Chapter 30 Clues

"Logically speaking, it's normal for a few workers to run off at that time. Some people were just hired locally for odd jobs, but the strange thing is that these people had almost finished their work, but they hadn't received their wages."

After hearing about the attire and behavior of these people, Jiang Cheng roughly determined their identities.

They were... Night Watchmen.

Since they appeared here, it meant that a paranormal event had indeed occurred here, and it seemed to be a rather tricky one.

Time was pressing. They had been here long enough. Jiang Cheng was worried that Huai Yi couldn't handle it alone.

"Curator," Jiang Cheng asked, "Judging from what you said earlier, these missing workers... couldn't have met with an accident, right?"

Curator Zhou sighed, looking at him with a "you guessed it" expression. "We don't know what these people did later because we weren't allowed to get close. A large area around was sealed off, and police were on duty day and night."

"But I later heard people say that these men in black went in that night, and then, around dawn, people started coming out one after another."

"In total, they carried out 10 bodies."

Hearing that there were 10 bodies, Jiang Cheng keenly noticed something was wrong, because according to what Curator Zhou had said before, there should only have been a few missing workers.

Could the rest be...

"You're right." Curator Zhou took a breath, as if a big stone in his heart had fallen to the ground, his voice tinged with regret. "A few of the bodies belonged to the missing workers, and the remaining bodies belonged to those men in black."

Seeming unwilling to say more on this topic, Curator Zhou turned his head and changed his tone, "After dawn, those men in black disappeared, they should have left. The police gave the construction team a drawing, saying to follow what was drawn on it."

"As a result, from that day on, the police kept an eye on the construction until it was completed."

After speaking, Curator Zhou raised his hand and pointed around, "The screens, walls, and things you see now were mostly arranged according to that drawing."

Jiang Cheng nodded, following the direction Curator Zhou was pointing. Some of his previous doubts were answered, "No wonder, I felt something was strange when I came in."

"Some people say that the feng shui here wasn't good originally, and those people who came were feng shui masters who changed the feng shui here." Curator Zhou's eyes were a little lost. "I heard from the older generation that changing feng shui is going against the heavens and will be punished. Perhaps those men in black were..."

Curator Zhou didn't say the rest of the words, just shook his head.

"By the way," Curator Zhou said, as if he suddenly thought of something, "We finally figured out part of the meaning of those few words that the man left on the mirror."

Hearing this, Jiang Cheng's eyes lit up, and he immediately asked, "What does it mean?"

Curator Zhou frowned, recalling, "Method is correct, book, it came out, failure, only, try our best, attempt, heart, corrosion, devil, no time."

"This is a very ancient language, and this is all we could do." Curator Zhou explained, seeming still somewhat regretful.

"Thank you, Curator. I'm just curious." Jiang Cheng said very naturally, "By the way, after that man died, how were the things he left behind in the folk museum handled?"

"Oh, you mean those exhibits? They were loaded into a truck and taken away. As for where they ended up, I don't know."

"I see." Jiang Cheng nodded.

"Creak—"

The door was pushed open, and Wu Qing walked in carrying two cups of milk tea. "Thank you, Senior." Jiang Cheng smiled and took the milk tea, then picked out a cup and tossed it to Fatty.

Since Wu Qing had returned, some things were inconvenient to say, so Jiang Cheng got up to say goodbye.

Curator Zhou even went out to see them off, saying along the way that he didn't know why he had told them so much, perhaps he was just getting old.

After leaving the library, Fatty sucked on his milk tea and leaned over, whispering, "Doctor, why did this Curator Zhou tell us so much? Could there be a trap?"

"Also, I feel like that Wu Qing is also strange, weird. Could there be a problem with her too?"

Suddenly, Jiang Cheng, who was also sipping milk tea, stopped.

Immediately afterward, his face began to turn ugly, his lips tightened, he stopped drinking milk tea, and stared down at the milk tea cup, his fingers trembling slightly.

Fatty slowly widened his eyes, and the milk tea in his mouth instantly lost its flavor.

"Holy crap, is there poison in the milk tea?!" He threw the milk tea in his hand five meters away.

The next second, Fatty watched as Jiang Cheng wiggled his lips and spat out a few of the tapioca balls from the milk tea, then picked up the straw again and began to sip the milk tea.

"They actually put tapioca balls in it, so tasteless." Fatty heard Jiang Cheng mutter.

Fatty turned his head and looked at the ground, at the milk tea that he had thrown out like a grenade. He thought it wasn't easy for the doctor to live this long.

But he was able to live to this day, thanks to the doctor protecting him, so he leaned over very familiarly, "Doctor, what do you think of the foreign man Curator Zhou described?"

"The state his body was found in was the same as Xiao Lin and Xiao Ting. They were killed by the same thing." Jiang Cheng said casually.

"Is it... the Stalker Ghost!" Fatty felt a chill down his spine.

"Yeah." Jiang Cheng nodded, "And did you notice that the secret room Curator Zhou described is very similar to the activity center warehouse after we restored it?"

"They both have a few chairs, and there's a mirror hanging on the wall. I think there should have been a hexagram pattern on the floor of the warehouse before, but it was erased."

"Yuan Xiaoyi, and that foreign man, both did the same thing."

Fatty nodded repeatedly, touching his chin, and said in a strange tone, "Doctor, they seem to be performing some kind of ritual."

"Yes, and this ritual is related to the Stalker Ghost." Jiang Cheng recalled, "Method is correct, book, it came out, failure, only, try our best, attempt, heart, corrosion, devil, no time."

Fatty blinked his eyes and said with regret, "These are the words that man left by the mirror. It's a pity they're too fragmented, otherwise..."

"The method in the book is correct, but I have no time. I can only try my best, if I fail..." Jiang Cheng's tone suddenly changed, "It came out."

The cold words came out of his mouth, like the most ancient prophecy, carrying an unspeakable weirdness.

Fatty's upper and lower teeth were trembling. He didn't know why, but when he heard these words, gray and dark images kept flashing before his eyes, like medieval prophecies.

"It... came out." Fatty looked at Jiang Cheng, his pupils contracted: "Who is it? What exactly is that Stalker Ghost?"

Jiang Cheng put down the milk tea and pondered for a moment, "Heart, corrosion, devil..." He tilted his head to look at Fatty and said softly: "Heart-Eater Devil."