Chapter 52 Tangdao Beach ③ - Of course, one wouldn't hug a dead old man...
Hong Hong thought she was terrified, so she whispered to comfort her, "Don't be afraid, that was just a prop effect."
Lan Shuyin nodded with a look of lingering fear, "Oh."
These people are funny. They rack their brains to make people believe in ghosts, but when they actually encounter something supernatural, they rush to say it's fake.
The subsequent live stream went very smoothly.
Hong Hong then pulled her to put on a wig and dressed her up as a female ghost, swaying in front of the camera several times. After cooperating with the team to complete several "high-energy" segments, the live broadcast finally ended in an atmosphere of "thrills but no danger".
The live stream ended, and some people packed up their belongings while others checked their private messages. Hong Hong finally let go of her arm. Seeing that no one was paying attention to her, Lan Shuyin was about to go to the linen room again when Zhou Xu walked over.
"Blue Ice, how are you feeling?"
"It's my first time experiencing a live broadcast, it's quite novel."
"Don't you feel like you've demystified these ghost-hunting livestreams?" He asked casually, with a hint of teasing, and then naturally extended an invitation, "Want to grab a late-night snack together?"
"No, I'm going to take a walk around the neighborhood," Lan Shuyin politely declined.
Zhou Xu raised an eyebrow and asked half-jokingly, "Wandering around alone so late? Aren't you afraid of running into something?"
Lan Shuyin gave a perfectly timed smile, a mix of shyness and curiosity. "I've never seen a ghost before. If I ever did, I'd really like to see what it looks like." She paused, then seemed to suddenly remember something. "By the way, you didn't decorate that linen room, did you?"
"No," Zhou Xu shook his head. "Why?"
“Before you arrived, I heard noises inside.” She pointed towards the linen room. “It felt like the noises were coming from behind the innermost wall.”
"Oh?" Zhou Xu turned his head and exchanged a glance with Peng Ge, who had just finished packing his equipment, and his interest was piqued. "Let's go take a look."
Seeing this, Lan Shuyin followed at a leisurely pace.
Since there are knowledgeable people in the team, it's better to use their expertise to investigate than to rush in blindly.
However, as soon as I stepped into the linen room, that feeling of being subtly drawn by something resurfaced.
To confirm, Lan Shuyin deliberately took a step back and left the room—and the feeling indeed disappeared.
Could these moldy bath towels be hiding something? Puzzled, she stepped back in.
At this moment, Zhou Xu and Peng Ge were already carefully examining the wall.
The walls were covered with old-fashioned white tiles, with dark grime accumulating between the tiles.
After tapping his fingers in different spots and hearing a "thump-thump" echo each time, Zhou Xu said with certainty, "It's a hidden wall, and there's nothing behind it."
Peng took out an old bronze compass from his cloth bag. As soon as he took it out, the magnetic needle on the compass began to swing wildly.
Peng frowned immediately. "The magnetic field inside is extremely chaotic, and yin energy is lingering. It's best not to go into a place like this rashly."
Zhou Xu, however, was in high spirits. "Since we're already here, it would be a shame not to go in and take a look at such an interesting place." As he spoke, he began to feel around on the walls and the surrounding debris, looking for possible mechanisms.
At this moment, Hong Hong, Liu Zi, and A Wu also came in after finishing packing up the equipment outside. Upon hearing that they were looking for a mechanism, they became more and more enthusiastic than the last.
Lan Shuyin joined the search. But when she placed her hand on the tile that she had previously noticed was loose, she found it to be unusually firm, and no matter how hard she tried, it wouldn't budge.
The group spent half a day groping and knocking in the not-so-spacious linen room, repeatedly checking every crack in the wall and every corner, but found nothing.
Zhou Xu brushed the dust off his hands and made a judgment: "There may not have been any mechanism at all. It was just that the construction team was lazy back then and simply built a wall to seal off the space behind it."
Unable to find the entrance, the group had no choice but to give up.
