Chapter 21 Xiangweng Temple ⑦ · The Terrifying Nursery Rhymes of the Ghost-Walking Family

One hour later.

When Lan Shuyin returned to her room, the relaxed expression she had been trying to maintain vanished instantly.

She looked down to check the footage in her camera—the video was complete, and with a little editing, it would be enough to get the job done.

But simply fulfilling a task is not the purpose of this trip.

She wanted to see if the mastermind behind the repeated threats and phone calls would reappear.

She was fed up with being watched from the shadows and living a life of suspicion. Even if she was truly haunted by something unclean, she was determined to find out what was going on.

However, she did not expect that this time at Xiangweng Temple she would actually encounter a "ghost" lingering in the human world, rather than a living person pretending to be a ghost.

Everything that happened in the tomb came flooding back like a tidal wave.

In fact, Lan Shuyin had a vague guess the moment she saw Chen Yi's feet disappear. So when her guess was confirmed by Wei Li, what arose in her heart was not fear, but a heavy sense of pity.

No wonder Kui Li made no attempt to conceal his use of spirit summoning; he probably realized from the beginning that the team wasn't made up of living people.

She should have felt scared or backed down.

However, perhaps due to an unusually high level of acceptance, or perhaps due to the emotional influence she had been exposed to since childhood but which was suppressed by reason, she felt an unusual calm when she witnessed the dead come back to life.

But I'm a little confused: what kind of obsession kept that team lingering deep within Xiangweng Temple even after their deaths? Was it an unfinished exploration? Or a commission from the Jiang family?

—The Jiang family was not the main contributor to the construction of Xiangweng Temple. Back then, they were merely vassals of the Qiangquan Fengzhi family.

Kui Li's words echoed in my ears once again.

Lan Shuyin opened her laptop, took out a piece of white paper and a pen, and began to review the events.

She had searched for the name "Feng Zhi Zhao Yin" as soon as she received the first note, but to no avail.

This time, she tried a different approach, typing "Qiangquan Fengzhi" into the search box.

The moment I pressed the Enter key, the screen lit up, and a relevant message finally popped up.

It was an old blog posted many years ago by an anonymous blogger, whose posts showed that he was extremely interested in all sorts of mysterious and strange tales.

The article mentions that he once traveled to western Sichuan and visited the ancestral temple of the "Fengzhi Clan," a once-famous family of shamans who had been lost to history.

The blog post describes how the Fengzhi clan has passed down a mysterious ability through generations: the ability to walk in the underworld.

It is said that they can communicate with the underworld and even control spirits, and that members of their family are born with extraordinary spiritual awareness. They firmly believe that their bloodline is connected to an ancient spirit, and that serving and communicating with the underworld has been their mission for generations.

Because of these extraordinary abilities, the Feng family was once highly sought after by the powerful and wealthy, and had great influence and voice in the Qiangquan area.

However, the blog also mentions that, according to local oral traditions, this powerful family eventually declined because a certain matriarch gave birth to twins.

This caused great division and panic within the Fengzhi family, which highly values ​​the purity and uniqueness of bloodlines. It was seen as an ominous sign that might taint or even split the core of the family's power.

The last sentence of the blog reads: It is said that the last patriarch of the Fengzhi family was still resentful about his wife giving birth to these twins before his death, believing that they were the beginning of the family's decline.

Twins!

The first names that came to Lan Shuyin's mind were "Feng Zhi Zhaoyin" and "Feng Zhi Zhaoxue," which are similar in meaning.

A burning sensation of getting closer to the truth burned within Lan Shuyin. She could almost feel that the answer was within reach.

After a moment's thought, Lan Shuyin opened the long-abandoned blog interface, even though the blogger hadn't logged in for seven years. Clinging to a sliver of hope, she sent a private message.

The goal of the person behind the scenes is clearly inextricably linked to the Fengzhi family.

Therefore, the key to uncovering the truth probably lies in the past events surrounding that deserted temple and Feng Zhi Zhaoxue.

Lan Shuyin turned off her computer, turned her gaze to the deep night outside the window, and made her decision.

As soon as it was light, she went to Xiangweng Temple again.

...

As night fell, a black SUV without any markings silently drove into the quiet streets of Ganli County, eventually disappearing into the shadows next to a grocery store that had already closed.

As the car door opened, Yao Huaiyu from the Qinyang Special Bureau stepped out first.

He was still wearing that red and white uniform, but his brows were furrowed with a melancholy and coldness deeper than the night.

Two capable team members followed behind him, moving swiftly and scanning the sleeping street with wary eyes.

"Team Leader Yao, the coordinates Chen Bin provided are for that mountain hollow ahead." A team member, staring at the faintly flickering detector in his hand, lowered his voice and said, "There's an ancient temple up there. Chen Yi and his team encountered an unexpected rockfall on their way to that temple..."

Yao Huaiyu hummed in agreement, his sharp gaze fixed on the distance—in that deeper darkness, the undulating mountain silhouettes resembled a lurking beast.

The Blood Orchid of the Breath of Earth was snatched away right under his nose, and this mistake felt like a poisonous thorn in his heart. Although he did not suffer severe punishment on the surface, he clearly felt the reduction in the bureau's resource allocation and the loss of trust.

"Chen Bin mentioned that his brother sent back a fragmented message before he died, saying that there was an 'important object' hidden in the temple, which seemed to be a secret mission target assigned to them by the Jiang family."

