Volume 2, Chapter 83 (Chapter 121): The Deserted Village in the Bamboo Scrolls

Seeing that it was Li Xuan at the scene of the crime, Lu Yibei wanted nothing more than to turn around and disappear.

“I didn’t expect you to be here,” Li Xuan smiled, landing a firm grip on his shoulders.

“Y-yes,” he replied in a soft voice. “Jiangli told me to pay attention to abnormal events happening around me during our first lesson, so I thought to come to investigate.”

He prayed that Li Xuan wouldn’t discover his true intentions.

He should have thought about it long ago. ‘Of course, the Night Division would send someone over to investigate.’

Even then, Li Xuan’s smile was uncanny; he always felt that something was wrong with him. His smile was a little too wide, and his teeth were a little too shiny.

‘Damn it, if he catches me, how do I tell Jumeng?’ he cursed. ‘It’s all her fault that I’m caught up in this mess!’

“Wow,” Li Xuan praised. “You’re dedicated to your work.”

Li Xuan’s eyes thinned out as he spoke like a fox preparing to devour his prey.

“Oh, don’t flatter me,” Yibei chuckled as he rubbed his head. “It’s just something to fill the time with.”

“It’s good that you’re doing your job, but it’s time to let the grown-ups take over,” Li Xuan smiled as he squeezed his shoulders.

Yibei felt that his shoulder blades were about to be snapped in half, and he gritted his teeth and said, “Okay, to be honest, I’m kind of scared of what’s inside too. I’ll leave it to you and your team.”

He hurriedly turned around and dragged Professor Ma away with him.

Li Xuan stood on the spot and squinted his eyes towards Yibei’s disappearing figure.

‘There’s a trace of Lu Yibei wherever trouble is. It’s hard not to be suspicious of him.’

If it weren’t for the strange fear that seems to repel him away from Yibei’s apartment or the fact that Bai Kai was breathing down his neck, he would’ve definitely gone to investigate him and find out what he was hiding.

As he was in deep thought, a tall man approached him and whispered in his ear, “Operator Li Xuan, Operator An Qing’s test results are out; it seems like this is an urban legend attack.”

As he spoke, he handed a tablet to Li Xuan.

Since there was nothing left to investigate, An Qing received a sample of the black mucus leaking out of his corpse and analysed it—a mixture of bodily fluids and decayed organs but no bacteria. Her preliminary analysis indicated that he was burnt to death by corrosive chemicals, but there were no chemicals detected in the mucus. Hence, she hypothesised that this was an urban legend attack.

However, there was no residue of psychic energy within the black mucus. She couldn’t confirm her hypothesis.

But what made her feel weird was that after passing the analysis of the spell check, no residue of psionic fluctuations was found in the black mucus, which meant that it was strange to talk that she couldn’t jump to conclusions.

“Argh, leaving the problem to me again,” Li Xuan sighed.

Lu Yibei followed Professor Ma upstairs.

It wasn’t until he sat down in the lab that Professor Ma couldn’t hold back the doubts in his heart and asked, “Do you recognise the policeman just now? Why does it feel like he dislikes you?”

“Uh, I know him. He’s my godfather’s colleague.”

As he spoke, he added, “I think he hates me because I engage with the occult. He doesn’t think it’s serious business.”

He couldn’t expose the Night Division, so he came up with a little white lie.

“I see,” Professor Ma sighed. “Policemen inevitably deal with strange cases all the time; they are either superstitious or don’t believe in the occult at all.”

Life imitates art, Professor Ma thought to himself. Policemen tend not to believe in the occult, although evidence states otherwise.

“Professor, the bamboo scrolls.”

“Oh, yes! The bamboo scrolls. I’m getting old!”

Professor Ma patted his head, smiled, and went into the storage room. Lu Yibei, like last time, waited for him to retrieve the scrolls.

A strange expression appeared on Professor Ma’s old face. His bushy eyebrows were contorted into a weird shape that seemed to contain a wave of anger. His cloudy eyes stared past the box, and the ground undulated beneath his feet as if it were trying to speak to him.

He snapped back into reality, and he couldn’t help but feel a wave of anxiety and fear wash over him.

“What happened to me just now?”

His eyes landed on the box containing the scrolls.

Once again, something seemed to plant an idea in him—to not show Lu Yibei the bamboo scrolls.

However, with the mysterious disappearance of that young man and his student Lu Xu, accompanied by He Ruo’s death, he felt that justice overrode that sense of fear.

I should flip a coin, Professor Ma thought suddenly. ‘That’s what I always do when I’m being indecisive.’

Thinking about it, he reached into the jacket pocket of his suit, fumbled for the polished and shiny copper coin, and bounced it into the sky with a “ding!”

Heads for give, tails for hide.

Smack!

He smacked the copper coin on his palm, but the moment his hand landed on it, his expression froze as he could feel the copper coin standing on its own beneath his hand.

Lu Yibei waited in the lab for a while.

When Professor Ma came out of the storage room again, he saw an old wooden box inlaid with copper in his arms.

While in the storage room, Professor Ma flipped a coin three additional times, and he received the same result again and again. This simply wasn’t something that could be explained with probability.

Perhaps it was because of these results that his mind was clear enough to hand the box over to him.

Yibei was stunned upon seeing the slightly familiar box in Professor Ma’s arms. This was the exact box that the man he ran into the other day was carrying.

“Let’s open it,” Professor Ma murmured, pushing the bamboo scrolls towards him as if he fears it.

“Alright,” Yibei said as the scrolls slid towards him. If nothing strange happens, he’ll note everything down and ask Jumeng about the contents of the scroll.

A faint fragrance emanated from the bamboo, and his eyes began to burn, his vision distorting.

‘There is indeed a problem with these bamboo scrolls!’

‘Come on, let me see what’s behind you!’

He took a deep breath and took the scrolls in his hand.

The moment he touched the scrolls, he was immediately sent into a dreamscape; his body flew in a passage of light and shadow, and a strange force seemed to knead into the air, rippling it. The vortex seemed to pull at his consciousness.

He gritted his teeth, willing his physical body to slowly unfold the bamboo scrolls. As those strange and special characters were exposed, his vision soon returned to him.

She found herself in a deserted village surrounded by mountains. The mountains loomed over her, the peaks hidden within the cloudy mounds.

It rained lightly, and the sky was a dim and gloomy grey.

Standing on the muddy path, Lu Yibei felt the icy rain dripping on her face. Her pink hair was stuck to her temples, and she grumbled as it stuck to her face.

The village was strangely dim and devoid of people beyond the windows and opened doors. Large puddles were scattered around the village grounds as if she had just entered another world.

She frowned as the rain pitter-pattered on her. She expected to see dead soldiers hauling sacrifices towards the mountain but was instead greeted with nothing.

Eep!

A sharp, piercing sound shrieked from within the dark corners of the village, like a sobbing, mournful cry from a distant time.

Staring at the direction from which the sound came, the heavy rain slapped against the mud beneath her feet. The dilapidated huts on both sides were silent. Everything was still intact, but something told her that something else loomed down this muddy, forgotten path…