It was already late at night when I left the bathhouse.
After parting ways with Zhou Xu and the others at the fork in the road, Lan Shuyin walked alone towards the guesthouse. But a strange, lingering feeling kept pulling at her heart. Her steps slowed, until she finally stopped on the bridge.
She glanced back at the silhouette of the massive building in the darkness, hesitated for only a moment, and then turned back.
...
Zhou Xu and the others walked along the coastline toward the barbecue restaurant.
Seeing Zhou Xu lagging behind, seemingly lost in thought, Hong Hong couldn't help but smirk.
She deliberately slowed her pace and leaned closer to him, teasingly asking, "Brother Xu, you seem to be paying special attention to that Miss Lan, don't you?" She blinked, "Could it be that you've taken a liking to her?"
"What nonsense are you spouting?" Zhou Xu said without even looking up.
“I’m not making this up.” Hong Hong winked at Liu Zi next to her. “You saw it too, right? When has Brother Xu ever been so gentle to other girls? He even invited her out for a late-night snack, but alas… she didn’t appreciate it.”
Liu Zi chimed in knowingly, "That's right! Last time, that female internet celebrity kept chasing after our Brother Xu for his contact information, and he didn't even lift an eyelid. But today, he not only took the initiative to talk to us, but even offered us chopsticks!"
Zhou Xu chuckled, "I just feel that this young girl is traveling alone. She looks shy, but she's actually quite brave. She's a bit like me when I first started out. I'd take care of her if I could."
“That girl is no ordinary person,” Peng, who had been walking silently beside them, suddenly spoke up.
All eyes turned to him at the same time.
Peng Ge's voice was deep, "Both of her hands had old wounds, which had healed, but they couldn't hide them from my eyes. On the palm of her left hand, there was a magic circle that had been cut out."
"A magic circle?" Zhou Xu was taken aback. He remembered that when he handed her the chopsticks, he did notice an unusual mark on her palm, but he thought it was just a scratch at the time.
“I can’t see the path.” Brother Peng shook his head. “But the direction of those runes should be a rather domineering restriction.”
Liu Zi asked in surprise, "Brother Peng, you mean, that girl is also..."
"It's hard to say which faction or group they belong to, they might even be from the government." Peng Ge looked at Zhou Xu's thoughtful expression and reminded him in a deep voice, "When you're out in the world, you give yourself your identity. Like I said, don't be fooled by appearances."
...
Stepping into the abandoned lobby again, Lan Shuyin bypassed the dusty reception desk and directly pushed open the gray sliding door marked "Employee Area".
Behind the door was a corridor that smelled strongly of mildew.
The doors to the changing rooms and rest areas on both sides were wide open. At the end of the corridor, there was a particularly imposing double door, the brass plaque hanging on it had long been pried off, leaving several rough scratches.
Inside was a rather spacious office. The desks and chairs had long been removed, and the floor was covered with messy footprints, clearly indicating that the place had been ransacked by countless people. Only a heavy filing cabinet remained abandoned in the corner.
She crouched down and searched carefully, finally finding a rough piece of paper in the gap between the cabinet and the wall.
Pulling it out forcefully, it revealed a roll of drawings crumpled beyond recognition, the paper brittle and deeply creased, as if it had been angrily rubbed.
Unfolded on the ground, it turned out to be an original construction plan of the Kagura Bathhouse. What was chilling was that the underground section was specially marked with vermilion ink lines: densely packed prison cells, execution ground passages, and several spaces marked "cremation area".
Her gaze finally settled on the linen room. The blueprints clearly showed a vertical passageway hidden behind that wall, with the note "Maintenance/Freight Only".
A thick, long dotted line points downwards, connecting to a vast, unmarked blank area, as if another unknown space is hidden besides the part marked by the vermilion ink line.
After carefully folding the drawings and putting them in her pocket, Lan Shuyin returned to the linen room with practiced ease.
