27: Despair Please add this book to your reading list and give it a diamond!

Old Master Qin’s news was too terrifying for me to bear. Tonight was the final night of my grandmother’s vigil, the most crucial few hours, and if Xu Buhuo was a fake, the situation would become dangerous. No wonder he insisted I come to chat with Old Master Qin, claiming it was to delay him, so he wouldn’t interfere secretly. Now it seemed his true intention was to prevent me from discovering what he was planning, and secondly, to stall Qin, so he couldn’t disrupt his arrangements.

The last night, the moment to draw the net closed, the more I thought about it, the more anxious and fearful I became.

“Grandpa, did you really go to West Mountain Village and find out that Master Xu, the feng shui expert, died seven days ago?”

I knew I needed to confirm this news once more.

“If you don’t believe me, you can go to West Mountain Village yourself and ask about Master Xu. Once you ask, you’ll know he’s already passed away.”

It was impossible for a village to have two famous feng shui masters with the same surname. I couldn’t understand it: I had told the village chief to invite Master Xu from West Mountain Village, but since the real Master Xu was dead, how did he end up bringing Xu Buhuo instead?

I voiced this doubt.

Old Master Qin grew agitated, slapping the table hard and muttering, “So that’s it! I wondered why Xiao Liu ended up like that for no reason. So this is the truth.”

At first, I didn’t understand what Old Master Qin had realized, but soon it dawned on me—the village chief’s insanity wasn’t accidental, nor was it the work of some mysterious third party as previously guessed.

The real Master Xu was dead, yet the village chief brought Xu Buhuo. The only explanation was that Xu Buhuo and the village chief had some secret dealings.

Either the village chief was already in contact with Xu Buhuo, and so invited him knowing that the real Master Xu had died, or Xu Buhuo intercepted the village chief before he reached West Mountain Village, claiming to be the feng shui master.

Given the village chief’s sudden misfortune, I felt the latter was more likely.

Xu Buhuo, knowing he was an impostor, feared the village chief would discover the truth about Master Xu’s death. After bringing him, he found a moment to strike, taking the village chief to Jiang Yan’s grave for sacrifice.

Otherwise, when he led me to dig up the jars of soil around Jiang Yan’s grave, why didn’t he notice anything wrong inside the grave?

It was my repeated, inexplicable visits to dig at Jiang Yan’s grave that forced him to realize he couldn’t hide the situation. Even if the village chief were found, his soul had already left his body, unable to reveal the truth—thus the grave was opened.

The village chief was the only one who might have discovered Xu Buhuo’s real identity. That’s why, when Sister Hu and the others pleaded on their knees, he sat coldly, unmoved—because he wanted the village chief never to wake.

He acted only when he could no longer delay, but he knew the village chief would go mad and didn’t warn us ahead of time, only spoke after it happened, revealing his true purpose.

If the village chief went mad, who would believe anything he said?

Moreover, over the past two days, after making the village chief fall into a deep sleep, Xu Buhuo seemed to forget about him entirely, not caring whether he lived or died.

In that instant, I understood everything, feeling my heart about to leap out of my chest.

“Perhaps, the third person I told you about before was actually him.”

Old Master Qin’s sudden speculation chilled me to the bone, even deep breaths couldn’t quell my fear.

If the unidentified third person was truly Xu Buhuo, he was far more terrifying than I’d imagined, able to lay out so many plans silently, even with me accompanying him.

At that moment, regret consumed me—I regretted not putting the pouch given by Mr. Qin inside his own bag, instead pulling it out, face full of guilt as I explained.

“You’re still too young. I know you suspect me. Let me show you what’s inside the pouch.”

Old Master Qin opened the small pouch, revealing only a few yellow talismans and some objects that looked like stones but weren’t quite stones.

“These are Southeast Asian sorcery items. They could help me restrain him at a critical moment, but now it’s too late. Even if you put them on him, they won’t work anymore.”

The self-reproach made me wish I could claw into the flesh of my palm.

“I need to go back. I must watch him, and not let him harm grandma.”

Knowing Xu Buhuo was closing his net, I decided to rush back, planning to ambush him and see what he was really up to.

“Tap, tap, tap…”

Suddenly, a sound came from the yard. I had just stepped out when Old Master Qin grabbed my arm tightly, signaling me to stay silent.

“Tap, tap, tap…”

The rhythmic sound continued, as if something was breathing. My nerves tightened—I felt something had come. Otherwise, Old Master Qin wouldn’t be so tense.

He moved to the door, turned off the light, and I leaned by the window. In the courtyard stood a figure dressed in black, its face wrapped in cloth, unseen. The strange tapping sound issued from its mouth.

No human mouth could produce such a rhythmic, bizarre noise. Though it looked human, after all that had happened these days, I sensed it wasn’t truly human.

