Chapter 163: The Building

Xiao Qi had not yet fully recovered from her terrified state. Fatty and I hoisted her up and we began to sprint wildly, while the female corpses behind us gave chase with relentless tenacity. As I ran, I asked Fatty, "Fatty, aren't you supposed to be an expert at subduing demons and exorcising spirits? How come you can't even handle these corpses?"

"Dammit, these female corpses had cement poured directly over them while they were still alive," Fatty replied. "Sun Congwen can be considered a fellow practitioner in my line of work. Not only does he know the arts of extracting yin to nourish yang, but he also practices other secret forbidden techniques. He sealed the three souls and seven primordial spirits of these female corpses right inside their bodies. You might call them corpses, but they are more like living cadavers. Naturally, my corpse-suppressing talismans are completely useless against them."

"Then what would work?" I shouted at Fatty.

"Chop off their heads and they'll be completely dead! The problem is that Fatty here felt sorry for them seeing how miserable they were when they were alive, and couldn't bear to destroy their physical bodies!" Fatty said.

I pulled out the gun from my waist and asked Fatty, "Can this thing work? Can it blow their heads to pieces?"

"Are you an idiot? It would work, sure, but we are here to play the role of thieves! If you start shooting, you'll make sure that old bastard knows we've arrived, won't you? A gun is something we only use as an absolute last resort," Fatty said. He panted heavily, pointed toward a small path, and said, "Go this way. It leads straight to the small building where Sun Congwu's family is imprisoned. Let's hurry up and get down to business."

We quickly turned around. Right at that moment, Xiao Qi seemed to snap out of her daze. She looked back at the female corpses, blinked, and asked us, "What's going on? Did I take the wrong turn?"

"Seventh Auntie, you're asking us, but we should be asking you! We didn't take a wrong turn, not a single step wrong. The real question is, how on earth did you manage to wake these corpses up?" Fatty yelled.

Xiao Qi wore a blank expression as well, but she had finally recovered her wits. No longer needing the two of us to carry her, it considerably lightened our burden. Who would have known that the moment we let go of her, this girl ran faster than both of us combined. Fatty said with a wry smile, "Having long legs is truly a blessing; even running for your life is faster than the two of us."

And that was indeed the truth. It wasn't that Xiao Qi was taller than us—both Fatty and I stood around one hundred and eighty centimeters, while Xiao Qi was probably around one hundred and seventy. But when a girl stands at one hundred and seventy centimeters, those long legs of hers become exceptionally prominent. As we dashed past the corner ahead, the pavilion that Sun Liancheng had mentioned—the one where Sun Congwu's female family members were locked up—appeared right before our eyes.

This pavilion looked exceptionally eerie. Not a single trace of light emanated from within, and wild weeds grew thickly all around it. Xiao Qi took the lead and rushed forward, grabbing the main door of the pavilion, only to find it secured by a massive iron chain. There was no way we could get through the front. The problem was that directly behind this pavilion lay an artificial lake, leaving us with virtually nowhere to retreat. And right behind us, those dozen or so female corpses were still pursuing us with the fury of an irreconcilable blood feud.

"Break the door down!" Fatty shouted.

With that, he gritted his teeth and slammed his shoulder against the door. But the door was clearly exceptionally thick and heavy, and Fatty's impact only made it shudder slightly while he clutched his aching shoulder in pure agony. At that exact moment, I suddenly heard the sharp crack of a gunshot. Looking over, I saw that Xiao Qi had actually raised her gun, blown the heavy iron lock right off the door, and was now pushing it open.

"My good auntie, you actually fired a shot!" Fatty cried out.

"It's death either way. Attracting people might at least give us a chance to survive—these female corpses don't care whose family we belong to!" Xiao Qi kicked the door open and told us.

"Come to think of it, that's actually true!" Fatty stood up and pulled me straight through the doorway. Once inside, there was a wooden crossbar on the back of the door. I switched on my flashlight, and Xiao Qi dropped the bar into place. A moment later, we heard the sound of the female corpses scratching frantically at the door with their fingernails. Fatty and I braced our bodies against the door. After our frantic dash for our lives just moments before, all three of us were now panting heavily.

After scratching at the door for a while, the female corpses seemed to realize they couldn't break it down, and finally retreated. Only then did the stone in my chest finally settle. Fatty looked at Xiao Qi and said, "Seventh Girl, had Fatty known, I wouldn't have let you come. I originally thought you were just a young lady, and later figured you were at least some kind of heroine among women, but when your period started, you could have given us a heads-up sooner, couldn't you?"

