Chapter 143 Haunted

The commotion in the village was growing louder by the moment, seemingly punctuated by bursts of heavy wailing, as if the entire settlement had been suddenly raided by bandits.

The caravan leader appeared to know what this was about. He first furrowed his brow, then let out a soft sigh, exchanged a subtle nod with Hu San and the others, and stepped out of the courtyard gate.

Naturally, Hu San and the leader's sworn brothers could not simply ignore the situation, and they followed closely on the leader's heels out of the courtyard.

By the time Hu San and the others emerged, the space in front of the small courtyard's gate was already packed with villagers carrying torches.

Amidst the reddish glow of the fire, three figures dressed in fine silk garments, standing out starkly from the local attire, caught everyone's attention.

Hu San recognized all three. One was the village head, whose status was equivalent to a clan patriarch. The other two were from a wealthy local family. The older man was named Liu Jia; having spent his entire life traveling as a merchant, he had amassed a considerable fortune by this age and had since settled down permanently in the village.

The young man standing beside him was his son, though at that moment, the handsome youth's face was beaded with sweat and drained of all color.

"Older brother, you simply must save Yu'er! She seemed somewhat better after taking your medicine during the day, but as night fell, her condition grew even more violent. This time, she has actually taken all the maids and servant women in the back courtyard hostage, and she hasn't even spared my old wife."

"The screams coming from the back courtyard are getting higher and higher. A few brave menservants tried to rush in, but they were swept flat to the ground by a blast of freezing cold air. Though they are still breathing, they are all completely unconscious and cannot be revived no matter how we call to them."

The moment he saw the leader emerge, Liu Jia rushed forward a few steps, his face a mask of grief and anxiety.

"Alas! Younger brother Liu does not know. When I journeyed to the Thirty-Six Connected Cities this time, although I acquired some medicinal herbs, rumors of the peerless manual suddenly appearing there had drawn countless martial arts experts, so I dared not linger. I hurried right back, hoping that a certain Ghost-Soul Grass I managed to gather would be enough to treat your daughter's madness, but I never expected it to have no effect."

"Since I failed to collect the Soul-Returning Herb, I am afraid my hands are tied!"

The leader sighed. From their daytime conversations, Hu San understood that the leader shared a deep friendship with Liu Jia. Back when the leader used to roam the martial world, the two of them had interacted frequently. After both retired from the pugilistic life, this connection had not faded; on the contrary, it had grown only deeper and stronger.

"Older brother, I am truly at my wit's end in this impoverished backwater. Please come and take a look. With your medical skills, you can at least diagnose the general situation. Otherwise, whether I can survive this night myself remains uncertain."

Liu Jia shed bitter tears, clutching the lapels of the leader's robe and refusing to let go. At that moment, Liu Jia's son also dropped to his knees with a thud, remaining silent while kowtowing repeatedly.

A moment later, the village head joined the chorus of entreaties, and even the surrounding villagers began to chime in. It seemed Liu Jia enjoyed a very good reputation in these parts.

"Fine, fine, fine. I will accompany you for a trip. But do not hold out too much hope; I can only do my utmost."

Ultimately, the leader could not withstand the earnest pleas of the village head and the villagers. With no other choice, he shouldered his medicine box and, surrounded by the crowd, headed toward the Liu residence.

As members of the caravan, Hu San and the others naturally followed along.

The Liu residence was not far from where they were staying. Their lodgings were actually the old courtyard where Liu Jia had lived before he made his fortune. Upon returning to his hometown to retire, he had spent a huge sum of money to build a new mansion not far from the old ancestral home, converting the old residence into guest quarters specifically meant to accommodate large parties of distinguished guests.

After walking for just a short while, everyone arrived before a massive estate—this was none other than Liu Jia's residence.

Yet this building, usually so solemn and grandiose, appeared exceptionally eerie under the gloomy night sky.

Several of the estate's menservants dared not linger in the courtyard. They huddled near the main entrance with their arms crossed over their chests, stealing timid glances into the courtyard before quickly looking away, as if some entity within would devour them if they stared for too long.

Once they reached this spot, the previously muffled sounds suddenly became clear. The gnashing of teeth, wild laughter, and savage roars echoed incessantly. Even through the walls, everyone felt an involuntary shiver run through their hearts, and it seemed as though the torchlight around them dimmed.

Seeing their master arrive, the menservants swarmed forward instantly, as if they had just encountered their saviors.

The crowd grew larger and larger, swelling in no time to two or three hundred people—virtually everyone in this modest-sized village had turned out.

As the saying goes, there is strength in numbers, and naturally, people's courage tends to grow when they are surrounded by a crowd.

Armed with a torch in every hand, the towering flames illuminated the night sky so brightly that the heavens took on a ruddy hue, and the previously gloomy buildings suddenly seemed somewhat less terrifying than before.

Under these circumstances, the crowd swarmed inward, following the leader directly into the courtyard.

Seeming to fear the sheer number of arrivals, the bizarre noises echoing through the courtyard abruptly ceased at that very moment.

The entire courtyard fell so silent that a pin drop could be heard. Only the ragged breathing of the crowd remained; aside from that, there wasn't even the sound of a gentle breeze rustling the leaves, creating a dead silence that made people's hair stand on end.

