Chapter 87: The Hollow Town

Unlike those giant corpses grotesquely swollen from long immersion, these women hadn’t deformed. At least, not visibly. They retained much of how they looked in life.

What was harder to comprehend was this—dead people, no matter how they died—illness, injury, old age—rarely looked serene. Yet these women, even the eldest among them, still held an air of composure.

It was as if they hadn’t died in exhaustion or agony, but had chosen death while still fully capable of living.

Honestly, if they’d all looked mangled and gruesome, Xue Liangliang might have been less afraid.

But it was this—this eerie sense of “I dressed nicely on purpose and sat here just so you could see me,” or perhaps “so I could see you”—that pushed his nerves to the brink.

He felt disoriented, unsure if he was observing them… or if they were watching him from within these walls.

Startled, Xue Liangliang bumped into the woman ahead of him.

She had stopped without a sound.

The collision sent him tumbling backward to the ground, but she didn’t even flinch. She merely turned right and changed direction.

A crossroads appeared—two small arching bridges on either side, purely decorative, no water underneath. Feng shui embellishments.

Xue Liangliang climbed to his feet and had no choice but to follow her.

What came next…

Every single doorway along the path was open, and in every house sat a woman.

“Ah…”

Xue Liangliang felt like his sanity was unraveling. Though their eyes were all shut, the crushing sensation of being watched pressed in on him.

He defaulted to the most cowardly approach—kept his head low, trailed behind the woman, tried not to look.

Even so, the corners of his eyes caught glimpses. His heart pounded louder with every step. But somehow, he endured.

A normal person would’ve gone mad in this place.

If Little Yuanhou were here… would he have handled it differently?

Forget it. Better that Little Yuanhou never comes here. He didn’t even know if he would make it out alive. No—he wasn’t even sure he still counted as living.

Eventually, the rows of houses disappeared.

Xue Liangliang pressed a hand to his forehead, taking deep breaths. Even such a simple act now felt necessary to keep his mind from snapping.

Then he hurried to catch up with the woman.

Freed from the dreadful stares on either side, he finally lifted his head to look ahead.

A clearing opened before them. A building stood alone—ancient, distinct from the dwellings around it.

It had to be the ancestral hall of Bai Family Town.

Xue Liangliang stopped in his tracks. Was he really supposed to go inside?

Then, as if to answer himself, he stepped forward. What was the point of hesitating? It wasn’t like he had a choice.

Creak…

The heavy black doors of the ancestral hall opened slowly as the woman approached.

There was no threshold. The floor inside sloped downward, just like before. A wide, smooth middle path, with narrow ledges on either side for walking.

They passed through a modest four-sided courtyard. The woman moved steadily inward.

Xue Liangliang followed her—but his gaze was drawn to an old well at the center. Its mouth wasn’t raised, but sunken, the whole area around it collapsed inward like a bowl.

This wasn’t wear and tear. It had been built this way from the start.

Chains, rusted and thick, hung along the well’s inner wall.

It made Xue Liangliang wonder: were they for lowering people down to fetch water—or for letting someone climb out?

They reached the ancestral hall’s core.

The woman, still clutching the vase, knelt without advancing further.

Xue Liangliang stepped to her side, studying her more closely.

Modern clothing, the dust of travel on her—why did she seem so at home here, as if she’d simply come back to where she belonged?

So what now? Stay here with her? Or go further in?

There was room to move in a circle around her. He just hadn’t dared to take the lead before.

Still, he chose to remain beside her. To stay put.

But then—the choking pressure returned.

It grew unbearable. His hands reached instinctively for his throat.

Why? The woman was still here, kneeling just ahead. Why did it feel like this again?

He edged closer. The sensation didn’t fade.

So… it wasn’t working anymore?

He couldn’t imagine enduring this much longer. The unrelenting suffocation, in this dark and stifling place—it was torture with no end in sight.

“Ugh… ah…”

Xue Liangliang dropped to his knees, groaning in pain.

His consciousness wavered, flickering in and out. Each return to clarity only brought more torment.

Thud.

His body pitched forward, half-tumbling over the thresholdless entrance.

Half of him now lay inside the hall’s heart.

And the pressure—eased.

He hesitated briefly, then crawled further in. The suffocation lessened.

He understood now. The woman with the vase no longer worked. Her chain to him had broken. The new chain was in here.

He dragged himself forward until the pressure vanished entirely—and finally stood.

Looking back, the doors behind him were shrouded in darkness. Only the kneeling woman at the entrance could barely be seen.

Ahead stood a massive red coffin.

It rested on a wooden frame, raised above the floor. Even on tiptoe, he could only glimpse a bit of yellow lining inside—nothing more, unless he climbed atop it.

With his nerves taut, he began to circle the coffin, bracing for something—anything—to jump out.

But nothing did.

Where the head of the coffin faced, there should have been an altar, a rack for memorial tablets.

Instead, there was only a single high-backed armchair.

The coffin’s sides were flanked by bare brick walls.

For the central hall of Bai Family Town, the place felt oddly vacant. Like a house built and finished, but never lived in.

But was that really true?

Xue Liangliang thought of all the women sitting silently in their homes. If everyone had died in their own houses, maybe there was no need to place memorial tablets here.

Then… was there a way out?

He hadn’t given up on saving himself. He sensed that the exit, if one existed, had to be inside this ancestral hall.

He began a new search—no longer just circling the coffin, but combing the three walls inch by inch, tapping bricks, stomping the floor, checking for secret doors or tunnels.

But he found nothing.

The space wasn’t large to begin with. It was far too empty to hide anything substantial.

What about above?

He looked up. Just an old-fashioned wooden ceiling. No way to reach it without tools.

But… go back into those houses to find tools?

Just the thought of passing those women again made his skin crawl. He’d rather stay here.

Hmm?

Returning to the entrance, he found the woman—and the vase—gone.

That sudden change sent a chill down his spine. She’d been the one familiar figure in this whole nightmare.

Her disappearance left him adrift, alone once more.

He wanted to look for her, to see if she’d just moved or gone elsewhere. But the moment he neared the entrance—still several paces away—the choking sensation slammed back into him.

• Please take a moment to rate this novel at Novelupdate.

Next Chapter >>>