Chapter 776: A Tip from Fate

He was absolutely certain that that was Chu Renmei. He wasn't able to catch a clear glimpse of her face just now, but those ghastly white eyes beneath that head of inky-black hair struck fear into the deepest part of his heart.

This was truly the personification of his childhood trauma...

"My Lord, that was only an evil ghost just now. Why are your legs trembling so much?"

Qin Ye turned to Ryu Changmin with a vicious glare for speaking out of turn at a time like this. Foreigners like you don't know shit! Show me one person born in the '80s who hasn't trembled in the face of the almighty Chu Renmei? All of you only know Sadako Yamamura and Kayako Saeki, but none of you have heard of the horrors of Chu Renmei! You should be ashamed of yourselves!

"It's alright, there's nothing to be afraid of... Daddy's already an Abyssal Prefect now, not the little kid that was so traumatized that he didn't even dare to go to the toilet and had to sleep with his blanket over his head..." Qin Yu murmured to himself in an inaudible voice as he patted his own chest in a soothing manner, and only then did he raise his head and begin to examine the Huang Clan's earthen building.

The first thing that he saw was a massive locust tree.

The earthen building was very big, roughly comparable in size to a football field. However, this locust tree was four stories tall, and its canopy encompassed the entire earthen building. It had already been growing here for countless years, and it was riddled with burls and blemishes. Its branches and leaves were extremely lush and hung down from above. The veins in its oval leaves were very clear and pronounced, indicating that it had already been growing here for far, far too long.

However, the locust flowers hanging from its branches were of a scarlet color, resembling strings of red lanterns.

There was an enclosure around it that was filled with soil, and this enclosure was surrounded by a circle of orderly and well-arranged bluestone. Outside of this enclosure was the enormous Huang Clan's earthen building.

It was impossible to tell just how many people this first level could house; it seemed to be capable of holding thousands of households. All of the houses had white lanterns hanging outside, but at the moment, only around 30 to 40 of them were currently occupied. There were clothes and blankets being hung up outside to be dried, and Qin Ye even noticed a few beautiful figures washing their hair under the taps.

It was a wonderful scene to behold.

Not a single person paid any attention to him. Well, that wasn't entirely true. In reality, as soon as he walked in, everyone immediately turned their gaze toward him, but they then immediately lowered their heads again, as if nothing could evoke an emotional response within them.

"How strange..." Qin Ye stroked his own chin as he made his way to the center of the plaza. The sunlight was filtering down through the gaps in the locust tree's lush canopy, but due to the excessive density of the canopy, there was barely any light shining through. As a result, the first floor was virtually completely deprived of sunlight all year round, giving it a very cold and eerie atmosphere. Even during the daytime, it wasn't much different from the nighttime.

"According to ancient traditions, planting a tree inside a building forms the '' character, which is supposed to be extremely unlucky [1]. At their age, they should believe in superstitions like this..." He swept his gaze over all of the surrounding residents, making no attempt to conceal himself, but he was still completely ignored. The more he examined this place, the deeper his brows furrowed.

Firstly, he noticed that the feng shui of the earthen building was so bad that it almost seemed to have been intentionally arranged in such a fashion, and it was very suspicious that no one had tried to change this during all these past years.

Secondly, the living conditions on the first floor were terrible. The residents on the first floor received virtually zero sun exposure all year round, yet they still chose to live on the first floor. Only the third and fourth floors of the building had decent sun exposure, but they were completely devoid of residents.

Thirdly, there were more than just elderly people living here.

In fact, there were far more young people than elderly individuals here, including several women, and thus far, he had only seen three or four elderly people.

Fourthly, the households were all situated extremely far away from one another. This was particularly suspicious as they were constantly living under the shadow of the massive locust tree and were residing in such an ancient building. At night, any normal person would be extremely fearful of this environment, so intuitively speaking, they should be gathering together as close as they could, yet these residents were doing the exact opposite.

It seemed that not only did they reject the outside world, they were guarding against one another as well.

Fifthly... He swept his gaze across the clothes that had been hung up to dry and murmured to himself, "These clothes are from the 90s."

"How do you know that?"

Ryu Changmin and Kwon Kyung-ho were right behind him, and it was clear from their appearance that they weren't humans, but all of the surrounding residents seemed to be accustomed to this, and none of them even bothered to scream out of respect.

Qin Ye pointed his chin toward a certain direction, and Ryu Changmin cast his gaze toward the same direction to find several pieces of clothing drying on a rack. There was a pair of bootcut trousers, a pair of tight-fi