This was a desolate and dilapidated building.
Weeds overran the path, dirty, unidentifiable strips of cloth hung from the crooked branches of dead trees, appearing like ghostly claws waving at passersby from a distance.
The wall, filled with fine cracks, was covered with malevolent and horrifying graffiti.
Behind the wall stood a slanted building.
The empty windows were void of glass, only the wooden fras hung half-dangling, giving off a feeling they were about to fall but never did.
The walls bore dirty, shadow-like smudges.
This building stretched out in front of Beichuan Si, under the gradually dimming sky, emanating a mix of fierceness and chilling cold.
One of the doorposts had already fallen, showing clear marks of impact on it.
"Inagaki’s Longhouse... we’ve arrived," Beichuan Si ended the GPS navigation on his phone and let out a slight sigh.
He always kept his promises.
Since he had agreed to check out the situation for Tsukishima Risa, he naturally ca early to take a look.
As for waiting until tomorrow?
Regrettably, Beichuan Si was a man who lived by the virtue of finishing today’s tasks today. Moreover, since he was ant to visit, scouting out the situation beforehand posed no problem at all.
If there truly was nothing here, there’d be no need for him to follow a bunch of energetic college students here tomorrow.
However...
Beichuan Si lowered his eyes to look at a little girl standing on the edge of the path, her hands clutching a bunch of worn-out playing cards.
The girl appeared to be only eight or nine years old, wearing a tattered red and white little cotton jacket, her hair in braided pigtails, with snot dangling from her nose, giving her a look of wariness.
What was a little girl doing in such a place?
Beichuan Si humd lowly and walked toward her.
The closer he walked, the colder he felt.
It seed a universally accepted notion.
One would always feel a sudden drop in temperature in such haunted places, as if the warmth was forcefully pulled from his body.
It was now five or six in the evening, and it was odd for a young girl to linger in a place that seed unsafe.
As Beichuan Si moved, the little girl also noticed him.
Perhaps because Beichuan Si was expressionless and his eyes glead intimidatingly, he frightened her.
The little girl’s rosy cheeks turned pale, her little body clad in the cotton jacket twisted clumsily as if she wanted to flee.
Then—
Crash!
The little girl fell hard, scattering the playing cards all over the ground.
She scrambled to her feet, intending to grab the cards from the ground and run.
But...
"Here you go." Beichuan Si handed her the few cards he had picked up, then reached for the rest and gave them all to the pitiful looking little girl.
Seeing Beichuan Si’s non-malicious deanor, the girl quickly lowered her head, accepted the playing cards, and thanked him softly, "Thank you."
"You’re welco," Beichuan Si replied briefly, helping the little girl up, and took another glance at the playing cards in her hand.
Instead of conventional playing cards, they were part of a traditional Japanese ga called ’Hyakunin Isshu’, decorated with traditional Japanese artwork called ’Ukiyo-e’, which displayed various figures alongside corresponding waka poetry.
However, the ukiyo-e on the cards had faded, and the edges were severely worn.
"No, I’m sorry! I was rude!" The little girl, just having stood up, hurriedly bowed to Beichuan Si.
Her bow in the little cotton jacket looked sowhat bulky and awkwardly cute.
"No worries," Beichuan Si shook his head, then glanced again at Inagaki’s Longhouse behind her.
It was about ti to go in.
Just as Beichuan Si moved his step, the little girl suddenly tugged at the hem of his coat, looking worried, "Big brother... it’s better not to go in here carelessly."
In the face of the little girl’s kind warning, Beichuan Si also reached out to pat her head, "It’s okay, I’m just going in to check."
Leaving those words behind, Beichuan Si walked into the courtyard of the longhouse under the sowhat anxious gaze of the little girl.
The garden bed lay across the courtyard, with a path on the left side.
The garden bed was barren, and the soil seed hardened.
The path led directly to the front door, which was half-open with so footprints on the ground indicating that others had visited before Beichuan Si.
Beichuan Si squinted his eyes and walked on.
A cold, morbid aura danced under his gaze, ready to hamr to pieces anything that dared pop out of the shadows.
However...
The empty vestibule showed no hint of grudge.
Beichuan Si continued inward.
The crumbling wooden corridor likewise showed no traces of grudge.
The rooms where people had stayed were strewn with dirty scraps of paper, also void of grudge.
No grudge in the kitchen on the first floor.
Toilet... balcony...
Beichuan Si toured all the accessible places, finding not a trace of grudge.
Yes.
There was nothing here.
This place was just an ordinary, ubiquitous, empty abandoned longhouse.
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