Chapter 29: Twenty-Eight: Feather (Combined)

Twenty-Eight: Feather (Combined)

After learning the cruel and desperate truth, Li Jiahong was dazed for a long time, but when he came to his senses, he did not reproach his wife; her having fallen into a fifteen-year cycle of repetitive Dream Demon as a vegetative patient could already be considered as having paid for the mistakes she committed in her reckless youth.

Besides, how could an ordinary person living in a peaceful and prosperous age ever anticipate that a so-called mysterious ritual could actually be real?

The ignorant are not innocent, but they should be guiltless.

Li Jiahong comforted his wife and had her receive rehabilitation treatment at a hospital in their hometown; fifteen years of time had already taken away his wife's health and beautiful appearance, and without a few years of treatment, she would be unable to get out of bed, walk, or live a normal life.

And he still had to continue searching for his child, though the hope was slim.

Thus, Li Jiahong began to investigate the university club his wife had participated in back then; his fifteen years of experience in searching for the lost were not entirely in vain, as at least it had trained him to have extremely keen information-gathering abilities and excellent investigative skills. Although he looked down-and-out now, he was, after all, a high-achieving student from a prestigious university, and tasks requiring brainpower were not very difficult for him.

After some investigation, Li Jiahong discovered that the club his wife had participated in during university had long since disbanded. Visiting his wife's former club members, he was shocked to find that almost without exception, the club members who had participated in that mysterious ritual back then had all met with "accidental incidents" just like his wife, only that everyone else had died an unnatural death.

Regarding those who had met with accidents, after some comparison, Li Jiahong discovered that these people all shared several common points.

One, they participated in the mysterious ritual back then.

Two, those people all had their accidents when their children were three years old, after they had married and had children.

Three, the adults met with accidents, and the children were nowhere to be found.

Looking at the three information points summarized, Li Jiahong fell into deep thought, and from these three key points, he derived three core questions.

What exactly was that mysterious ritual?

If the ritual really summoned an unknown mysterious creature, why did that thing called the Dream Demon specifically act only when the child was three years old?

If it only wanted to take the child away, why kill the adults as well?

Li Jiahong was extremely puzzled. He searched the entire internet, even returning to his alma mater to flip through secret classics in the Tushuguan and visiting famous teachers, yet he only learned what the origin of that creature known as the "Dream Demon" was.

In the fragmented records of various classics and rumors passed down by word of mouth, the Dream Demon is a sneaky creature that lives in another dimension. No one has seen its full appearance with their own eyes; it is only known that it roughly resembles a rat-man. They seem to love raising the young of all creatures and then taking those young back to their own nests.

No one knows where they come from, nor do they know the purpose of them raising the young.

Li Jiahong wanted to find his child, so he had to find a way to locate the Dream Demon, and this was not easy. Just as he was at his wit's end in his search, he accidentally discovered a strange "netizen" in a missing persons post on an internet forum.

The netizen's username seemed to be based on the person's own name, somewhat absurd and funny; it was actually called "Lin Ling's Shenqi Miaomiaowu." The other party left a comment under such a serious missing persons post, the content of which appeared to be offering help, but in reality, seemed to be promoting their own shop.

At the beginning, Li Jiahong also felt that this netizen was a scammer, and a very unprofessional one at that.

But later, in the process of browsing other posts on the forum to collect clues, he saw "Lin Ling's Shenqi Miaomiaowu" one after another in other posts.

Interestingly, the way this netizen posted in each thread was different, and they would patiently argue with other netizens. It was obvious that the other party was not using a machine to mass-post, but rather it seemed more like they were typing it out by hand. This once made Li Jiahong feel some admiration, thinking: even if the other party is a scammer, at least they have proven that they have great perseverance and patience.

Until one day a while ago, Li Jiahong saw Lin Ling again in a post that had almost sunk to the bottom. What was different was that this time, Lin Ling was not arguing with netizens remotely, but had received thanks from a netizen named "Gloomy Cloud," and the reply time was not long ago, just a few days before that date.

It was unclear what "Gloomy Cloud" was thanking the other party for, as it was without head or tail, but it was precisely this kind of reply that was sufficiently real; at the very least, these two must know each other offline.

This could not help but make Li Jiahong feel amazed. He did not think this would be a performance, because the probability was simply too small; after all, a scammer would not specifically choose such a low-traffic post to put on a show. If it weren't for him specifically searching through it to collect data, he might not have even found this post.

