Chapter 2 Menacing Manor

The man's story ended with the death of the spiritualist, and without wasting any more time, everyone said their goodbyes and left.

It was still early, and they decided to find a restaurant to fill their stomachs. Bai Xiaojie still had some money left, which should be enough.

But after searching around the neighborhood, they couldn't find a single restaurant open.

"What's going on?" Fatty complained, looking left and right, "Don't people in this town eat out?"

Jiang Cheng turned to look at him, then reached out and patted him on the shoulder, comforting him, "Don't think too much. Maybe everyone in this town doesn't need to eat. What do you say?"

Fatty's face fell, and he blinked nervously, looking at everyone on the road as if they were ghosts.

Having failed to find a restaurant, they had no choice but to return to the manor. As soon as they entered, they smelled the aroma of food. They followed the scent to the dining room, where the table was neatly set with portions of food.

There were seven portions in total, obviously not counting Jiang Zhao's.

The food looked tempting and was still steaming, as if it had been prepared just minutes before.

They looked around but couldn't find anyone. Finally, they went to the kitchen and saw the dust covering the utensils, which gave them an eerie feeling.

"Don't look at me. I don't know who made the food or how it was made," Fatty said, but Jiang Cheng interrupted him, licking his lips innocently. "I wasn't going to ask that. You misunderstood me. I wanted to ask... can we eat this food?"

"You... you want to eat this stuff?" Bai Xiaojie was shocked.

But this time, Miao Qing and Liu Hui didn't side with her. Miao Qing looked at the food, a hint of hesitation in his eyes. "What else can we do? Are we supposed to starve to death in this world?" He was also reluctant, but it was clear that they couldn't find any other food outside the manor.

Missing a few meals was fine, but starving to the point of exhaustion meant that teammates, not ghosts, would be the death of you.

"Let's eat," Jiang Cheng said, taking a seat.

Even so, they didn't start eating right away. Instead, they used their forks to move the food around, checking for any surprises. Fortunately, this time the plates were clean.

As they ate, they analyzed the clues they had found. The supernatural events in the manor seemed to be related to a witch. The way Mu Wanming and Jiang Zhao died also seemed to be the work of a witch.

"And those crows that are following us," Liu Hui said, putting down her fork and lowering her voice. "I looked back earlier, and the crows followed us to the gate of the manor. They don't dare come closer."

Jiang Cheng swallowed the food in his mouth and said calmly, "The relatives of the missing people said that finding the bodies would free their souls, and that the bodies are all in one room, inside this manor."

"Yes, it sounds strange," Huai Yi said, frowning slightly. "You all saw the missing person posters outside, right? So many people have gone missing. Stacking that many bodies in a room wouldn't be easy to hide."

"It seems that the room where the bodies are hidden is special," Miao Qing added.

Because there were few clues and they were very fragmented, they discussed back and forth without reaching a clear conclusion. At this moment, Fatty made a sound of "Hmm?" He stared at his mostly empty plate, looking strange.

"What's wrong?" Jiang Cheng asked immediately.

"You guys..." Fatty hesitated at first. His expression was strange, more like he had seen something incomprehensible than something terrifying. "Do you have this pattern on your plates too?" Fatty tilted his plate for everyone to see.

There was a faint pattern around the bottom of the plate.

"It looks like... like a clock face," Huai Yi said, looking at the plate hesitantly.

Next, everyone checked their own plates. To Jiang Cheng's relief, it wasn't just Fatty's plate that had the pattern.

Everyone's plate had it, but Fatty had eaten faster, so he noticed it first.

"What does this mean?" Ouyang Huanbin said, panicking.

The clock pattern was special, not in a rare way, but in a strange way, because it only had the markings, without any hands. There was no hour hand or minute hand. The entire clock face was bare.

After clearing their plates, they noticed another strange detail: a twisted arrow was drawn on the edge of the clock face, pointing clockwise.

They discussed it but couldn't come to a conclusion, so they put it aside for now.

After such a thing, no one was in the mood to continue eating.

Afterward, they walked around the building to familiarize themselves with the environment.

When they reached the second floor, Miao Qing suggested that they go to Mu Wanming's room to see if there were any clues they had missed. After all, she was the first to be killed by the ghost, and more importantly, someone had seen a figure standing in that room from outside.

Perhaps this was a hint.

They opened the door and entered the room. Everything inside was as it had been.

Surprisingly, Mu Wanming's wrapped head was still quietly on the ground, not gone.

Perhaps out of affection for his junior sister, Ouyang Huanbin decided to move the head. Leaving it on the ground like this was too tragic. But as he walked over, his eyes suddenly froze, and a chill ran through him. "Her head... her head has been moved!"

Hearing this, everyone gathered around. Jiang Cheng looked at the trembling Ouyang Huanbin and then at the quiet head on the ground. "Don't be nervous. Tell us slowly, what happened?"

"Before... before we left, her head was facing the wall. Now you see, it's facing this way." As if afraid that no one would believe him, he quickly explained, "Please believe me, I'm sure I didn't misremember. I paid special attention when Master placed the head down, after all, we are..."

Jiang Cheng couldn't hear the rest of his words, because he looked in the direction the head was facing and saw a grandfather clock next to the closet. The clock was simple and old-fashioned.

But most importantly, they had never seen it before.

"This clock wasn't here before!" Ouyang Huanbin shouted, pointing at the clock as if he had discovered a new continent, causing annoyance.

The sudden appearance of a grandfather clock naturally made everyone connect it to the clock markings on the plates. The two must be related.

"Mr. Wang!" Liu Hui's voice sounded from another direction. Liu Hui was standing by the window, her face looking strange. "You said you saw someone standing behind the window before?" She stared at Fatty's face as if she were guessing.

"Yes," Fatty replied.

Liu Hui moved aside, and everyone gasped. On the originally clean table behind the window, there were a pair of black footprints, barefoot, and only the front of the foot.

"The ghost Mu Wanming saw was standing on tiptoe," Jiang Cheng said, staring at the footprints.