CHAPTER 33: CHAPTER 23: LOOTING AMIDST CHAOS

After throwing a stone to test, finding that the talisman papers on the door had no strange effect on her, a living person, Sang Que drew a hatchet and cut open the lock on the door with a single stroke.

With a creak, the two wooden doors were pried open by Sang Que using the hatchet, a strong stench of corpses rushed out, accompanied by the jingling sound of bells.

The interior was very dark, with indistinct corners, many intersecting red strings hung with small golden bells and talisman papers.

The walls, floor, and ceiling were also densely covered with talisman papers and red runes.

In the center of the room was a long wooden table soaked with dark red stains, the only light source being the red candle with wax dripped upon it atop the table.

On the left, there was a rack holding various sizes of drums and lanterns. The drum faces were peculiar, and the lanterns resembled soul lamps but lacked runes.

In the right corner, there was a pile of bones and several vats, faded red paper on the vats read ’wine,’ and the walls were covered with a plethora of blood-stained knives and axes.

The furthest part of the room contained something undefined, too dark to discern.

Sang Que pulled out a handkerchief from her sleeve and tied it around her face, still scented with a hint of mugwort, clearing and stimulating the mind.

Sang Que threw a stone inside first, and after waiting for a moment without any response, she moved Yan Daozi’s Taishi Chair to wedge it at the doorway.

In horror movies and games, isn’t it always like that? As soon as the protagonist enters, the door closes by itself and can’t be opened again. She had to prevent that.

Taking an outside lamp and lighting it, Sang Que bent down to avoid the crisscrossing red strings and bells at the door and entered the room.

Jingling~

An eerie wind rose, and Sang Que felt a suppressive force causing the cold energy belonging to Gui Chou within her to rapidly contract.

This place indeed greatly suppressed the power of Gui Chou; Yan Daozi must have deliberately placed Gui Chou’s belongings here, waiting for it as it digs its own grave.

But Sang Que was a living person, the setup inside the room had little effect on her.

"Strange, the size of this room feels different from what I saw outside."

Sang Que tried to reduce her breathing frequency to avoid any hallucinogenic effects, holding the hatchet tightly, raising the lamp, and heading towards the deepest part of the room, to find out and leave as soon as possible.

The candle flames flickered, and the floor of green bricks was covered with a thick layer of red stains, sticky and foul-smelling.

Passing by the long table, a prone young girl suddenly appeared, her whole back skin ripped off, blood dripping down her dangling arm in a stream.

Sang Que felt a moment of daze, and there was nothing on the long table when she looked again, then a hand drum on the left rack suddenly fell down with a thud, startling Sang Que.

"Yan Daozi must have conducted blood sacrifices here, those drum skins and lantern skins, they must be human skin."

Sang Que felt a chill in her heart and quickened her pace.

Looking from outside, the room was at most five meters long and wide, but after entering, she had walked at least a dozen steps before reaching the innermost wall.

There was a black coffin under the wall, its lid open, Sang Que raised the lamp, but there was nothing inside.

"Could it be Yan Daozi prepared for himself? Where on earth are the things Gui Chou wants?"

Sang Que looked around, darkness devoured the lamp’s light, and it felt as though countless malicious eyes hid in the shadows, making her scalp tingle.

Jingling~

The bells on the red strings swayed slightly. Sang Que quickly walked to the rack on the left to inspect the drums and lanterns.

What Gui Chou lacked were the heart, arms, a pair of eyeballs, and a tongue, obviously absent from the rack.

Sang Que checked carefully and found that the stains on the floor beneath the rack differed from those around it, and the green bricks were slightly loose. Using the hatchet, she pried them open to discover a locked wooden box beneath.

Retrieving the wooden box, Sang Que hacked the lock with the hatchet, revealing neatly stacked talisman papers and two red candles inside.

Unlike the Exorcism Talismans of yellow paper and red runes, these talisman papers were all black runes on a white surface, twisted eerily as if little ghosts were dancing on the paper.

Hidden things are usually valuable, Sang Que decisively stuffed all the talisman papers and candles from the wooden box into her robe and continued to search elsewhere.

Sang Que turned around to find a Taishi Chair jammed behind her, the very one she had used to wedge the door open!

She looked towards the entrance, and as expected, the door had, at some unknown point, silently closed.

Jingling~ Jingling~ Jingling~

The bells on the red strings suddenly shook violently, the sharp ringing piercing Sang Que’s ears, and an icy breeze swept across the back of her head. Without hesitation, she turned around and slashed fiercely downward with her hatchet.

The hatchet hit flesh, stuck on a bone as the flickering lamp light illuminated the face, a chill surged straight to Sang Que’s head.