Li Jiahong could not help but start to re-examine "Lin Ling's Shenqi Miaomiaowu," so holding a "try it out" mentality, he returned to the original missing persons post where he first saw Lin Ling, and sent a question in the thread where the other party was: "What method can you use to help find someone?"

After the message was sent, Li Jiahong felt his behavior was somewhat ridiculous. Clearly, he had always been the person who believed in these things the least, yet now he had actually started to trust a netizen who spent a large amount of time every day hanging out on internet forums and was suspected of being a scammer.

He really had gone a bit crazy from searching for his child.

But who would have thought, not even a few minutes later, Li Jiahong received a reply from "Lin Ling's Shenqi Miaomiaowu." He only took one look at the message, and his heart nearly jumped out of his throat.

Lin Ling's Shenqi Miaomiaowu: I rent out some things here. If it's for finding a child, that thing costs 50 a day.

"Finding a child? How does he know I want to find a child? I have never used this account to post anything about finding a child on this forum." Li Jiahong's mind was in chaos. For a moment, he felt as if there were a pair of eyes hidden in the darkness peeping at him, but looking back, it was just the ordinary, terrible environment of an internet cafe.

Tension and panic welled up in his heart. For the next several days, he did not dare to log into that forum again, fearing that every message that popped up upon logging in would be a reply from "Lin Ling's Shenqi Miaomiaowu," and afraid that more information about himself would be spoken from the other party's mouth.

However, after a few days passed, he calmed his mood and logged into the forum account again, only to find that "Lin Ling's Shenqi Miaomiaowu" had not bothered with him at all.

For some reason, having obtained this result, his mood was somewhat complicated.

He thought it over and decided to ask the other party one question: "Master, what is that thing you mentioned?"

This time, Lin Ling did not answer his question directly on the post, but instead sent him an address via private message, telling him that if he was sincere, he should come to the place at the address to find him.

Only, after obtaining the address, Li Jiahong tried to search for it on map navigation, but discovered that the navigation had no record of this address at all.

Thus, Li Jiahong decided to go in person to find Lin Ling's Shenqi Miaomiaowu on the spot.

Regarding the matter of finding his child, he was, of course, one hundred percent sincere.

Li Jiahong stood in front of the Forest Cabin surrounded by Locust Trees, looking at the two evil ghost masks full of scrutiny on the rosewood door. He steadied himself, went to knock on the door, and after receiving permission from the person inside, pushed the door open and entered.

The room was bright, and only when standing inside did he feel that the cabin was actually not narrow, but rather somewhat spacious. Strange and varied objects were listed on rows of shelves; those objects seemed to have no specific order of placement, nor were there any price tags.

There were two people in the room: a young man lying on a rocking chair petting a cat, wearing casual clothes, his expression relaxed as if he were closing his eyes to rest, and a man around thirty years old, wearing a red outfit, who seemed to be a shop assistant. He had just been tidying up the shelves, and when he saw Li Jiahong enter the shop, he came over with a smiling face.

"Hello sir, may I ask what you need?" the man asked with a smile.

Li Jiahong observed that the red-clad man before him was somewhat unfamiliar and green in his etiquette and behavior as a shop assistant, looking like someone who had just entered the trade not long ago. Yet, despite this, Li Jiahong still felt an inexplicable fear toward this shop assistant with the upright smile, always feeling that his gaze was somewhat terrifying, or as if something about him was not quite normal.

Li Jiahong's gaze lowered slightly, and he said, "I am here to find Master Lin Ling. I... I am looking for my child."

"Master?" The man blinked, then as if he had figured something out, he realized, "Oh, so you are looking for our boss."

"Wei Jiang, just let the guest come over directly." Just then, a voice came from the side of the tea table in the corner of the room. Li Jiahong and the red-clad shop assistant looked over and found that the young man who had originally been lying on the rocking chair petting a cat had already, at some unknown time, silently come to the tea table to brew tea.

"Yes, Boss!" Hearing the young man's amiable and gentle voice, the red-clad shop assistant responded quite solemnly, as if he had heard an imperial decree.

At this moment, Li Jiahong noticed the red-clad shop assistant's subconscious action of bringing his feet together and performing a military salute, guessing that the red-clad shop assistant might have been a soldier in the past.

And through the red-clad shop assistant's unusual behavior, Li Jiahong realized that the young man currently sitting at the tea table brewing tea was the "Master" he was looking for.

