Chapter 32 Traveling Notes

Fatty immediately went to check on A-Gong and A-Mu and found that the two sacred chickens from the snowy region were just fine. Some of the other ducks and geese were also fine, but they were staying very far away from those dead ducks, which had me wondering what they were afraid of.

The master had hanged himself. His tongue was sticking out and his eyes, which were fixed on Agui’s house, were full of resentment.

These ducks were one of the most important sources of income for Agui. He squatted next to the shed and kept making calls, hoping that there was a way to sell these dead ducks. There were crocodiles around the area, so the dead ducks could be used as feed for them.

We didn’t move the master’s body for fear of damaging the scene.

I squatted next to the dead ducks and poked their carcasses with a bamboo stick. There weren’t any wounds on the ducks, which meant that their deaths weren’t caused by any animals, but their stomachs were very bloated.

I took one of the dead ducks to the kitchen, cut open its stomach, and found that it was full of soil. There was so much soil that it looked like the duck had suffocated.

When Fatty called the police to report the case, the policeman said that he didn’t know what happened. The master had been detained but suddenly disappeared last night. Who would have thought he’d be found hanging from a tree in the morning?

Of course, we couldn’t see the surveillance feed, but the news spread quickly throughout the area. We soon heard that the surveillance cameras in the detention center caught the master kowtowing to the corner of the room nonstop until he passed out and was taken to the infirmary. The camera outside the infirmary was broken, so that may have been where he made his escape.

The surveillance cameras in front of the village showed that he entered the village by himself. Several households in the village had cameras installed, but they only showed him walking in the dark or stopping at every corner, which was very strange.

Because he was alone.

Before the police came to collect the body, I stood under the tree and looked up at him. When Fatty asked me what I was thinking, I said to him, “Look at his clothes.”

Ink patterns had been drawn on the master’s clothes. Upon closer inspection, they looked exactly the same as the ones painted on the sheets and walls of the Yuanchen Palace replica Agui had set up in the attic.

“You’d better explain because I don’t have any experience with this kind of thing.”

I didn’t have any explanation either.

While eating later that evening, we heard more gossip saying that during the autopsy, it was found that the master had a very serious case of cancer. His whole body had been eroded by cancer cells, and it was impossible for him to continue living in this world. But when we saw the master before, we felt that he was no different from ordinary people.

This sounded like some kind of supernatural plot device, but there was no way to tell if it was true or if the villagers were just making it up.

In the living room that night, I used my laptop to conduct a wider search for information regarding this matter. To be honest, I didn’t care that much about this kind of thing before since I felt that the three of us couldn’t possibly be afraid of such things at this point.

But when I thought of the look I saw in the dead master’s eyes today, I couldn’t help but feel that I shouldn’t take this matter lightly.

First, I checked a lot of information about Guan Luo Yin, and learned some of the basics. For example, shoes represented the guests who entered the house. The number of shoes you saw represented the number of guests in the house. If words were written in the house in ink, there was a saying that the owner would owe a lot of debt. There was also another saying that these words were some of the things that the owner had to remember, even after being reborn.

Although this kind of thing was impossible, it at least showed that the owner of the Yuanchen Palace knew a crucial secret that couldn’t be brought into the coffin.

But the characters used in the underworld were different from those used above, so what Yun Cai had written just looked like circles.

Most people’s Yuanchen Palace was a courtyard-style house, but Yun Cai’s was a single room. I consulted many masters for a fee, but none of them had any answers. They all said that they had never encountered such a thing before, and that it should be impossible. There was only one possibility: that room wasn’t a Yuanchen Palace.

If that were true, then someone tricked Yun Cai into living in a Yuanchen Palace that wasn’t her own. Yun Cai was still young when she died, so she had to wait until she lived out her life in the Yuanchen Palace before she could reincarnate.

But if Yun Cai’s Yuanchen Palace had been hidden from her and she was forced to live in a strange room, then who was living in her Yuanchen Palace?

Just listening to these things made me feel like I was living in a magical fantasy.

That night, I had a strong premonition that something was going to happen, so I planned to sleep early in order to be ready to deal with it.

If it wasn’t the master’s intention to retaliate against me by using his own life—this was obviously impossible since no one was really that narrow-minded—then he must’ve had some reason for dying in front of Agui’s house.

Later that night, I said to the two of them, “Be on guard tonight. I’m going to sleep in the attic bed.”

Fatty looked at me, “You’ve become brave, but don’t you think you’re overdoing it a bit?”

“I need more clues to solve this thing. Before I go to sleep, I’ll video call you on my cell phone and you guys can watch me. If there are any problems, you can come in,” I said to them. “I have to give the other party—whatever it is—a chance to mess with me.”

Fatty plucked a few stalks of foxtail grass from the temple outside the village and weaved a strange thing for me, saying that it would protect me. We discussed the matter until midnight, when I happened to glance out of the window and saw a vague shape hanging in the same spot where the master had hanged himself.

I immediately illuminated it with a strong flashlight, but there was nothing there. The spot was completely empty.

My heart was as calm as still water, and I realized that I was truly worthy of being a man who had seen the world.

Instead of going out to investigate, I went up to the attic, made the video call, and then sat on the dusty bed. As I looked at the shrine sitting off to one side, I couldn’t help but think that the Buddha statue looked even more rotten than before.

After staring at it for a while, I eventually turned off the light, plunging the room into complete darkness.

Fatty’s voice suddenly came over the video call, “It’s so dark there. What exactly do you want us to watch for?”

The only light I had was what was coming from the video. “Don’t just worry about me,” I said to Fatty. “Something could happen on your end.”

Fatty lit a cigarette and said to me, “Have a cigarette. Let’s get a little wild tonight.”

<Chapter 31><Table of Contents><Chapter 33>

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Pic added 1/6/2023 (fan translation courtesy of me).