Chapter 42 Old Man Wu's Mud House

Sleepless through the night, this night was as wonderful and alluring as a sweet dream. I knew that the relationship between Huang Ying and me had taken another step forward.

When I opened my eyes the next day, Huang Ying was no longer on the bed. This was one of her habits; her waking time would never be later than half-past five.

I scrambled up, ran outside, and took a greedy breath of the fresh air. If one could constantly live in a place like this, average life expectancy would increase by at least ten years.

"Little Wang!" Just as I finished stretching my limbs, an elderly voice came from behind.

It was Grandpa Ke. I had asked him to address me this way; otherwise, he would call me Master Wang, which felt quite awkward.

"Morning!" I turned around and said with a smile. Huang Ying was standing beside Grandpa Ke, and she also smiled at me.

Instantly, a warm spring-like feeling washed over my heart. If I were to live in a place like this, accompanied by Huang Ying, I could live at least twenty years longer.

"Morning, Huang Ying!" This was the first time I greeted Huang Ying proactively. In the past, I always replaced words with smiles, but today I couldn't help wanting to speak to her.

"...... Morning ...... Morning!" Huang Ying was momentarily stunned before replying to me.

"Little Wang, Stone came by earlier to call for you. Seeing that you weren't up yet, he left. He asked the two of you to go to his house for breakfast after you wake up!" Grandpa Ke said in a fluent local dialect.

"Oh!" I nodded. We would have to go take a look sooner or later! Breakfast was prepared jointly by Huang Ying and Grandma Ke, and it tasted exceptionally fragrant.

After breakfast, Huang Ying and I left this place and headed to Stone's house. It was the same path as last night, but devoid of the nighttime silence and eeriness, the path looked no different from any other during the day.

The old man who had hanged himself on the tree along the way had already been taken down, leaving only a swaying rope dangling from the branch.

"Huang Ying, let's come here to spend our old age together in the future!" I looked at the lush woods on both sides and said.

Huang Ying stopped in her tracks. I turned my head to look, and she was staring right at me.

"What, are you unwilling?"

"...... Wi ...... Willing!" As soon as she finished speaking, a faint blush spread across her cheeks.

I knew that the words I just said were merely a joke. To make this wish a reality, what I needed to do was far more than just catching ghosts in places like this; there was still much to be done.

Following yesterday's route, I found Stone's house.

Looking at Stone's house at night didn't reveal much, but seeing it in the daylight was a different story.

Stone's house was quite isolated in this village. Only his family lived in this specific area, with a considerable distance separating them from the next household.

To the left of the house was a thatched hut emitting a foul stench of manure. Behind the house was a bamboo grove, not very large, consisting of only about a hundred bamboo stalks. In front of the house were trees, so there was only one path leading in—the very path under my feet right now.

When we arrived, Stone was standing outside the threshold, looking ahead.

According to Grandpa Ke, Stone was not a native of this village; his father had picked him up from somewhere outside. When he was picked up, he was only a few months old. At the time, he was a twin, and there was also a baby boy. Because the rural family could not afford to raise both, they gave the other child away the next day—apparently to a family surnamed Chen—and kept only Stone.

After Stone was brought home, his family members were overjoyed because they had no children of their own. However, Stone's growing-up years were very strange. Before the age of three, he rarely fell ill, but after turning three, he fell sick frequently. Basically, he suffered a major illness every three days and a minor one every five days. Worth mentioning was that Stone often claimed he saw things floating across his eyes. At first, some people believed him, but later no one did, thinking he was just faking it. From then on, Stone gradually stopped mentioning this matter and spoke very few words.

Hearing the sounds made by Huang Ying and me, Stone turned his head, a smile immediately blooming on his face as he came forward to greet us.

"You're here!"

"Yeah!" I replied.

"Let's go inside!" Stone walked in the front, and we followed behind.

Although Stone's name sounded very masculine, one must never be deceived by it. In reality, he was nothing like what we imagined—he did not possess a bronze skin tone or bulging muscles.

On the contrary, not only was he not strong, but he was also extremely frail. His skin was of a sickly white, and with a height of over one hundred and seventy centimeters, he lacked any substantial weight. It was visible at a glance.

I somewhat suspected that the person who gave him the childhood nickname "Stone" was simply making fun of him.

Huang Ying and I walked in, and Stone's father was sitting on a bed in the main hall.

The rural custom dictated that when a person was on the verge of death, they had to be moved out of the bedroom first to prevent them from dying inside it. From this detail, one could tell how critical Stone's father's condition had been at the time—they had already prepared for his death.

"Hello, Uncle!" As soon as I stepped through the door, I greeted politely.

Stone's father did indeed have a bronze skin tone and a body full of muscles. One could tell at a glance that he and Stone were not biological father and son.

Upon seeing Huang Ying and me, Stone's father immediately got up from the bed.

"Quick... quickly come and sit over here!"

"Uncle, is there something you needed us for?" After Huang Ying and I sat down, I thought for a moment and realized that it wasn't Stone who wanted to see us, but his father.

Stone's father picked up a piece of clothing from the edge of the bed, draped it over his shoulders, and sat on the bedside. "Thank you both for last night!"

