Yu Huaiyao never thought that his cousin would die unexpectedly. His body was found in an abandoned factory, and the time of death was around midnight.
Three other bodies were found at the scene with him, two men and one woman, who also died at midnight. All four died in horrible conditions, and were barely recognizable.
He was the one who went to claim the body, but he didn't dare let his mother see it.
But no matter how they checked, they couldn't find the cause of death.
The police came to investigate whether there was anything unusual about the deceased before his death, but everyone said that Yu Huan had no abnormalities before his death. In the end, this matter could only end in suicide.
Yu Huaiyao closed his eyes and recalled what his cousin once said.
"Do you believe there are ghosts in this world?"
He didn't believe it before, but now...
Yu Huaiyao stared at the screen and saw a series of information he had found, and sighed deeply.
ghost…
The lights in the research institute suddenly flickered. Yu Huaiyao stood up, pinched his brows, and prepared to go home.
He didn't notice that on the restored folding screen with a painting of ladies behind him, one of the maids suddenly smiled broadly and looked at Yu Huaiyao with sidelong eyes.
The latter turned off the light and left.
Yu Huaiyao received a call the next day from a middle-aged policeman named An Ru. Yu Huaiyao was very impressed by him because he heard that the other party's son was missing and they had been searching for him for a long time but couldn't find him.
What Anru told him surprised him even more.
"Officer An, are you saying that there might have been a fifth person present on the night they died?" Holding the phone, Yu Huaiyao felt that this was very important information. He didn't notice that his breathing became disordered for a moment.
On the other end of the phone, An Ru's appearance would certainly be shocking to others if they saw him. In just over half a month, he had lost a lot of weight, his beard was untidy, and his hair was messily stuffed into his hat. He blew out a smoke ring and said, "There's no need to call me police officer. I've resigned. I found out about this matter by myself. Although I'm not sure, I see that you seem very concerned, so it's better for me to tell you."
Yu Huaiyao wanted to ask more, but the other party directly gave him a place and time: "If you want to know, let's have a face-to-face interview."
After saying that, the person on the other end hung up the phone.
An Ru turned his phone back to silent mode and stared at a building in front of him without blinking.
According to the investigation of the private detective hired by his wife, Xiao An had met this girl before. The girl's friend also died in the accident.
Lin Chu walked to the window and pulled the curtains. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the man disguised as a sanitation worker hiding behind the tree again.
She was being followed again.
Thinking of this, a hint of coldness flashed across Lin Chu's eyes. She pretended not to notice, closed the curtains, turned off the lights, and lay on the sofa with her eyes closed to rest.
Her home had changed drastically. In order to prevent anyone from breaking in, Lin Chu collected all the notes on the wall and cleaned it thoroughly, leaving it unrecognizable from its original appearance.
Only on the TV cabinet at home still there is Yu Xianguang's portrait.
When Lu Yanli opened the door, the four of them were shocked by the scene they saw.
It wasn't particularly weird. On the contrary, not only was there no sea of blood or corpses as they had imagined, but the lights were on. Several staff members were resting on the sofa. When they heard the door being pushed open, they all turned their heads and looked over. One of them asked in surprise, "Why are you here? Sorry, this place is not open to tourists."
This made them at a loss for words. Yi Yun whispered, "They don't know?"
Indeed, they looked like normal people in some way. The computer beside them was playing white noise of heavy snow and fireplace sounds. The sound of rain outside the window seemed to have subsided, no longer threatening to overwhelm them.
Wang Pengfei was also confused and puzzled.
A staff member came over and noticed that they had some injuries on their bodies. He couldn't help but be alert: "What are you doing here?"
Yi Yun was afraid of a conflict, so he quickly said, "We came here to visit, but it was raining heavily and we couldn't leave for the time being. The power was out downstairs, so we wanted to come up and take a look."
The staff were skeptical, and after they gathered together and whispered a few words, they let them in.
"It's raining heavily outside now. Let's leave when the rain stops." A female staff member said, and she poured a cup of hot tea for everyone, "Come, warm yourself up."
The paper cups felt slightly hot in their hands. The staff smiled gently and brought small blankets and pillows to keep them warm.
Logically speaking, their vigilance shouldn't be so low, maybe it was the white noise that made them gradually let down their guard, or maybe it was the hot tea and snacks they brought. In short, sitting on the soft and warm sofa, watching those people busying themselves, it was hard for them to think that they were ghosts.
Lu Yanli sat alone on the side, not drinking tea or eating, just quietly watching the staff busying around.
There was a cut on his face, extending from the corner of his eye to his jaw, like a thin tear of blood. A staff member asked him if he wanted to deal with it, but he did not respond.
