Chapter 502: Ghost Realm

I followed the flashlight beam all the way to that peasant house, knocked and entered, and found the door wasn't locked.

Going up, all the doors were open; the whole building seemed empty. I reached the room — an empty room with no furniture. A window was wide open, and the flashlight was placed on the windowsill.

Through the window, I could directly see the balcony and kitchen of Third Uncle's building. I spotted a telescope set up by the window.

I took a look and found the telescope was aimed straight at Third Uncle's kitchen.

A note was pressed under the flashlight. I unfolded it at once and discovered it was actually a letter. The first sentence was particularly strange.

"Look around you. The place you're in is a ghost realm."

Holding the letter, I looked around. At first I didn't understand what that meant. But after scanning the surroundings, I got it. A fierce chill hit me; the cool breeze through the window seemed to drop the temperature of the space instantly.

From this window, the entire area — all the peasant houses — had no lights on. It was pitch black all around.

Only Third Uncle's building had lights.

I checked my watch; it was a little past nine. Normally it couldn't be like this. I immediately looked down to continue reading.

The letter said: Starting nineteen years ago, your grandfather bought or rented every house here. Each house is regularly cleaned by designated people but never used. Nineteen years later, the area around the building where your third uncle lives is almost entirely empty. At night there is no light at all, like a ghost realm.

All of this is because beneath this area lies a huge secret, and this secret is not ancient. What is buried here is a trump card, a leftover from a massive struggle.

I held my breath, crouched in a corner of the dark room, lit it with the flashlight, and slowly read the entire letter.

Many pieces of information in this letter need to be connected with earlier information. Some have already been stated, and repeating them here would be very troublesome. I will only lay out the most important parts. Once these parts are clear, the whole thing ties together.

The letter very clearly stated one thing: back then, a team delivered dozens of strange boxes to my grandfather. My grandfather placed them in a coffin and buried them in the area where I am now. Those dozens of boxes were extremely important.

Those dozens of boxes — I immediately knew they were the things that the swapped archaeological team brought out from the Zhang family ancient building. I remember Pan Ma said that when the archaeological team left, they took many boxes.

They found a place to hide them? Could it be that the damned corpse is hidden here, in the area right before my eyes? It really is a trump card. That corpse is too important. Its appearance would destroy everything that "It" depends on.

The letter wasn't long. I'll append the full text below. There's a lot of messy narration, but anyone with some understanding of this matter will fully comprehend after reading it and discover the huge amount of information contained:

Wu Xie:

Look around you. The place you're in is a ghost realm. Starting nineteen years ago, your grandfather bought or rented every house here. Each house is regularly cleaned by designated people but never used. Nineteen years later, the area around the building where your third uncle lives is almost entirely empty. At night there is no light at all, like a ghost realm.

All of this is because beneath this area lies a huge secret, and this secret is not ancient. What is buried here is a trump card, a leftover from a massive struggle.

A long time ago, an archaeological team composed of recruited grave robbers was preparing to send a coffin containing a corpse into an ancient tomb. In that tomb, the corpse would undergo an unimaginable change. This change was extremely important to the organization the corpse belonged to. However, some among these grave robbers foresaw the terrible consequences of sending the corpse into the ancient tomb. A few of them, to prevent those consequences, betrayed the others. They killed their companions, took their places, and hid the corpse.

That corpse is now in the ghost realm you see before you. Do not try to find it. In this area, anyone who touches the core secret either becomes one of us or is mercilessly eliminated. Even if you are the grandson of the original participant, it is the same.

I think you have already noticed that in your experiences, some people would keep lying to you even when they couldn't continue. Someone must have told you that some lies are meant to protect a person. This is the core reason.

Because this core secret is too important; we cannot afford any risk.

However, the reason I am writing you this letter now is that our time has come. After tomorrow, everything will vanish. You might ask why. I want to say, we finally made it—we waited until the last leader of that organization died. That organization has finally completely disappeared. Tomorrow, that organization will become a speck of historical dust that can never be exposed. No one will know it ever existed, no one will know how great it once was.

Don't bother pondering the meaning of "time has come." I can tell you plainly: once this time passes, this corpse will be useless for anything. That is what "time has come" means. All along, this corpse was a huge secret. They were always afraid that we would expose the corpse and all the absurd plans behind it. With the corpse as leverage, they never dared to hunt us down with full force.

But now we don't intend to make it public either. Our threat is gone. Although the evidence of the threat could still destroy many things, we don't want to bring trouble upon ourselves.

Tomorrow is the deadline. At 9:45 tomorrow, we will destroy the coffin and everything related, and leave this place.

