CHAPTER 76: MUSHROOM VILLAGE 26

It turned out to be the memorial tablets for the four of them! Hao Shijun was startled and instinctively looked around.

Where the wind passes, it leaves a trace; where the wild geese fly, their calls linger in the air.

Logically speaking, when people walk by, they are bound to leave some traces on the ground, more or less. Besides, the pathway in the ancestral hall hadn’t been maintained for a long time, and was covered in weeds and dust. When they came in, they left quite a few messy footprints all over the floor of the hall.

But when Hao Shijun looked around, among all the footprints, he actually didn’t see any sign of a sixth person.

Could it be that no one had come in just now at all? Then who had put these memorial tablets here?

Just then, Fang Minglan also walked in from outside and saw those memorial tablets too.

Anyone who saw this scene would show a look of shock. Fang Minglan was no exception.

"What’s going on here?" Fang Minglan immediately asked.

Hao Shijun shook his head. "I don’t know. It was like this when I came in."

Fang Minglan looked over each of the memorial tablets and found that one was missing. "There isn’t one for Wan Qian—why?"

Hao Shijun narrowed his eyes and glanced at Fang Minglan thoughtfully. "You seem to have a particular hostility toward Wan Qian. Before we entered this haunted realm, you and Wan Qian didn’t know each other, right?"

Being stared at with such scrutinizing eyes made Fang Minglan a little flustered. But she quickly steadied herself and said, "You’re overthinking it. I just think Wan Qian is unusually strong. And among these memorial tablets, only hers is missing — don’t you think that’s suspicious?"

Hao Shijun calmly stated, "This afternoon, she even saved you."

Fang Minglan sneered and retorted, "How do you know that wasn’t just a trick she used to win your trust?"

At that moment, Wan Qian happened to step out of the room she and Xie Jia had been in. As soon as she stepped into this room, she immediately sensed the tense atmosphere between the two.

"What are you two arguing about?" Wan Qian asked, looking utterly confused. Just a moment ago, these two were eager to come in and have a look, now that they were inside, why did they still look so unhappy?

Fang Minglan’s nerves were stretched to the limit. She had already been enduring constant torment because of Wan Qian’s manipulations, and now, faced with this scene, she finally couldn’t hold back any longer.

She abruptly pointed at the memorial tablets, her peach blossom eyes—once meant to hold gentle affection— now bloodshot, her whole person carrying an indescribable madness.

Her voice was so hoarse it was like it had been scraped with sandpaper as she questioned Wan Qian: "Why isn’t yours among these spirit tablets? Did you do this?!"

Fang Minglan guessed that maybe when they entered this ancestral hall, Wan Qian had known some rule that none of them did. So now, among the five memorial tablets, Wan Qian’s was missing.

But no matter what, this proved Wan Qian did it on purpose. Wan Qian deliberately wanted to see her panicking and falling apart because of all this!

"Who did this? These little brats are really hateful!"

Wan Qian followed the direction of Fang Minglan’s finger and saw that neat row of memorial tablets. Her face first showed shock and then immediately turned to righteous anger.

No doubt about it, this must have been done by those kids who sneaked in.

When they came in earlier, that middle-aged man had already said that the memorial tablets in the hall had all been moved out. If memorial tablets appeared now, it meant the kids were playing pranks.

Just then, Hao Shijun suddenly looked sharply outside the door and shouted, "Who’s there!"

Everyone followed his gaze. That thing moved so fast that their eyes only caught a fleeting shadow.

Vaguely, it looked like a small monkey-like black figure, landing on all fours in a twisted, unnatural way, darting past the entrance of the ancestral hall.

What was that thing?

Wang Hui instinctively took a step back. She had been just an ordinary housewife, so she reacted the strongest. Her daughter, Xie Jia, quickly supported her.

Wan Qian, on the other hand, perked up instantly. She rolled up her sleeves and was about to chase after the brat to settle the score.

"Hey, brat! Doing bad things and trying to run away?"

Wan Qian rushed out the door in a few strides, but outside, the figure was already nowhere to be seen — it was just too fast.

Wan Qian looked left and right and suddenly spotted half a face peeking out from around a corner. She saw it and immediately gave chase.

The thing seemed intent on leading her somewhere, darting off in a series of sharp, twisting turns.

Every time Wan Qian lost sight of him and didn’t know which way to go, he would peek out from a corner again.

Wan Qian followed him and unknowingly found herself standing in front of a collapsed house.

Seeing that pitch-black figure still trying to crawl into the rubble, Wan Qian picked up a stone from the ground and threw it, hitting his leg.

That thing let out a sharp "aow!" and collapsed to the ground. Wan Qian strode over in a few quick steps and grabbed its arm in one swift motion.

"Who are your parents? Don’t they care about you? Letting you come out and do this kind of thing!" Wan Qian scolded furiously, but the thing didn’t make a sound.

Could it be mute? Wan Qian paused for a moment, then lowered her head to take a closer look at the child.

The child’s whole body was pitch black, as if he came from Africa — no, to be precise, even darker than an African child, like he had grown straight out of a pile of coal.

His eyes were wide open, but in them was only an eerie white — there was no trace of black in his eyes. The whites of his eyes against his pitch-black skin looked particularly horrifying.

He was frighteningly thin. When Wan Qian gripped his wrist with one hand, she could only feel hard bones covered by a layer of skin. There seemed to be no flesh on him at all, except for his belly, which bulged outward round and hard.

At the sight of the child’s pitiful state, much of the anger in Wan Qian’s heart immediately dissipated, and she felt a surge of pity.

Forget it, forget it — this child was obviously malnourished and who knew if he even had parents. Even if he did, they probably hadn’t taken care of him properly.