Chapter 12

Black Glasses approached slowly. It looked to be an inanimate object—probably a plush toy or something—but it was hanging from the corridor’s ceiling, blocking people’s way.

The servants would definitely be disturbed by this thing when walking through here, but no one had bothered to take it down, which seemed to indicate that their master had forbidden them from touching it.

There were similar things in the small shops at many scenic spots in China. It seemed to be one of those cheap toys that would hang in the doorway and suddenly make noises as soon as you walked in. Its purpose was not only to scare you but to also alert the sleepy salesperson that a customer had come in.

Sure enough, when Black Glasses got within three or four steps of the spider, it suddenly moved. Its eyes glowed red and its feet started moving as if it was crawling along a silk strand.

Of course, it wasn’t really crawling, it was just a simulated action that was followed by a harsh “gegegege” sound.

This shoddy thing hanging in the corridor was very inconsistent with the very refreshing architectural style here. He had heard that Young Master Yushka was in Japan because he liked Japanese aesthetics so it was very strange for this thing to be hanging here. But if he hadn’t actually hung it up, then the servants would’ve definitely removed it so that it wouldn’t hinder their work.

Black Glasses took out a Bluetooth headset, put it on, called Xie Yuchen, and then put his phone in his pocket.

He could hear the person on the other end of the line eating noodles.

“Did you find something so soon?”

“They already served the food?”

“It’s instant noodles.”

“They’ve really wronged you. How could such a big place have such poor hospitality? I don’t want to do this job anymore.”

“Tell me, what did you find?”

“There’s a low-quality plush spider toy here the size of a backpack. It’s made out of recycled plastic and hanging in the middle of the corridor. When you approach, it makes a ‘gegegege’ noise to scare you.”

“What? Do you like it? If you do, I’ll give you one when we get back.”

“I want to hear your thoughts. Why would someone hang this kind of thing up? What sort of mentality do people who play with these kinds of toys have?”

“Well, other than that, have you seen anything else?”

“No.”

“Ordinary people would bump into it in the dark, right?”

“Well, they’d certainly be startled.”

“The servant didn’t get a chance to warn you. This isn’t a show of hospitality. This thing was prepared for our arrival. Someone is expressing their unwelcoming attitude. Young Master Yushka isn’t particularly normal and he’s got a strong, deep-seated antagonistic relationship with his mother. We are his mother’s guests, not his guests. This huge house is his territory, which is usually under his complete control, but our arrival is basically equivalent to his mother forcibly entering his territory. It must have brought up many bad memories from his childhood.”

“You mean, when he was a child, his private space was forcibly destroyed by his mother so when he grew up, he worked hard to leave his mother and create his own independent space? But now his mother is reasserting her power again so he’s very uncomfortable?”

“When he was a child, he probably confronted his mother by using this kind of prank toy to scare people. He’s obviously very clever. He wanted to use this method to increase the psychological pressure on his mother when she entered his territory. Now that we’re here, he’s doing the same thing. He probably thought that his mother would come here with us.”

“That’s why it’s hanging so close to the door. It’s a protest.”

“His mother is a strong woman so she must be insensitive to this kind of pressure. She’ll only think that her child is a little strange.”

Black Glasses smiled. A little brat with a problem in his heart? His favorite.

He skirted around the spider, pulling it off as he did so. The spider kept crawling and making that noise so he felt around for the switch, turned it off, and held it in his hand.

The biggest difference between humans was that there was a huge misunderstanding about what was important in each other’s minds and what was objectively important. Humans always believed that what was important to themselves must also be important to others, but in fact, people were very different from each other. If it weren’t for the fact that modern education was forcibly unifying people’s understanding of what was objectively important—such as food and the right to subsistence—then people would be even more different. They’d be so different, in fact, that we probably wouldn’t be able to live in groups.

“This thing is good news,” Xie Yuchen said. “It means that Young Master Yushka probably hasn’t had an accident yet.”

“Not necessarily,” Black Glasses said. He continued walking down the corridor until he reached a fork in the path. One way would take him up the hill to the black building complex he saw just now while the other way would lead him to the temple’s rear courtyard. Black Glasses walked to the rear courtyard first and found that it contained a huge pond.

But the pond was dried up; it seemed that they were in the middle of carrying out some dredging work.

A huge pond without any water in it could be very scary at night.

“The building here is divided into two parts. The part where we are now should be an ancient temple. The main building isn’t small but the total area isn’t large either. I’ve reached the rear courtyard of the ancient temple, where there’s a pond without any water,” Black Glasses said. “It’s about the size of two standard public swimming pools.”

“There’s no water in the pond?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“What do you think?”

Black Glasses walked up to the edge of the pond and jumped straight down into it. He sank into mud up to his ankles, but fortunately, he was wearing boots.

There was some starlight here so he could see that the mud at the bottom of the pond wasn’t too deep. In some places, the mud had even dried up and big holes had been dug up one by one. The bottom of the whole pond looked like a hornet’s nest.

“Young Master Yushka is either looking for gold here or looking for something at the bottom of the pond,” Black Glasses said.

<Chapter 11><Table of Contents><Chapter 13>

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Pic added 6/3/2023 (fan translation courtesy of me)