He had also tried to use a stick to lift the body up, but after all, it was a person, and a stick could hardly leverage much force. To drag Ancestor out, he would at least need to reach his hand in, grab hold, and then pull it out. But doing that might trigger unknown risks.
Ti was becoming more urgent, only a small bit of the candle remained, and the light was gradually dimming. With no other options, Lou Huixiang directly scattered the ashes into the pond, and this ti, as the ashes touched the water’s surface, bubbles started erging from the pond, the bubbles increasing in number as if the water was about to boil.
Seeing this, Lou Huixiang felt assured, his complexion visibly reddened, he stared intently at the water’s surface. Once the ashes reacted, it must be Ancestor below, Nalan Shuo’s unaccomplished task, he, Lou Huixiang, had done it!
But before he could revel in his excitent for long, a shadowy figure floated up from beneath the water. At the sight of the person, Lou Huixiang was taken aback. Although the figure was hunched over with its head bowed, it was definitely not the Ancestor, and the clothes were that of the servants in the mansion.
He imdiately realized this person was one of the mansion’s servants who had disappeared while searching for the Ancestor, supposedly hidden away by the Ancestor.
But now it seed, this "hiding" was not so simple, for what lay before him was a corpse!
He now understood why even the strong Nalan Shuo had failed here; this place was too sinister, the Ancestor was much more difficult to deal with than they had anticipated. He had clearly found the loophole, but who could have expected, it was a decoy.
Overwheld by fear, Lou Huixiang turned and ran, or more accurately, hurried away as fast as he could. He had to leave this place while the incense and lanterns still lasted.
But it was already too late, his steps grew increasingly difficult, and the area of the pond had invisibly enlarged many tis over. When he looked up, panic quickly spread over his face. He saw that the edge of the pond had disappeared, and at his side were countless small puddles, each reflecting his current disheveled appearance.
The next second, his reflection in the puddles suddenly grinned, silently laughed, its eyes seeming to seep blood, turning into resentful, blood-red eyes, staring deadly at him.
Under the gaze of these blood-red eyes, Lou Huixiang felt as though he was suffocating; he knew he had lost, and there was no escape from tonight’s predicant.
In his final monts, his mind flashed through the recent events like a montage, finally realizing sothing—they had all been calculated against, by the old man Xiang Fengchen. His previous statent about paying the price of three to four people wasn’t a casual remark. They, the pioneers, had to pay a trendous price to rid the courtyard of abnormalities, and each corpse of a servant once "hidden" by the Ancestor would beco a proxy ghost for the Ancestor. Only by removing these nail-like proxy ghosts and driving the Ancestor into the attic, could they stand a chance.
Xiang Fengchen had also ntioned that it was a rare full moon tonight, the Ancestor could absorb the essence of heaven and earth in the courtyard, he suspected that in the courtyard this old thing might indeed be invincible.
The next second, the remaining candle fla could no longer hold, and with a "pop", it extinguished, and the figure of Lou Huixiang in the pond disappeared.
...
"Drip."
"Drip."
"Drip."
Almost simultaneously, a stealthy figure stepped into the courtyard gates, it was Fang Zhou, who first stood outside the courtyard gate carefully observing for a long ti, seeing no issues, then stepped inside. However, imdiately he discovered sothing more terrifying—as if there were no problems, that in itself was the biggest problem, after all, two persons had arrived here before him, with the first being the predecessor Nalan Shuo.
Upon entering the courtyard, he tiptoed, straining his eyesight to look around ticulously. The courtyard was spacious with many concealed spots, but he found no trace of the previous two.
After recognizing the situation laid before him, Fang Zhou turned left as they had agreed, heading toward the first designated area.
The arrangent here was relatively simple, the only things to be mindful of were a small stone hut built near the corner of the surrounding wall, and a water well.
For safety’s sake, Fang Zhou first carried the lantern around this area, not venturing too deep, but just observing from a distance.
Temporarily, nothing unusual was observed; the door of the stone hut was open, and several wooden boards lay scattered around the edge of the well. Fang Zhou judged that these were likely done by the previous two persons, as these two spots were very conspicuous and most likely to hide soone.
Because of the terrifying mories brought by the water well back at his residence, Fang Zhou instinctively chose the stone hut first among the two options. When he walked up to the door of the stone hut, he stopped, removed the Life Burning Incense kept in his chest pocket, took a deep breath, a determined glint flashed in his eyes, and then he lit it.
He knew he wasn’t comparable to Nalan Shuo, even Lou Huixiang was far beyond his match, but since both had failed, coming here was almost like courting death. To save his life, he chose to light the Life Burning Incense before approaching danger.
He was still young, he could burn one or two sticks of incense, as long as he survived, he hadn’t to worry about running out of resources. The top priority at the mont was to survive.
Let alone one or two, if really pushed to the limits, he would burn three or four sticks.
Only when Fang Zhou brought the thoroughly red incense in contact with the fla did he truly feel its profound effect; the incense burned unexpectedly well, almost the mont it touched the candle fla, it ignited, simultaneously emitting a mist with a hint of a bloody scent.
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