Chapter 338: Stepping onto the Wrong Path

Dominic woke precisely according to the biological clock formed during his schooling, but here it seemed a bit too early; the daylight in the mountains was still seeking a way out among the layered ridges, with only a layer of hazy dim light outlining those undulating giant rock shadows.

Unexpectedly, when they arrived at the stonemason's house, they found the other party had prepared to depart even earlier, sitting on the stone slab at the doorway, wearing a local-style straw hat, with a backpack for miscellaneous items placed beside him.

Setting off earlier was indeed necessary. By the time the three of them crossed vast wheat fields along the riverbank and stepped into the shaded woods at the foot of the mountain where few people tread, the scorching celestial body overhead had already begun moving toward its highest point.

They had to pause for a brief rest, eating some brought food with water, to prepare for the upcoming mountain climb.

To be honest, the two of them had already begun regretting agreeing to the on-site inspection. It seemed there was still a long way to go, and the actual distance was often even farther than the visual distance, so far that the presence of the village behind them began to grow faint.

They had never realized that those abandoned farmhouses and desolate Tian Geng were the source of safety cues.

And upon reaching the edge of human activity, there was only a discontinuous small path; the grass blades on both sides seemed to lean toward the road under the pull of some invisible force, making it hard to distinguish from the background, like a cotton thread ready to snap at any moment.

"We don't usually come here often, so it's strange that Old John insisted on coming here to pick plantain. Fortunately, I kept an eye out, otherwise my poor grandfather would have suffered."

The stonemason spoke again about what happened then. He must have already held some prejudice against that Old John, otherwise he wouldn't have suspected grave robbing just because the other person had come once.

But this place indeed wasn't a good spot for picking wild vegetables; the soil mixed with stones clung to the mountainside, looking as if it couldn't retain water and soil.

Tree species with tenacious vitality occupied the main ecological niches, shorter and more scattered than their counterparts elsewhere, providing space for shrubs and weeds.

Gray-brown hawthorn branches and thorny leaves were sparse and winding in clusters, stingily protecting withered, sour fruits with layers of sharp thorns, making it almost impossible to reach into the bushes where they existed, let alone pick tender plantain leaves.

Even birds seemed uninterested in visiting this place; the unsightly vegetation didn't quite fit the aesthetic standards for habitation, whether for the living or the dead.

The only commendable aspect was probably that it indeed looked relatively high; a thin, bony skeleton naturally appears more rugged and slender than a normal person.

At least most middle-aged priests in the church wouldn't like this place; there was always a false impression that their hairstyles were being targeted.

Even with someone leading the way, the climbing process was still not smooth; even the stonemason himself occasionally needed to pause for a moment. Dominic guessed he was thinking about where the next jump of this semi-abandoned path led.

The endless, protracted exhaustion almost made them forget the purpose, simply following upward without thought.

Then, after a completely unexpected bend, they ran straight into several rough-looking stone tablets.

The terrain ahead flattened out, as if some hint of an end; the vegetation was no different from before, only more desolate and dry. The unobstructed airflow at high altitudes tore the trees into messy, slanted shapes; the bark seemed eroded and polished, with fine cracks distributed on the smooth, gray-white surface, reminding one of thin, bony fingers extending from underground.

After the gentle slope, there was no higher ground, leading to an open, vast sky canopy.

The feeling of the sky here was somewhat different from the ground, but with Dominic's mediocre color vision and language skills, he couldn't translate it into words.

Clouds rolled and floated silently, layer upon layer, yet no longer felt crowded; instead, there was an almost hollow vastness.

There were no bird songs or wind sounds; the void itself occupied the boundless space, so there was nothing beyond silence.

It wasn't until the stonemason tried calling out that Dominic realized those few stone tablets were the destination of this trip.

No wonder they felt that way; this place indeed didn't look like a cemetery, and the tombstones were far smaller than normal, possibly to facilitate carrying them up, or simply carved on the spot from stones on the mountaintop.

The stonemason's grandfather's tombstone was among the older ones; it didn't receive much favor due to his own craft, having only a simple church emblem added compared to the neighbors, indicating his past service to the monastery.

Pointing to the plot of land behind the tombstone already re-covered by weeds and shrubs, the stonemason, with tears streaming down his face, described how chaotic the scene had been at that time; the re-covered soil layer was completely different from the surroundings, and that utterly immoral person had even left traces of destruction on the tombstone.

The two who came to inspect didn't extract much useful information from this, listening awkwardly yet politely to the description, unsure whether to nod in agreement.

As thought before, too much time had passed; there was no evidence to directly pin this act on anyone.

Field finally couldn't hold back and walked away under the pretext of inspecting the scene.

Left behind, Dominic tried to ask questions proactively, hoping to shift the initiative into his own hands, persuading the other party to abandon hatred and switching back to his usual role of smoothing things over.

"May I ask if there were any Funerary items left in the original grave?"

After all, given the economic conditions of the Priyer Lordship, it was extremely rare to bury any important items with the deceased; the church itself did not support extravagant funeral customs, favoring simple forms with proper interpersonal relations.

And the typical body-snatching cases seen in Dunling had no basis to occur here, since there was no medical school nearby, after all.

If it really was Old John, he must have been very certain there was something in the grave worth risking for, but this raised other questions—how did he know, and where would he sell the loot?

"This..."

The stonemason hesitated, and Dominic keenly detected the unspeakable difficulty, using it as a breakthrough point: "The Tianfu Sect teaches us not to store up treasures on earth, where moths and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal."

"You are all believers of the Lord, so you should understand this principle even more, and you should be honest with me, for the soul ascending to heaven depends not on the amount of wealth."

"No, no, no, you misunderstood," the stonemason hurriedly explained. "Because my grandfather was a devout Tianfu Sect believer during his life, we followed his instructions and placed a few personal items he never left behind into the coffin."

"What were they?"

"According to my father, there was a bronze holy emblem, and some gifts received for helping repair the monastery."

They didn't sound like particularly valuable items. Dominic knew these gifts were mostly handcrafted holy emblems, holy water bottles, or a page or two of handwritten scriptures made by monks in their spare time—small items with limited economic value, symbolizing the transmission of faith and blessings; placing them in the coffin to pray for blessings was normal.

If the stonemason had already said so, then Old John shouldn't have had any motive for the crime.

The young monk sounded confused and hoarse, feeling contradictions everywhere; perhaps the whole thing was just a misunderstanding.

"Why are you so certain it was Old John who robbed your grandfather's grave?"

"During that period, only he came, and after returning, he always looked very panicked, refusing to answer any questions; shortly after, he fell to his death. It must be punishment sent down by the Tianfu Sect!"

"Fell to his death by accident?" That counted as a quite reasonable cause of death; he had deeply experienced the consequences of walking mountain roads when mentally unstable. "Then where is Old John's grave?"

"That one over there is his," the stonemason pointed casually to a spot without even a stone tablet, where only slight undulations in the earth showed a difference from the surroundings. "But there was no one inside; otherwise, I would have dug it up for him long ago..."

"There was no corpse inside?"

"Yes, none was found. Sometimes this happens; probably dragged away by wild beasts."