"Actually, we didn't do anything at all!" I said. This was the truth; we had only come and sat for a while, after which that dark shadow left without us doing a thing.

"I was possessed by a ghost last night!" Stone's father said firmly. Only those who had experienced it firsthand knew what it was really like and what the feeling was.

Just like Huang Ying and me; no matter how much I talked about it, no one else could truly comprehend this feeling.

"I know!" That dark figure from yesterday should have been the entity possessing him, which later departed when we arrived.

"I know what that thing is," Stone's father said.

It was most likely something from Qingguan Pond. This was my prior guess because when Stone's father was delirious, he had muttered something about being thrown into the water. The water he referred to should be Qingguan Pond.

"It was Old Man Wu." Old Man Wu was the old man hanging from the tree yesterday.

As soon as Stone's father finished speaking, I immediately chimed in, "Impossible! He only died yesterday; it's impossible for him to harbor such deep resentment!"

"Then I wouldn't know. Anyway, what I saw yesterday was him!" Stone's father refused to change his perspective.

Looking at Stone's father's face, I grew somewhat suspicious. Could that Old Man Wu not have died yesterday after all? Yet I clearly saw him yesterday afternoon. Could he be another existence like Li Yun? This thought was quickly dismissed by me; rural areas simply didn't have the corpse-preservation facilities that Li Yun's family possessed!

"Then could you take us to take a look at Old Man Wu's house?" I asked. A person's character could be discerned from the furnishings of their room.

"Let Stone take you there," Stone's father said.

His soul must have been eroded yesterday as well; otherwise, given his physical build, he should have been able to stand up by now.

Stone nodded, then stood up and walked ahead of us.

Huang Ying and I got up and followed behind Stone.

Now I needed to conserve every single moment of time. Once I resolved the matters here, I would have to return to school.

Stone walked in the front, turning his head several times as if wanting to say something, but the words never came out.

"Is there something on your mind?" Seeing him hesitate with unspoken words, even I was getting anxious when he wasn't.

"Do... do you guys really know how to catch ghosts?" Stone asked, a look of doubt on his face.

"Of course!" I answered very directly. Although I couldn't capture those formidable ghosts, I could still handle some wandering spirits and wild ghosts.

"Then can you see ghosts?" Stone asked again.

The seeing he referred to should be those ghosts with extremely weak spiritual power. If their spiritual power was slightly stronger, like Huang Ying's, one could physically see her body.

"I suppose so!" I replied. Those minor spirits could be seen as long as some special methods were applied.

Stone stared at us for a couple of seconds, thought for a moment, and said, "Actually, I can see them too! But they don't believe me."

There were many eccentric and talented people in the world; some people were naturally immune to electricity, while others feared the cold. The fact that Stone could see ghosts only made me feel a bit astonished—merely astonished, not bizarre.

"I believe you!"

I said without a shred of doubt.

"Are there good ghosts?" Stone continued to ask.

"Yes!" I replied once more without the slightest hesitation.

"Oh!" Stone uttered an "oh" and said nothing more. It seemed he really didn't like to talk.

After more than ten minutes, the three of us arrived outside the door of Old Man Wu's house.

Old Man Wu's house was dilapidated, with weeds growing thickly all around the exterior.

"Does he not clean up around his house normally?" I looked at the weeds and dog feces surrounding the house and asked.

"Very few people ever come to his house, but he was never very clean to begin with," Stone said.

I had already noticed this yesterday afternoon; the clothes he wore were already crusted with filth.

The door was tightly locked. I heard he had no descendants and lived entirely by himself. I had never asked how the villagers handled his corpse.

"Let's go in." I picked up a stone from the ground and prepared to smash it against the door.

However, just as I approached the door and raised my hand to strike, I caught a glimpse of a moving dark shadow through a crack in the door.

I had never expected there to be anything moving inside, so I was startled by what I just saw, directly dropping the stone in my hand and taking a few steps back.

Huang Ying tightly withdrew and immediately stepped forward, shielding herself in front of me.

Stone also stared with a stunned expression at the crack in the door.

"Did you see it too?" I asked.

He nodded.

I peered through the crack in the door once more. The interior was pitch black, and the visible area was extremely small; this time, the dark shadow was nowhere to be seen.

So I bent down, preparing to pick up the stone from the ground again, when through the door crack, I spotted a pair of shoes neatly placed inside the room—a pair of very worn-out Liberation shoes.

Normally, seeing Liberation shoes in a rural area was a completely ordinary thing, but aside from the Liberation shoes, I also saw a pair of hands curled into claw-like shapes, slowly moving toward the crack in the door. Withered and deathly pale—that was my initial impression of those hands.

Just as they were about to reach the door crack, the hands suddenly vanished. When I looked back at that pair of Liberation shoes, they were gone as well.

I hurriedly picked up the stone and fiercely smashed it against the main door.

Boom...

With a loud crash, the rusted lock on the door was shattered.

I dropped the stone and pushed the door open first. Huang Ying followed closely behind me in full alert, ready to strike at the slightest sign of movement.

I understood her intentions; she didn't want me to suffer any harm.

Stone also followed behind us. As soon as we stepped into the house, a pungent and offensive stench hit us in the face.

The three of us simultaneously covered our noses. I truly had no idea how anyone could live in a house like this!