Chapter 49 Drum

Behind a jade-faced screen stood many musical instruments: erhu, jinghu, gongs, flutes, danxian... A drum stood in the corner.

The strange things that Shi Liaozhi mentioned must be these.

"These things weren't here last time I came." Staying here, Shi Liaozhi seemed very nervous, but the unfortunate thing was that he was unwilling to leave like this. After all, he was next on the ghost's list.

If he couldn't find any useful clues, tonight might be his last night.

"They all seem to be instruments used for opera," An Xuan said cautiously. He only looked, but didn't touch anything. He walked to the vicinity of the drum and sized it up.

"Look at the position of this drum..." He seemed to have discovered something, and his voice was a little different from before, "Isn't it similar to the strange circle in the painting?"

A round object appeared on the top of the pavilion in the painting, not very big, and its size matched this drum.

Just as Jiang Cheng stepped forward, preparing to take a good look at the drum, Shi Liaozhi turned around and accidentally knocked over a standing instrument with his arm.

The instrument fell down and hit the drum surface with its top, making a "dong" sound.

Because the point of impact was quite off-center on the drum surface, the sound wasn't loud, but strangely, as soon as the sound appeared, the three of them shivered almost simultaneously.

"What are you doing?!" An Xuan asked in a low voice.

"I'm, I'm sorry." Shi Liaozhi, who had made the noise, was obviously more frightened than the other two. His face was twisted together, and he looked really scared to death.

He immediately looked around, and gradually calmed down only after he didn't notice anything unusual, but his fingers were still trembling non-stop.

Jiang Cheng was even more cautious than them. He carefully looked around the vicinity for a long time, especially the ceiling, behind the screen, and near the bed, these places where it was easy to hide.

Only after he was sure that there was nothing to be found did he withdraw his gaze and continue to look at the drum.

"At the third watch the drum sounds, the boat travels under the moon, half a su nang, can dispel sorrow." (su nang: vegetarian dumpling)

The first sentence of this code points out this drum, and then something similar to this drum also appears in the painting, so could there be something to it?

Moreover... Jiang Cheng narrowed his eyes. There were so many instruments here, but why did he only hear the sound of the drum every night when the opera was performed, and not the sound of other instruments?

Was it really just a coincidence?

This drum seemed to be very old. Much of the red paint around the drum body had also peeled off, mottled, and everywhere retained traces of the years. There was a very obvious stain on the drum surface.

The stain wasn't big, about the size of a few fingernails, but the shape was a little strange, and he couldn't help but take a few more glances.

Staring at the drum, and interweaving the entire event together, he slowly had a bold idea.

Just as he was about to reach out and touch the drum, he suddenly had a strange feeling.

He stopped moving and looked around, suddenly finding that An Xuan was gone.

"Where is Mr. An?" Jiang Cheng immediately asked Shi Liaozhi.

At this moment, Shi Liaozhi was studying an instrument at his feet. Hearing this, he immediately raised his head and said, "Mr. An went downstairs. He seems to want to take a look at that opera costume."

Jiang Cheng's heart skipped a beat. He first checked the surroundings again, and there was nothing unusual, but his premonition told him that there was something strange here that he hadn't discovered.

He walked to the place where An Xuan had just stood, and looked around from his perspective, his line of sight slowly moving until... in the corner of his eye, he caught sight of the bronze mirror on the dressing table.

Through the reflection of the bronze mirror, he could see the position of the bed.

And at this moment, behind the curtains where there was originally nothing, a black shadow appeared. The shadow slowly wriggled forward, and a bloodless hand slowly protruded from the gap in the curtain...

But in reality, the curtains still shrouded the bed and didn't move at all.

Jiang Cheng took a deep breath, then looked at Shi Liaozhi, and said in a very calm voice, "An Xuan may have had an accident."

"Ah?" Shi Liaozhi shuddered, and hurriedly asked, "How do you know?"

"For so long, have you heard a single sound downstairs?"

Shi Liaozhi thought for a while, and his face suddenly turned pale. Indeed, downstairs... it was quiet to an excessive degree.

"I'll go downstairs and take a look. You hide here." Jiang Cheng lowered his voice and said, "Even if An Xuan really has an accident, I have a way to get away, but you, pay more attention."

Then, Jiang Cheng stared at Shi Liaozhi with a very sincere look and said, "After all, the ghost is targeting you."

Shi Liaozhi also really wanted to go downstairs with Jiang Cheng, but he didn't dare, because Jiang Cheng was right, if something really happened below, then he would be finished as soon as he went down.

"Okay, then I'll leave it to you, Mr. Hao." Shi Liaozhi's face changed with fright, and he said tremblingly, "You're really a good person."

"You're welcome."

"That's right." Shi Liaozhi grabbed Jiang Cheng's sleeve and said tremblingly, "Hao brother, please pay more attention to An Xuan, and Zuo Jing. There seems to be something going on between them. This matter may have been caused by them."

Hearing this, Jiang Cheng, who had already taken a step, paused, and reluctantly retracted it. "What's going on with them?"

"This..."

"Hurry up." Jiang Cheng glanced at the bronze mirror inadvertently, and found that the ghost's head had already stretched out halfway. The ghost face drooped down and was slowly raising up.

"I just feel it." Shi Liaozhi didn't know why he wanted to tell this Hao Shuai these things, maybe it was simply because of his kindness. He didn't want such a person to be plotted against.

He had been in the army and was very sensitive to ways of transmitting information such as gestures, as well as the frequency of blinking. He had once tried to use Morse code to decipher the way Zuo Jing and An Xuan communicated, but he failed.

"Okay, I got it." Jiang Cheng shook off Shi Liaozhi's hand, with a face full of dissatisfaction, as if to say that he had wasted so much of his time just because of a feeling.

After watching Jiang Cheng walk away, Shi Liaozhi shrank behind the screen, pricked up his ears, and quietly listened to the movements downstairs.

An Xuan and Zuo Jing were both unreliable.

He thought to himself that perhaps... this Hao Shuai was a good partner. Although he didn't seem very normal, he was still very righteous when he did things.

At least he didn't abandon himself.

As he thought, he reached out and scratched his neck subconsciously. Then, he frowned as if he had belatedly realized something. Strange, why was his neck so itchy, and a little wet?

Where did the water come from...

The next second, he seemed to have thought of something. He had also experienced a similar tingling sensation on his neck last night.

That was still on the boat, with something behind him...

His throat rolled violently, and he turned his stiff neck, looking back little by little...

In the last second of leaving Young Master Huang's room, Jiang Cheng glimpsed a mirror in the corner of his eye, and saw a bloated human-shaped object, almost three people thick, crawling out of the curtain.

Its upper body was lying on the ground, and it was crawling quickly towards the screen behind which Shi Liaozhi was hiding.