Chapter 11

Chapter 10: Changming Town 10

“What’s wrong? Are you okay?

“That… cough cough, Wan’er?”

Zuo Sanqiu’s voice woke Shi Zong.

Just now, it was as if he had entered a dream.

Upon waking, green trees had turned to withered wood, blooming flowers into rotting mud; the beautiful scenery had suddenly faded.

“Nothing. Let’s go.”

Shi Zong lifted his head and led Zuo Sanqiu deeper into the garden.

Here, weeds grew wildly, cobwebs were everywhere, layers of fallen leaves on the ground had decomposed into thick soil; one had to step carefully to avoid falling.

Buildings were scattered irregularly, wooden doors and windows rotted, walls and roofs covered with vines, barely showing their original color.

After walking for a long while, they finally saw a house that was still relatively intact.

It was a single-story, ordinary house with white walls and green tiles, some walls eroded by ivy. Yet around the house, there were few leaves or dust, and the entrance had a pebble-paved path with faint footprints.

It seemed that someone came here occasionally.

The house was square and plain. At the entrance stood two grotesque and fierce stone statues, resembling man-eating demons.

Strings of coins hung under the eaves, each tied with a strip of slightly strange red silk.

The door was covered with strange symbols, like a kind of formation.

Shi Zong tilted his head, studying the symbols and memorizing them, then pushed the door open and stepped inside, closing the door behind him.

Inside, it was very bright, lit by row upon row of lamps.

Each lamp had a burning wick in one end, immersed in clarified butter, housed in semi-transparent glass.

The faint aroma of butter filled the air, and the bright light illuminated row after row of wooden plaques.

In the center, the most noticeable plaque bore three lines of words, left to right: “Everlasting,” “Spirit of Ye Yuanshan,” “Immortal Glory.”

Looking at the other plaques, the middle character of each line began with “Ye.”

All these plaques were spirit tablets!

This room was dedicated entirely to the Ye family!

The sheer number of tablets suggested the Ye family had once been prosperous, a major clan.

But why had Jiang Wan’er never heard of the Ye family?

Changming Town had three major families—the Li, Wang, and Zhang families.

Their estates and territory formed the “wealthy district” of the village, separated from other areas by a river.

The three families each controlled one of the three gold mines and held the most power in this enclosed village.

So why did a Ye family appear out of nowhere?

An unusually large inn that shouldn’t exist.

The inn had once been a large traditional garden.

The rooms were fairly clean, indicating someone occasionally cleaned them, but there seemed to be no proper staff running a business…

All the clues pointed to one possibility—

A Ye family had existed here.

After the Ye family was destroyed, their former estate was converted into an inn.

But the inn wasn’t genuinely run as a business.

The purpose of converting the Ye estate into an inn was only to hide something.

But why hide it?

The wealthy district was tightly controlled by the three major families—who would they fear discovering this?

It could only be Jiang Wan’er.

Originally, there were four major families; now only three remained.

Perhaps the existing three families had together destroyed the Ye family and divided the gold mines, gaining their current status.

So someone must have tampered with Jiang Wan’er’s memories.

To prevent familiar gardens from triggering her true memories, the estate was converted into an inn.

The entire Ye family had been exterminated, and due to hatred and resentment, the spirits gathered here and refused to leave. The three families dared not destroy the entire garden outright, instead they enshrined or suppressed the spirits here.

After all, this was the home of the deceased spirits.

Placing them here and preserving the garden as much as possible might calm some of their resentment.

Furthermore, if reinforced with formations, the spirits would be restrained from leaving the Ye estate and harming the three major families.

Could it be this way?

If so, why did Jiang Wan’er live in the Ye family?

Her surname was Jiang, not Ye. Was she the Ye family’s adopted daughter?

Or…

Jiang Wan’er’s extreme desire for marriage—could it be because she once loved a Ye family young master but never married him, leaving a lifelong regret?

Born in the slum, perhaps once a servant in the Ye family?

Shi Zong’s mind brimmed with thoughts as he walked toward the spirit tablets for further investigation.

But as his gaze landed on the tablet with the words “Ye Yunfeng,” a sudden, sharp pain shot through his head.

The pain struck unexpectedly, spreading like a web from his temple across his entire head. Shi Zong bent over in agony and collapsed sideways to the ground.

