The color of the blood wasn’t visible on the tree trunk, plus the hanging corpse was too eye-catching, so everyone’s attention was drawn to the corpse instead of the surrounding trees. Only when someone howled out did everyone realize that something was wrong.
As soon as she saw the bloody words, Ren Yao felt a chill travel from the soles of her feet to her scalp. She almost suspected that someone had jinxed1 her, otherwise, why did she bump into this kind of thing so often recently?
From the beginning, she stood by the tree as she didn’t dare to look at the corpse. Ren Yao realized that her clothes might have rubbed against the blood, and suddenly felt her back go numb.
Compared to Ren Yao, Xie Jichuan’s retreating movements were graceful and calm. If Ren Yao hadn’t heard him whisper “so scary” in that same elegant voice, she would have believed his act.
Xie Jichuan’s voice was very low, coupled with his calm and magnanimous aristocratic style, no one except Ren Yao noticed this scene. Ren Yao glanced at Xie Jichuan at a loss for words, realizing that it would be safer to follow the brother and sister pair.
At least if something were to really happen, Ming Huazhang would actually step up whereas Xie Jichuan would just calmly hide behind everyone.
The crowd dispersed hastily, and sure enough, Ming Huazhang went against the current again. He bent down, carefully analyzed the words on the tree, and then gently pressed the surrounding bark. Ren Yao watched as her scalp numbed and asked, “How can you let yourself get so close to such a wicked thing?”
Ming Huashang also came over. She looked over at the branches that hung up the corpse and then at the bloody words before revealing, “These words seem to be in the direction of Wei Zi’s line of sight.”
Jiang Ling rushed over excitedly, “How is it? Is what I said true? Now that we have all seen this line of blood, will the serpentine ghost come to find us?”
Ming Huashang was speechless for a moment; why did it sound like he was even looking forward to it? Ming Huashang pondered, “‘Those who see me die’, what does this phrase mean? Who was the first to discover Wei Zi?”
A servant girl in the crowd responded tremblingly, “It was this servant. This morning, Miss was hungry, and after waiting a long time and seeing that breakfast still wasn’t delivered from the kitchen, she sent this servant to inquire about the kitchen. This is the first time this servant has come to Feihong Garden. Being unfamiliar with the paths, this servant accidentally went astray and then saw a ball of red from a distance. At first, this servant thought it was a pedestrian, and wanted to ask for directions, but who would’ve known that when this servant got closer, it was…”
The little servant girl looked terrified; she was so frightened that she felt her soul fly away when she found the corpse. Then she frantically ran back to the courtyard to report the news. The young lady of their family was also terrified. After sending someone to inform Taiping Gongzhu, she also sent her maid out to inquire about the news.
The servant girl was obviously scared to death, yet she didn’t dare to leave, which made it easier for Ming Huashang to ask questions. Ming Huashang carefully asked the servant girl when she saw the corpse. The servant girl didn’t know the exact time, so she could only infer from the distance she walked that it was at least around the second hour of Chenshi2.
Ming Huashang nodded and said, “Although the second hour of Chenshi is early, many people woke up at the fourth watch today. You may not be the first to come here. The handwriting here is different from the one we found yesterday. Possibly, some people deliberately wrote these words on the tree to scare people.”
Ming Huashang’s words made the crowd come to their senses, and a servant of the Gongzhu manor boosted his courage and came over to have a look. The servant suddenly said with a look of horror, “This… this is Wei Zi’s handwriting!”
The crowd screamed, and Ming Huashang breath constricted slightly. Her original intention was to comfort everyone, but she seemed to have confirmed that an evil ghost killed people instead.
One woman reacted so strongly that her eyes rolled back and fainted. Everyone was startled. When the woman fell, no one dared to help her. Instead, they pushed and shoved her in a panic, “AH, someone died again!”
The woman fell, and her head hit the ground with a muffled bang. Ming Huashang felt pain at the sight, and quickly called out, “It’s not a ghost, she just fainted from fright, quickly come and save her!”
After a moment of panic, the unconscious woman woke up slowly. When she saw the figures around her, she was very frightened and screamed while covering her eyes, “Go away, all of you go away, don’t look at me!”
Ming Huashang sensed that the maid’s reaction was odd, so she hurriedly asked, “What’s wrong? Do you know something?”
The maid tightly covered her eyes, and Ming Huashang could only see her red lips opening and closing as if she was facing an eyeless monster, “I remembered just now. Yesterday, Wei Zi went to find Chi Lan and brought her to a place where no one was around and reprimanded her for a long time. Chi Lan must have held a grudge, so she came back yesterday and killed Wei Zi!”
The maid said some crazy things repeatedly, and she seemed to be out of her mind. Ming Huashang wanted to ask about the details of what happened yesterday, but she couldn’t ask anymore considering the maid’s condition. Ming Huashang could only ask for the maid to be sent back to her room to rest.
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First, the words of the dead appeared, and now a witness proved that Chi Lan and Wei Zi had met; the crowd immediately exploded. They didn’t dare to watch the excitement anymore, and ran out with their eyes covered, for fear that they would accidentally become scapegoats.
Xie Jichuan sighed, and said worriedly, “Why was it that the road down the mountain just happened to be blocked last night? I really want to leave.”
It was not just him; everyone in the villa probably wanted to run away now. Two murders occurred in a row, and the theory that a murderous ghost killed the people was rampant. At least, the one who died before was an ordinary maid, but now, the second was Taiping Gongzhu’s personal maid.
Who knew who the next scapegoat target will be?
The young masters and ladies no longer cared about their appearance, but the mountain road was blocked, as if the gods were helping the serpentine ghost, trapping them on the snow mountain, slowly admiring the struggle of its prey before death.
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