Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Without letting anything show, I tossed the shoe into the grass beside me, then walked out of the courtyard.

“Where did you go? What the hell is going on?” I asked Yang Hong.

Yang Hong sighed, still visibly agitated. “I don’t know either. It had just gotten dark, and when I saw you still hadn’t woken up, I figured I’d move the paper effigies down and burn them myself first.”

“But I was only halfway through burning them when a whole crowd appeared out of nowhere, insisting they wanted to invite me to a banquet. They dragged me off by force.”

“By the time I realized something was wrong and got away, all the paper effigies on the truck were gone.”

“Those mountain cats were like they’d turned into spirits. They kept following me. I had to circle around the village several times before I finally shook them off.”

“Where’s your son?” I looked around, but all I saw was Yang Hong. Yang Yan was nowhere in sight.

“I told him to wait outside the village. I was afraid he’d cause more trouble.”

Yang Hong kept glancing left and right. “Things aren’t looking good now. The wedding’s been ruined by those things. I think we might as well head straight into the mountains.”

“That master did a reading for me. He said this trip definitely wouldn’t go smoothly. If the wedding didn’t work out, then we were supposed to go into the mountains, find an auspicious feng shui spot, and bury the spell he gave me there to suppress that female ghost directly. After that, we’d think of a way to summon my son’s soul back.”

After saying that, Yang Hong gave me an apologetic little smile. “I’ll have to trouble you again, Brother Long. Don’t worry. Once this is over, I’ll pay you extra. Another twenty thousand. I definitely won’t let you make this trip for nothing.”

I nodded. “Since I’m already here, I’ll help you see it through to the end.”

I followed Yang Hong toward the mountains. He said we needed to find an auspicious feng shui spot, but he never explained how. He just held his phone as if he were following navigation.

The sense that something was off grew heavier and heavier in my chest. I began carefully thinking back over everything that had happened along the way.

I had set out with Yang Hong and his son at ten in the morning, and we reached the area near South Camel Peak a little after three in the afternoon.

At the time, a light drizzle was still falling.

South Camel Peak was a stretch of rolling mountains, and there was still quite a distance to drive before reaching the village.

I didn’t know if it was because we had gotten close to South Camel Peak, but Yang Yan suddenly seemed terrified. His whole body started shaking, and he kept muttering under his breath.

The moment Yang Hong heard him, he turned around and roared at him, his tone fierce. “Behave yourself. If you hadn’t been running around all over the place, would any of this have happened? Keep mumbling nonsense and I’ll deal with you when we get back!”

All I could do was try to calm Yang Hong down. I handed him my thermos and told him to pour some tea for Yang Yan.

Yang Hong thanked me repeatedly, but he couldn’t stop complaining. “It’s all my fault for spoiling the boy rotten and letting him do whatever he wanted. Of all the places he could’ve gone to have fun, why did he have to come to South Camel Peak?”

“How old is he this year? Is he in college?” I asked casually.

“No, he’s only in his second year of high school. He’ll be a senior next year, so I figured I’d let him relax over summer break. His classmates said they wanted to go hiking together, so I didn’t interfere much.”

“Then how did they end up spending the night in an abandoned village? There are plenty of guesthouses in the town up ahead.”

“Didn’t they get caught in the heavy rain? They couldn’t book a ride, and those kids were looking for a thrill, so they ran off to that village.”

Yang Hong fed Yang Yan some tea, and Yang Yan finally quieted down a little.