Yan Qing found it strange. She wasn't a very good swimmer, only able to doggy paddle at best. But once she was in the water, she felt a sense of warmth, like being back home.

The moment she entered the water, she seemed to hear a voice saying something, but the voice was too faint for her to hear.

Yan Qing steeled her resolve and plunged deeper into the water. Sure enough, the sound became a little clearer.

"Silly girl—"

Is this—Chu Jiang's voice?

Yan Qing was uncertain. Had she misheard? How could Chu Jiang be at the bottom of the lake?

She continued swimming downstream, but the voice never appeared again. Even Yan Qing herself couldn't help but wonder if she was hallucinating again.

The lake didn't seem very deep from the outside, but it was surprisingly vast inside. Even though Yan Qing had brought a full set of diving gear, she began to feel a little scared looking at the bottomless abyss below.

The water pressure was increasing, and the searchlight above her head continued to shine aimlessly in all directions. Yan Qing felt inexplicably uncomfortable. She tried to convince herself, just one more minute, and after that, she would turn around and leave without looking back.

Just as she was wandering around aimlessly, the searchlight seemed to illuminate something.

Yan Qing immediately perked up and began swimming towards that spot.

Turning the searchlight up to its maximum again, Yan Qing finally saw the blurry shadow underwater.

This—looks like a house?

Even underwater, she recognized it at a glance. Wasn't the architectural style of that house exactly the same as the houses that could be seen everywhere in the Zhang family's old house?

The house didn't look big, but it was clearly been flooded for a very long time. Yan Qing tossed it lightly, and a stone pillar in the corner shattered.

Then, like a domino effect, the entire house crumbled into pieces right before her eyes.

Fragments floated scattered in the water, and among the ashes and debris, a piece of white bone stood out conspicuously.

It was a section of a human thigh bone, which Yan Qing could see clearly, but when she reached out to touch it, the bone seemed to crumble as if it had melted.

My God, how many years must it have been soaking in water to rot like this!

As we continued swimming forward, more and more houses gradually came into view. Without exception, these houses all shared the unique red and black architectural style of the Zhang family's old residence, standard ancient Qing Dynasty buildings, mixed with some of the unique ruggedness of ethnic minorities.

The further Yan Qing swam, the greater the shock she felt.

A dozen minutes later, she was no longer just shocked; she was now almost certain that there was an old Zhang family mansion at the bottom of this lake!

What surprised her even more was that the place where she had stopped was exactly where she remembered Zhang Xinxin's courtyard.

Although it was underwater and had been submerged for who knows how many years, she recognized the familiar architectural style of the courtyard at a glance.

Yan Qing mustered her courage and pushed the door to the courtyard, and as expected, it had fallen apart. Dust mixed with the remnants of wood and stone turned into a pot of mush in the water, severely obstructing her vision.

Even so, she still spotted a fluttering red cloth and, beneath it, a severed hand bone. A ring was faintly visible on the bone.

Yan Qing reached out and grabbed the piece of hand bone, took off the ring, and examined it carefully in her own hand.

This ring is entirely yellow, adorned with an emerald at the top, and has developed a beautiful patina, clearly indicating its age. Moreover, despite being submerged in water for so long, it shows absolutely no signs of corrosion, despite its unknown material composition.

Yan Qing squeezed it hard; it was quite firm, so it seemed to be a good product.

Yes, she accepted it.

Let's take another look at the rest of the courtyard. It's completely broken down now, and there's nothing useful to be found.

There were four in a row in the small courtyard. One of them had fallen apart on its own, while the other three were still intact.

Given how fragile these houses were, Yan Qing dared not touch them. The remaining three, according to their layout, were the residences of the other three women in red.

However, she was puzzled. Logically speaking, Zhang Xinxin's courtyard was right across from her own. So why was it different here?

A row of four houses stood side by side. But opposite them, there was no yard. Instead, it was bare, covered with a thick layer of silt, and nothing else.

That's strange.

She had originally planned to leave the three courtyards untouched, but it seems that won't work now. There's no reason why she should be the only one missing from the four positions for the women in red!

Yan Qing finally chose one of the courtyards and tried gently touching the roof.

Huh, why hasn't it fallen apart?

She applied more force, and this time it remained intact. It seemed this little courtyard was much sturdier.

Finally, Yan Qing used all her strength and managed to pry open a small crack in the roof.

She turned on the spotlight and looked through the crack; the first thing she saw was a pair of red embroidered shoes.

The dragon and phoenix pattern, woven with gold thread, looks brand new.

That wasn't what surprised her the most. What was most terrifying was that these shoes were actually being worn by a person.

—A woman dressed in a red wedding gown.

Through the gap, she could only see a part of it. But the woman's fair hands were placed neatly at her sides, and she could see them clearly.

These hands don't look like the hands of a dead person at all! According to her observation, only a living person would have hands like this.

You see, after a person dies, rigor mortis occurs, and the body's color will definitely not be fresh; instead, it will be yellowish-brown. This is absolutely different from the pale white hand she saw.

A bad feeling welled up in Yan Qing's heart: Could there be a living person inside?

To test it, she took out the Luoyang shovel she had used before from her backpack and smashed it hard against the roof.

One, two...

After an unknown amount of time, the roof shattered with a loud crash, and Yan Qing finally saw the woman's full appearance.

To her utter surprise, this so-called "house" was merely the outer shell of a coffin. Inside, a wooden coffin sat quietly, without a lid.

The woman dressed in red lay quietly inside the coffin.

The woman was dressed in a standard red wedding gown, made of exquisite materials. Even when soaked in water, the color remained incredibly vibrant.

What was originally just an ordinary corpse, once she saw the woman's face clearly, plunged her into self-doubt once again.

—How could it be her?