The Haunted Chapter 103
Chapter 102◀︎Table Of Contents►Chapter 104
Chapter 103 Gathering Yin Array
Translated by Nessie Lee
After that sentence, there was no more sound.
Chi Yan was too tired. He sat down against the wall next to Song Jin and fell asleep without knowing it.
He was shaken awake. When he opened his eyes in a daze, he saw his friend’s enlarged face. Song Jin was puzzled and panicked, “Chi Zi, what happened to us? Why are we here? I just went out to take a look and there was no one in the village. And I fainted? Yesterday after you told me to collect our belongings, I went upstairs. When I opened the door, the owner’s little girl smiled at me, and then after that I don’t know what happened.”
This matter was too complicated and there were just too many things to tell him and Chi Yan didn’t know where to start telling him. So he patted him and motioned him to step aside, stood up and looked at the idol on the altar first.
The idol was no different from what he had seen during the day yesterday. It was a small child-sized idol, wearing a black and gold mask and a red brocade, but was not as tall as the one he saw last night. So, was what he saw last night an illusion created by the interlacing of candlelights and shadows, or was it really something deliberately pretending to be the god in this temple?
In any case, they seemed to be safe now.
Chi Yan shook his head to Song Jin, “Don’t ask now, let’s go quickly and I’ll tell you the details after we’re out of here completely.”
Outside the temple, the sun was shining and the weather was just right. The sky was blue, the spring breeze was gentle, but the village was deadly silent. There was no breath of life and no sounds of human activities.
Translated by The Red Oak Tree
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Chi Yan finally remembered why he had initially felt strange and what he had overlooked – that night when they arrived at the village, it was too quiet at night. Grandpa’s hometown was also in the nearby countryside. That year when his grandma passed away, he accompanied his mother and grandpa back to his grandpa’s hometown once. He stayed at their relatives’ home that night. He could hear the cock crowing and the barking of dogs, as well as the sounds of insects and birds.
Moreover, it was early spring and the temperature had begun to warm up. All living things that had hibernated during the winter months were coming back to life, but then, no animal sounds could be heard in the village, and there were no traces of other forms of lives other than the “villagers”. His subconscious had already noticed the strangeness, but he just didn’t react at that time.
Chi Yan’s motorcycle ran out of gas, but Song Jin’s motorcycle was still parked in front of the guest house. The two of them went to pick up the motorcycle. Chi Yan didn’t speak and Song Jin didn’t dare to speak. All the villagers were dead and the desolated scene of the village made the hairs on their back stand upright.
The door of the guest house was wide open, and Chi Yan did not dare to enter and take a closer look. His sight uncontrollably drifted in from the door – a lifeless figure slumped on the counter at the door and the pale hands of the corpse dropped from the front of the counter. An old game console that had broken into two was on the ground.
Chi Yan hurriedly turned his head away. He was afraid that there would be more trouble, so he didn’t dare to enter and confirm whose body it was. He urged Song Jin to quickly start his motorcycle and left.
He didn’t let Song Jin stop until they drove out of the small road completely and returned to the big road where they found the three-wheeled motorcycle. Chi Yan told Song Jin about what happened in the village, his own experiences and speculations when Song Jin was in a coma. They talked as they looked closely at their environment.
Translated by The Red Oak Tree
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But there was still a question lingering in Chi Yan’s heart.
After listening to Chi Yan’s account, Song Jin was stunned for a long time and shook his head, “This is really…”
In the end, he didn’t say anything. All the words were pale in the face of that living hell. It was too difficult to evaluate and too difficult to describe.
He followed Chi Yan to look at the path, and suddenly wondered, “Chi Zi, isn’t this path to He Jia Village obvious? Why did we walk back and forth twice when we came to investigate with Xiao Li that day and didn’t see it?”
“Because at that time the whole village and the road into the village were enveloped by the ghost air. If it were not for a special timing, the living humans would not be able to see it, and it is as if they were under a spell that tricked the eyes.” This was also the doubt that Chi Yan had – under what circumstances and reasons could the living people see the haunted village at that time?
He looked around for a long time, but he couldn’t find any clues. There was no signal for the mobile phone and no messages could be sent, so they rode on the motorcycle back to Feng Shui Town.
After Song Jin went back, he called and reported his work. In the afternoon, a group of people rushed over with tools to the place where the tricycle was found under Song Jin’s leadership. The road was too narrow for cars to go in, so they rented two tricycles from the town to transport all the tools.
Chi Yan changed to another motorcycle to follow them. In fact, he needn’t be concerned with this matter anymore, but his doubts were unresolved so he followed them to take another look.
Translated by The Red Oak Tree
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Chi Yan watched as the professionals took photos as evidence and removed Zhu Hui’s three-wheeled motorcycle from the ditch on the roadside. He was near to the scene and happened to see an unerased cinnabar in the ditch where the tricycle had been held down.
The color of the cinnabar was extremely positive and was slightly darker than the color of blood. The cinnabar was pressed on the yellow-brown dirt ditch. Although it had no shine, it dazzled his eyes almost instantly. Chi Yan stepped forward, lowered his head, trying to see more clearly. That smear of cinnabar was not a random vertical line, but a slanted one with a horizontal point, like a part of an equilateral triangle. Chi Yan believed that he did not mistake it. The color of this cinnabar and the appearance of this symbol – this was the way the Chi family drew formations.