Xiao Qi's face flushed crimson instantly. She glared at Fatty and demanded, "How did you know?"

"I was already suspicious when you managed to wake those female corpses up. When you were in that trance earlier, Fatty took your pulse—weren't you having your monthly flow? You didn't take a single wrong step, but the problem was you were carrying the aura of blood. When a bloody aura gets close to female corpses, how could they not rise from the dead?" Fatty said with annoyed sarcasm.

For a young woman to have her menstrual cycle bluntly pointed out by a grown man left Xiao Qi utterly embarrassed. However, she quickly recovered her composure, glared at Fatty, and retorted, "You didn't say it wouldn't work, and I didn't know!"

"Alright, now is not the time for complaints. Let's go, saving people upstairs takes priority," I said, standing up and pulling out my gun. Given how loud Xiao Qi's gunshot had been, the people of the Sun family must surely know that intruders had breached the forbidden grounds. I knew that what lay ahead might well be a fierce battle.

As we stood up, I noticed that the spot where we had just been sitting was exceptionally filthy, covered by a thick layer of dust that now coated our pants. Fatty gave a sharp slap to his backside, sending dust billowing into the air all around us. I snapped, "Stop slapping, dammit, or the rest of us are going to get consumption from breathing this in!"

After that, I clicked on my flashlight and began searching for the secret door—the small access point Sun Liancheng had mentioned where food was passed to the people inside every day. Once inside this small building, the oppressive dead silence made me feel deeply unsettled, as if no living souls resided here at all. Moreover, despite the massive commotion we had just caused, still no one had emerged. Therefore, I had to find that small door; as long as I could confirm that someone inside was actually eating, it would prove that living people still existed here. I swept the beam of the flashlight around and discovered footprints on the ground. There were two rows: one leading downstairs, and one leading back up. At the very end of the footprints, I spotted the secret door Sun Liancheng had spoken of.

These two sets of footprints gave me a very strange feeling. Logically speaking, Sun Congwu's family had been imprisoned here for a very long time, and food was delivered every day. Even if they didn't hang around on the ground floor and only came down to retrieve their life-sustaining provisions, their daily movement shouldn't be limited to just these two neat rows of footprints.

The only logical answer was that whoever came down to get the food walked up and down every single day by stepping precisely in their own previous footprints. When I was a child, if it had rained and left footprints on the path, I would sometimes be bored enough to amuse myself by walking entirely within someone else's footprints.

This didn't signify anything profound; it only proved two simple words: utter boredom.

To be trapped in this lightless pavilion for more than twenty years must have been excruciatingly dull. If it were me, I probably would have gone completely insane. That must be why those people chose to pass the time by stepping in their own footprints.

At first, I had been debating whether taking this risk was worth it. But the moment I realized we might actually rescue such people, I felt that no matter how great the danger, it was entirely worthwhile—especially since these people were, on another plane, the closest blood relatives of our eldest brother.

"Let's go," I said to Fatty.

The three of us headed straight toward the staircase. Just as we passed the corner of the stairs, I glanced upward—and that single look startled me so badly that I staggered backward. For right there at the landing of the stairs, I caught sight of a pale, deathly white human face, secretly peering down at us.

"Who's there!" Xiao Qi shouted, raising her gun.

"Don't shoot! It's the people we're here to save. Don't shine the light directly on her—she hasn't seen light for far too long, and you'll blind her!" I told Xiao Qi.

Xiao Qi immediately lowered the beam to sweep across the floor. Meanwhile, I called out toward the staircase landing, "Are you Sun Congwu's family? We're here to rescue you."

To my surprise, the moment I finished speaking, I suddenly heard the sound of frantic footsteps rushing up the stairs. For reasons unknown, the person turned and fled rapidly toward the upper floor.

We quickly hurried up the stairs. The stench on this upper level was enough to make my stomach churn. Perhaps they were using this area as a toilet, or perhaps something else—in any case, it was a foul mixture of all sorts of sickening odors combined. Xiao Qi swept her flashlight beam across the room and saw that the floor was covered in a hybrid mess of excrement and various debris. Unable to stomach it any longer, she rushed to the corner and began to vomit.

By the dim light of the flashlight, I spotted a lump of shadow huddled in the corner, trembling violently. I adjusted the flashlight to its lowest setting and diffused the beam through my clothing, making the illumination extremely soft. Looking through the dim glow, I felt as though I wasn't looking at a human being at all, but rather a massive, tangled mass of hair.