Chapter 79: The Haunted House (Part One)

Whoosh... The sound of wind rushing past echoed in their ears. As they surged forward, all five simultaneously raised their hands, each sending a grappling hook flying from their sleeves straight toward the nursing home.

At the same time, Zhuo Qinfen pursed his lips and let out a soft bird call. Among the soldiers standing guard below, the captain in front turned nonchalantly to the others and said, “Go patrol the first floor. I think I heard something.”

As if rehearsed countless times, just as the others entered the building, the grappling hooks caught onto the window bars of the nursing home with a metallic clang. The five figures arced through the air like Tarzan, drawing a graceful curve as they soared toward their destination.

This was the rear of the nursing home, the least guarded area.

It was clear they had scouted this place many times. The window they entered through had no glass. With a series of muffled thuds and a soft rustle, all five burst into the building, rolling smoothly to their feet, each gripping a gleaming dagger, bodies crouched low, eyes alert and searching like wary wolves.

No one spoke. For a full three minutes, only the howling wind outside could be heard, and the swaying trees cast shifting shadows into the room.

It was a chamber long unvisited, decrepit furniture draped in spiderwebs and thick dust. The faint outline of an old lamp and cheap decorations lingered on the walls. The silence was so deep, it felt like a dilapidated graveyard.

Su Feng spread a map on the floor—a cross-section of the entire hunting zone, glowing faintly in the dark. “There are five floors in the hunting zone, thirty-six rooms per floor. None of us have ever entered this place before. I suggest we split up and search.”

Sensing that Qin Ye was new to the Special Investigation Bureau, he elaborated, “If something here really harbors thirty million units of Yin energy, it must be sealed in another dimension. We have a specific term for such places: alternate space.”

“It exists in the rift between yin and yang. Unless you touch the entrance, you’d never know it was there. The entrance could be a mirror, a lamp—anything. In other words...”

He circled an area on the map. “On all five floors, we must not overlook a single object!”

Li Runxue opened her case and handed out five walkie-talkies. “There’s no signal in alternate spaces, so we should each search a room every fifteen minutes, check in here with your name and room number. If anyone doesn’t report in fifteen minutes...”

She trailed off, but Qin Ye understood, silently praising her wit.

If the signal vanished, it meant someone had entered the rift between worlds. By their last reported room number, the location could be pinpointed!

“No matter what you find, regroup here at four thirty,” Su Feng said, taking a walkie-talkie and nodding to everyone. “Good luck.”

A force of thirty million Yin—sealed or not—demanded absolute caution.

With that, he left the room.

Each person took a walkie-talkie, numbered one to five in red. Qin Ye received number one.

Walking toward the third floor, he didn’t start searching immediately, but examined his surroundings.

It was chilling.

Bright moonlight streamed through the corridor’s broken windows, casting a deathly pallor. The walls were stained everywhere, covered in meaningless scribbles—some appeared to be carved with fingernails, streaked with dark, purplish blood.

These were not the marble walls of a modern apartment, but ancient plaster, peeling away in large patches like a rotting face. The windows stared like eyes, watching every passerby.

Here, the silence was suffocating—99% stillness, punctuated by the occasional scurrying of rats or something else, making it all the more unnerving.

Qin Ye gently pushed open a door. The old building’s layout split into left and right wings; he chose the left, room 123.

The left corridor was intact; the right wing had collapsed. He moved slowly—by now, about ten minutes had passed.

The door was ajar, creaking painfully as he pushed it. At that moment, the walkie-talkie crackled: “Li Runxue, room 201.” “Lin Han, room 301.” “Su Feng, room 523.”

Qin Ye nodded, about to push the door open, when his eyes suddenly narrowed: “Where’s Zhuo Qinfen?”

He paused.

Just inside the door, in the shadowy gap, a figure lurked behind the door!

Moonlight spilled behind it, leaving the front shrouded in darkness. Long white hair hung down to its shoulders, its back pressed against the door, dressed in a dusty blue opera costume with long white sleeves, hands tucked inside. Its face was hidden by the backlight, but two blood-red eyes gleamed. Its head was twisted around 180 degrees, staring straight at the narrow gap of the opening door.

“Heh... hehehehe...” An eerie sound rasped from its throat, as if the vocal cords were torn and dry. Right at the entrance—Qin Ye’s voice. It slowly extended a hand, claw-like and shriveled, behind the door.

A heavy silence fell over the walkie-talkie. Su Feng’s voice grew grave: “Zhuo, this isn’t a joke. Fifteen minutes are up—report your position.”

