We followed the village path until we reached the Ge family's old house on the hillside.

Because the Ge family was well-off in earlier years, their mansion was very large, perched on the hillside. The front yard and back yard combined were more spacious than the courtyards of two or three neighboring families in the village.

While other families' courtyard walls were made of stones held together with clay, the Ge family's courtyard walls were neatly stacked with blue bricks. The main entrance of the old house was also an imposing iron gate, with two stone lions placed outside the door.

However, these two stone lions were severely damaged, probably due to their age. The lion on the left was missing its head, with only half of its body squatting on the ground. The lion on the right was missing half of its body, making it look eerie.

Arriving at the gate of the Ge family's old house, Xiao Liang subconsciously walked up, raised her hand and patted the iron gate, making a "clang" sound.

Jiang Yongguang joked with a smile, "What? You still expect Ge Xueying to come out and open the door for you? She's avoiding us now, so how could she possibly come out to greet you?"

Xiao Liang frowned and asked, "Then what should we do? This is someone's private residence, we can't possibly..."

At this point, she squinted and asked Jiang Yongguang, "Can we really..."

Jiang Yongguang was not one to stick to the rules, and said in a low voice, "Special circumstances call for special measures. Ge Xueying has several lives on her hands, and she may have also kidnapped Xiao Mei. We can't worry about so many petty rules."

After speaking, he went around to a tree next to the old house, and in a few steps, he used the trunk to climb onto the blue stone wall. After climbing over the wall, he went to the gate and opened it for us.

"Come in."

We didn't hesitate and stepped inside.

As soon as we entered, we saw a courtyard. There were rooms on the east, west, and north sides of the courtyard. The middle of the courtyard was planted with some flowers and plants, but they were probably untended for many years and had become overgrown with weeds. The weeds robbed the flowers of their nutrients, causing them all to wither and become yellowed, dead branches.

Uncle Mei walked to the room on the west side and glanced inside, saying, "This is the kitchen, but it shouldn't have been used for a long time."

I went over and took a look. Judging from the interior design, it was indeed a kitchen, but other than some kitchen utensils, there was nothing else. There wasn't even any seasoning, flour, or rice. It was clear that it had been abandoned for a long time.

The room on the east side looked like a study. There were two rows of bookshelves and a desk inside.

On the desk was a lamp, next to which was a black tape recorder. There were several tapes on the tape recorder, including tapes of Stefanie Sun and Karen Mok. Next to it was an old-fashioned wind-up alarm clock. These were obviously old objects from many years ago.

In that era, although tapes and tape recorders had not been completely eliminated, portable cassette players had already become popular. Families with slightly better financial conditions would directly buy mp3 players, so most of the things on this desk were a bit outdated.

Jiang Yongguang walked to the desk, opened the drawer and rummaged through it. The desk had three drawers. The first drawer contained some stationery, the second drawer contained a piggy bank. Shaking it, we could hear a clear sound, so there were probably many coins inside. The third drawer was empty.

After searching the study, we didn't find any useful information.

Finally, we retreated and went to the room on the north side together.

There were actually two rooms on the north side of the courtyard, separated by a door. The outer room served as a living room, with a large round mahogany table in the center, surrounded by six mahogany chairs, which looked quite impressive.

The room inside should be the bedroom. There was a single bed in the bedroom, and a large wardrobe next to it.

The bedding on the single bed had been put away, covered only with an old sheet. I walked over and touched it, feeling a thin layer of dust on the sheet.

"No one should have lived here for a while," I said softly. "The sheet is covered in dust."

Jiang Yongguang nodded and casually opened the wardrobe. Inside, there were several winter windbreakers, jackets, and down jackets. Judging from the style, they were all young women's styles, and the size of the clothes matched Ge Xueying's size, so they must be her clothes.

Jiang Yongguang casually rummaged through the inner pockets of the clothes and found several faded train tickets, all for long-distance buses from Chengdu.

Other than that, we still found nothing.

Uncle Mei was a little anxious and frowned, "Why does it feel like no one has lived in this house for several years? Can we really find any clues here?"

Jiang Yongguang said, "Third Brother, don't worry. We've come all this way, so we might as well look carefully. Maybe we can find some clues."

I also chimed in, "That's right, Uncle. Ge's family story is so strange, there must be some clues in the old house."

Uncle Mei then nodded and continued to search with us.

Coming out of the back door of the north-facing room, we arrived at the backyard of the Ge family's old house.

There were still two rows of houses in the backyard, which should have been where other family members lived when the Ge family was prosperous, but now it was obvious that no one lived there anymore. They had all been turned into warehouses, storing some unused tools.

Further back was actually a small garden.

There were even designs like rockeries and ponds in this small garden. Although the rockeries were covered with spider webs and the water in the pond had long dried up, it could be seen that the Ge family's ancestral home must have been built very carefully and exquisitely decades or even hundreds of years ago. It really had the appearance of a wealthy family.

We walked around the backyard, but still couldn't find any clues. Now, not only Uncle Mei, but even Xiao Liang shook her head helplessly and said, "It seems that there are no clues in the Ge family's ancestral home, and the White-Clad Immortal hasn't returned for a long time either."

But at this moment, Jiang Yongguang squinted at the Ge family's old house and said suspiciously, "Look, isn't this area a bit strange?"

I followed Jiang Yongguang's guidance and looked over, and it did look a bit strange, but I couldn't say exactly how.

Xiao Liang was the one who discovered the mystery. She pointed to a bare spot on the ground and said, "The garden is full of weeds everywhere, so why doesn't this place grow any weeds? It's bald in one spot, like the bald head of an uncle."

After she said that, I realized it.

Indeed, the small garden in front of us was full of weeds, and in some places the grass was over our knees, but there was a spot between the rockery and the pond that was bare and had nothing, like the receding hairline of a bald man.

At this time, Jiang Yongguang walked to the bare spot and looked at it, then took a few steps back, walked to a distance and looked at the rockery and the pond, and suddenly said loudly, "Wait! This is a feng shui layout! If we regard this rockery and pond as mountains and water, then this place where no grass grows is exactly a treasure trove for gathering wind and water!"