Chapter 2

Chapter 2

On my last day in Western Hunan, Tong Fusheng called me and asked to meet in the Ailao Mountains. At the time, I found it bizarre, so I looked up some information on the area.

Located in central Yunnan, the Ailao Mountains have been the site of several large-scale, mysterious deaths throughout history.

As far back as the Qin and Han dynasties, the Dai people established a powerful regime there called the Ailao Kingdom. During the Han Dynasty, General Song Yue led over a hundred soldiers deep into the Ailao lands, only for the men to suddenly and mysteriously drop dead.

When they were discovered, their bodies bore no wounds, their clothes had been removed, and their faces were fixed with faint smiles.

This was no isolated incident. During the reign of Emperor Kangxi in the Qing Dynasty, the remnants of Wu Sangui’s forces fled into the Ailao Mountains and met the exact same fate.

The most sensational case in recent years, however, occurred just last year when four geologists entered the Ailao Mountains for a survey and went missing. When they were found, all four were dead. The state of one victim’s body was particularly eerie: he had stripped off his clothes, exposing his stomach, and a smile lingered on the corners of his mouth-identical to the historical accounts.

“Master Qiao, don’t worry. There’s nothing strange about that place. The temperature difference between day and night there is huge; those geologists died of hypothermic shock. It’s summer now, so it’ll be hot. The production crew is well-prepared, so there won’t be any problems.”

Zhao Sisi didn’t take it seriously. I gave a reluctant nod, but in my heart, I knew the situation was far from simple.

Tong Fusheng had bribed someone close to Liu Xiong to get that call to me, but how could he have predicted the future? How did he know for certain that I would end up going to the Ailao Mountains?

Unless he had investigated the Jiang Family’s background beforehand and had one of his own people planted within Zhao Sisi’s production crew.

Jiang Haoyan had clearly reached the same conclusion.

“Sis, I’m coming with you. Just tell them I’m your assistant.”

Mr. and Mrs. Jiang couldn’t talk him out of it, so they could only agree.

Before we even set out, the production crew had already started generating hype online.

The guests they invited were all A-list and B-list celebrities, making Zhao Sisi stand out like a sore thumb among them. For a while, the public was rife with criticism, claiming she must have bought her way into the cast.

“Who cares if she’s a ‘pay-to-play’ guest? I love this show. That Hong Kong Feng Shui master they invited, Chen Zhen, is incredibly famous in Hong Kong!”

“I heard his appearance fee is in the seven figures-it’s no lower than the celebrities!”

“Aren’t there two Feng Shui masters? Who’s the other one?”

As the public buzzed with discussion, the mysterious second Feng Shui master and the “self-funded” Zhao Sisi both trended on social media.