But—nothing.

Three minutes. Five minutes. The walkie-talkie was silent.

Qin Ye took a deep breath and glanced at his phone.

Eleven forty at night. The abandoned nursing home, walls scrawled with madness, shrouded in darkness. One teammate—gone the moment they entered!

He spun around, racing for the fourth floor where Zhuo Qinfen was.

At the same time, in the room he’d just left, a pale hand silently opened the door. A head full of white hair slowly, quietly peeked out.

“Heh... hehehehe...”

Qin Ye, so sensitive to Yin energy, felt nothing in that instant as he charged upstairs. But when he reached the fourth floor… there was no one in sight!

Tap... In the pitch-black corridor, only his military boots echoed. The pallid moonlight filled the hallway, illuminating the black and red writing on the walls—utterly deserted.

Qin Ye’s eyes narrowed, his hand dropping to his waist, body crouched like a hunting wolf. He’d come up from the first floor; logically, the others should already be here.

Where were they?

“Something’s wrong,” came Arthas’s voice, low and soft. Qin Ye whispered, “Of course it’s wrong… I haven’t sensed a trace of Yin energy. This is supposed to be a hunting zone…”

Just then, his walkie-talkie crackled again. In the silent corridor, a woman’s voice sang out in a high, piercing tone:

“Dreams return with warblers’ song, Time in chaos, years gone wrong, Alone in the garden, the incense burnt long, Embroidery thread cast aside, Spring’s sorrow just as strong…”

Kunqu opera.

After a few lines, her voice rose sharply, shrill in the opera’s timbre: “Li Runxue, room 201.” “Lin Han, room 301.” “Su Feng, room 523.”

“And the last one—come now~~ meet~~ your doom!!”

Utterly uncanny!

As the final words fell, every ajar door on the fourth floor creaked open in unison, the sound long and grating, sending chills down the spine. Though no one appeared, it was as if countless souls had stepped out at once!

At the same time, in the moonlit corridor, a woman in the costume of a floral-dan opera role suddenly appeared!

Phoenix coronet, crimson robe, flowing white sleeves, her tall figure surged toward Qin Ye like a streak of lightning!

Qin Ye’s pupils contracted. Without hesitation, he turned and fled.

This wasn’t a minor ghost...

This was a soul-reaper level entity!

And she was stronger than Cao Youdao! She even gave him the same feeling as facing the Yinsting Army that day!

He raced desperately downstairs. The building was too bizarre—of five soul-reapers, four vanished in an instant. But as he rounded a corner, he suddenly stopped.

Every corner of this building had a full-length mirror.

Here too, old and thick with dust. He could just barely see his reflection, but behind him… something else was there!

In front of the mirror, a walkie-talkie lay conspicuously!

Utter silence.

The opera singing had ceased; only the night wind moaned through empty window frames, sounding like ghosts weeping. A window banged against the wall, echoing dully.

He drew a deep breath, picked up the walkie-talkie, and wiped the dust from the mirror.

And saw—someone, or rather something, clinging to his back: an aged opera singer!

Phoenix coronet, crimson robe, flowing white sleeves. Yet her hair was completely white, her whole form—no, her whole corpse—looked shriveled and dead! Skin clinging to bone, wild white hair cascading in disarray, lying motionless across his back. The sleeves hung down in front of him, and her head rested on his shoulder!

Bzzzz… At that moment, the walkie-talkie crackled, static hissing with a hint of a voice.

He lifted it to his ear and finally made out the words:

“124… 1… 24…”

A few seconds later, he put down the device and sneered.

“Su, you bastard,” he shouted. Then, louder, “Xiao Lin? Xiao Li? Xiao Zhuo?”

No response.

“No sign of any true Qi, either…” He licked his lips. With an explosive surge, Yin energy erupted from all directions, swirling around him in a three-meter radius, forming a world of shadow.

“Well then… there’s no need to pretend anymore, is there?”

With a whoosh, a pale ghost-blade materialized, and Qin Ye dragged it from the sea of Yin energy. His black reaper’s garb fluttered in the wind, and in that instant, the silent corridor was filled with the wails of a thousand spirits, all bowing before him.

“Infernal officials take the guilty—let all idle souls clear the way.” He pointed the blade at the ceiling, and instantly, the suffocating blackness seemed to thin, as if some unseen presence shrank away in terror.

“Mere spirits, and you dare cause trouble before a reaper?” He patted the invisible shoulder at his side. “Enough now. Soon, we’ll see exactly what you’re hiding here.”