I always feel like... he has overlooked something. Why does this person look familiar
After taking a break, the staff got up, put on their coats and continued to work.
Only now did they have time to look around.
No wonder ordinary tourists are not allowed to enter. There are many mummies on display in the hall alone, and further in, there are some untreated wax remains. Parents who bring their children to visit may scare their children to tears.
Seeing that the staff seemed to be getting along well, Yi Yun couldn't help but move over and ask, "Have all the recently unearthed cultural relics been sent here?"
Those people were busy with their work, and few of them paid attention to her. Only the person who poured her tea at the beginning said softly: "There are still many that have not been excavated."
"I want to ask, among the cultural relics unearthed, is there a Pisces jade pendant?"
The man didn't even raise his head: "No."
Yi Yun was somewhat disappointed, and the other two also looked at each other, feeling troubled.
The mission clearly stated that they wanted to find the jade pendant unearthed from the tomb. Although there was no time limit, who didn't know that? The longer they stayed in the mission world, the more dangerous situations they would encounter.
Wang Pengfei said, "Really? There are so many things dug up, is it possible that you have forgotten? We just want to take a look."
Of course, that wasn't what he thought in his mind. After taking the jade pendant, they could leave.
The staff simply ignored them and focused on fiddling with the things in their hands.
Yi Yun watched for a long time. At first, he thought they were repairing cultural relics, but... they held various skeletons for a long time and put them down. What on earth were they doing
This time it was Jing Tao's turn to ask a question. When he asked this question, the researcher closest to the four people put down the skull in his hand and stared at them straight in the eyes.
"What's wrong?" Jing Tao's scalp tingled.
The staff member suddenly laughed and pointed at the skull: "After these things came out of the tomb, they still wanted to go back to the tomb."
What does it mean
Jing Tao didn't ask any more questions, his intuition told him to shut up. Lu Yanli tried to walk towards the door, but encountered the same dilemma as downstairs.
At this time, another staff member walked into the inner room, pushing a new corpse in, and the cart was covered with white cloth.
"New job." The staff member smiled and unveiled the white cloth.
Under the white cloth, there were corpses that had almost been drained of blood, skin and bones, bulging eyeballs, and extremely miserable death. But somehow they looked like they had just died, their skin was pale with a slight bluish tint, not the shiny brown color that would be waxed.
Two staff members placed one of the bodies in the display cabinet, reached out their hands to feel around the head, and then seemed to have touched something, and fetched some tools from the side.
Yi Yun didn't know what they were going to do, so she moved closer. As she watched, her eyes suddenly widened and a chill quickly rushed up from her spine to the top of her head.
This corpse... why does it look so familiar
The staff turned the head of the corpse over and found it was obviously a female corpse with a small mole behind the ear. Yi Yun remembered that Cao Yi also had an identical small mole in the same position behind his ear!
No wonder she felt the body looked familiar, it turned out... this was Cao Yi's body!
Yi Yun held back the scream that was about to come out of her mouth and slowly backed away, but she bumped into a cold body. Looking back, a staff member smiled and asked, "Where are you going?"
At the same time, Jing Tao also discovered something was wrong.
He stood beside another staff member and watched, but he didn't know the owner of the body, so he didn't think there was anything unusual.
But... the staff member was not wearing gloves, and large dark purple spots began to appear on his outstretched bare hands.
Commonly known as corpse spots.
Jing Tao also slowly stepped back. The busy staff looked up and smiled: "Are you leaving?"
"It's still raining outside, sit for a while."
"Stay."
Lightning flashed and thunder almost pierced the eardrums.
The staff members all put down their work at some point and just looked at them quietly. Little by little, strange smiles appeared on their faces, and their faces gradually rotted.
"Stay..."
The mummies lying in the display cabinets began to move one after another, their joints making sounds as if they could not bear the weight, and they stood up staggeringly from the cabinets and stepped out.
“Go!”
The group ran towards the door, but the door was closed at some point, so they could not escape. Faced with the mummies chasing them, they had to flee in all directions.
Another bolt of lightning struck, followed by a loud roar of thunder.
The bronze chimes neatly arranged on one wall of the display cabinets began to tinkle. The sound was dense, noisy, and had a long echo, which made people feel uncomfortable all over.
Just like downstairs, there were the most corpses chasing Lu Yanli. He narrowly avoided the attacks again and again, but if he continued like this, he would have a hard time surviving, let alone waiting for that group of people to complete their mission.
After being caught up again, Lu Yanli glanced behind him and backed away step by step. He didn't expect that the curtain behind him was not a wall, but a small compartment with a coffin neatly placed in it. He was caught off guard and his calf was tripped. Lu Yanli fell backwards and fell into the coffin.
