Chapter 17 Ghost Lifts Feet

It was the missing Jiang Zhao, hanging from the ceiling by a rope. Whether it was a coincidence or not, his head was lowered, and his blood-red eyes, bulging from their sockets, were fixed on Miao Qing's face.

His gaze was full of despair and resentment, as if asking why he was the one who had to die.

"Jiang Zhao..." Bai Xiaojie looked up at the scene, her body trembling uncontrollably.

Ouyang Huanbin sat blankly on the ground, staring at the corpse hanging high above. A chilling cold swept in from all directions, engulfing him. He hadn't recovered from the attack earlier.

Miao Qing glanced around and suddenly noticed many books scattered on top of the bookshelf, with a few stacked crookedly. Considering the height at which Jiang Zhao was hanging, and the position of the stacked books, a bizarre guess formed in his mind.

Jiang Zhao had first climbed to the top of the bookshelf, then stepped on the stacked books to hang himself.

In his struggle, he kicked over the stacked books, which was why the scene looked like this.

After coming down, he told everyone what he had seen and his guess. Jiang Cheng proactively climbed up again to confirm the clues, and what he saw matched Miao Qing's description.

"Jiang Zhao climbed up using this ladder." Jiang Cheng ran his fingers over the ladder. It was covered in dust, indicating it had been there for a long time. Shining a light on it, clear shoe prints could be seen on the steps.

Upon hearing this, Fatty's expression became unnatural. "So, the woman he saw..." He glanced at Ouyang Huanbin, seeing him looking lost and dazed. He didn't finish his sentence.

According to Ouyang Huanbin's earlier description, the woman in the black dress standing on the ladder had stood on tiptoe, stacking books one by one on top of the bookshelf. And Jiang Zhao had hanged himself by stepping on the books stacked by the woman.

This strange method of killing made people uneasy.

Bai Xiaojie hesitated for a moment, then said with a pale face, "In my hometown, there's a saying that people who choose to hang themselves are bewitched by unclean things. You've heard of water ghosts finding replacements, right? It's similar to that."

"Those... those unclean things will find things for the person who wants to hang themselves to stand on. As long as you step on those things, it means you've agreed with them. After you die, you have to give up your chance at reincarnation, so the person who dies becomes a wandering ghost in their place. If they want to reincarnate, they have to lure another person to hang themselves." Bai Xiaojie's voice grew softer as she spoke.

"Ghost lifts feet (gui dian jiao)." Jiang Cheng frowned slightly. "I've heard of that saying too."

"I'm saying... should we take him down?" Fatty's focus was on Jiang Zhao's corpse. Having a corpse hanging over their heads made him uncomfortable all over, especially since it was dark up there.

When Liu Hui raised her phone and shined the light on the corpse again, Ouyang Huanbin, who had just caught his breath, screamed and fell to the ground again.

At some point, Jiang Zhao's corpse had turned around. Now, his bulging eyes were rolling down grotesquely, staring directly at Ouyang Huanbin, as if worried about him.

Fatty had sharp eyes and immediately noticed that Jiang Zhao's clothes were bulging in front, as if stuffed with something. Jiang Cheng told everyone to keep an eye on him. He quickly climbed the ladder, tore open the corpse's clothes, and a book fell out.

Jiang Cheng reacted quickly and caught it.

The book was covered with a layer of black hardcover. Looking at it from the side, the pages were yellowed, giving it a sense of age.

It was unlikely that a ghost would kill Jiang Zhao and then stuff a book into his clothes. So Jiang Cheng guessed that Jiang Zhao had found the book when he was alive, that it contained clues, and he had hidden it in his clothes, intending to keep it for himself, but he hadn't expected to end up like this.

"What's written in the book?" Bai Xiaojie asked curiously, craning her neck.

Jiang Cheng put away the book, showing no intention of opening it. "This isn't a place to stay for long, let's leave first." After saying that, he looked at Ouyang Huanbin. "After all, he was your teacher. You were master and disciple. Do you want to go up and collect his body?"

Ouyang Huanbin had long been scared out of his wits, but he didn't want to be seen as ungrateful in front of everyone, so he steeled himself, knelt down in front of Jiang Zhao's corpse, and kowtowed three times, saying in a mournful tone, "Master, it's not that your disciple is unfilial, but I really don't have the strength. I believe you can understand."

Fatty looked up at the corpse, thinking, this time, the master really is up there.

Huai Yi had originally planned to kill this old guy, and now that he was dead, it could be considered a weight off his mind. "Let's go quickly, this old guy is narrow-minded, don't let him reanimate in a while."

Ouyang Huanbin looked grief-stricken, as if he hadn't heard what Huai Yi said. After standing up, he said, "Let's... let's go." He was a little guilty.

Perhaps because they had Jiang Zhao's luck, the way out was smooth. After walking out of the library door, Jiang Cheng opened the book. It recorded the history of the town and various events that had occurred.

It was also from this book that everyone finally confirmed the name of the manor.

"Dakros Manor..."

Liu Hui stared at the bolded line on the book. Below the eye-catching title was a line of smaller text. The font seemed to have been water damaged, making it somewhat blurry, requiring one to get very close to see it clearly. "Land of curses..." Liu Hui said softly.

In this way, the history of Dakros Manor gradually unfolded before everyone's eyes. The person who wrote the book only mentioned the name of the manor in the title, and throughout the narration, they used terms like "land of curses" or "witch's graveyard" to describe it.

The book recorded a tragedy that had occurred in Dakros Manor many years ago.

The Pope at the time issued an edict, stating that witches should never be forgiven. They were heinous and shameless. The frequent natural disasters and misfortunes at the time were all related to them. The land they walked on could not be cultivated, and the springs they drank from became dry. Then, all the clergy were mobilized to participate in the action of suppressing the witches.

In this grand and vigorous extermination campaign against witches, a large number of witches were captured. Madmen stuffed wood chips into their mouths and sewed them shut with thin hemp ropes, supposedly so that they would not be cursed with their most poisonous spells.

Then they were hanged in groups on trees, leaving crows to peck at their rotting corpses.

Some corpses were burned, the black smoke clearly visible from miles away.

And such tragedies were also playing out in the town at the same time. The surviving witches at the time hid and lived in fear, perhaps to be captured and hanged the next day.

At that time, the owner of Dakros Manor sympathized with these witches and secretly took in many witches in the manor.

But the days didn't last long. Someone leaked the news, and madmen rushed into the manor, grabbed the owner of the manor, tortured and abused him, and hanged him and the witches hidden in the manor together on the trees.