CHAPTER 1144: CHAPTER 1143: SOUL-HOOKING BIRD

Ye Qiu was the top scholar in the college entrance examination, Ling Fei had long heard about this, and she also knew that Ye Qiu had saved her when she tried to jump off a building. However, she had never approached Ye Qiu since she didn’t want to bring up that incident again.

She never expected that now Ye Qiu had become so aloof.

Could it be that it’s because Ye Qiu has a girlfriend, so he’s afraid to say anything to her?

She and her father had already thanked Ye Qiu, and given his attitude, she was ready to leave first.

After taking one last look at Ye Qiu, she left the place with her father and her classmates from Jinling University.

...

The crystal coffin buried in the unfinished building was sealed with cement from the outside. After the relevant person in charge from the real estate company under the Su Group conducted a groundbreaking ceremony, they started constructing the foundation based on the new design plans.

For any building, the foundation is the most important.

If the foundation isn’t built properly, it is absolutely impossible to construct on top of it.

So, according to the new design and planning diagram, the surface was in the shape of a gigantic coffin, with a large mall in the center, surrounded by commercial residences.

And underground was a massive underground parking lot.

Now, the underground parking lot is all about deep excavation.

According to their construction requirements, they must dig at least more than ten meters deep.

A big part was left at the roughly five major positions: due south, due north, due east, due west, and the center to avoid those buried crystal coffins, while other areas were excavated according to the plan.

The project teams’ vehicles, construction personnel, and migrant workers inside the construction site were all continuously working.

After all, for them, working meant income, and not working meant they could only eat the Northwest wind.

From the last excavation, with the sarcophagus unearthed, the migrant workers and construction crew personnel believed antiques must be buried underground here.

They certainly wouldn’t dare to touch that coffin like the last time.

However, if they encountered other relics, it was different. If they found smaller artifacts, they would probably take them for themselves, and, when given the chance, resell them, possibly making more than they would from their regular job.

Since the excavation started, many migrant workers, construction crews, and some drivers discovered that the dug-up soil showcased significant color differences at different depths.

In their experience, many people must have lived here in the past.

What surprised the migrant workers was that they really found quite a lot of artifacts, like some copper coins, which they found quite a few.

However, those copper coins aren’t worth much now; even the very rare ones could barely exchange for a few thousand Huaxia Yuan at most.

Now, they found most of the copper coins were from the Ming Dynasty; some were from the Qing Dynasty and even earlier dynasties, but not many.

The other shock came when they discovered an increasing amount of bones during the dig.

At first, they assumed the bones belonged to livestock or some wild animals from the past.

Unexpectedly, someone recognized them as human bones, which seemed to have been there for a long time.

Moreover, these human bones were almost all separated, with no complete set intact.

The engineers, especially those who worked deep in the mountains, had seen such things before. As this was the suburbs, the migrant workers naturally weren’t very familiar with what was done here in the past, assuming this used to be deep in the mountains, thus explaining the many human bones as being normal.

Many human bones and soil were dug out and transported by the local construction team to be buried elsewhere.

The vehicles constantly shuttled back and forth these days, and everyone was safe, so they didn’t think much of it.

After all, earlier, because of strange events at the construction site, their work was suspended for so long. Now that they had time, they naturally wanted to finish before the snow came and earn a sum to go home for the New Year.

However, just past ten at night, people began to hear cries from outside.

Being in the suburbs with so many mountains, hearing cries was quite normal.

Therefore, no one paid it any attention.

Yet, in the dead quiet of midnight, the cries grew more distinct, preventing many from being able to sleep.

Braver migrant workers had to get up since the cries were too eerie.

When several of them took flashlights and went outside, they discovered that the cries weren’t coming from within the construction site but from a nearby mountain.

And when they heard this sound, they quickly realized it was from a bird similar to an owl, yet different.

In many places, this bird is known as the Soul-hooking Bird, and almost without fail, whenever it is heard, someone nearby will soon die.

This phenomenon is almost guaranteed.

Upon hearing that a Soul-hooking Bird was indeed calling, the migrant workers immediately got up to wake their peers, grabbing flashlights, loudspeakers, and torches to head towards the nearby mountain.

As they approached, the terrifying call of the Soul-hooking Bird became clearer.

"Daqiu, that bird seems to be up there."

"Let’s drive it away together, or kill it. My grandma said this ghostly thing is too sinister; if you hear it, someone nearby will die."

"Some time ago, didn’t the uncle and nephew die?"

"It surely wasn’t their doing."

...

"Yelling in the middle of the night, yell at your grandma!"

One of the workers took a loudspeaker and shouted, but the Soul-hooking Bird didn’t seem to leave; instead, it cried even louder, its cries growing increasingly intense.

Under such circumstances, they could only proceed up the mountain to drive the Soul-hooking Bird away.

They moved in groups of three to five, quite courageous, wielding torches and flashlights as they headed towards the Soul-hooking Bird. The closer they got, the clearer the bird’s cries became.

"Er Dan, it’s right in that tree."

They could hear it now; the Soul-hooking Bird was perched in a dense tree. However, the tree was at least a dozen meters tall, making it impossible to climb up.

So, they could only start a fire to smoke it out, and as the thick smoke drifted towards the tree, the Soul-hooking Bird seemed to fly to a nearby tree.

Yet, it continued to call.

They added more fuel to the fire, continuing to smoke it out. After about half an hour, the Soul-hooking Bird finally flew a dozen meters away.

Still, the migrant workers could hear its cries, and they couldn’t believe it would just keep calling like this.

They continued pursuing, using loudspeakers, torches, and the flashlight beams to provoke and intimidate the Soul-hooking Bird. Unexpectedly, as they chased this one bird further away, they heard the cry of another Soul-hooking Bird coming from a nearby area.