Chapter 45: Where Is Li Minghao?

From the very beginning, Li Changqing sensed that something was amiss.

After Bai Chuan had saved him from that female ghost, he had walked across the dead leaves without the slightest hesitation. At the time, Li Changqing hadn’t thought much of it. But then he saw Bai Chuan brush aside a spider web with his bare hand. Now, after having slapped dust onto Bai Chuan’s body—a reckless act that was practically flirting with danger—there was still no reaction from him.

The problem was plain to see.

With Bai Chuan’s obsessive cleanliness, if someone did that to him, he’d probably be furious enough to kill. Li Changqing’s expression darkened as he slowly retreated, his eyes locked on Bai Chuan. “Who are you?”

Bai Chuan remained where he was, a smile slowly spreading across his face. Then, suddenly, he lunged at Li Changqing. The dagger in his hand thrust straight for Li Changqing’s chest.

Bang—

With a thunderous crash, Bai Chuan burst in from outside the ancestral hall, kicking the fake ‘Bai Chuan’ to the ground. With a swift motion, his sharp short sword plunged into the imposter’s chest.

The false Bai Chuan gave a strange cry, then dissolved into a cloud of black smoke and vanished within the ancestral hall.

“Are you alright?” Bai Chuan slowly sheathed his blade and turned to Li Changqing.

Li Changqing took a deep breath. Once bitten, twice shy. He stepped forward, his dust-covered hand slapping Bai Chuan’s shoulder.

“Are you looking to die?” Bai Chuan’s face changed at once; he seized Li Changqing’s wrist with such force that it hurt.

“Ow…” Li Changqing protested. “I just wanted to test if you were the real one.”

“If you try that again, I’ll chop your hand off.” Bai Chuan’s scalp tingled, and the dust on his shoulder made him profoundly uneasy and uncomfortable. He wanted to brush it off, but recoiled at the idea of touching the dust himself.

“I’ll take care of it,” said Li Changqing.

“Use the other hand!”

As Li Changqing brushed away the dust, he asked, “Where did you go just now?”

Bai Chuan replied calmly, “I was following behind you, watching to see if you’d realize you’d been led astray. You discovered the deception a bit late, but at least you figured it out in the end.”

This guy…

“This was actually a very basic illusion technique. You may only be a provisional member, and you haven’t learned to use spiritual energy yet, nor do you have much experience dealing with evil spirits. You need to go through these things.”

“With me here, nothing will happen to you. But I won’t always be by your side.”

Li Changqing understood. Was Bai Chuan helping him gain experience?

“Then if I run into such a creature and can’t handle it, what should I do?”

Bai Chuan considered this seriously for a moment. “If you can’t handle such a low-level evil spirit, then there’s nothing to be done but wait for death.”

“Don’t just stand there—search the place. Maybe we’ll find something useful.”

The place was coated in dust, and Bai Chuan had no desire to search personally.

Li Changqing searched the ancestral hall. Before the people of Peng Village left, they must have tidied up; almost everything had been taken away. However, in a black wooden box behind the hall, buried under a heap of useless junk, he found a genealogy record.

Its pages had yellowed, and it was thick with dust. Li Changqing brushed it off and began to read.

Most of it recorded ancestors, lineages, and the great men and heroes who had emerged in past generations, or chronicled village happenings for posterity.

Li Changqing turned to the last pages.

These were records from fifty years ago, mostly trivial matters.

“Peng Piyi gave a dowry of five hundred federation coins to marry Jiang Zhen’er from another clan.”

“The village chief’s father’s ninetieth birthday—feast lasted three days and nights.”

“Men from the village who joined the federal army have not returned, no news to this day.”

It read more like a village gossip sheet than a chronicle—after all, the village was small, and if the record kept to major events, it would remain mostly blank. So it resembled a diary: the birth of piglets in one household and a celebratory dinner today, the eightieth birthday of an elder tomorrow, and so on.

“No clues,” Li Changqing said, shaking his head, though he still put the genealogy away carefully. “Let’s look around nearby, see if we can find Hu Xiong and Li Minghao.”

The two searched the village, but found almost everything cleared out. Afterwards, they searched the outskirts, and finally, in a nearby graveyard, they found a lead.

A grave had been dug open, the earth scattered all around, mixed with moldy, rotten flesh, bones, and blackened bloodstains.

A powerful stench hung in the air.

Bai Chuan frowned at the scene, covering his nose. “This is the method used by the evil spirit responsible for that Class A incident.”

Li Changqing’s gaze fell on the coffin—it was still sealed, coffin nails driven deep into the lid.

There were no signs of it having been opened.

Suddenly, thump, thump, thump.

From inside the coffin, a sound emerged.

“Is someone out there? Help me!”

Hu Xiong’s voice came from inside. Li Changqing and Bai Chuan exchanged glances and hurried forward, prying up the coffin nails and pushing the lid open.

Hu Xiong sat up abruptly, gasping for breath. The bright sunlight stung his eyes, and he shut them tightly until he could adjust.

“Old Hu, what are you doing in this coffin?” Bai Chuan asked. “What happened last night?”

Li Changqing reached out to pull Hu Xiong from the coffin. Hu Xiong cursed, “Damn it, I fell for that evil spirit’s trick. Last night, Li Minghao and I followed her here and saw her enter Peng Village.”

“We followed her under the yellow-horned tree, and she ambushed us. Next thing I knew, I woke up in here.”

His face was pale. He glanced at the skeleton in the coffin and spat. “If you two had gotten here any later, I’d have died alongside this poor soul.”

Inside the coffin was a skeleton.

Li Changqing stepped quickly to the coffin lid.

It was covered in scratch marks—a common sign of someone being buried alive.

“These scratches are made in desperation by those buried alive.”

But something struck Li Changqing as odd. This coffin was much wider than usual, big enough for two.

On the gravestone, two names were carved: Peng Piyi and Jiang Zhen’er, husband and wife.

“A couple’s joint grave?” Li Changqing frowned.

It wasn’t unusual for couples to be buried together, but if one was buried alive, it took on a different meaning.

“The truth is clear: one of them was buried alive, died in anguish, and became an evil spirit. Then those damned grave robbers let it out.” Bai Chuan, still covering his nose, spoke gravely.

Jiang Zhen’er? Peng Piyi? Weren’t these the couple mentioned in the genealogy just now? Why was one of them buried alive?

“Where’s Li Minghao?” Hu Xiong asked as he brushed dust from his clothes.