Deep in the Living-Chapter 15 - 13 Secrets

The monitor very carefully tidied up everyone's post-meal trash and bagged it to throw outside the mansion. When she returned, she found everyone locked in a battle with their own eyelids.

"Looks like everyone is sleepy~ How about this! We'll take turns standing guard, two hours each, which will ensure six hours of rest for everyone.

Luo Di contributed the most today, exerted the most effort, and thus earned the right to the bed.

I'll take the first shift today, maybe because I didn't exert much, I'm not at all tired."

Almost as soon as the monitor had finished speaking, Luo Di was already lying on a rattan chair asleep, and one could even faintly hear snoring.

Gao Yuxuan took out a moisture-proof mat to use as a ground cover, leaving the big bed entirely to Anna.

It was just right, as Anna's build really wouldn't fit anywhere else.

In such an old house where someone had died, the bedding naturally couldn't be used. Anna stripped everything off except for the bed plank and laid down her own moisture-proof mat before reluctantly falling asleep.

"Ah, to be young and fall asleep at the drop of a hat~"

The monitor looked at the three sleeping figures in the bedroom with a face full of contentment, and not a hint of fatigue could be seen on her face.

The sound of heavy rain battering against the mansion somehow formed a very natural white noise, which also masked other miscellaneous sounds.

The monitor stepped with ballet-like grace, dancing around the house.

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At the end of the dance, she arrived at the old dressing table in the master bedroom, wiped off the dust on the mirror, and cleaned the old wooden comb with tissue paper.

Untying her ponytail, she applied some kind of medicated cream to the wooden comb and began combing her hair slowly in front of the mirror.

The monitor's reflection always maintained a smile, showing no sign of nerves since the start of the operation.

...

As the sun set and night fell,

unlike the city, which can stay brightly lit under ample lighting, this small hill located in the suburbs was enveloped in darkness,

The wall lights that the monitor and others had previously put up around the mansion were doing their job, keeping the building lit.

[21:00]

Luo Di, scheduled for the last guard shift, woke up as if an internal alarm had been set.

He thought he would be taking over from someone, but instead found three pairs of eyes staring intently at him.

"Are you awake?" the monitor asked excitedly.

"What's going on?"

"Come quickly~ Gao Yuxuan discovered a secret of this mansion while on guard, so we all woke up. Considering you worked hard today, we waited an extra half hour for you."

"What secret?"

The monitor stood next to the wall with a mysterious air and knocked on it, producing a clear, hollow sound.

"Gao Yuxuan estimated the length of the corridor, compared the width of the master bedroom with the adjacent room, and realized there is a significant gap between the two that could fit a compartment.

It's highly likely that there's a secret chamber, but we haven't been able to find a switch, or perhaps the owner has already taken it down."

Luo Di also knocked on the wall with his finger, "It doesn't sound very thick. We could probably break through, right?"

"Yeah~ We just didn't want to wake you up with the noise."

The monitor made an elegant turn, then extended her arms to the left, presenting her bestie.

Anna, with a Stone Worker Hammer in hand, was ready for some heavy-duty demolition. Judging by its worn condition, it must have been found inside the mansion.

With her entire body's muscles engaged and her waist turning, she swung her arm out,

Bang!

The power was astonishing,

A single hammer blow created several cracks on the wall, the point of impact completely indented.

Without pausing, she swung again,

Boom!

The second blow created an opening the size of a fist in the wall, revealing a glimpse of the pitch-black inside.

This blackness made everyone uncomfortable. Growing up in the city, they had almost never encountered darkness, as even the most remote alleys were covered in light.

Seeing this unplesantly black darkness, the monitor quickly threw a touch-activated Light Ball inside.

Slap!

The Light Ball activated upon impact after it fell inside.

Strangely, the Light Ball emitted white light, but the reflected light turned red.

The wall-bashing continued,

Boom! With the third strike of the Stone Worker Hammer, a large number of bricks collapsed in succession, and as the secret chamber was fully revealed, a distinctly different foul odor spilled out from within.

Unlike the purely rotten smell of the backyard, this stench was mixed with the scent of incense.

The floor was covered with corpses of crows, and the Light Ball that had been thrown in earlier also landed on these dead crows, leaving no proper footing in the cramped chamber.

The entire chamber's walls were painted a deep red with Crow Blood,

At the depth of the chamber was an altar draped in yellow cloth,

On it stood a metal oil lamp,

Rotten fruit offerings,

Burnt-out incense sticks,

Unused yellow talismans,

And a family photo.

This was the first time everyone had found a photo of the family since arriving at the mansion.

However, the main items used for the ceremony seemed to have been removed.

There was another notable feature in this chamber: four Hooks installed at the top, corresponding to the four corners of a rectangle, which seemed to be used for suspending something.

Gao Yuxuan started to analyze, combining his textbook knowledge with what he'd learned outside of school, "Perhaps someone was refining corpses here... If I'm not wrong, these four Hooks would be for hanging coffins."

"Refining corpses?"

The first thing that came to everyone's mind was the four corpses hanging from the sophora tree, especially the body of the old man hanging at the highest point, which had been difficult to burn.

Luo Di's gaze was particularly shrewd, noticing something off about the photo on the altar,

Schlick-schlick~ Putting plastic bags over his shoes, he stepped on the crow corpses to retrieve the black-and-white photo,

"This is!"

Everyone was stunned when they saw the photo,

Because there were five people in the photo,

Among them, the young man and woman, the middle-aged woman, and the old man were the four corpses that had been hung on the tree and dealt with by the group.

However, there was another person in the middle,

A middle-aged man in a wheelchair, dressed in cloth clothing.

Although this old black-and-white photo was somewhat blurry, one could roughly make out that the man was in very poor condition, likely suffering from a serious illness.

Pushing his wheelchair from behind was the old man who had been hung at the top of the sophora tree, proving most difficult to handle.

The class leader immediately connected everything together, "I knew it~ How could the old man and the middle-aged woman be a married couple given the large age gap? Turns out the old man was the butler of this place.

The sick man is the head of the house!

This guy must be skilled in some Daoist Skill, beset with serious illness, his life hanging by a thread, so he decided to refine his own corpse, with the entire family being part of this refining process.

The family must have been controlled by talismans, or had their minds altered, and taught the steps of corpse refining in advance.

The first step of refining the corpse was set up in this chamber.

The bodies were buried in coffins and hung in the chamber, absorbing Yin energy from the potent Crow Blood, and when enough was absorbed, the whole family would carry the coffin to the real refining site.

Most likely a hidden cave somewhere,

Then the family would arrange the necessary items for the funeral in the mansion, and slaughter all the prepared pigs and cattle in the backyard. Once everything was ready, they would hang themselves in unison.

The corpses of the pigs and cattle nourished the sophora tree in the backyard along with those who hung themselves, collecting Yin energy at the roots and transferring it downward to complete the final corpse refinement.

Unfortunately, they were interrupted by our sudden arrival.

The carefully arranged ritual was destroyed, and the head of the house in the photo might have crawled out of the coffin prematurely due to the interrupted ceremony, maybe he has already returned to the old mansion."

The class leader's words left everyone feeling like they were in a frosty cellar, breaths halted, minds collectively turned towards the bedroom door sealed with paper windows, motionless.