Just as everyone's hearts were filled with apprehension, a streak of red suddenly flashed across a corner, quickly vanishing around the edge of a wall.

At this sight, the crowd let out a collective gasp. The more timid ones had already turned pale, secretly regretting why they had come to gawk at the excitement. However, because the number of people was simply too vast at that moment, it was difficult to openly beat a retreat.

"Younger brother Liu, what place is that?"

The leader swayed slightly, clearly shaken considerably, though his early years wandering the martial world had exposed him to plenty of ghosts and goblins, allowing him to maintain his composure.

"Th-that is the back courtyard!"

Liu Jia's teeth chattered and his entire body shivered uncontrollably, yet he still gritted his teeth and finished the words.

"We are going in! With so many of us here, I refuse to believe otherwise!"

By this point, Liu Jia seemed to have thrown caution to the wind. He straightened his disheveled lapels, instantly regaining the courage he once possessed during his merchant days.

"Very well!"

The leader nodded and took the lead, stepping forward toward that direction. Things had now gone beyond his control, and whatever happened next would depend on the will of heaven! There was no room for retreat left anyway. Moreover, with so many people gathered here, the leader believed that even if something truly supernatural existed, they had no reason to be afraid.

With someone taking the first step, the mob mentality took hold of the crowd's hearts, and they flooded into the back courtyard in a swarm.

Yet once everyone entered the back courtyard, they discovered that although the entire rear area was illuminated as bright as day by countless torches, the space enclosed by it consisted of merely three buildings and a garden with a pond. The area was roughly two hundred meters in diameter—not particularly large by any measure. With so many people crowding in, even if they weren't packed shoulder-to-shoulder, at least every single spot should have been occupied by people.

Under such conditions, however, the crowd discovered to their dismay that no matter how hard they looked, they could find no trace of anyone having ever existed in this back courtyard. It was as if, starting from some unknown moment—perhaps the very second they stepped into this courtyard—the people here had all vanished without a trace, leaving behind only one or two sporadic, short-lived wails echoing intermittently.

Whenever someone actually attempted to investigate the source of the sounds, they would find absolutely nothing there; yet shortly after, the cries would resurface in another location.

"How can this be? There were clearly people here just a moment ago."

Liu Jia could no longer afford to feel terrified; a few stray roars were no longer enough to strike fear into his heart. The thought that both his wife and daughter had vanished into thin air filled the aging man with sheer dread.

"Everyone, search carefully and see if there are any clues left behind! How could so many people just vanish into thin air?"

The village head shouted, and the crowd immediately scattered in all directions.

"Younger brother Liu, do not panic. Let us search slowly. I suspect this is one of those soul-bewitching arrays passed down in the martial world, or perhaps some illusionary art. As long as we all work together to search, we are bound to find some clues. This is not some desolate wilderness, and there are so many of us; nothing untoward will happen."

"Why don't you and I first go check your daughter's bedchamber? We might gain something from it."

With a word of comfort, the leader, alongside the village head and the distraught Liu Jia, walked into the main hall.

Amidst the hustle and bustle, Hu San stood quietly by the edge of a pond filled with withered lotus leaves. It was now approaching late autumn, and the lotuses in the pond had long since withered, leaving only palm-sized seed pods standing tall against the sky, struggling to absorb the final wisps of light and warmth.

"This pond is likely harboring something strange!"

Hu San, who could no longer be considered a novice or an ignoramus when it came to formations, had sensed faint ripples of array energy the moment he entered the courtyard. What puzzled him, however, was that these ripples appeared extraordinarily weak, suggesting the formation itself was extremely simple—or rather, crude—and could be easily shattered with a flick of his wrist given his cultivation level. Yet the moment he attempted to trace its source, he found it completely untraceable, while an immensely grand aura, reminiscent of primeval antiquity, would leak out.

Even after surviving the Yin-Yang Blood Fiend Formation and personally deploying the Black Wind Formation a few times, Hu San still felt his heart skip a beat upon sensing this aura.

If Hu San were alone here, he would undoubtedly have turned around and left immediately. But right now, there were two or three hundred people present, and the area covered by the formation was only about two hundred meters across. As the crowd stirred the space up, Hu San began to sense anomalies.

The yin qi in other areas was constantly being neutralized and dissipated by the yang qi radiating from the crowd. Yet once it diminished to a certain degree, a fresh surge of yin qi would rapidly replenish it from a specific location—the very spot where the pond lay, or more precisely, the exact center of the pond.

This was also the only place where the yin qi showed no signs of dissipating. Even standing right at the edge with the terrifying yang qi of Hu San's thirty-eightfold strength, he could not cause the slightest depletion of the yin qi here.

After pacing around the edge of the pond a few times without discovering anything, Hu San found himself frowning. Just as he was racking his brain, a cry of astonishment broke out among the crowd in the courtyard. It turned out that, at some unknown moment, that streak of red figure had appeared once more—only this time, it was floating mid-air, before vanishing in a flash.

"This is..."

Catching the exact instant the red figure disappeared, Hu San lost his focus for a split second. Then, a thought crossed his mind as he activated his spirit-focusing incantation, unleashing his black ruler and smashing it fiercely down toward a specific point in the pond before him.