Chapter 6 Dark Room

The shop owner seemed to be at an emotional point, his head tilting slightly. In that brief moment, Zhou Rong saw the person standing in front of the shop owner.

He froze, then recoiled in shock, shrinking backward.

His arm, uncontrolled, knocked over the candle on the candlestick.

Just as the candle was about to fall, a hand quickly caught it and swiftly placed it back on the candlestick.

Jiang Cheng pulled Zhou Rong back, gesturing with his eyes. They quietly retreated, pushed open a door, and slipped into a room.

Almost as soon as the door closed, a faint "creak—" sound echoed.

It was like a very heavy door being pushed open.

A moment later, a series of rapid, forceful footsteps came from outside. The person seemed to contemplate for a moment, then headed straight for the door of the room where the two were hiding.

The crisp sound of keys clashing rang out, and Zhou Rong's heart jumped. He hadn't expected the shop owner to have a spare key.

With the sound of the lock tumblers clicking, the door was thrust open.

Footsteps burst in, followed by the sound of rummaging. However, he was destined to find nothing, as Jiang Cheng and Zhou Rong were hiding in room 308, opposite room 307.

The shop owner searched for a while, seemingly finding no trace of anyone, and then left. He returned to the wall in front of the secret room, and after a series of scraping sounds, silence completely enveloped the outside.

However, Jiang Cheng and Zhou Rong tacitly remained still, suppressing their breathing to the lowest possible level.

One minute, two minutes… until the end of the third minute, clear footsteps suddenly came from outside, very close to the two of them. Then, scraping sounds were heard, and the outside… fell silent again.

Jiang Cheng and Zhou Rong still didn't move.

Until five minutes later, when the process repeated itself, they quietly left the room.

But instead of going directly downstairs to meet their teammates, they went to the corner of the second floor.

"Mr. Zhou," Jiang Cheng pretended to be extremely frightened, lowering his voice to ask, "What did you see just now?"

Zhou Rong's face was even more terrified than Jiang Cheng's, but he wasn't faking it. His breathing hadn't returned to normal yet.

Just now, he had been hiding behind the door of room 308, and through the crack in the door, he had seen the shop owner, his face twisted and ferocious, a far cry from his friendly demeanor yesterday.

Even more frightening, he was clutching a sharp knife that gleamed with a cold light.

If he had been discovered, the outcome would have been self-evident.

"The secret room… besides the shop owner, there's a woman in the secret room," Zhou Rong's face grew even paler as if recalling the scene, "Not his wife, but an old woman. She… she was sitting in a wooden chair, half of her face looked like it had been melted, leaving only one eye, nose, lips… all gone!"

Jiang Cheng's pupils slowly constricted.

"Mr. Yin," Zhou Rong suddenly grabbed Jiang Cheng's wrist and said, "I know you're not an ordinary person. You should be able to see that the difficulty of this mission is different from the ones we've experienced before. This time, there aren't even any rookies."

Jiang Cheng didn't speak, but gave him a look that said, *I'm very scared, but I can still manage to listen to you.*

Zhou Rong didn't care about that and quickly said, "I want to team up with you, Mr. Yin," he swallowed, "I've successfully completed five missions, this is the sixth."

He glanced at the stairs leading up, and said with lingering fear, "But this mission is probably more difficult than my previous five combined. Such a thing has happened before even entering the *yu*. I have a very bad feeling."

Ignoring Zhou Rong's nonsense about how terrifying the mission was and how excellent he was, Jiang Cheng raised his head and asked directly, "What do you mean by *yu*?"

As soon as he said this, Zhou Rong couldn't help but be stunned. The look in his eyes gradually changed from doubt to suspicion, but only for a moment, before returning to its previous state.

"It's the range where ghosts can act or interfere," he explained.

"So you mean Anping Town is not a range where ghosts can reach or interfere?" Jiang Cheng asked.

Zhou Rong nodded. "In my judgment, that's how it is."

Jiang Cheng didn't delve into his method of judgment, firstly because time was pressing. If he delayed any longer, the people downstairs would notice something was wrong.

Secondly, it wasn't necessary, because these were his blind spots, so no matter how Zhou Rong explained it, he wouldn't be able to confirm whether it was true or false.

It was better not to ask, it would make him seem more profound.

He gave Zhou Rong a strange look, as if to say, *I'm not saying anything, but you better think more,* and then neither agreed to nor rejected Zhou Rong's offer of cooperation.

"Let's go downstairs," he said naturally.

After the two came downstairs, they didn't mention what had just happened, only saying that they hadn't found the shop owner.

"Then what were you two doing upstairs for so long?" It was Chen Xiaomeng who spoke, glaring at Jiang Cheng fiercely, wishing she could rush up and bite him to death.

"Could it be that you two…"

Chen Xiaomeng's face became strange. In order to smear Jiang Cheng, she had gone to any lengths, even at the cost of involving the innocent Zhou Rong.

Hearing this, Ben Fu's gaze towards Jiang Cheng became even more fervent.

"Long Er," Jiang Cheng looked at Chen Xiaomeng affectionately, wriggling uncomfortably, "What are you saying? You know how reluctant I was last night…"

Hearing this, Chen Xiaomeng's vision went black, and she almost vomited a mouthful of blood.

"Esteemed gentlemen!"

The village chief stood outside the inn, staring expectantly at these saviors. He had finally waited for the two to come down, but found them flirting and showing no intention of going to the village with them, which worried him greatly.

When everyone looked at him, he smiled as amiably as possible with his few remaining teeth: "It's getting late, the mountain road is rugged and difficult to walk, why don't we…"

"Okay," Jiang Cheng nodded, "Let's set off now."

Hearing this, the village chief and the villagers beamed with joy.

Following them on the road, Pei Qian walked alongside the village chief, and the two occasionally exchanged information about the local customs. Jiang Cheng followed them, listening with narrowed eyes.

Chen Xiaomeng began planning to find an opportunity to strangle Jiang Cheng, but Jiang Cheng seemed to see through her thoughts, and even pulled someone along when he went to the bathroom.

However, he didn't seem picky about who accompanied him. The last time, he had actually dragged Yu Man along.

The two returned after about fifteen minutes.

"So, the village is located in the gap between two mountains," Pei Qian seemed to have thought of something, looking at the village chief for confirmation.

"That's right, esteemed sir, that's how it is," the village chief was very respectful to Pei Qian, calling him esteemed sir with every breath, and even had someone use a paper umbrella to shield Pei Qian from the sun.

Jiang Cheng glanced at him and suddenly shouted, "I'm hot too! I want a strong man to hold an umbrella for me too!"

The village chief was stunned for a moment, then looked at Jiang Cheng and explained, "This young brother…"

But what he didn't expect was—

"Who are you talking to?!" Jiang Cheng put his hands on his hips, rolled his eyes, and said in a drawn-out tone, "Who's your brother? I'm an esteemed sir!"