The entire fate is completely ended. Do not make any sacrifices or guesses for this end. The truth is here. You should thank your elders for their protection and everything they did afterward—the concealment, the lies, the schemes—which allowed this whole affair to finally conclude with your generation. Because originally, you might have been the one to take over from us and continue fighting against fate.

But now it's no longer necessary.

I think you very much want to know who I really am. Long ago, I erased my identity in the most decisive way. Only your grandfather and your third uncle knew I existed. For almost twenty years, I have finally been able to leave. I hope that in the future, I can forget all of this.

The reason I made an exception and let you live is also because of the unusual relationship between us. But this is the only time I have hesitated; it won't happen again.

Your grandfather and my father were the first two people who wanted to back out of everything, but they took different paths—your grandfather always wanted to wait, hoping that time would wash everything away; while my father knew that as long as the possibility of that thing existed, our fate would never end.

So my father launched his own plan. We swapped the archaeological team and hid the coffin. But when we fled, we encountered the biggest encirclement in Hangzhou. With no way out, we had to turn to your grandfather.

Your grandfather gave us the greatest help. In the years that followed, Wu Sansheng also helped us a lot. Although your Wu family didn't participate at first, without you, this plan could not have persisted through the harshest years. That is another reason I showed mercy this time.

Wu Xie, I have heard Wu Sansheng mention you many times. I was surprised when I saw you—you had gotten so deeply involved. Fortunately, you only discovered my existence now, and fortunately, you naively believed all your third uncle's lies.

When your third uncle first took you into an ancient tomb, he was already preparing for who would take his place if he could no longer bear it. He chose you.

You may not know that all the skills you practiced since childhood—including your handwriting, and the various stories your third uncle told you—contain secret meanings. All the copybooks you used for practicing calligraphy came from the handwriting of a person named Qi Yu.

Since childhood, your third uncle told you many, many stories, repeatedly hinting at this person's name. This was all to make everyone in the plan mistakenly believe that you were Qi Yu. You didn't know that ever since the adventure at the Lu King's Palace, your appearance confused countless people who were secretly investigating this matter.

They have no idea who you are, nor your true identity. If they investigate your notes, they'll discover that you are most likely Qi Yu, who disappeared years ago. You are a huge smoke screen that helped us drain the enemy's endless energy.

Later you began investigating. Fortunately, you only found some traces and didn't think deeply. But you must have had headaches; you must have doubted your true identity more than once.

I know you still have many questions, but what should not be known, I will not let be known.

Don't hurt yourself anymore, because everything is meaningless now. No one will expose this secret for your safety. Compared to this secret,

You are utterly insignificant. This letter, in fact, has no meaning in itself; nothing can be changed.

After everything ends, I will find a suitable time and tell you everything. Don't try to find that coffin. Take off your ridiculous mask, go back to your own home, forget all this, and wait for the moment when I deliver the truth to you.

I looked at my watch. There were about twelve hours left until 9:45 the next day. It seemed that this person should be in this ghostly realm right now.

After reading it, I leaned against the wall and pondered. This letter was very brief, but it was the only letter that truly and clearly explained things. After reading it, I understood that everything it said was true, and I always felt that the writer seemed to have a special relationship with me. The writing of this letter was very steady; obviously, when writing it, his mindset had no fluctuations. He must be an extremely calm person, so calm that even if all fate ends tomorrow, he would have no ups and downs.

From here, I could see Third Uncle's building. If it were truly as the letter said, at this moment, if I were him, I would be restless and extremely anxious. Yet he could still monitor me from this place, even calmly write this letter.

What should I do now? If this were a novel plot, at this point I should strive hard until 9:45 tomorrow. I still have plenty of time to mess around, to search manhole by manhole, to dig cellar by cellar,

But I really couldn't move anymore; the exhaustion of these past few years seemed to surge up all at once.

He said he would give me an answer, so I'll wait for that answer. If I do nothing now, at least there is still a sliver of hope. Even if there are no more hints from now on, I can still keep waiting, until I completely lose interest in this.

I leaned against the corner, holding the letter, waiting all the time. I seemed to have fallen asleep twice in between. At five o'clock, the sky was getting light. I was extremely sleepy and finally fell completely asleep, until the sound of sirens woke me up. I got up, looked at my watch: it was past ten o'clock. I quickly left that empty room, climbed to the top floor, and looked around. I saw that within this area, there were more than a dozen fire spots, billowing thick black smoke.

Fire trucks tried to enter, but all the streets were blocked by illegal buildings, making it very difficult to pass. I sat down on the roof, lit a cigarette, and quietly watched all this.