peculiar.”
Standing at the kitchen door, she glanced across to the opposite kitchen, which was also pristine. A piece of fresh pork hung there, not a single fly in sight.
“Now this is reversed—isn’t the rotten vegetable hidden down there?”
“Such a freak.”
Back in the courtyard, Zhao Mingyue didn’t rush to the opposite kitchen. Instead, she firmly gripped the Magic Girl staff behind her and stepped step by step towards the living room directly facing the entrance.
The living room door was slightly ajar, and she could vaguely see a few people seated inside.
“There’s definitely something in there; everyone sitting inside is a corpse.”
Lu Liangting chimed in, pushing the door wide open. Just as he said, inside were four people around a table: two men and two women. Among them, two were barely in their twenties, while the other two looked like parents, heads bowed, their skin withered and blackened, resembling corpses.
Their hair was dry and matted against their scalps, with eyes long since decayed, leaving only haunting black holes.
The room had a nostalgic decor, reminiscent of styles from twenty years ago.
Yellowed walls, peeling posters, an old calendar, and a solid wooden cabinet accompanied by a dusty Guanyin Statue. The ceiling was un-finished, looking exactly as it would have in its original state—rows of red reeds and straw amid mud, resembling cement, with big beams and bamboo, everything feeling so primitive.
The absence of lights in the courtyard was understandable, but there were none in the house either!
On the table surrounded by the four corpses were three white candles—two short, one long—bound together by a dozen red threads, all crisscrossed, tying back to the four corpses.
Essentially, those four corpses and the three candles were united as one, even having their arms pressed together in a form of devout prayer.
Zhao Mingyue stood at the door, her gaze slowly rising to the Guanyin Statue facing the entrance. Covered in dust, its head was wrapped in a red cloth, while the body remained exposed.
Whoosh! Shadows flickered in the two nearby rooms. Inside, Zhao Mingyue felt several pairs of eyes staring at her from the darkness, unrelentinly watching.
If this had happened to her when she had just entered this world, she would’ve screamed in fright. But now? She felt utterly different from her old self.
At worst, this level of bizarreness was just strange, not genuinely terrifying.
You had to admit, seeing this in daylight was hardly better than at night.
Obscured by the resentment of the Evil Ghost, the daytime light felt devoid of warmth—icy cold, really. Such dark hues couldn’t provide a single shred of safety, only a deep, pervasive unease.
Suppressing her urge to ask Bai Yu questions, Zhao Mingyue focused on the details she had uncovered since entering here, trying to piece them together.
“The Ghost Gate is over here.”
Lu Liangting walked into the room to her right.
There was still some stuff left in the living room, but when he opened the door to a nearby room, there lay four coffins lined up neatly. All were pitch black, sealed with red lines, and covered with talismans bearing red characters on a black background. The characters seemed similar to the talismans from Eternal Life Village, but not entirely the same.
Three of the coffin lids were tightly shut, while one remained open, revealing the corpse of that old man who had attacked Li Tianan!
“It’s him.”
Zhao Mingyue found herself utterly baffled and glanced up at the black-hole-like door facing the coffins.
This Ghost Gate didn’t just start on the door; it was opening into the wall, a pitch-black abyss. From this Ghost Gate, threads of black were spreading, wrapping around two of the corpses in those coffins.
Suddenly, Zhao Mingyue understood why Lu Liangting was so anxious; this Ghost Gate was devouring the resentment of the Evil Ghosts around!
She was certain she wasn’t seeing things—the substances flowing from the Ghost Gate, looking like bl**d threads, were visibly absorbing the Evil Ghosts’ resentment from the air.
“It’s definitely man-made. Who on earth did this? Are they raising ghosts or what?”
Not daring to touch the Ghost Gate or the coffins, Zhao Mingyue looked at the old man who was as pale as paper yet showed no signs of decay, then at his hands, dark as a beast’s claws. The desire to reach out was quickly dashed.
“Bai Yu, tell me there aren’t actually zombies in this world?”
Shoving aside task-related matters, this was still something she had to ask.
“There are! The ones in Eternal Life Village are zombies.”
“So they do exist!”
“Sure, but they’re not the kind you think. Especially when they’ve got Evil Ghosts possessing them.”
Bai Yu had a premonition.
This place wouldn’t also be some kind of redemption task for someone, would it?
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Please leave a ticket on your way out; I’m doing the splits here!
