Chapter 22: CH 9

The warehouse was dark and silent, cutting off all sound.

Even standing in front of the ghost child, Ning Su could only vaguely see his outline.

The ghost child was on all fours like an animal, with his hands and feet on the ground, looking up at him.

There was nothing on the side where his right eye should be but pitch black darkness, and on his left, a dim light was visible only in his remaining eye.

He was staring directly at Ning Su.

Ning Su was also looking at him, his gaze intense.

The ghost child didn’t speak, and Ning Su wasn’t in a hurry either. He slowly reached into his pocket, which contained the child’s other eye.

The child remained motionless, his gaze fixed on Ning Su without shifting towards the pocket.

Ning Su’s lips curved upward as he took out a candy from his pocket and flicked it towards the opposite wall with his fingertip.

The candy wrapped in black gas was like a small cannonball, moving at an incredible speed. The child’s eyes flashed, but before he could react, the candy had already pierced a hole in the wall.

Light streamed in through the hole and fell on the child.

At that moment, Ning Su saw the child’s face.

The child had his hands on the ground, looking up at him with his purple-gray face and only one eye, which was as black as a grape.

His right eye socket was pitch black, and it seemed to hide an endless abyss.

There was a subtle difference between the sides of his face with and without the eye, whether in skin color or some other aspect, a difference that was imperceptible at a single glance.

The child reacted quickly and rushed into the darkness, moving so fast that it was inconceivable.

What was even more inconceivable was that he crashed into a pair of straight legs.

Ning Su looked down at him, feeling happy. “Do you want to escape from my hands even in the darkness, little one?”

He grabbed the child by the back of his collar and lifted him up. “You like staying in the darkness instead of the light? That’s fine. I like the darkness too.”

Ning Su held the child and sat down, then put the child down on the ground. “Stand up.”

The child stood for the first time, wobbling like a tilting doll in Ning Su’s hands.

“Press the soles of your feet to the ground, just like you did with your hands before.”

After several attempts, the child finally stood somewhat steadily.

Ning Su was satisfied and released his grip, taking out the child’s eyeball from his pocket and making a threatening gesture, “Kid, tell me what’s going on in Huaiyang Village, or I’ll crush your eyeball.”

“...”

The child, standing a bit twisted, just stared at him with one dumbfounded eye.

Ning Su felt no shame in bullying the child. “Speak up!”

The child remained silent.

Ning Su threatened to kick his small feet. “Speak up, or I’ll hit you.”

Despite repeated threats and bribes, the child remained silent, only staring at him with his black grape-like eye and dark, hollow eye socket.

As Ning Su prepared to take some special measures, the child, who had been struggling to stand on the ground, suddenly jumped onto Ning Su.

The child’s small, icy-cold hand wrapped around Ning Su’s neck, and he buried his head in Ning Su’s neck, lightly licking it like a little puppy.

Ning Su was taken aback. He turned his head and saw the child’s delicate purple-grey skin, short eyebrows, a round head, and a small and purple mouth.

How annoying. This kid was acting cute and spoiled.

***

Zhu Shuangshuang and Chen Tian hurriedly rushed to the place where the fat man killed the black dog, along with the thin monkey.

It was one thing to hear from the thin monkey that the fat man had smashed the black dog’s head, but it was another to see it with her own eyes, especially since a day had already passed.

Zhu Shuangshuang, suppressing her urge to vomit, shifted her gaze from the puddle of mud to the still gruesome belly of the dog, and was stunned for a moment.

With an inexplicable emotion, she said to the thin monkey, “No wonder you said at the villa that it was the dog’s husband seeking revenge. It turns out that this black dog was pregnant.”

With her strong empathic ability, she had already begun to imagine the despair and sadness of the black dog when it was slaughtered, and its whimpering must have been no less miserable than the one in the villa.

Her tone was not good, but the thin monkey didn’t care at this point. He watched Chen Tian eagerly.

When he was about to collapse, the black-robed man didn’t care about him. It was Chen Tian who helped him. He now regarded Chen Tian as his backbone.

Chen Tian checked it again and said to the thin monkey, “Apologize sincerely to the black dog, and then bury it yourself.”

The thin monkey nodded busily.

They found nothing here, so after the thin monkey buried the black dog, they immediately rushed back to the slaughterhouse.

***

Inside the slaughterhouse, after the butcher cut off the cow’s head, he carried the heavy cow body outside with one hand holding an axe and the other supporting it.

When the players saw he could drag a five or six hundred pound cow with one hand, their fear of him deepened, and they all stepped back to make way for him when he lifted his foot.