A dull pain followed in his chest. He opened his mouth to cough, but the simple action felt as if it would shatter his entire body.

“What the… what’s wrong?!”

Zuo Sanqiu’s panicked voice sounded distant and muffled.

Shi Zong croaked, “Take me out of this inn immediately.”

Not just this room.

Completely out of the Eternal Burial Inn.

Seeing Shi Zong like this, Zuo Sanqiu feared he too might be affected if they stayed longer.

Although trembling with panic, he quickly lifted the weak Shi Zong onto his back and hurriedly left the way they had come.

Shi Zong was tall, fortunately Jiang Wan’er’s body was medium-sized and very thin, and Zhang Ye’s physique was decent, so Zuo Sanqiu did not struggle much carrying him. They soon returned to the main street.

Resting at a street corner for a while, the discomfort in Shi Zong’s chest and head finally subsided.

He stood and walked a few steps, then looked back at the old garden. The sunlight reflected off the inn sign, “Eternal Burial Inn,” making him squint instinctively.

Eternal Burial Inn, the Ye family, Ye Yunfeng, Jiang Wan’er…

At this moment, he understood a very critical piece of the puzzle.

Zuo Sanqiu looked at him with lingering unease. “That place is really creepy… what’s going on?”

“From the moment I saw the stone lions and the formations at the door, I felt uneasy.”

Shi Zong asked, “You don’t feel anything at all?”

Zuo Sanqiu shook his head. “I don’t feel much. But all of this—”

“Shh.”

Shi Zong suddenly interrupted, making a silence gesture.

Faint footsteps echoed somewhere. Shi Zong immediately turned and pursued.

He ran from the main street into an alley, then around to the back of the house, and indeed saw a figure.

All the NPCs had inexplicably vanished.

Now he had caught one.

The person’s legs moved awkwardly. Shi Zong caught up effortlessly, pressed him by the shoulder, and said in a deep voice, “Don’t run.”

The person froze.

His body tensed, and as his head slowly turned toward Shi Zong, his neck made audible cracking sounds.

When their eyes met, the person’s face immediately turned ashen.

His eyes widened, pupils contracted, mouth opened in a scream, and then he fainted, seemingly scared unconscious by Shi Zong.

“What… what is happening?”

Zuo Sanqiu, following, froze, then heard a sneeze from a nearby room: “Achoo—!”

“Shut up! Didn’t I tell you to hold it in?!

“You can’t let her hear! You’ll get our entire family killed!!”

The scolding followed from inside the room.

The voice sounded deep and muffled, as if coming through thick wooden boards.

Shi Zong’s suspicions were further confirmed.

He exchanged a glance with Zuo Sanqiu, then kicked through the thin window and leapt inside.

It was a bedroom.

On the table sat tea not yet cooled. The floor was half clean, half with dust. A broom lay across the middle.

It looked as if someone had been sweeping but left in a hurry before finishing.

Inside, Shi Zong quickly scanned the furnishings and looked at the only large piece of furniture—a wardrobe as large as a wall.

The earlier child’s sneeze and mother’s scolding had come from inside this wardrobe.

Without delay, Shi Zong approached, pulled the door open, and saw a woman of about forty covering a child’s mouth with her hand.

The mother’s eyes widened, the whites tinged with blue streaked with red veins, her gaze filled with utter terror. Her lips trembled, unable to muster the strength to even scream.

Looks like I guessed right.

Shi Zong thought—

The weddings with the two Li brothers, with Wang Zhi’en, and the fourth one last night that Zhang Ye and I couldn’t complete—all were ghost marriages.

But the ghosts weren’t those men.

I am the ghost.

The entire town disappeared overnight because everyone hid.

Why?

Because they feared me.

A mother and daughter trembling in the wardrobe from deep terror, looking small, pitiful, and helpless—anyone seeing them would be reluctant to harm them.

Zuo Sanqiu almost empathized with them and felt sorrow as well.

The next moment, Shi Zong mercilessly grabbed the woman by her collar, forcing her head up to face him.

Expressionless, looking down from above, Shi Zong said coldly, “Tell me, why do you fear me?”

The woman shivered and stammered, “Because you… you are the most terrifying vengeful ghost… you’ve killed many people… you killed the entire Ye family!!!”

Author’s note:

So here comes the romance line.

Childhood: ?