Another team member added, "We've cross-checked the intelligence and highly suspect that it might be the lost sacred artifact of the Fengzhi family—the Soul-Guiding Ring. An object that is said to be able to... communicate between Yin and Yang."

Yao Huaiyu's eyes narrowed. "Be more specific."

"It is said to be a necklace made of special meteorite jade and the finger bone of the first Yin God." The team member spoke faster. "It can nourish the remnant soul, stabilize the spirit body, and even, under certain conditions, briefly open the boundary between Yin and Yang to communicate with the dead. The core of Feng Zhi's family's ability to become a favored family of Yin-Yang practitioners was probably this."

A sacred object for communicating between Yin and Yang...

Yao Huaiyu felt her heart pounding harder.

The value of this thing far exceeds that of a single "Blood Orchid of the Breath of Earth"! If we can really bring it back to the bureau, it will not only make amends for our past mistakes, but also be a great achievement!

He took a deep breath of the cold air, suppressing his turbulent emotions, and his voice hardened again, "The information may not be accurate, but it's worth the risk. We failed last time; this time, we absolutely cannot return empty-handed."

"Yang Hao, get your gear ready, let's set off immediately."

"yes!"

Three figures, like melting ink drops, swiftly and silently disappeared into the night.

...

"Grandma Moon, shrouded in veil, the desolate mountains and wilderness are quiet..."

"Seeing that, the dark figure smiled, his mouth stretching to the tips of his ears..."

"Not a fox, not a cat, it sits on the grave and smiles at you..."

"I saw the black weasel beckoning, its blood was scalding hot..."

"Summon your soul, awaken your spirit, run with it step by step..."

"Grandma Moon, don't look at it, or it will come looking for you..."

Confined space, suffocation.

Lan Shuyin was trapped in a thick, unyielding nightmare, her limbs and bones seemingly bound by an invisible force, unable to move.

The eerie nursery rhyme seemed not to come from the outside world, but to echo directly in the depths of her mind, repeating over and over again, without end.

She could clearly feel a cold, cutting sensation on her scalp, as if someone was cutting her head with a knife.

Strangely, she didn't feel pain; it was more like a detachment after being numbed by the cold—perhaps because a sliver of consciousness remained in her subconscious, knowing that this was just a nightmare. She couldn't feel fear, only cold.

Extremely cold.

This lingering chill clung to her for an entire night, until it completely froze her.

At dawn, Lan Shuyin suddenly broke free from that frozen chaos and woke up with a start.

The first thing I felt was cold.

An unusual, almost freezing cold.

The air conditioner had stopped working at some point, and the temperature in the room was frighteningly low. The icy air clung to her skin, feeling exactly like the numb chill in her dream.

The details of the dream were fading rapidly, becoming blurry, but the lingering nursery rhyme still echoed in her ears—

The tune, the lyrics...

It was almost exactly the same song that the eerie red-clad "cosplayer" in the hotel corridor had been humming.

Lan Shuyin stared blankly at the blurry patterns on the ceiling for a while with her eyes open.

Then I pulled out my phone from beside my pillow—it was just past six in the morning.

Without the slightest hesitation, she threw off the cold blankets and got up.

I'm going out for a bit, I'll be right back.

After sending a message to Li Yang and Xuan Bingbing, Lan Shuyin skillfully packed her backpack and quietly left the hotel alone.

After asking around several times on the outskirts of the county town, she finally found the home of the young man on the motorcycle who had given them a ride the day before.

As soon as I approached the gate, I saw him pushing his motorcycle out, cursing and swearing with a gloomy expression.

"What's wrong?" Lan Shuyin asked curiously as she went to greet her.

"Pah! What bad luck!" The young man spat on the ground and said irritably, "Last night someone sneaked up the mountain and pried open the gate of Xiangweng Temple! The inside was ransacked!"

Lan Shuyin's heart skipped a beat. "Do you know who did this?"

"What else could it be? A reckless treasure thief!" The young man became more and more angry as he spoke. "Every year, there are fools who have no sense of mortality who try to steal our deity's golden body! But don't worry, these kinds of people never have a good ending—anyone who dares to disrespect the physical body of a god will eventually die a violent death!"

After he finished cursing, he remembered to ask, "Miss, did you need something from me?"

“Yes,” Lan Shuyin replied smoothly, “I would like to go to Xiangweng Temple again.”

The motorcycle bumped along the rugged mountain road once again.

The wind howled, and Lan Shuyin casually struck up a conversation, "Are there usually many tourists visiting Xiangweng Temple?"

“Not many! Most of them come to Xiangweng Mountain for hiking. Then there are some, like the survey teams from the city. Oh right, occasionally there are city people like you who are curious and want to come to our mountain valley to experience ‘hard life’,” the young man replied without turning his head.

“Speaking of which, I really admire you guys,” Lan Shuyin continued to inquire. “You even go to the temple to volunteer and clean. Such a big, abandoned temple, and you keep it so clean.” Unexpectedly, the young man was stunned when he heard this, and his car slowed down a bit. “What volunteer? After the temple closes, we only go outside to worship. During festivals, some people will come in to do a simple cleaning, but most of the time we don’t go in.”

He lowered his voice, as if revealing some taboo, "Our God... dislikes being disturbed. If people are too noisy, God will be displeased."