The butcher dragged the cow onto the dirty chopping board on the ground, lifted the axe and chopped the cow while saying, “The slaughterhouse closes at 4:30 p.m.”

The sharp axe “cracked” and broke the cow’s bones one by one, and blood splattered on the butcher’s apron, chin, and hair, and then dripped from his chin onto the yellow soil.

The players understood he meant to drive them away, and they didn’t dare to go against him. After hesitating for a moment, they began to walk out.

Su Wangsheng immediately hurried to the corner of the small warehouse and called out, “Ning Su!”

Upon hearing the call outside, the child around Ning Su’s neck suddenly looked up and disappeared in the next second.

This time, Ning Su didn’t let him escape easily. He still wanted answers from the child’s mouth about what was going on in this village so he could lie down for three days.

In the instant when the child disappeared, Ning Su closed his eyes and perked up his ears. His figure disappeared in place like a ghost.

In the darkness, Ning Su caught up with the child and his hand swiftly grabbed the child’s wrist.

His fair and slender hand with prominent knuckles pierced through the small purple-gray hand like a piercing through a layer of mist.

Ning Su frowned and immediately tried to grab the child’s other hand, and this time he successfully caught it.

“Ning Su! Where are you? Are you okay?” a voice called out.

Ning Su lifted his hand, but the weight was wrong.

He pursed his lips and walked towards the door, saying, “I’m here.”

When Su Wangsheng saw Ning Su, he was holding an eyeball in his left hand and a small hand in his right.

Su Wangsheng: “......”

***

When Zhu Shuangshuang and the others returned to the slaughterhouse, the gate had already been locked with an iron chain.

After Zhu Shuangshuang returned to the villa, she immediately knocked on the door. Su Wangsheng opened the door for her and she saw Ning Su sitting on the windowsill, eating lily flowers.

The warm yellow sunset was sprinkled on him, and the fine halo surrounded his soft hair. He sat upright, eating the flowers slowly.

However, in this picturesque scene, Zhu Shuangshuang inexplicably perceived a feeling of grievance.

At the banquet, he was not allowed to eat meat, so he didn’t even eat vegetables. At this point, she felt like a bad person who denied the other food and was now left to eat flowers and grass like an abused child.

Zhu Shuangshuang hurriedly gave him the candy that she had gathered from Chen Tian and the others. Ning Su’s mood visibly improved. He sat with Zhu Shuangshuang on the windowsill and ate the red lily flowers one by one.

She asked him, “Do they taste good?”

Ning Su nodded and replied, “It’s very filling. One flower should be enough for a person. Do you want to try it?”

The more she looked at the blood-red lily flowers, the more eerie they seemed. The juice in the petals looked like real blood, and the red things inside the green vines looked like blood vessels.

Zhu Shuangshuang shook her head and said, “I’m full, you eat it.”

Ning Su nodded and put another flower in his mouth. Obviously, eating flowers made him feel happy and relaxed. He swung his legs outside the window and asked Zhu Shuangshuang, “What is the zombie script you wrote like?”

“It’s supposed to be a zombie movie, but it’s actually a love story with zombies in it,” Zhu Shuangshuang said helplessly. “There’s no way around it. The market demands sweet romance dramas these days.”

Ning Su’s eyes widened slightly. “Love? Can zombies fall in love too?”

“Of course. Zombies used to be human beings, and conscious zombies must still have humanity.”

Zhu Shuangshuang leaned on the windowsill and faced the warm sunset. “As long as there’s humanity, there must be love.”

A gust of wind blew, and a wave of blood emerged from the lily flowers around the windowsill. Ning Su made a sound and squinted his eyes.

Su Wangsheng interrupted them, “You two, stop talking about lovey-dovey stuff and come down quickly. Chen Tian and the others are here.”

They had stayed in the villa last night to gather clues, and tonight they couldn’t waste any time in the villa. It was already the second night, and they had to go out to investigate.

Chen Tian and Chen Qing came to discuss their plan for the night’s operation. Before that, they exchanged some brief information.

“I’ve been wondering why this village is so wealthy,” Chen Tian said. “I didn’t expect this supernatural village to be so trendy and have live streaming. Live streaming can really make a lot of money.”

Chen Qing continued, “I wondered what kind of content the bridesmaid’s live streaming was. Her running a pet shop is also worth noting.”

“We need to focus on the bridesmaid as our key target,” Chen Tian said. “And the bride is even more important. She and Yin Daijun were both foreign brides, so following her should lead us to the cause of Yin Daijun’s death. If Yin Daijun is the ghost master, then we will solve this case.”