The moment she stepped inside, that strange pulling sensation returned. She reached out towards the wall, and the instant her fingertips touched the tiles, one of them involuntarily sank inward as she pressed it—
Her eyes narrowed, and she pushed hard.
The wall plaster made a dull "click" sound as it slowly slid open a narrow crack, revealing a dark hole behind it.
Inside was an unfinished, bare space, resembling a dedicated maintenance passageway, open in all directions, with an old elevator standing in the center—the very one marked "for maintenance/freight" on the blueprints. The elevator was hand-cranked, its chains and pulleys covered in thick red rust.
She turned the control lever, and the elevator creaked and sank into the ground.
When the cage came to a complete stop, a wave of damp, cold air rushed towards us.
The smell was hard to describe; it wasn't just a simple stench, but more like a mixture of rust, years of accumulated grime, and some deeper sense of despair.
The underground space retains the basic layout of the former execution area, but it has been clearly simply modified, with most areas filled with clutter.
The lines of the construction drawings clearly appeared in Lan Shuyin's mind, but at this moment, Lan Shuyin didn't need them at all, because that inexplicable pull had almost become instinct, leading her in a certain direction—
That was the southwest corner of the entire structure, and also a large blank area on the drawings.
The path leading there was a long-dried-up drainage ditch. At the end was an incinerator, its thick brick walls blocking all access except for a low, square hole at the bottom, its edges worn smooth as if formed by dragging heavy objects for a long time.
Lan Shuyin gripped her tactical pen tightly and bent down to crawl into the hole.
However, the cave entrance was not a passage, but rather a steep, slippery metal surface.
She only had time to exclaim "Holy crap!" before she was caught off guard and fell straight down!
The slide was extremely long, and darkness howled in her ears. The last section was almost vertical, and she lost control and fell.
"Thump!"
With a dull thud, she fell onto the cold ground.
Lan Shuyin clutched her neck, which had almost broken, and curled up in pain, rolling twice on the ground.
Out of the corner of my eye, I suddenly caught a glimpse of a very close, deep blue.
She grimaced and looked up, spotting a blue morpho butterfly, its size comparable to a 1.8 x 2 meter bed. It emitted a faint phosphorescent glow in the darkness.
Oh, damn it, I'm seeing things.
Lan Shuyin rolled back twice, buried her face in the cold ground, and rubbed her stinging neck vigorously.
As she massaged, she suddenly stopped.
Wait, a blue morpho butterfly?
She looked up instinctively.
The next second, she froze.
It was indeed a blue morpho butterfly, but it was enormous. Its wings, fully outstretched, resembled a flowing, dark blue curtain that enveloped the entire stone wall. The dark gold patterns on its wings, like flowing lava, flickered in the darkness. Every tiny tremor scattered phosphorescent light like stardust, illuminating the entire space as if it were a dream.
However, this incomparably beautiful creature was tightly bound by two dark chains. The heavy chains wrapped around the butterfly's body, digging deep into the base of its wings, with the other end embedded deep in the stone wall. At the point where the chains met, there was an ancient yellow talisman, with a dot of cinnabar on it, radiating a chilling suppressive power.
Lan Shuyin stared blankly at the scene before her, momentarily forgetting to breathe.
Countless absurd conjectures flashed through her mind: ancient spirits sealed away, mutants that escaped from the laboratory, pioneers of interdimensional invasion... But the strange pull in her heart grew stronger and stronger, instinctively urging her to get closer and closer—to touch, to break the imprisonment!
But reason is also frantically calling the alarm.
Usually, when a movie gets to this point, it's just the beginning. What follows is either the boss unsealing and destroying the world, or her, the unwitting intruder, being sacrificed on the spot. In short, neither of them has a good ending.
Even if she doesn't want to be a savior, she shouldn't be a pitiful cannon fodder who makes a foolish sacrifice!
Just as she was tormented by the two voices and didn't know what to do, an old, hoarse voice suddenly rang out, "How did you get in?"
