Chapter 19: Ghost Mountain Villa 19
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In the void, it seemed like there was something trembling with sorrow.
There’s still someone who needs my protection! I cannot leave this place.
You’re staying in my room, I know you’re a good person, I believe in you.
I don’t want to harm anyone either, but I can’t leave. My mistress… she’s still here.
She’s still trapped by the past grudges.
Please, do not harm her.
Please, do not harm her…
Please, save her.
Yan Shixun extended his hand for a moment and then slowly withdrew it.
“I have received your request,” he said in a calm and deep voice. “So, consider these two meals as the prepaid fee, which I have now accepted.”
As Yan Shixun’s words fell, a gentle breeze flowed from the space beside him towards the kitchen.
The wind lifted the corner of his shirt, but he made no attempt to stop it.
His slender figure stood firm, like an unyielding pine tree, unbowed and unbroken.
“Brother Yan?” Zhang Wubing, who had just directed everyone to take care of Liu Yiyi’s injuries, looked somewhat puzzled as he walked over to the kitchen door where Yan Shixun had been standing silently.
“What are you looking at here, Brother Yan? Could it be…” Suddenly, Zhang Wubing thought of a possibility, and the smile on his face vanished, and he quickly stopped in his tracks.
“Is-Is there something wrong in the kitchen?”
Yan Shixun didn’t immediately respond to Zhang Wubing.
He stood still for a moment, his eyes cast down, before raising them again.
“There’s nothing wrong in the kitchen.”
Zhang Wubing breathed a sigh of relief. “Brother Yan, you should’ve said so earlier. You didn’t say a word since you came here. You almost scared me to death…”
“The problem is—” Yan Shixun’s expression was enigmatic as he continued, “if there are no ingredients in the kitchen, what was the food that was supposed to be prepared for us in the first place?”
Liu Yiyi had made her choice, but she ended up in the rooms controlled by the old steward and those blood-red creatures. Her arrogance had led to her severe injuries and near-death state.
She had initially intended to humiliate Yan Shixun by assigning him the modest room next to the staircase, but it turned out to be the same room where the nanny had lived a century ago.
As a result, Yan Shixun unexpectedly gained even more trust and favor from the nanny, who was willing to share information about the mansion and the “young mistress.”
By sheer coincidence, this allowed Yan Shixun to uncover a clue to leave Ghost Mountain Villa.
The information conveyed by the ghostly presence of the nanny in the kitchen moments ago made Yan Shixun understand why, after he destroyed that pot of human flesh the previous day, the subsequent meals had been normal.
——Because it was the nanny who had long passed away, still roamed the mansion due to her lingering attachment. Even after experiencing hardship and death, the nanny retained a motherly heart, filled with care and worry.
She couldn’t bear to see young people of similar age to her child eating the human flesh prepared by the steward. That’s why she deliberately made noise in the kitchen, drawing the attention of Yan Shixun for investigation.
Furthermore, Yan Shixun’s act of destroying the pot of human flesh had symbolic significance within this tightly divided villa, signifying his triumph over the old steward and allowing the nanny to take control of the kitchen on the right side of the villa.
After a century, she stood once again in front of the stove, preparing meals for people roughly the same age as her child.
Although Yan Shixun’s sudden investigation had prevented the nanny from leaving the kitchen, she had only attempted to use the illusion built from old memories in her panic. This illusion aimed to convey warmth and emotion, causing Yan Shixun to lower his guard and eventually leave the kitchen.
The reason Yan Shixun had released the seal at the end was also because he had realized this.
As a reward for the meal, he accepted the mission that manifested from the nanny’s obsession.
Moreover, through this illusion, Yan Shixun verified a rumor about Ghost Mountain.
—A century ago, there indeed was a villa inhabited by a beauty.
Yan Shixun experienced two hallucinations.
The first one occurred last night in Bai Shuang’s room, where a woman named Xi Shuang wanted to use hallucinations to kill him. However, he saw scenes from the past that had taken place in the villa. He deduced that Xi Shuang was the mistress of the villa a hundred years ago, waiting patiently for her lover who had been away for a long time.
The second one just happened in the kitchen, where the nanny tried to make Yan Shixun relax his guard through hallucinations to escape. However, this backfired, as it completed the missing part of the hallucination created by Xi Shuang, allowing Yan Shixun to fully understand what happened in the villa a hundred years ago.
By examining the similar method of using old memories to create hallucinations and the overlapping information points between the nanny and the woman, it appears that the young mistress who was melancholic due to her lover’s absence, as mentioned by the nanny, was Xi Shuang. The “young master” mentioned by the nanny was Xi Shuang’s lover.
Xi Shuang’s singing in Bai Shuang’s voice was hauntingly beautiful and beyond the skill level of an untrained person, more like that of a professional performer.
In the hallucination, Yan Shixun also saw a collection of elaborate and intricate costumes in her wardrobe.
Using the rumors about Ghost Mountain from the past, Yan Shixun pieced together every clue, finally deducing the truth from a century ago.
A century ago, a wealthy merchant hid a Cantonese opera singer in the deep mountains, embarking on extensive construction to win her smile. The singer, in turn, deeply loved the wealthy merchant, willingly locking her phoenix crown and red robe away, waiting for her lover inside the villa.
However, on the night of the bombardment, the wealthy merchant who was supposed to rush to the villa to meet the opera singer stood her up and never appeared at the villa afterward.
It was highly likely that he had died in the explosion on his way there.
The opera singer, who had been leaning against the railing and gazing into the distance, did not await her lover but instead encountered a group of ruthless bandits.
The opera singer and everyone inside the villa met a tragic end, but their lingering hatred and resentment kept them trapped here as vengeful spirits.
Until a hundred years later, when the program crew who were originally planned to go to Gui (Rule) Mountain, accidentally entered Gui (Ghost) Mountain, the land of haunted graves…
However, in the blink of an eye, Yan Shixun had sorted out everything related to the villa and Xi Shuang.
It was because of this that Yan Shixun had another question in his mind.
— What exactly did the old steward initially intend to give to the crew, and where was it placed?
Zhang Wubing, who was taken by Yan Shixun, looked at the desolate and empty kitchen and was dumbfounded.
“What the heck?”
“There’s no food, t-then if we can’t leave here quickly, wouldn’t we starve to death here before those things come to kill us?”
Yan Shixun slapped Zhang Wubing’s head, ruffling the young man’s hair.
With a casual chuckle, Yan Shixun said, “I saved you once six years ago, so I can certainly do it again. Starve to death? That’s not going to happen.”
In Zhang Wubing’s eyes, a strong sense of hope and trust suddenly welled up. “Brother Yan!”
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Thanks for the update