Chapter 4827

After everyone realized that the main figures in this incident actually shared a consensus, the atmosphere finally became less tense. Although there was now a corpse lying at their feet, this was not a difficult problem for anyone here to solve.

"Perhaps we can bury her deeper," Natasha said. "New York's temperature has already dropped, so there shouldn't be any problem. Of course, this is your house, so you decide."

"We can't bury her here," Greed said. "In a few days, we still have to hold the housewarming party. With many people coming and going, if anything goes wrong, it won't be good."

"They probably won't come to the backyard," Bucky said. "Besides, keeping her in plain sight is better than throwing her somewhere unknown. If the act of abandoning a corpse is traced back to us, Natasha and Shi Difen will both be in trouble."

Shi Difen also agreed with this view. He said: "Don't forget, Hampton is haunted now, and this Young Lady's death might be related to ghosts. What if she plays corpse..."

Stark curled his lips and said: "Don't you have that kind of freezing gun? Freeze her first, then put her in the cellar."

Greed obviously didn't want to do this, after all, he didn't have a habit of hoarding corpses. He looked at Pride. Pride whispered to him: "This won't be the last one."

The implication was that in these few days, and certainly at the housewarming party, more incidents would definitely occur. They wouldn't have only this one corpse. Dealing with them one by one would be too troublesome; it would be better to pile them up and handle them all together.

Greed sighed, took out the freezing gun. After freezing Manasus's corpse, several people together transported the corpse to the manor's basement. They were also coming to the basement for the first time. There was nothing special here—just a few large empty rooms. Apart from a lamp hanging from the ceiling, there was nothing.

"This place has recently been cleaned," Shi Difen said after looking around. "The corner over there should usually have something piled up, this side has a shelf, and over there—that place looks like it had a concrete table, but everything has already been moved away."

"Dracula really ran away, huh," Coulson said. "Maybe he solved those troubles here."

"You mean his treatment of corpses..."

"These corpses cannot be handled by ordinary methods," Strange said, looking at Greed. "Sealing them up for now is also a helpless measure. If Hampton's problem isn't solved, even if you throw them into the sea, they might crawl back."

Dr. Banner rubbed his arms and said: "So that guy secretly sent the corpses over, hoping Dracula would come back to deal with them?"

"Of course, the best case would be like that," Strange said. "Otherwise, he knows the corpses might undergo some changes, deliberately sent them over to scare us, to take revenge for us hurting people at his banquet."

Coulson hurriedly went to check the frozen corpse again. Fortunately, Greed's freezing gun is the latest version, and dense ice is the strongest seal in this world. Even if some psychic abilities could make the corpse move entirely, he could only stiffly hop around like this, absolutely unable to break through the ice blockade.

And to prevent the corpse from really hopping out, Greed coated the entire basement with a layer of dense ice, especially focusing on sealing the cellar door. After doing all this, he sighed and said: "Perhaps we should ask Dracula exactly how he deals with these matters."

"We probably can't use his method," Strange said. "You should have heard this legend: people bitten by vampires all become vampires. Not all vampires can do this—like those who previously invaded New York, they lack the ability to transform. This relates to their bloodline."

"But Dracula, as the ancestor of vampires, can turn people into vampires. Transformation has two forms. One is the 'initial embrace,' where Dracula first drains the opponent's blood, then feeds them his own blood before they die, thus turning them into his descendants. Nowadays, many powerful vampires in the world are his bloodline."

"However, there is another method, namely infection. If after sucking a person's blood, one neither kills the opponent nor performs the initial embrace on them, then the opponent becomes infected as a vampire monster, also called a blood slave. This is the lowest level of monster, almost devoid of consciousness, very fragile, and most are kept in captivity within vampire territories until completely drained."

"Such vampire monsters share a common trait: they cannot be exposed to even a bit of sunlight..."

"Wait a minute," Shi Difen interrupted, then asked, "Aren't all vampires unable to be exposed to sunlight?"

"Of course not," Strange said. "Although Dracula dislikes sunlight, sunlight exposure cannot kill him. Moreover, among vampires there are daywalkers—those who can walk in sunlight, like Blade. Also, many vampires with strong bloodlines, although they are harmed by sunlight, as long as they are not exposed to intense sunlight for long periods, they will not die from exposure."

"But the blood slaves I mentioned, even if exposed to just a bit of sunlight, will be annihilated. I think this might be Dracula's method for dealing with supernatural incidents."

Stark's movement paused: "You mean Dracula directly bites those possessed by ghosts, then lets them bask in the sun, so they turn to ashes?"

Strange nodded and said: "Ghost possession is not that simple. If they want to freely control a body to do something, they must undergo a certain degree of fusion with the original body's soul. And if at this time, the original body and soul are destroyed in the mystical sense, then the ghost probably cannot escape calamity either. The ghosts here are especially like this."

