CHAPTER 50: CHAPTER 50: ABANDONED FACTORY

This factory hasn’t seen anyone in who knows how many years, with a thick layer of visible dust accumulated on the floor and furniture. Walking across it, Sun Yan could even leave clear footprints.

The room was probably used as an office, furnished with a desk and a bookshelf with cabinet doors, but now it’s completely empty, with useful items taken away long ago.

Sun Yan reached out to open the cabinet doors one by one, not leaving any potentially corpse-hiding spots unchecked.

The best scenario would be that the special corpse isn’t hidden in places ordinary methods couldn’t reveal, like embedded in concrete walls or buried underground, which Sun Yan didn’t want to see.

"Hmm?"

When he opened the last cabinet door, the photo frame inside made Sun Yan freeze momentarily.

How could there be a photo frame left behind in such an abandoned factory?

Was it overlooked during cleanup, or was it left there intentionally?

Sun Yan picked up the frame and blew the dust off it, revealing a yellowed photograph before his eyes.

In the photo, several medical personnel in work attire, all Caucasian, were holding some infants and smiling at the camera, with an iron cage placed at the feet of one of them.

Inside the cage was a curled-up figure, and due to the age of the photo, Sun Yan couldn’t clearly see what was inside the cage, only vaguely discerning that the creature’s head was significantly larger, about three times the size of its body.

After removing the photo from the frame, he found a series of English words written on the back, meaning ’This is a gift from the ancestor, and we will rise because of it’

"Ancestor." Sun Yan murmured this name to himself, realizing the abandoned factory once held a much more complicated role than it seemed.

Though unknown events led to the migration of the factory’s personnel and its subsequent closure.

He put the photo in his pocket since it might serve as a clue, and perhaps he could ask members in the Folklore Association about the identity of those Caucasians in the photo.

Having thoroughly searched the room, Sun Yan turned to leave, heading to the next office to continue his investigation.

But as he turned around, a figure suddenly floated past the doorway, appearing so abruptly he couldn’t get a good look at it.

He immediately dashed out of the room, but outside there was no sign of anyone, with the ground floor of the factory eerily empty and silent, offering no place for someone to hide.

Instinctively looking up towards the factory’s second floor, Sun Yan’s pupils dilated.

There, behind the second-floor windows, stood a dozen men, motionless but seemingly staring at Sun Yan with the backs of their heads.

Reaching into his pocket, Sun Yan took out the General Sun Mask and put it on, gripping the Ghost Torturing Stick and heading for the stairs, rapidly ascending to the second floor.

Since inheriting the graveyard, he had encountered quite a few evil spirits, and seeing such scenes didn’t cause him to react with the fear ordinary people might.

Evil spirits and demons, hit them first and deal with them later. If the Ghost Torturing Stick doesn’t work, he might have to let General Sun possess him.

When he reached the second floor, the men’s figures from the windows had already disappeared.

If it were an ordinary person in such a situation, they would have turned and fled far away.

But Sun Yan wasn’t fazed; instead, he felt more composed. It seemed those figures he saw weren’t particularly powerful evil spirits.

The hallway had three rooms, the first of which had its door welded shut with more than ten iron bars.

The other two doors – one had a Jesus Cross crucifix hanging from it, the other was adorned with dried garlic.

"This place seems to have been suppressed by exorcists due to its excessive eeriness. Judging by the methods used, it should be local exorcists." Sun Yan muttered while touching the crucifix.

In the East, if there were haunted houses or eerie places, Daoists would typically set up arrays using red lines, yellow talismans, altars, divine statues, and similar items for suppression. If someone destroys the array, the suppressed spirits would escape.

Surveying the layout of this abandoned factory, Sun Yan was facing a similar situation. For safety’s sake, leaving immediately would be the smartest choice.

Yet, having gone this far, retreating halfway wasn’t an option.

Sun Yan reached for the doorknob and opened the door with the crucifix hanging on it.

Click!

Dust billowed and floated everywhere.

It was an empty room, with incomplete red hexagram patterns painted everywhere on the floor, walls, and ceiling, intricately structured and detailed; it seemed like some kind of array.

A few white candles were left on the ground, with a gentleman’s left-foot shoe conspicuously standing amongst the candles.

Scanning with his Celestial Eye, Sun Yan didn’t spot anything suspicious, so he went to open the other door covered with garlic.

As soon as he pushed the door open, a long-standing foul stench hit him, and the floor had extensive bloodstains, while various styles of mirrors hung on the walls, reflecting Sun Yan’s image.

Whoosh!

Even though all doors and windows were tightly shut, without any ventilation, at that moment, a chilling wind blew, sweeping through Sun Yan’s hair, while a mirror nearby manifested the image of a deathly pale man, staring at Sun Yan with murky eyes, seemingly ready to crawl out at any moment.

"Curse, it’s a curse!"

"Why aren’t you the ones dying?"

"Don’t! Please spare me, I don’t want to die."

Numerous wails echoed throughout the room. With his Celestial Eye, Sun Yan saw gray faces flying out from the mirrors and shrieking in agony.

One of them, particularly daring, charged directly at Sun Yan.

Thud!

Sun Yan raised the Ghost Torturing Stick and struck, causing the gray face to disperse into mist, and a mirror shattered, breaking into several cracks and falling to pieces on the floor.

"That special corpse isn’t in here either. Could it be hidden in the room with the welded door? This would be troublesome," Sun Yan thought darkly, furrowing his brow.

Despite the numerous evil spirits inside this room, their power was quite low, not even as pressing as the female ghost by Dongmu Town’s river.

It showed how weak the exorcism skills of Buren City’s priests were, only able to suppress such low-level spirits without eliminating them.

Just as Sun Yan was about to act, to help exorcise all the evil spirits from the room, a loud noise suddenly echoed from the factory’s front door, indicating another intrusion from outside.

Sun Yan’s face changed, realizing he could manage evil spirits, but dealing with thugs was beyond him.

Especially with America allowing firearms, the danger was substantial. If absolutely necessary, Sun Yan would rather face a demon than a hostile armed human.

Quickly retreating from the room, he moved towards the corridor’s end, planning to hide and observe the situation covertly.

"Are you sure it’s this place? If I find out you’re deceiving me, I’ll break your spine personally."

On the ground floor, a blonde woman in a leather jacket dragged a man inside from the doorway, speaking with authority.