Chapter 75: Forsaken Village
The car drove along the increasingly dilapidated country road.
As Bai Gugu had said, this country road had no forks; one only needed to drive straight to reach Jiding Village.
She had also said that although the bamboo forest was rumored to be haunted and located deep within the sparsely populated mountains, some people actually still lived there.
However, two years had passed, and it was uncertain if those villagers were still there.
After driving for an unknown amount of time, the car slowly stopped.
Liu Haoyu and the other person had arrived at Jiding Village.
Although it was only six o’clock in the evening, all the houses in the village had their lights turned off.
They weren’t abandoned; people still lived in the houses.
Perhaps due to fear of the rumors about the bamboo forest being haunted, they had turned off their lights and gone to bed early.
Liu Haoyu mused as he got out of the car.
The car could not go any further.
After passing Jiding Village, they still had to trek for two kilometers along a rocky path.
This path was very narrow, only wide enough for one person to pass. It was unclear how long it had been abandoned, as even the entrance to the path had been intentionally blocked by thorns and bushes.
“It seems we can only go this far.”
Liu Haoyu shouldered all his gear.
For this mission, he had prepared more thoroughly than usual.
He even brought three spare batteries for his flashlight.
However, even with this full preparation, Liu Haoyu’s heart still couldn’t settle.
“Hoo…”
To calm his nerves, he slowly exhaled, then moved aside the thorns and branches and entered the path.
Inside the path, it was as if pesticide had been sprayed, with large patches of withered grass growing on both sides, making it look exceptionally bleak.
Furthermore, the path was lined with abandoned rice paddies. Since no one had cultivated them for years, they were now covered in yellow weeds. If it weren’t for the outlines, Liu Haoyu would have mistaken them for empty land.
“Qin Liu, are you alright? Are you feeling unwell?”
Liu Haoyu wasn’t very confident about capturing Gu Qianyang and needed Qin Liu as a last resort.
However, he absolutely wouldn’t use this last resort unless it was absolutely necessary.
“No… No.”
Qin Liu was very calm now. For some reason, although she had felt a bit of fear in the eucalyptus forest, she felt uncharacteristically calm here.
“That’s good.”
Liu Haoyu, holding his flashlight, led the way. Once they entered this path, they would be very close to the bamboo forest Bai Gugu had mentioned.
“Follow the path straight, and after entering the bamboo forest, turn right… Oh, I see the bamboo forest.”
Through the gaps in the weeds, Liu Haoyu could already see the outline of the bamboo forest. It was no exaggeration to say that this bamboo forest was very large, no wonder it was called a forest.
However, although he could see it, it was still a distance away, and it would take some time to walk there.
“What you see, I see…”
Just as Liu Haoyu was thinking, his mobile phone suddenly rang.
This startled him.
He had turned on airplane mode before setting off, so how could someone still be calling him?
Liu Haoyu immediately took out his phone. The screen displayed garbled text.
This made him frown slightly, but regardless of who it was, he decided to answer the call.
“Hello…”
“Hello, hello, hello? Can you hear me?”
The voice on the other end was female.
Hearing this voice, Liu Haoyu couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief.
“White Impermanence, hello.”
“We are ready to act. Gu Qianyang is following us. Now is the best time.”
“But we don’t know how long we can hold him off, so please hurry.”
After hearing Bai Wuchang’s words, Liu Haoyu nodded heavily.
“I understand.”
Now that Black and White Impermanence had started their plan to lure the tiger away from home, it was time for him to act.
Fortunately, with Bai Gugu’s help, it wouldn’t have been easy to find that desolate grave.
Walking along the path, the weeds on both sides became shorter and shorter, and finally, the entire view opened up.
What appeared before Liu Haoyu was a forsaken village built in an open area.
They were all old wooden houses with tiled roofs. Most of them had collapsed, and only a few were still standing.
Bai Gugu had said that this was the original Jiding Village, but because the bamboo forest had been expanding outwards year by year, all the people had moved to a new place, which was the village at the entrance of the path.
That place was a bit of a distance from here, but not too far.
Perhaps it was due to their roots and nostalgia, but these people were unwilling to leave this place.
The tiled houses at the original site of Jiding Village were covered with weeds, even the roofs. Many of the tiled houses had been crushed by these weeds.
Standing in the village and looking in all directions, apart from the withered weeds, there was nothing else.
It was like a strange world devoid of life, eerily quiet.
The sunset also began to set slowly, and the night enveloped the land.
As darkness fell, the inauspicious grim silence spread from Liu Haoyu’s limbs to his brain.
Qin Liu swallowed hard at this moment.
She said to Liu Haoyu.
“It feels like… something is watching us.”
Qin Liu’s spiritual sight was much stronger than Liu Haoyu’s. Even without activating her ability as a guide, she could feel eyes upon her from all directions.
And after nightfall, this feeling of being watched became even more intense, but no matter how she looked, she couldn’t see any trace of people here.
This meant…
There were ghosts in this village, and more than one.
Liu Haoyu understood this as well. He held the flashlight in his left hand and the axe in his right, vigilantly scanning the abandoned tiled houses in the village.
Under the erosion of years and time, the houses here emitted a strong and damp fetid smell.
Even though Liu Haoyu was some distance away from these houses, he could still smell the strange odor of old houses.
For this reason, he put on a gas mask.
After putting on the mask, the smell dissipated a lot, but he could still smell a trace of it.
“Let’s go.”
To get to the ridge in the southeast, they had to pass through this forsaken village.
Liu Haoyu walked ahead. The houses on both sides of the path had their doors wide open, like terrifying abyssal mouths. The deeper they went, the more intense the feeling of being stared at became for Qin Liu.
Fear grew in her heart, and her gaze involuntarily swept over the surrounding houses.
The tiled houses here had no windows, only doors, and they were all open.
It felt very wrong.
As the two of them passed by a ancestral hall, Qin Liu finally saw the source of the gaze.
She saw a pale and creepy figure crouching in an abandoned house, staring directly at her.
Upon closer inspection, that person was the owner of the burger shop…