Fortunately, he made a copy of himself in advance... As Lu Yanli thought about this, his eyes went dark.
"Wake up, who are you? Why are you here?"
When I opened my eyes again, the scene in front of me was still dark. A beam of flashlight shone back and forth, and in front of me were several enlarged faces, with eyes full of concern and vigilance.
Seeing Lu Yanli open his eyes, the staff beside him breathed a sigh of relief and continued to ask: "Why did you suddenly appear here?"
Lu Yanli did not answer, but looked around carefully.
It was very dark, cold, damp, and the smell of soil filled my nose. Mining lamps were hung on both ends, and two small paths extended out. There were a lot of tools on the bottom, which looked very familiar.
The internal structure of the tomb was very similar to the one he had seen in the forbidden area of Shangxian Village, with a small path dividing the east and the west, and a large hole in the middle.
The people in front of me were covered in dust and dirt.
"Where is this?" Lu Yanli finally spoke.
"you do not know?"
Lu Yanli had a vague guess in his mind, but he was not sure. He did not answer, and the group looked at each other.
After a while, there was another cry from the distance - someone else fell in. Not knowing where it came from, Lu Yanli saw that his eyes suddenly became alert and looked in that direction.
The next person to fall in was Jing Tao, and soon, Yi Yun also entered this space. In the end, Wang Pengfei was also discovered by the team members.
They were actually teleported to the tomb that was being excavated!
Lu Yanli was somewhat puzzled, and the three taskers secretly wondered if the task had sent them to the vicinity of the Pisces Jade Pendant? Otherwise, they had no idea where the jade pendant was, so how could they find it
Now they have confirmed that the jade pendant is definitely still in the tomb. Although it has not been dug out, at least they have a target, right
"You are really not here to steal?" The team leader was still in doubt and looked them up and down.
"Really not, we don't know why we came here suddenly." Jing Tao insisted on his side's ignorance and was reluctant to leave when the team members said they would send them out. He repeatedly assured them that they could help and would not cause trouble.
In short, under the persistence of the four people, they actually stayed and helped with the excavation.
So far, the excavation of the tomb has reached an advanced stage and is about to explore the main tomb chamber. The place where they landed is at the junction of the east and west tomb chambers.
The direction the team was heading was obviously east.
Lu Yanli followed the team quietly. The team was moving too slowly, and they had to stop and wait from time to time so that they could brush off the thick dust and record the words engraved on both sides of the wall that had not yet seen the light of day.
The other three taskers were getting impatient and wanted to start digging for treasures right away. However, Lu Yanli was very patient.
He just needed information about the owner of this tomb.
As they moved forward, the words on the blue brick walls on both sides gradually disappeared. The reason why the archaeological team members made slow progress was because they were trying to write down these words and try to translate them.
"It's really strange. This kind of writing has never existed in history... at least in our current records." The oldest middle-aged man in the archaeological team was thinking while recording, with the small notebook in his hand filled with symbols.
Lu Yanli was walking beside him and his brows jumped.
Why can he write down this kind of text, but I can't
"Excuse me, do you have any idea about the translation of these words?" Lu Yanli really wanted to know what was recorded on the wall.
The expert shook his head: "Not so fast yet. We have just found some patterns." He pointed at the notebook with great interest and said, "Look, like this, the curved streamline appears in several places. What does it look like?"
"water?"
"Yes, I also guessed it was a water character, but the evidence is not enough now, so we need to go back and study it slowly." After saying that, the expert sighed, "Never seen before characters and never seen before style of burial objects, this must be a major discovery in the archaeological community!"
As they were talking, they turned a corner and the team members in front of them were surprised: "Captain Cen, we found a mural here!"
"What?" The expert known as Team Cen rushed over quickly, and the others also rushed over. A team member was slowly using tools to clean the dust on the wall, allowing the beautiful colors on the wall to appear little by little.
It looks like this is a long mural! The others were not idle either, and they also took their tools to get to work, but the archaeological team still had doubts about these four people, and they did not let them get involved because it required more skills.
Lu Yanli helped hold the lamp for lighting, and he stood on the other side of the corridor, concentrating on analyzing the murals.
The style of the mural... is very similar to the treasure map in the home of the village chief of Xian Village and the mural in the central secret room of the forbidden area. It seems that they were painted by the same person.
However, the mural in front of him was not a picture of the Five Immortals, but recorded another story.
The first image scanned was a landscape painting, which Lu Yanli could not quite see clearly. There were green mountains and clear waters, lush forests, and many living creatures.
Further on, there is another landscape painting that is very similar, but also slightly different. Comparing carefully, it seems that the mountain in the previous painting has turned in a different direction.