Chapter 77
Chapter 77
On the full moon of the fifteenth, Yin energy reached its peak. At midnight, every demon and monster emerged to breathe the night air. Under the influence of that energy, creatures wearing human skin often revealed their true forms.
A wise person stayed home that night with doors and windows closed and Demon-Expelling Talismans securely posted.
But to those who considered themselves even wiser, tonight presented a rare opportunity.
“Junior Brother, this is the most dangerous night of the month. If the dead souls lingering here emerge and we capture one for questioning, all the better!”
The junior followed his senior into the estate, his heart in turmoil. Too anxious for a real response, he offered a perfunctory grunt.
The estate had been abandoned for more than ten years. It should have been overrun with weeds and ruined walls. Instead, it was clean, as though someone had repaired it.
Red silk and lanterns hung everywhere, while double-happiness characters covered doors and windows. Their festive presence made the surrounding cold even more unsettling.
The brothers had encountered strange phenomena before. They knew places steeped in resentment sometimes preserved the appearance they wore at the moment of death. But no place they had visited had suffered so many deaths, and that made them deeply uneasy.
The junior peered nervously into the darkness. “Senior Brother, was Shen Manor holding a wedding before the disaster?”
The senior felt uneasy too but hid it. “I investigated the Shen family. They made medicines, and any pill they sold could command a fortune. But I never asked whether they were preparing a wedding.”
Touching the Demon-Subduing Sword restored some courage. “I remember now. Young Master Shen was still quite young before the massacre. Perhaps disaster struck while the family prepared his wedding.”
“The Shen family was a century-old clan. They should have possessed methods to fight demons, yet more than seventy people died without intact corpses overnight. Senior Brother… was it done by a person or a monster?”
The senior could not say. “They were rich and possessed a peerless treasure. It is natural that envy brought bloodshed.”
In a world overrun by demons, no one knew when death would arrive. The destruction of the Shen family was only one tragedy among many. No one cared who the true killer was.
Wind suddenly stirred the shadows.
The junior darted behind his senior.
The senior raised the Demon-Subduing Sword. When he saw only moving branches, he glared. “Stop jumping at shadows. When we swindled that man out of his entire fortune and he drowned himself, you weren’t afraid.”
“That was different!” the junior replied, face pale.
The senior led him onward.
Clouds covered the moon, leaving everything dim and indistinct.
Huddled together, they whispered, “We’ll search every room. An estate this large may conceal secret chambers or dungeons. We cannot overlook anything.”
A branch caught the junior’s robe. He jumped like a startled bird and crashed into a rockery. Something triggered, and a hidden passage opened behind it.
The brothers exchanged a glance and silently agreed to descend.
The passage was lightless. The senior lit a fire stick and drew courage from the Demon-Subduing Sword as they descended step by step. Air in this place, untouched by sunlight for years, was damp and oppressive.
The hidden chamber appeared to have served as a dungeon. A small square window in the wall should have admitted air and daylight, but someone had maliciously blocked it from outside with stones, turning the chamber into a black cell.
The junior suddenly whispered, “Senior Brother… there’s someone over there!”
The senior nearly jumped too. Looking carefully, he sighed in relief. “Only a skeleton. Stop making a fuss.”
Bleached bones lay in the corner, still dressed in expensive clothing. Chains bound the wrists and ankles, and a rope encircled the neck, suggesting brutal imprisonment before death.
The senior noticed a jade pendant at its waist. He picked it up and read the engraved characters. “Chunqiu.”
The junior remembered. “Young Master Shen was named Shen Chunqiu!”
He had been a brilliant, handsome youth, a dragon among men and the Shen family’s chosen heir. Wherever he went, he commanded even more attention than Gentleman Yanyu did now.
When news of the massacre spread, countless people mourned that such disaster had befallen Young Master Shen.
The junior frowned. “If Shen Chunqiu was the family’s heir, why was he imprisoned here like an animal until he died?”
His senior could not understand either.
With a crack, the skeleton twisted its neck and raised its skull. Empty sockets stared at them as its jaw opened and closed.
“Have you come to make friends with me too?”
The junior screamed and fled up the passage.
The senior tried to draw the Demon-Subduing Sword, but for some strange reason, it would not leave its sheath.
Chains clattered as the skeleton slowly stood. “Have you come to make friends with me?”
The senior screamed too and ran with the sword.
The brothers burst from the passage and fled blindly. They crashed through some unknown door and found twisted corpses lying in pools of blood, their own flesh stuffed inside their mouths.
When they turned back, the nearby pond had become bloodred. Severed arms and legs bubbled to its surface.
Clouds parted to reveal a dark red Blood Moon over the black estate, transforming it into a hell of slaughter.
Countless corpses appeared wherever the brothers ran.
Some hung upside down. Others lacked limbs. Still others had backward heads and mouths stuffed with one another’s eyeballs.
No human killed this way.
A savage demon had slaughtered the family!
They crossed into a courtyard where dark red candlelight glowed coldly. The supposedly festive color resembled blood dried for years.
Several banquet tables stood within, surrounded by mutilated figures.
A woman’s face had been torn away.
A man lacked every limb and half his head.
Cracks ringed the children’s necks, leaving their heads wobbling in the wind.
An old man’s head drooped while one eye hung free and the other threatened to fall.
Yet gongs, drums, and wedding music continued, making everything more absurd.