Su Wangsheng added, “The butcher at the slaughterhouse is also very suspicious.”

“So, tonight we will split into three groups and follow these three people to investigate,” Chen Tian said.

“Ah, today is the wedding night of the bride and groom. Do you want to go listen at the corner?”

Zhu Shuangshuang said, “Then Ning Su must not come there.”

“Ning Su: ?”

I can go though.

Chen Tian thought for a moment, “From the current situation, the bride’s side is relatively safe, but there are some strange customs. Shuangshuang and Su Wangsheng should go there.”

He already knew that Su Wangsheng was a former Taoist.

“No problem,” Su Wangsheng thought of the butcher who chopped off a cow’s head with one axe and dragged its body with one hand, and said, “The butcher’s side seems to be the most dangerous. Is it appropriate for the others to go?”

Chen Tian looked at Chen Qing with a deep meaning in his eyes. “Ning Su and Chen Qing will follow the butcher. Any problems?”

Chen Qing untied the gray silk scarf around her neck and covered her head with it.

Then she disappeared.

“...”

No wonder the fat guy was so in awe of these two people at the time. They could be invisible in certain situations and that could be really scary.

“In a critical moment, I can cover him and I with this, is there any problem?” Chen Qing stuck her head out of the gray scarf.

Ning Su shook his head vigorously with shining eyes.

“Then I’ll take someone to follow the bridesmaid and investigate her pet store,” Chen Tian said after the division of labor was discussed.

The group acted as soon as it got dark.

***

Ning Su and Chen Qing came to the outside of the slaughterhouse gate.

The iron gate of the slaughterhouse was locked. They could see the scene inside from outside the gate.

Different from the daytime, the slaughterhouse was much darker than outside during the day, but it was much brighter inside at night.

After work, the butcher lit two piles of bonfires in the courtyard of the slaughterhouse. He was cleaning the white and bloody bones under the cold moonlight.

It should be the cow in the afternoon. After he finished putting the bones together and confirmed that none were missing, he threw all the bones into a tube in the cremator.

They didn’t know what the significance of this was.

Then, the butcher carried a live pig with a rope and walked towards the cremator. He stuffed the live pig into another tube in the cremator.

The expression Chen Qing’s face turned a bit ugly. Was the fat guy also stuffed into the incinerator like this?

During the incineration process, the butcher washed his hair, which was covered in blood, flesh, and fat, by the well, and then took off his clothes to take a shower.

Chen Qing looked away.

During this time, Ning Su looked towards the small warehouse in the corner again.

When he appeared at the slaughterhouse, the child also appeared.

Perhaps because the moonlight was very bright, the child’s eye was also as bright, forming a white light.

The butcher was probably waiting for the cremation to finish, and they were also waiting.

Chen Qing’s invisibility scarf had a cooling time, so they didn’t use it at the beginning, but crouched in a corner outside the door, secretly observing.

When their legs had gone numb from crouching, the butcher finally took out the ashes from the cremator.

He waited expressionlessly for the ashes to cool, then put them into two burlap bags, tied them to his belt, and walked towards the door.

Chen Qing immediately used the scarf to cover the two people crouching on the ground.

The sound of unlocking the iron chain was particularly clear in the quiet night. When the butcher came out of the slaughterhouse and passed by them, he stopped.

Chen Qing stared at the butcher’s military green boots, holding her breath, so nervous that she didn’t even dare to make a sound.

After washing, the intense blood and fishy smell on the butcher’s body had reduced a lot, but the faint bloody smell was always there, which was difficult to dispel after long-term immersion in the flesh and blood market.

The butcher lifted his foot and walked forward.

Chen Qing breathed a sigh of relief and, after she had walked a little further away, pulled Ning Su, who was staring at something unknown, to catch up.

The butcher walked slowly in the moonlight, passing two streets and arriving at the funeral home behind Huaiyang Village.

A mountain was at the back of the funeral home. The trees on the mountain were as silent as ghosts in the night, contrasting with the dark and gloomy back of the funeral home.

Ning Su and Chen Qing looked at each other, not understanding why the butcher brought the ashes of two animals here.

Didn’t Chen Tian ask the thin monkey to bury the black dog that was killed by a rock? Was the butcher also going to bury these two animals like humans?

Soon, they found out that it was not the case.

The butcher was doing something weird and completely incomprehensible at the funeral home late at night.

T/N: Correction! Su Xiangsheng will now be referred to as Su Wangsheng. Sorry for the inconvenience. (//>///<//)

And question, would you prefer a slower update with a full whole chapter like this one or a faster update with the chapters in parts? Thank you for those who would answer! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