Chapter 1 I Fall Into Another Dimension

While I was pondering, my eyes happened to fall on the camera, and a thought suddenly struck me: "It's the camera!"

Ling also realized, "Right! The thing that triggered the appearance of the ghosts and gods is this camera."

Su Su asked curiously, "What's so special about this camera?"

"This camera model is too old." I explained, "This kind of camera was popular more than ten years ago, but it has long been淘汰(taotai – eliminated). Its pixels can't even compare with today's average mobile phone. Why would someone who is used to recording videos choose this kind of equipment?"

"Besides, we never saw who was actually recording the video."

"Perhaps, our initial guess was wrong. The person recording the video wasn't Bu Ting at all. Maybe it wasn't even a person."

Su Su exclaimed in surprise, "Do you mean a ghost or god was holding the camera in another dimension to record? But why would they leave the camera behind?"

"To take us away too!" I said in a deep voice, "The other party left it here to make us trigger the secret technique left in the camera."

"Before the video we just watched, they must have recorded something else. Once we see that part, the way to enter that space will appear."

I looked at Ling and said, "Rewind the video quickly and see what's at the very beginning."

"Get ready!" Ling reminded us before starting to rewind the video. After a while, the camera screen went black.

The next second, a middle-aged man with a simple and honest appearance, dressed like a shopkeeper, appeared on the screen. He cupped his hands and said with a friendly smile, "Welcome everyone to the Yin-Yang Inn!"

I only felt a darkness before my eyes, and then I fell into another space.

When my vision returned again, I had already left Zheng Ning Tai and was standing at the foot of an unknown mountain.

Looking around, all I could see was continuous, undulating mountain ranges, with several buildings of various styles resembling 民宿 (minsu – guesthouses) on each mountain.

What was even stranger was that the mountain peaks where those buildings were located were mixed with both day and night. The mountain on the left was clearly bathed in bright sunshine, while the mountain separated by only a line was shrouded in deep night.

Some buildings had lights on, looking like villas in the night.

Although some inns were in broad daylight, they looked extremely eerie. I could even see Yin wind blowing through the dilapidated doors and windows.

Fifty or sixty meters ahead of where I was standing, there was a gate like a pailou (traditional Chinese archway), with the four characters "阴阳客栈" (Yin-Yang Inn) written on it in gold paint.

This was the Yin-Yang Inn!

Faced with the bizarre scene before me, I didn't know whether I should continue forward!

Fortunately, all five of us were still together. When I looked at Ling, he said, "The entrance to the Yin-Yang Inn that I found before didn't look like this."

Just as Ling finished speaking, I heard someone nearby say, "The Yin-Yang Inn has a total of five entrances. Each entrance is a little different."

When I looked in the direction of the voice, I saw the shopkeeper from the video standing not far from us.

He cupped his hands and said, "Sorry for disturbing you esteemed guests, please forgive me."

"My surname is Jia, you can call me Shopkeeper Jia."

"Are you here to stay, or are you looking for someone? As long as the price is right, anything is possible!"

I looked at him and said, "You said the Yin-Yang Inn has five entrances?"

"Of course." Shopkeeper Jia said, "Five entrances, each with a shopkeeper. We also have a boss above us."

"However, the boss rarely sees guests. If you have any requests, you can tell me. As long as the price is right, nothing else is a problem."

I gave Ling a look, and the latter stepped forward and said, "Shopkeeper, how much do you charge for accommodation, and how much do you charge for finding someone?"

Shopkeeper Jia said, "Accommodation depends on why you want to stay, and what kind of place you want to stay in."

"Some tenants here are for immortality, some are for secluded cultivation, and some are to escape pursuit. The fees are different depending on what you want."

"As for finding someone, that's simple."

"You just need to tell me who you want to find, and I will give you a quote directly."

"Because our guests can pay the inn a confidentiality fee to protect their privacy. As long as you can afford ten times the price, I can take you to find them."

"Finding someone! It also depends on luck. If the person you are looking for has not paid a confidentiality fee, I can take you there directly, without spending a penny. If the person you are looking for has paid a sky-high confidentiality fee, then it's terrible. You can only pay a huge price to get their information."

Hearing this, I couldn't help but frown, "Do you consider this doing business?"

"Of course!" Shopkeeper Jia said, "Everyone has their own way of doing business. The most important thing is how you make money. As long as you don't feel that you've made dirty money, who cares what others think?"

I frowned and said, "Do all five shopkeepers of the Yin-Yang Inn think like this?"

"No, no, no..." Shopkeeper Jia shook his head and said, "Our business philosophies are different. If you have the opportunity to see the other shopkeepers, you will find that doing business with me is such a happy thing."