Stark then understood. Earlier, Dracula had already said that the haunting in this place is not merely a problem of the material world, but also exists in people's minds. Therefore, before the ghosts cause trouble, directly destroying this person's body and spirit together means eliminating the ghost on both material and spiritual levels.

"But what's the point of that?" Bucky asked. "Being possessed by a ghost is a death, being bitten by him and then sun-dried is also a death. This person still isn't saved, right?"

"The person involved is doomed to die. But perhaps we can save others," Strange said. "Don't forget how illusions are produced. Just like dreams, day has its thoughts, night has its dreams.

"If a person is possessed by a ghost and dies in a very strange way before them, they will feel fear. Greater mental pressure brings more illusions. And since ghosts themselves come from illusions, they will also attract more ghosts to them, spreading like a plague."

"So now isn't it..."

As they just walked into the front hall, they saw through the window the residential area below continuously flashing red and blue police lights. Everyone rushed toward the window, then saw that one house had been cordoned off by police lines, and soon a corpse was carried out, while others inside the house were taken away by police.

"Oh..." Shi Difen said, "This doesn't look like how victim's families are treated. Police even put handcuffs on them, and forcibly shoved them into the car. This time, are they trying to pin the murderer on them?"

Natasha, however, seemed to have some realization: "I think I know why they're so eager to get me to plead guilty."

Natasha turned her head to look at Strange and said: "If as you said, day has its thoughts, night has its dreams. As long as they can find a scapegoat to turn this into an ordinary murder case, rather than a supernatural incident, then they can convince themselves: there are really no ghosts, everything is just someone causing trouble. Would this also partially counteract the illusions?"

"From a psychological perspective, this is indeed the case," Greed said. "People are very good at convincing themselves. Especially when facing traumatic memories, the brain naturally blurs and forgets part of it. If there is even a reason, even if not very reasonable, then thoughts and memories will forcibly turn toward what they can accept. This is indeed a relatively stable mental barrier."

"If flimsy excuses can convince oneself, that proves they have no guilt at heart," Shi Difen suddenly said. "They suffer no torment of conscience, even regard themselves as victims. But then again, what else could we expect from them?"

Bucky couldn't help but glance at him; he had already guessed that Steve must have seen something in South Fork back then, possibly even been involved in some matters. Bucky believed Steve must have a clear conscience, having done his best. But there's no doubt that the events of that year cast a shadow on him, and even until today, he still dwells on it.

"Want to go see what's going on?" Coulson asked.

"I'm afraid you'll soon have to go," Greed said. "Since supernatural phenomena have already begun large-scale outbreaks, they will certainly try every possible method. This falls within S. H. I. E. L. D.'s jurisdiction, no matter what, you also have to send people to investigate."

Greed's words came true. Coulson was called away by a phone call. Not long after, S. H. I. E. L. D.'s flying shuttle flew in. Dr. Banner paused for a moment and then said: "S. H. I. E. L. D. has many capable people; maybe they really have a way."

They saw from the window S. H. I. E. L. D. agents enter that house, and they didn't come out for a long time. Presumably, they were also investigating and gathering evidence. But obviously, they don't understand the history and atmosphere of this area. Such an investigation would probably yield nothing.

"Bang bang bang!"

The manor's gate was knocked on. Everyone finally left the window and came to the door. When the door opened, Coulson in S. H. I. E. L. D. agent uniform appeared outside.

"Good morning, gentlemen," Coulson said, standing outside and clearing his throat, "Regarding the murder case that happened yesterday at the wedding, I have some things I want to ask you."

Before anyone could speak, he walked inside, turned to face the door outside, and then said: "No problem, we will definitely cooperate actively with the investigation."

"Please tell me, what abnormal aspects did you witness in the murder case you saw yesterday at the wedding?" Coulson turned again to come outside the door.

"It's like this. When the wedding had just started not long ago..." Coulson returned indoors, repeated the process Natasha and Strange had told him yesterday, and also repeated all the speculations about tree branches and such.

Then he walked back outside, took out paper and pen to start recording, and said: "Just now, the bride from yesterday's wedding also died. May I ask if you had any contact with her afterward? Did you notice anything abnormal?"

Coulson turned back into the house, facing the empty door outside, and said: "Oh, this is truly regrettable. However, yesterday afternoon and evening we have always been together, discovered nothing abnormal, and also had no further contact with the bride's family."

Then he turned once more to come outside the door and said: "Alright, I understand. Thank you for your cooperation; I will truthfully report these matters to S. H. I. E. L. D. Goodbye."

He closed the door. The people inside the house looked at each other.

"No wonder he's a level-eight agent," Bucky exclaimed.

Natasha shook her head: "He's a level-eight agent, because field agents top out at level eight."