Lan Shuyin was startled and looked up sharply in the direction of the sound.
It was only then that she noticed a simple set of table and chairs in the deepest shadow of the corner.
An unkempt, somewhat disheveled old man sat there, his long, gray hair a mess of straw, almost completely obscuring his face. He seemed to have long since merged with the darkness, silent and still, like a stubborn rock growing from a corner.
"I came down the slide," Lan Shuyin replied truthfully, then added, rubbing her still slightly sore neck, "but the curve wasn't designed very well, it almost made me break my neck."
“No one has ever complained about this before.” A hoarse chuckle escaped the old man’s throat. “Normally, all that comes down is food.”
No sooner had the words left his mouth than a scraping sound suddenly came from deep within the pipe in another direction. Immediately afterward, a bulging black body bag slid down the pipe wall and landed on the ground with a "bang".
The old man slowly got up and walked unsteadily toward the body bag.
Seeing that he was struggling a bit when he bent down to try to lift it, Lan Shuyin asked very helpfully, "Do you need help?" Her tone was casual, as if she were asking if he needed to give up his seat, without any fear.
The old man glanced at her, a barely perceptible glint of something unusual flashing in his eyes, but he ignored it.
He suddenly exerted force in his hand, veins bulging slightly, and lifted the heavy body bag in one go. When he turned to walk towards the imprisoned blue morpho butterfly, his steps were unusually steady, completely different from his previous staggering gait.
He casually tossed the bag beneath the shimmering, glowing wings.
The next second, the magnificent butterfly wings fluttered, and the eerie blue phosphorescence suddenly intensified, as if an invisible maw had opened in the shadows. The edges of the body bag began to rapidly melt and collapse, and with a faint but chilling hissing sound, it was completely swallowed up, leaving no trace.
Lan Shuyin blinked, finally understanding what he meant by "food".
The old man turned around, closing the distance and revealing a face deeply lined with wrinkles, etched with the marks of time. But his eyes shone brightly, radiating an almost scorching vitality and a thirst for knowledge.
The old man stared at Lan Shuyin. "You must be someone she knew to be here, right?"
"Whose old friend?" Lan Shuyin asked, looking completely bewildered.
"Not quite a true old friend, but we should be related in some way," the old man said ambiguously, pointing to the giant butterfly that had fallen silent again after feeding. His voice was deep and resonant. "Many years ago, an astonishing energy condensed into it. At first, it was only the size of an infant's fist, but it absorbed some kind of power day and night, and its size grew day by day... The people above were afraid, afraid that this unknown thing would one day go out of control and bring disaster, so they used a secret method to lock it in this place where there is no sunlight."
"And I, for the rest of my life, have been here, looking at it, studying it... trying to figure out what it is, where it came from, and where it is going."
Lan Shuyin readily agreed, "So, have you figured it out?"
“It’s too difficult.” The old man slowly shook his head. “I’ve never seen its cellular structure before. It has no mitochondria, yet it can complete an astonishing energy conversion in an instant. It doesn’t have a conventional nervous system, yet it has a precise perception and response to external stimuli, especially ‘food’.”
He raised his withered fingers and traced a few lines in the air, as if drawing an invisible structural diagram. "Its genetic material is an even bigger mystery. I've tried all known sequencing methods, and the results are all meaningless, like trying to interpret the twinkling of stars in human language. It doesn't seem to belong to any biological classification system that we know."
“Such a life form should not exist on Earth.” The old man’s voice lowered, carrying the awe and frustration of a scientist facing the unknown. “It seems to follow a completely unfamiliar set of biological rules. I have exhausted all my knowledge in my life and can only observe its external appearance, but I still cannot figure out its core mysteries.”
"It's like a living, walking paradox, a miracle that shouldn't be here, or rather, an anomaly."
Lan Shuyin stared in disbelief, not understanding a single word.
But it all boils down to one thing: he didn't understand.
This old man, he didn't understand, so he just didn't understand, but he still had to show off his knowledge.
