This kind of photo is generally called a funeral photo.
"Is she a ghost?" Yu Wenxuan murmured, as if asking Bai Yanliang and Xu Zhifei, but also as if asking himself.
Bai Yanliang reached for the frame and stared at the eerie black-and-white photo.
The elder in the photo was exactly the same as the one they had just seen, even the wrinkles were identical...
As he kept looking, Bai Yanliang, seemingly in a daze, thought he saw her blink.
He immediately dropped the frame.
He couldn’t look anymore...
A slight chill rose from the bottom of his heart, was it... a deadlock from the start...
"Have you noticed... the structure of the whole house is kind of strange?"
Suddenly, Yu Wenxuan spoke, he stared at the beams, then looked at the layout inside the house, whispering, "This doesn’t look like a room, more like an oversized... coffin."
With Yu Wenxuan’s words, Bai Yanliang also began to feel that the house was indeed quite odd.
It was pitch black, airtight, longer and narrower than ordinary houses, almost like... an enlarged coffin.
The three of them suddenly fell silent, and the atmosphere in the room began to grow eerie.
Gradually, they all moved their noses.
A faint stench seeped out from some corner.
This stench was not unfamiliar to Bai Yanliang, nor to Xu Zhifei, but the one who quickly put a name to it was Yu Wenxuan.
"There’s a corpse smell."
Yu Wenxuan squinted his eyes and scanned around, seemingly trying to find the source of the corpse smell.
In fact, the scent was not intense, but it indeed existed, and as extremely sensitive individuals, none of them could overlook this suspicious anomaly.
"Let’s search and see where the smell is coming from."
Yu Wenxuan did not want to miss this clue, similarly, Bai Yanliang was also very curious.
The three began looking around the house.
There were only two rooms inside, besides the bed and some simple wooden furniture, there was nowhere else something could be hidden.
"Could it be underground?"
Yu Wenxuan’s gaze shifted to the floor beneath them.
The house couldn’t hide a corpse, but underground certainly had the possibility of being a burial site.
After a body decays, the scent could permeate through the soil and be detected by them; a plausible explanation indeed.
This time, Bai Yanliang was also probing, carefully distinguishing the source of the stench.
As Yu Wenxuan was muttering to himself, Bai Yanliang turned his head, and upon doing so, he bumped into something cold and hard, emitting a crisp "thud".
Bai Yanliang heard a muffled grunt, then felt a weight on his left wrist.
It seemed that Xu Zhifei had crouched down.
"Ah... did I hit your forehead?"
This time, Bai Yanliang felt somewhat embarrassed.
After all, given the present circumstances, it seemed as if his actions were a kind of retaliatory behavior for the previous slap, but in truth, they were not.
Xu Zhifei didn’t answer.
Bai Yanliang rubbed his nose, and suddenly, something dawned on him.
"Xu Zhifei, let me smell it!"
This abrupt and rude request naturally met with Xu Zhifei’s refusal, and her way of refusing was the sound of a gust through the air.
However, this time, Bai Yanliang was prepared.
"The corpse smell seems to be coming from you."
Bai Yanliang caught Xu Zhifei’s swatting hand and spoke quickly.
This statement not only halted Xu Zhifei’s actions but also drew Yu Wenxuan’s attention.
Yu Wenxuan walked towards their position, sniffing lightly, indeed... the smell seemed stronger here.
"Verify it yourself, maybe I’ve got it wrong." ɴᴇᴡ ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀʀᴇ ᴘᴜʙʟɪsʜᴇᴅ ᴏɴ novelFɪre.net
After Bai Yanliang finished speaking, the room was silent for quite a while.
Xu Zhifei hadn’t responded, and if not for the rope tied between the two, Bai Yanliang might have believed she had left.
Several breaths later, Xu Zhifei’s voice finally surfaced.
But this time, her voice had changed.
"I... am decaying..."
Jiang Li and Lu Guo were circling around the entire village.
This village was larger than expected, but as they walked, Jiang Li began to feel uneasy.
The village was nestled in a mountain hollow, yet all around were wild grasses, with no traces of cultivated fields or any planted crops.
"No crops, no vegetables... what do these villagers eat?"
"I find it odd as well."
Lu Guo rubbed his chin, puzzled by the fact that although it was broad daylight, the whole surrounding area of the village was deserted; even as they had walked halfway around, they hadn’t spotted a single soul.
"No people, no cats, no dogs, no poultry, not even a single birdcall in the entire hollow."
"What... is going on here..." Jiang Li’s face turned pale, "How do these villagers sustain themselves... could it be they are... ghosts?"
Her whole body quivered, but Lu Guo couldn’t provide her an answer.
Though Jiang Li’s guess was frightening, even more frightening was that there was a high probability of her guess being correct...
"Lu Guo... what should we do?" Jiang Li had no desire to enter the village, "Are we really supposed to stay here for three days?"
Jiang Li was utterly terrified.
Some people become bolder after experiencing such things, while others become increasingly frightened.
Jiang Li was the latter.
She knew fear was futile, yet she couldn’t control herself.
"...Whatever happens, we have to stay..." Lu Guo himself was very averse to entering the village.
But he knew well, the horrors of Fog Gathering were no less than this village.
"Bai Yanliang and Yu Wenxuan... whatever their character, at least their abilities are trustworthy; as long as we stick close to them, we should avoid offending any terrible taboos..." Lu Guo muttered, as if comforting Jiang Li, and persuading himself.
"But... they went into the village first... if we go in and can’t find them..." Jiang Li’s words were cut short by Lu Guo.
"Going in one second sooner means an extra second of danger, I firmly believe that. Since they went in first, let them scout the way. These two have had smooth sailing; maybe they’ve forgotten how terrifying Fog Gathering is; this will just serve as a reminder..."
As he spoke, Lu Guo habitually glanced towards the village.
It was an instinctive action, so he barely looked before averting his gaze, believing he wouldn’t see anything.
However... after he looked away he suddenly realized...
He had seen a person just now!
By the time Lu Guo came to his senses and looked back towards the village, the spot was already empty.
Lu Guo was certain his reaction was quick, no more than a second.
Yet the person he had seen... vanished within that short second.
What did he look like?
Lu Guo patted his head, his memory suddenly a little fuzzy.
"Lu Guo... what’s wrong? Lu Guo?"
Jiang Li’s call made Lu Guo slowly lift his head.
However, the moment he saw Jiang Li’s face, Lu Guo’s complexion turned ashen.
This unfamiliar face... who was it?