"Hello, cousin Xiao Yuan, my na is Jiang Yan, and I am Yang Jian's girlfriend,"
Jiang Yan greeted her warmly, polite yet adorable.
Liang Yuan just blinked her big eyes and looked at her, seemingly pondering sothing or sizing up Jiang Yan. After a while, she smiled and said, "Hello, auntie. Auntie, you are so beautiful, my cousin must like you a lot."
Auntie?
Hearing this, Jiang Yan's smile instantly froze, her heart grew cold.
It was one thing for Yang Jian to call her auntie, but she hadn't expected his cousin to do the sa.
The most infuriating part was that she couldn't refute it, since Yang Jian's little cousin seed to be about fifteen or sixteen years old, almost ten years younger than her, and calling her auntie seed quite reasonable.
"I can't get angry now, I absolutely can't get angry. I'm about to et Yang Jian's relatives, and if I embarrass myself this ti, he won't bring over again next ti."
Jiang Yan reassured herself silently, trying to maintain a good image.
"Auntie, your skin is so white. Are you sick?" Liang Yuan asked again.
"No, my skin is naturally very white," Jiang Yan said with a smile.
Liang Yuan nodded and said, "If your skin is that white, ghosts might target you at night, and you would die very quickly, cousin. Maybe you should find another girlfriend."
"Wha, what..." Jiang Yan's mouth twitched.
Who talks like this?
"Alright, Xiao Yuan, where do you want to go shopping? I'll accompany you," Yang Jian said.
Liang Yuan smiled and said, "I want to buy a raincoat over there. It's been raining a lot lately, and I don't want to get wet every day."
"Okay," Yang Jian nodded.
On the way there, Jiang Yan followed behind. Taking advantage of when Liang Yuan was picking a raincoat, she tugged on Yang Jian's arm and whispered to him, "Yang Jian, don't get mad at what I'm going to say, but I think your cousin is a bit off... She seems strange."
As she spoke, she pointed to her head.
"Nothing's wrong with her head, her thinking is very clear. Her reaction just now showed that she's been influenced by sothing, I noticed it long ago," Yang Jian whispered, "No matter what Xiao Yuan says, don't take it to heart. Just think of her as a sick person."
"I'm not that petty to hold a grudge against a child. I'm just worried about your cousin. If there's sothing wrong, we can take her to Dachang City for a check-up," Jiang Yan said.
Yang Jian nodded slightly, "I'll arrange that."
Jiang Yan acknowledged and didn't gossip about the matter anymore. She trusted that Yang Jian could handle it; it was an instinctive trust.
While accompanying his cousin and her companion shopping, Yang Jian noticed she bought many odd things: a raincoat, yellow joss paper, so candles, and even several sharp fruit knives, which unnerved him the most. Her companion didn't seem to find it odd; it seed normal to them.
"What are you buying these for?" Yang Jian asked.
Liang Yuan smiled, squinting her eyes, "I need them. These things get used up quickly, and the ones I bought three days ago were already gone. The scalpel I used just now didn't feel right to , it's too thin and hard to hold."
"..." Yang Jian didn't know what to say.
"Where do you usually use these things?"
Liang Yuan frowned as if trying to rember, then seed unable to recall, "I don't know, I don't know where they get used, but I always feel like I need them."
Having mory problems?" Yang Jian pondered.
If that were the case, he couldn't glean much information from her. But the more he thought about it, the more he felt that sothing was not right in his hotown, and it wasn't as peaceful and harmonious as he had imagined.
After a round of shopping and acquiring all the strange items, Yang Jian finally drove the three of them toward the village where his family lived.
The roads were good despite the rural setting, making the drive quite convenient. However, as they were on their way, he saw several unusual vehicles driving from the opposite direction. As Yang Jian rolled down the window, he slled a very familiar scent.
It was the faint sll of corpse.
The vehicles were hearses, carrying bodies inside.
Through the rearview mirror, he glanced at the vehicles that had passed and saw a dead body covered with a white cloth. Out of curiosity, he opened his ghost eye, ignoring the barrier to take a peek at the body beneath the cloth.
It was stiff and ice-cold, wet all over like it had been drenched in rain. The most sinister aspect was one of its hands tightly clutching its own neck, the fingers dug deep into the flesh as if they had pierced its own carotid artery, the blood had literally drained out.
As a result, the corpse looked pale and stiff.
What struck Yang Jian most was the expression on the dead man's face.
It wasn't fear or despair, but a kind of fierce and vicious look, as if he had been fighting desperately with sothing.
But in this condition, could it be that he was fighting against himself before death?
"An abnormal death. But that person probably wasn't from my ho village, more likely soone from a nearby village," Yang Jian thought to himself, as his previous unease grew stronger.
Sothing definitely happened here,
but the area was under the administration of Dachang City.
That ant Yang Jian was responsible. If there had been a supernatural event, he would have been notified. So why hadn't he heard any similar reports from Zang Hua?
Was it because there were so many incidents that this one, being less serious, had been overlooked?
Or was there another reason?
With various doubts in his mind, Yang Jian drove to a village located about five or six kiloters from Yang Town.
ishan Village.