Because the Master's appearance was too different from what he had imagined, Li Jiahong was stunned for a moment, and then felt some regret.

Had he really been scammed after all? And by a little scammer at that.

Thinking of this, Li Jiahong felt somewhat annoyed and almost turned to leave, but then he thought that since the other party was able to hit the nail on the head regarding his situation online, he felt that since he had already come, he had to clear up this doubt first.

"Please." Wei Jiang smiled and gestured with his hand, leading Li Jiahong to the front. Li Jiahong nodded with a stiff smile and followed Wei Jiang's footsteps, passing through the shelves and bowing his head as he walked toward Lin Ling.

In the short distance following behind Wei Jiang, Li Jiahong suddenly noticed that the big man's walking posture was somewhat strange. The strange part was not in the lower body, but in the upper body; the upper body always had a bobbing, unstable feeling, as if he would fall over at any moment.

"Does this person have a bad back?" Li Jiahong thought to himself, his gaze following to focus on the big man's thick waist. It was also at this moment that he suddenly discovered that there was actually a pair of wooden Shackles tucked into the man's waist!

Li Jiahong could not help but have his legs tremble, and he staggered, nearly falling to the ground. He suddenly had a terrifying conjecture.

Could this be an organ-smuggling den, and he was the person who had been tricked into coming in? The Shackles on Wei Jiang's waist were meant to shackle him.

Upon arriving before that young man with the warm smile and taking a seat, he looked at the steaming cup of tea, always feeling that there might be some sleep-inducing ingredients inside, and dared not lift the cup or move.

Lin Ling smiled and said, "You must be the person who communicated with me online a short while ago, wanting to find a missing child."

Lin Ling's single sentence allowed Li Jiahong to slowly settle his chaotic thoughts; once the child was mentioned, Li Jiahong's train of thought returned to the beginning.

Li Jiahong: "... Yes, it's just that I didn't expect you to be so young."

Lin Ling said with a beaming smile, "I'm not young anymore, I just look youthful."

Li Jiahong bit the bullet and forced a smile, then said, "You told me to come find you; I don't know how you can help me?"

"Let's start with your story." Lin Ling said unhurriedly, also pouring himself a cup of tea, gently blowing on the steaming tea, and then slowly sipping it.

Li Jiahong pursed his dry lips, stealing a glance at the swallowing motion of Lin Ling's throat; only after confirming that Lin Ling had swallowed the tea did his tense shoulders slowly relax, and then he hesitantly picked up the teacup in front of him and tasted a small sip of the tea.

It was Biluochun tea; the tea was very fragrant, and the texture of the tea soup had just the right balance of smoothness and astringency.

"Good tea, delicious." Li Jiahong couldn't help but praise it, but when he saw that slightly playful smile on Lin Ling's face, he couldn't help but blush, knowing full well that his little schemes from just now had not escaped Lin Ling's eyes, and because of this, he couldn't help but change his opinion of Lin Ling a little.

At the very least, the young man before him was not as simple as he appeared on the surface.

Li Jiahong pondered for a sound, thought for a moment, and then slowly recounted his experiences to Lin Ling one by one.

What he said was somewhat long-winded, but not disorganized, and Lin Ling did not show a shred of impatience, listening quite earnestly to the story that had happened to Li Jiahong.

"... That is how things are." After Li Jiahong finished speaking, his mouth was a bit dry, and upon discovering that Lin Ling had refilled his cup with tea, he immediately drank another cup, downing it in one gulp.

Lin Ling nodded, his gaze somewhat intriguing; he sat on the chair and pondered for a moment before standing up, walking straight to the shelf directly behind Li Jiahong, and from the second shelf counting from the bottom, he took out a white feather with black edges.

"Take this." Lin Ling handed the Feather directly to the other party, without providing any container to store the Feather.

Li Jiahong took the Feather in a daze, "What is this?"

"A feather from a bird; give it to your wife." Lin Ling explained the use of the Feather.

"Give it to my wife?" Li Jiahong was confused, "Does this have any direct connection to finding my child?"

He had prepared himself to listen to this young "fake master" spout nonsense, having thought of any kind of hocus-pocus the other party might perform, but he hadn't expected the other party to do nothing at all, instead going straight to the point and "pushing a product" right off the bat.

"It does." Lin Ling said with a smile, "Have you never considered the possibility that it will come to find your wife again?"

PS: When I uploaded the chapter just now, the internet lagged, and I pasted it twice during the process; it has been corrected now.