Chapter 425: What Lies Beyond
The clear blue sky and white clouds over the Aegean Sea were the most beautiful Wen Nuan had ever seen. They were so pure and flawless. But Wen Nuan didn’t have the heart to enjoy it. Ye Feimo had taken her to an island in the Aegean Sea.
This was a private island with soft, white sand beaches. There were large patches of red spider lilies, tall palm trees, and strange rock formations. The combination was very odd and unsettling.
Ye Feimo had done some research and found that the island was registered under the name of a Chinese woman named Gu Zhenzhen. However, he couldn’t find any information about her. This either meant that she had no record or that she didn’t exist at all.
Ye Feimo wasn’t too concerned about this. After all, there were countless people in the world with no records in any country. People from secret organizations, for example, would never leave any information for others to find.
"Can red spider lilies grow in a place like this?" Wen Nuan asked Ye Feimo. He frowned, looking at the vast expanse of red. A bad feeling rose in his heart. These were the flowers of the underworld. They were traditionally considered unlucky.
Red spider lilies, the flower of death.
The island was very quiet. Ye Feimo and Wen Nuan had walked a long way without seeing a single person. They did, however, see a few old-fashioned houses. The buildings looked like the courtyards in period dramas, with two big red lanterns hanging at the entrance. They looked very antique.
The style was very strange. On the stone pillars in front of one of the houses, there were many dragon and phoenix carvings.
The street was a clean stone path that wasn’t very smooth. There were only three houses, forming a strange triangular shape. Each house had a patch of red spider lilies in front of it. There was also a small river and a small stone bridge on the island, giving it a peaceful, village-like feel.
Wen Nuan and Ye Feimo knocked on the door of the nearest house, but no one answered. They looked at each other and then went to knock on the doors of the other two houses, but still no one answered. The island was completely silent. The occasional cry of a crow was so hoarse that it sent a chill down Wen Nuan’s spine.
Ye Feimo held her hand tightly. He said in a low voice, "Don’t be afraid. I’m here."
In the silence, Ye Feimo’s voice was very comforting. Wen Nuan nodded. She was so glad that she had come with Ye Feimo; otherwise, she would have been terrified.
"Is there no one on the island?" Wen Nuan asked.
Ye Feimo shook his head. "No. There are houses here. Plus, I saw a lot of footprints on the beach. There has to be someone here."
Private islands usually don’t have a lot of footprints. Since there were, it meant that someone lived here. Her mother had definitely come to this island yesterday. If there was no one here, why would she have come?
Wen Nuan saw that the doors of the houses didn’t seem to be locked. She thought for a moment and asked Ye Feimo, "Should we go in and take a look?"
Just as Ye Feimo was about to push the door open, it suddenly opened on its own. A gust of wind blew, and a young girl in a white dress suddenly appeared, startling Wen Nuan. She instinctively held onto Ye Feimo’s hand.
The girl looked to be about fifteen or sixteen. She was wearing a white dress, and her face was as pale as a ghost, with no color at all. Her lips were also very pale. Her long black hair was loose and was fluttering in the wind. She looked a little scary.
If you saw her in the middle of the night, you would definitely think she was a female ghost.
But the girl’s face was very delicate, and she had a beautiful pair of peach-blossom eyes that looked a lot like Wen Nuan’s.
"Who are you looking for?" the girl in white asked. She spoke in very standard Chinese, and her voice was light and airy, matching her dress. Her beautiful peach-blossom eyes were emotionless and empty, like a bottomless pit.
Ye Feimo and Wen Nuan looked at each other. Through the girl, they could see the courtyard. It was empty. They could only vaguely make out an elegant rattan chair and a table. They couldn’t see anything else.
Wen Nuan said, "Hello, little girl. I’m looking for a woman in her forties. Is she on this island?"
"No," the girl in white said coldly, her words as cold as ice.
Wen Nuan frowned. "How can she not be? My mom comes to the island every year to see her friend. She told me that her friend is in her forties."
"No."
Wen Nuan started to get a little anxious. "Little girl, who else is on this island?"
"No one."
After repeating the same two-word answer three times, the girl’s voice didn’t change at all, which made her seem even more eerie. Her voice didn’t sound like a living person’s.
Wen Nuan’s heart started to pound.
Ye Feimo said, "Are you the only one on this island?"
"Yes."
"A woman in her forties came to the island yesterday. What did she do here?" Ye Feimo asked.
The girl in white looked at Ye Feimo and then at Wen Nuan. She stepped out of the house, turned around, and walked along the small river. Wen Nuan and Ye Feimo followed her. The door of the house behind them closed on its own.
A moment later, after walking through a patch of red spider lilies, the girl in white stopped and pointed at Ye Feimo. "You can’t go any further."
Ye Feimo’s eyes narrowed dangerously. He pulled Wen Nuan into his arms. The girl pointed to a gravestone in a patch of green grass in the distance, looking at Ye Feimo without any expression. Her meaning was clear: Ye Feimo couldn’t go over to look, only Wen Nuan could.
The island was so strange. Ye Feimo would never let Wen Nuan go to the gravestone alone. If anything happened, he would regret it for the rest of his life.
He was even starting to regret bringing Wen Nuan to this island.
The girl was expressionless and didn’t say anything. Wen Nuan said, "Feimo, I want to go and take a look."
"Wen Nuan, let’s go. This island is too strange. Don’t go over there. It’s just a gravestone. Mom comes here every year to see a friend who has passed away. There’s nothing to see. Let’s go. Mom’s friend has nothing to do with us," Ye Feimo tried to convince Wen Nuan to leave. But Wen Nuan shook her head. She wouldn’t leave no matter what. She had come all this way to the island and had to find out the truth.
Ye Feimo didn’t know why Wen Nuan was so insistent. He was worried and couldn’t help but look at the girl.
The girl in white wasn’t even looking at them. Ye Feimo saw that she was also looking at the gravestone and asked, "Whose gravestone is that?"
The girl in white didn’t answer.
Wen Nuan said, "I’ll just go over and take a quick look. I won’t feel right if I don’t. Feimo, you can stay here and watch. I’ll be fine. I’ll call you if anything happens."
It was a patch of green grass with a cross-shaped gravestone in the middle. There was a bouquet of lilies in front of it, which someone had probably just placed there.
Wen Nuan thought, *It must have been Mom.*
So, the person her mother came to see every year was a dead person?