Lan Shuyin thought to herself. Besides, if she couldn't figure out the big ones, couldn't she study the little ones? Those normal-sized blue morpho butterflies all seemed to originate from the same source.
However, she revealed a perfectly timed curiosity and tentatively followed up the conversation, "I heard that this energy was left behind by a demoness when she summoned the Grim Reaper, but I didn't hear that it turned into a butterfly?"
A hint of surprise flashed across the old man's eyes, and he nodded, saying, "The Special Bureau's internal files do indeed record that a hundred years ago, a woman who could bridge the gap between Yin and Yang forcibly summoned something beyond our comprehension using forbidden techniques, leaving behind this energy. The energy mutation was enough to cause panic, so the news was suppressed long ago. However, there were many eyewitnesses, and the story has been passed down by word of mouth to this day... But because it is too bizarre, after a hundred years, not many people believe it anymore."
Lan Shuyin's heart stirred—this old man was indeed from the Special Bureau.
Seeing his quick and easy answer, Lan Shuyin pressed her advantage, her tone becoming even more natural and casual, "Since that's really the case, why don't you ask that woman's descendants or family members? They should know something about their ancestors' secrets, right?"
“It’s not that easy.” The old man shook his head. “She has no descendants, and her family line has long been cut off. When we tried to investigate, we only found a few clueless collateral branches who were completely unaware of the woman’s existence.”
Lan Shuyin tentatively asked, "The family you're talking about, is it the Feng Zhi family?"
Seeing the old man's gaze suddenly sharpen, she calmly explained, "I studied archaeology and am now a member of an expedition team. Since you are from the Special Bureau, I should respectfully address you as a senior."
With just a few words, she clarified her identity while also showing respect, subtly diminishing the oppressive sense of scrutiny.
Then, her tone became appropriately heavy, "To be honest, my mentor was a professor of archaeology at Peking University. He did a lot of research on the Feng Zhi family back then and conducted in-depth research on a lot of materials. Unfortunately, he later suffered a mental breakdown. This matter left a very deep impression on me. The situation of the family's extinction that I just mentioned just fits perfectly."
Upon hearing this, the old man looked surprised. "Jiang Fengshan is your teacher?"
So the person Wei Li mentioned was named Jiang Fengshan?
Lan Shuyin nodded calmly, "The Feng Zhi family has been a thorn in my mentor's side for many years. I have been secretly investigating for so many years, and I have finally found some clues. I have also become curious about that legendary woman in the Feng Zhi family. As I continued to delve deeper into my mentor's research, I found that she had quite a few enemies, but some of the records... are really unbelievable."
"oh?"
“Since you are a senior, I will not hide anything from you.” Lan Shuyin hesitated for a moment, as if she had made up her mind, “Recently, I discovered that Feng Zhizhao’s list of enemies actually includes the ‘Python Immortal Family’. Although we archaeologists also respect folk customs, the idea of spirits and monsters cultivating into immortals is ultimately beyond our comprehension.”
The old man gave her a deep look, his gray eyebrows twitching slightly. “The world is vast and full of wonders. Spirit stones can absorb the essence of the sun and moon to become spirits, and plants nourished by the earth’s veins can also become spiritual. These beings live in seclusion in the city, coexisting peacefully with humans. But you, girl…” His gaze was piercing, “You can remain calm and composed even when you see such a strange phenomenon. You don’t seem like someone who would be afraid of these things.”
Lan Shuyin knew he was questioning her reaction to the giant butterfly, so she said, "Actually, I had just met that python immortal before coming here. After that confrontation, I'm not shocked by anything I see now."
"Did he send you?" the old man asked.
Lan Shuyin sighed softly, "Alas, he originally wanted to kill me, but after hearing that I was investigating 'Feng Zhi Zhaoyin,' he actually let me go and even entrusted me with a task."