He had never formally learned those spells in the Chi family, but he looked at the color of cinnabar and the appearance of the symbols and formations of the talismans everyday. Later, when he left the Chi family, the big book that he took away also introduced the basic formation methods and the most basic formations.
A thought flashed through his mind and Chi Yan felt his heart very disturbed. He took two steps backwards and relooked his surroundings. A slanting branch, a big rock on the side of the road, the original position of the red tricycle… all gradually connected into a circle forming the shape of an array. He still couldn’t see the details of this formation, but could only roughly distinguish it from the outline. This was a gathering Yin array. Every evening after sunset, the ghost air from He Jia Village would gradually be directed here, thereby opening a gap. People who passed by would find this road and that village.
Before Zhu Hui’s family disappeared and the tricycle fell into the ditch, this formation was missing, it was an incomplete circle, so someone had deliberately drawn a formation in the dirt ditch to complete this array.
And that three-wheeled motorcycle might have been moved by someone afterwards, and was deliberately placed in that position.
Translated by The Red Oak Tree
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So the disappearance of Zhu Hui’s family was not accidental. Even if it wasn’t them who died at that time, it would be someone else.
The death of the two police officers was also within someone’s expectations.
There was someone manipulating and planning all of this. The ghost village may not have been deliberately caused by them, but after they discovered the situation in He Jia Village, they deliberately used it to harm the people they wanted to harm.
Ghosts eat ghosts, ghosts eat people, and people eat people. Chi Yan couldn’t even tell whether it was a ghost or a human that killed those people.
What kind of person could be the first to discover the formation of a ghost village?
And the person they ultimately want to kill…who would that be?
Song Jin and his supervisor walked towards Chi Yan. Chi Yan faintly heard their conversation:
“…The superiors specifically named you to be responsible for this disappearance case. I was still a little worried that you couldn’t do it alone. I didn’t expect you to dig out so much.”
Song Jin smiled embarrassedly, “No, no, this was all thanks to my friend, otherwise I might have lost my life. But shi fu, what happened this time was really weird…”
They began to talk about the case, and when Chi Yan was near, Song Jin introduced the two to each other, “Shi fu, this is my friend, Chi Yan. We have known each other since high school. We have a very strong relationship. He helped me with this case.”
Translated by The Red Oak Tree
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Then Song Jin introduced his supervisor to Chi Yan.
Chi Yan greeted Song Jin’s supervisor, said a few words and then pretended to ask casually, “Song Jin is kind of famous? I just overheard you saying that someone deliberately chose Song Jin to work on this case?”
Song Jin’s supervisor nodded his head and replied after not thinking too much, “Yes, I guess they wanted to give Xiao Song more opportunities to practice. I didn’t expect you both to discover something so strange in He Jia Village. This village was already very remote and out of the way, and there hadn’t been many people entering the village since winter. The villagers didn’t really come out before either and nobody bothered about this village. Who would have thought that the villagers had disappeared one by one.”
They went into the village and found the corpses of the villagers. The initial judgment was that the time and cause of death of these people were not the same. There was a full interval of more than a month between the death of the first person and the death of the last person, but none of the corpses were collected.
Even without Song Jin mentioning his supernatural experience and suspected delusions, this incident was weird enough—a family where the wife died and the husband was still alive at that time. Why didn’t the husband give his wife a funeral and a burial? According to the time of death, there were only two or three people left alive in the village. There were corpses in all the other households. Why did these two or three people who were still alive have no response? They continued to live in the village until they themselves died too? When everyone else was dead, what was the last one left alive thinking about in the end?
These thoughts made Song Jin’s supervisor shudder and gave him headaches. He could foresee that they would be troubled by He Jia Village’s problem for a period of time in the future. At this time, he did not pay attention to Chi Yan’s question. He had worked for many years and had rich experience in the industry. Although he knew that Song Jin had made use of some relationships to get into the police force, he was an enthusiastic and hard working person. He would not reject Song Jin because of this. In fact he would guide, teach and give him more opportunities to train him and let him gain more experience. This time, Song Jin was assigned to take charge of this disappearance case. He also assumed that it was probably Song Jin’s relationship with the superiors who specifically wanted to give him a chance to practise and train, so he didn’t care too much.
Translated by The Red Oak Tree
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After getting the affirmative answer, Chi Yan felt a chill in his heart.
With the power and ability of the Chi family, wanting to do this was simply a piece of cake.
So… Actually, when they used this ghost village, the person they wanted to kill was himself? Even if Song Jin didn’t come to ask for help, and he didn’t take the initiative to agree to come together, they could still use his relationship with Song Jin to induce him to come over, right?
Chi Yan closed his eyes and shook his head. The Chi family and him were like a worm and a big tree. Besides, he was out in the open and the Chi family was obscured. If Chi Rong or Chi Yuan Shan really wanted to kill him, it would really be very easy and they didn’t have to bother to spend so much effort going around in such a big circle and killing so many innocent people.
Unless… there was someone they were wary of and dared not leave evidence of murdering him, so they deliberately chose such a troublesome method, just to let him die in this ghost village without letting anyone find out about it, and that everything looked like an accident. After that, they could destroy the gathering “Yin” formation later. Nobody would find out unless someone deliberately pursued and investigated this matter.
With the Chi family being so powerful and had a wide network, who were they wary of ?
Translated by The Red Oak Tree
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