The na of the village was strange, as there were neither plum trees nor mountains here. It was unclear why it had been given such a na; perhaps changes over hundreds of years had altered the landscape.
The village was very quiet.
Like most villages across the country, the young people had all gone out, and so of the villagers had followed suit, leaving not too many people behind. However, with the year-end approaching, so people who had moved away were returning to their hotown, albeit still seeming sowhat deserted. It seed that young people were getting busier with work.
"Xiao Yuan, is your friend also from our village? If not, I can take her ho first," Yang Jian asked.
"Of course, she is now living with , she's my best friend," Liang Yuan said with a smile.
Yang Jian felt a bit odd but didn't ask further, and imdiately drove into the village before finding an open space to park.
"Cousin, we'll go on ahead then, see you tonight."
The mont Liang Yuan and her friend got out of the car, they waved cheerfully, then quickly ran into the village with their belongings and swiftly disappeared around the corner.
"Alright," Yang Jian nodded.
His cousin's house wasn't far from his ancestral ho, they were all in the sa village, after all.
"Your ancestral ho feels so peaceful. Can I co to stay here often with you in the future?" Jiang Yan stretched lazily, feeling the air was fresh and the ambiance quiet and serene, very comfortable.
Moreover, it was only after arriving here that she really felt like she had beco Yang Jian's woman.
Yang Jian didn't speak, but went straight to his old house.
His family's ancestral ho had seen so years, built during his father's lifeti. Its style was sowhat outdated, though back then it was one of the finer hos in the village. Now, however, it was completely behind the tis.
Quickly.
A two-story concrete house ca into view.
Long-standing disuse had left the house with so moss, and various signs of aging and abandonnt gave it a slightly sinister feel.
But inside, the house was clean. There was hardly any clutter as no one lived there, and since Yang Jian's mother, Zhang Fen, had co back several days earlier and aired out the place, there were no strange slls either. It was fairly refreshing and tidy, fit for a brief stay.
But what Yang Jian cared about was not this. He went straight up to the second floor.
There was a seldom-used room on the second floor, long kept closed. It used to store miscellaneous items, but ever since his father's death, it had beco the place for his portrait.
Jiang Yan followed behind, curiously surveying the surroundings.
She felt an inexplicable panic, uncomfortable with the old house, as if she had previously experienced so paranormal event. She didn't dare fall behind, fearful that if sothing unexpected occurred and she was a step late, Yang Jian wouldn't be able to protect her.
"Could my own father have been a man who dealt with paranormal events?"
Driven by curiosity, Yang Jian went straight to the room where his father's portrait was placed.
Since his father had passed away so long ago, and with his current state of mind, he felt no sense of grief, everything was very calm.
Upon opening the door.
A fairly ordinary old wooden table was before him with a black-and-white portrait on it, next to which were so incense burners for offerings.
The man in the portrait was a youthful twenty-sothing—not a photo taken at the ti of his father's death, but from an older picture produced posthumously, which is why it felt sowhat incongruent.
The young man bore a high resemblance to Yang Jian.
With a smile and radiant charm.
Give it a few more years, once Yang Jian matured a bit, worked out more, and acquired a bit more of a sunny disposition, he might bear an even closer resemblance to the person in the picture.
Therefore, if soone thought the person in the photo wasn't Yang Jian's father, probably no one would believe them.
When Jiang Yan saw the portrait, she hastily bowed in respect, then prepared to light so incense.
Yang Jian watched silently, observing not with the eye of a worshipper but through the lens of the Ghost-Eye Yang Jian.
"Nothing abnormal."
He felt sowhat disappointed yet sowhat reassured.
There was nothing in the room worthy of his attention, nothing peculiar at all.
"However, I can't be so hasty. Old Qin's words piqued my interest; a person of his stature wouldn't utter such irrelevant words without a reason. If he spoke, there must be a cause. This portrait room was set up later—I should search for places my father frequented or spent ti in before his death."
Yang Jian pondered.
He felt he had been looking in the wrong direction.
"Yang Jian, aren't you going to pay your respects?" Jiang Yan handed him so incense sticks, then said.
Yang Jian fell silent for a mont, took the incense sticks, bowed to the portrait of this stranger who was his father, and then left the room.
But when he turned to leave and closed the door behind him.
It was either a trick of the light or so incomprehensible occurrence.
The man's face in the portrait was shrouded in darkness, casting an enigmatic presence, as if soone hidden in the shadows was watching everything here.
The lit incense gave off a subtle red glow, flickering unsteadily, slowly extinguishing.
"Our room is right here. My mom has already cleaned it up. If you're tired, you can rest first, and you can also bring things from the car, as we might stay here for several days," Yang Jian said as he walked into the next room.
It was a plain and clean bedroom.
"Um, Yang Jian, next door is... your father's portrait. Isn't it a bit scary to stay here? I don't an any disrespect, my courage is just a little small, you know that," Jiang Yan said, a bit nervous.
Yang Jian replied, "I've checked just now, there's no problem, and besides, if anything happens, aren't I here? What are you afraid of?"
"Then I want to be with you at night, you can't sneak off on your own," Jiang Yan said.
"Okay," Yang Jian didn't refuse but nodded.
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