As she spoke, she kept an eye on the old man's expression. "He said that there was an enemy who hated Feng Zhizhaoyin to the bone, but he was unable to investigate due to his status, and he hoped that I could help him find that person."
The old man remained silent for a long time after hearing her words.
After a long silence, he sighed, "A hundred years have passed in the blink of an eye. Grudges and affections should have long since turned to dust. What good is it to cling to a past event that is long gone? Those who knew about it back then have long since turned to dust. Even if we find out the truth, what good will it do?"
Lan Shuyin readily agreed, "But he was quite certain that even today, there are still people who hate 'Feng Zhi Zhaoyin' to the core."
The old man's expression suddenly turned serious, and a sharp light gathered in his eyes. "Little girl, I don't care what that python immortal said to you. Remember, those 'immortals' who have achieved great cultivation are most skilled at manipulating people's hearts. Making a deal with them is no different from asking a tiger for its skin. If you are not careful, you will be devoured by them, which is something you cannot bear."
"Moreover, if it is true, as he said, that someone can sustain this hatred for a hundred years without fading away, then they are no longer an ordinary person. The being that can bear such obsession is either a spirit that has attained cultivation or a fierce ghost. Neither of them are people that a junior like you who has just begun to understand can afford to provoke."
"Take my advice: some karma is not for you to get involved in. Trying to stop a chariot with your bare hands will only make you another blood debtor in this century-old feud."
Lan Shuyin understood these principles perfectly well.
But the problem is...
She was the one being threatened by that black envelope, the one being watched by an invisible gaze!
If the truth isn't uncovered, things will probably get very difficult from now on.
Lan Shuyin remained silent for a moment, then met the other person's all-knowing gaze and said with righteous indignation, "I understand the principles you have spoken of, and I am also aware of the dangers involved. But once a promise is made, there is no reason to back out halfway!"
"Therefore, if you know of any relevant clues, no matter how small, please inform me. I would be extremely grateful!"
...
As I emerged from Kagura Bathhouse, the night was thick with darkness.
The streetlights were pitifully sparse, and between each light was long stretches of silence, a profound stillness.
Lan Shuyin glanced at her phone; it was 12:05 AM. The signal had barely recovered to two bars.
She actually stayed in that eerie underground space for more than two hours!
Perhaps because she had been in such a completely confined environment for too long, her eyes were having difficulty adjusting to the normal darkness of the outside world. Everything she could see was shrouded in a persistent double image.
The halo of the streetlights blurred into overlapping images in my eyes, and the outlines of the trees appeared slightly dragged, making everything seem somewhat unreal and dizzying.
With no cars on the road and it being a straight avenue, she simply closed her eyes and walked.
"Back then, in order to find out the origin of this butterfly, I did investigate 'Feng Zhi Zhao Yin'. If we're talking about those who hated her to the bone... the Jiang family is one of them. There seems to be another family, but it's been too long, and I can't remember."
"Strange, I found these old stories in Jiang Fengshan's notes back then. You've been following his lead for so long, how come you didn't know them?"
"Well, if you insist on getting involved in this mess, no one can stop you. Good luck."
With the old man's words echoing in her mind, Lan Shuyin felt exceptionally clear-headed.
Despite the hardships of the night, the gains were equally significant.
She carefully reviewed every word she had gleaned from the old man, finding them increasingly intriguing.
The abandonment of Kagura Bathhouse, on the surface, seems to be haunted, but in reality, it is more like a serendipitous lockdown, which buries the enormous blue morpho butterfly, which should not exist in the world, completely under the influence of human voices.
As for that "Chang Xian" who claims to hate Feng Zhi Zhaoyin to the bone, his hatred is probably mostly fake.
And then there's the Jiang family. This time, back in Gangzhou, she must see Jiang Wuyuan. She has to find out, no matter what, whether the Jiang family is the mastermind behind all this charade.
Amidst all the complexities, there was only one thing she firmly believed:
The person who handed her the black envelope must hate Feng Zhizhaoyin to the core.
She was absolutely certain.
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