Old Master Qin dragged me upstairs, whispering for me to move softly, warning that the thing in the yard was dangerous.

I noticed he called it a thing, not a person. Coupled with the odd tapping, I was certain it was some kind of humanoid monster—my calves felt weak.

As soon as we reached the upper floor, the tapping sounded below. Old Master Qin leaned close, whispering, “Don’t make a sound. This thing is a corpse fiend, monstrously strong, kills without blinking.”

He pulled out two talismans from somewhere, told me to keep them in my palm. His nervousness convinced me the corpse fiend below was truly dangerous. I tensed every muscle, standing motionless above, listening to its strange cries.

The talismans seemed to hide our presence. The corpse fiend wandered the rooms below, never coming up.

I thought it would leave after circling a few times, but it lingered downstairs, refusing to give up, making my anxiety so intense my whole body went numb, yet I dared not move.

It was unbearable, but Old Master Qin forbade any movement, so I obeyed.

After about twenty minutes, Old Master Qin seemed tired too, gently guiding me to the bedside, where we sat quietly, waiting.

The corpse fiend picked this very moment to appear—when I was about to spring back and ambush Xu Buhuo—and kept pacing below, like it wouldn’t rest until it found us. I suspected this was yet another trick of Xu Buhuo’s.

He didn’t want me to discover his plans, so he controlled the corpse fiend to block my exit.

Time ticked by, my nerves stretched to the breaking point as I tried to calm myself with deep breaths.

Finally, after a long, silent wait, the tapping suddenly ceased. We waited several more minutes, but the downstairs remained quiet. Old Master Qin told me to stay upstairs while he went down to check.

“Grandpa, maybe we should wait a bit longer.”

A corpse fiend was no simple matter, and after lingering below so long, I worried Old Master Qin might be ambushed.

“Don’t worry, I haven’t grown that old yet.”

Without another word, he crept downstairs. I listened intently, and just as I thought the corpse fiend was gone, a sudden crash came from below—a table being overturned.

“Ziwu, I’ll lure it away. Get back and watch him. Remember, you must destroy the ground formation before the coffin is lifted.”

Chaos moved swiftly from the main room to the courtyard, then everything fell silent.

Run.

That was the only thought in my mind. I rushed downstairs—hurriedly, even though I had a flashlight, I was so flustered I missed a step, tumbling halfway down the stairs and scraping my arm until blood flowed.

I didn’t care. In the darkness, I dashed out and ran toward the old house.

At that moment, I had only one goal: to get home as fast as possible.

But as I ran, I realized something was wrong. Old Master Qin’s house was only about three hundred meters from the old house—at most, two minutes’ run—but after a long sprint, I still hadn’t seen it.

The village roads were winding, but after ten years, I could walk them blindfolded. Yet now, after running so long, I wasn’t anywhere near the end.

Something was wrong.

I stopped and looked carefully, realizing I was still on the road between Old Master Qin’s house and the old house. I started walking quickly, but the more I walked, the more anxious I became.

I’d clearly just passed Uncle Zhao’s house, but soon it appeared ahead of me again. I kept walking, and Uncle Zhao’s house reappeared in front.

Ghost walls.

I realized I’d been caught in the legendary ghost wall maze.

Unless you knew how to break it, you’d be trapped until dawn, always circling the same spot. I was desperate—only an hour left till midnight.

The corpse fiend came to block me, then I ran straight into a ghost wall. I was increasingly convinced Xu Buhuo was deliberately obstructing me, not wanting me to witness his arrangements.

How to break a ghost wall? I hadn’t yet found the answer in my grandmother’s collection of books. I tried walking backward, sideways—it was useless. Even when I tried knocking on Uncle Zhao’s door, as soon as I approached, his house seemed to move, shifting ten meters away.

Panic and frustration made me shout loudly, hoping to attract the neighbors’ attention, but my throat hurt from yelling and no one came out.

I sat helplessly on the ground, not knowing what to do, regretting not reading faster through my grandmother’s books, because I knew there had to be a way to break the ghost wall in them.

Then, Uncle Sun Wu from the village came along, humming a tune. Hearing the noise, I sprang up and called to him, but he didn’t react.

Realizing he couldn’t hear me, I ran to block him, but as soon as I reached him, the world blurred and I found myself at his side, only to be inexplicably pulled back ten meters.

Despair consumed me. I knelt on the ground, shouting.

“Who’s there?”

Uncle Sun Wu stopped in the distance and turned his head. I hurriedly called out, saying it was me, Chen Ziwu. He looked around, but couldn’t see me, eventually turning away and leaving.

With less than twenty minutes left until midnight, I sat on the ground, powerless.

Was this the end? Was I powerless to change anything?