"You really have a knack for making connections."

My lips twitched as I recalled the family that had been silenced.

Their bodies were all decapitated!

"It must be just a coincidence," I muttered to myself, leading Luo Tianhe inside.

"There's something wrong with the layout of this house."

I stopped and looked around.

"What room opens directly into a courtyard just by opening a door?!"

"This is called getting straight to the point, and having great fortune."

"Is there such a saying? Luo Tianhe, you even know these things."

I put aside my doubts for the moment, only to find that Luo Tianhe behind me was frozen in place, as if he had been frozen in ice.

I turned my head and saw that Luo Tianhe's face was deathly pale, his lips trembling slightly. After a long while, he managed to squeeze out a few words through gritted teeth:

"Old Chen, I didn't say that!"

My eyes widened suddenly. If it wasn't Luo Tianhe, then who was it?!

My third eye is always open. How could I not notice if a ghost were to approach?

"Even in my condition, he can still get close to me. How much resentment must he be harboring?"

Luo Tianhe was almost in tears. From my perspective, the sound came from Luo Tianhe's direction, so I mistakenly thought it was him speaking.

However, from Luo Tianhe's perspective,

The unfamiliar male voice suddenly rang in my ears.

This terrified him.

I frowned. What "getting straight to the point and having boundless good fortune"?

There was no such rule about the layout of houses in ancient times!

On the contrary, in the eyes of the ancients, "home" was not only a place to live, but also a sanctuary.

There's a saying that people don't go out during the Mid-Autumn Festival and Ghost Festival, but what's the point of having a "gate" in a courtyard that's completely open and exposed?

This house was built to harm people!

"We can't stay here any longer. Let's find Li Huai quickly and get him out of here."

After a moment's hesitation, I decided to give it a try.

"Damn it, at a time like this, you're not still thinking, 'We're already here!'"

Luo Tianhe grumbled and cursed, but his body language betrayed him as he followed me inside.

As we passed the felled locust tree, a strange noise suddenly came from the dark "honeycomb" inside.

Luo Tianhe's figure flickered, and he quickly caught up with me, grabbing my arm.

"Holy crap, there's a ghost!"

"Nonsense, of course there are ghosts here, but those are just crows!"

I said irritably,

Luo Tianhe then noticed that crows had flown out of the locust tree.

Why didn't it fly out when you passed by?

Everyone knows you should pick the softest persimmon to squeeze.

But I didn't say it explicitly; instead, I phrased it differently:

"It's probably because the red string and copper coin on your body have too much yang energy, and these things that reside in the yin realm feel threatened."

"So that's how it is."

Luo Tianhe gripped the copper coins on his body and bared his teeth at the crows circling in the sky.

I glanced at the black crows circling in the sky, but out of the corner of my eye I noticed the cut-down locust tree.

I hesitated for a moment.

"Luo Tianhe, don't you think this locust tree seems a little closer to us?"

Upon hearing this, Luo Tianhe narrowed his eyes, examined the object carefully, and then shook his head.

"You're overthinking it, Lao Chen. How could a locust tree move?"

Am I overthinking it?

I turned my head and walked back into the house. Just as I was about to step over the threshold, for some inexplicable reason, I turned my head and looked at the locust tree again.

Seeing my strange behavior, Luo Tianhe glanced at the locust tree again, but still didn't find anything unusual.

My face turned ashen; that locust tree had definitely moved!

Moreover, it "walks"!

Those branches growing in an odd direction really do look like its limbs!

Although the locust tree has hardly moved, its branches have changed direction, just like the swaying of a person walking!

I went inside and slammed the door shut. It was unlikely to make a difference, but at least it made me feel a little better.

With a "snap," Luo Tianhe turned on the light.

"This light is of such good quality? And it still works."

This house has been abandoned for so long, and the electrical wiring hasn't been repaired. How could the lights still be working properly?!

When I opened my third eye, I saw that the lamp was indeed made of paper!

I activated my third eye and looked around. Apart from the furniture being made of paper, everything else was eerie and sinister.

Whether it was because of moving to a new house or some other reason, the red couplets that were hung up had faded and turned pale, and the paper had dried and cracked. At first glance, they looked no different from mourning sticks.

A framed photo hung in the center of the living room, showing a family embracing happily with smiles on their faces. Everything seemed normal, but I felt a chill run down my spine.

"Found him! That kid Li Huai really does live here!"

Before I could even realize what was wrong with the photo, Luo Tianhe's excited voice completely caught my attention.

He pointed to the jeans on the sofa with a delighted expression.

Judging by the style, these jeans are at most two or three years old, and my expression brightened.

"Let's go check out the bedroom."

As we talked, Luo Tianhe and I walked towards the bedroom. The door wasn't locked. We opened it and saw a figure lying on the bed. Luo Tianhe pounced on him like a wolf. Before I could even give him a signal, he slapped him several times.

Luo Tianhe didn't hold back at all, venting his resentment wantonly. If this kid hadn't found this godforsaken place to stay, would he have been scared like a coward the whole way?

"Damn it, this is outrageous!"

Li Huai, who was lying on the bed like a corpse, suddenly sprang up and kicked Luo Tianhe away.

"Holy crap, you're not unconscious?"

I was dumbfounded. It seemed like this kid was pretending to be asleep.

"Huh? You're not ghosts?"

Li Huai stood up and scratched his head. He looked at Luo Tianhe, who was clutching his chest, and felt a little embarrassed. But when he felt the burning pain on his face, he wasn't embarrassed anymore.

"That little brat, he ambushed me!"

Luo Tianhe staggered to his feet, ready to attack Li Huai. When had he ever suffered such humiliation?

I grabbed him and said, "Don't forget why we're here. The big picture is important, the big picture is important."

“I thought you were a ghost, and besides, you attacked first,” Li Huai argued.

I rubbed my face, wondering what was going on, and decided to just state my purpose directly:

"My name is Chen Yan, and I've come here specifically to find you. I've just opened a funeral home and need some employees with special talents. If you come, I can offer you double, no, triple your previous salary!"

Upon hearing this, Chen Huai became somewhat agitated. The woods outside were not a place that ordinary people could easily traverse, and most people wouldn't dare to come to such a place to look for someone.

"Brother, no, Master, as long as you take me out of here, from now on, even if you don't give me a single penny, even if my salary is the same as before, uh, even if it's 2.5 times the salary, I will obey you. If you tell me to go east, I won't go west; if you tell me to beat a dog, I won't chase a chicken!"

Well, now I know how he got into this place.