Chapter 169: Phantom of the Barren Village

The name flashed in Li Zhi’s mind: Zhou Xuan?

She took two steps toward the beam, but before she could get close, the woman hanging from it vanished in the blink of an eye. Dim light slanted through the air, illuminating only swirling dust—as if what she had just seen was nothing but an illusion.

But Li Zhi was certain she hadn’t imagined it.

It wasn’t a hallucination, but it probably wasn’t a ghost either. The moment she’d entered, she’d felt that this house was unnaturally colder than the others, steeped in lingering resentment and oppressive energy. The distorted magnetic field here must have recreated a scene from the past.

At some point, a woman in a red dress had indeed hanged herself from this very beam.

Though Li Zhi had never seen Zhou Xuan’s face, her intuition told her this was her.

The red dress she’d died in was the reason every household in Liu Village kept one.

The live stream had also caught that horrifying glimpse, and the comments exploded:

—The red dress! It appeared!
—Her thumb was cut off! Was it to stop her from escaping?
—Is that really Zhou Xuan? Wasn’t she Liu Daqiang’s wife? Why did she die in Liu Youcai’s house?
—Did Liu Youcai’s parents hang her? To arrange a ghost marriage for their son?
—There’s a folk belief that dying in red turns you into a vengeful spirit. Zhou Xuan was pregnant—two lives lost. That’s double the resentment!
—A mother-child vengeful ghost plus a red-dress ghost? Double buffs—she’d have to be insanely powerful!

Li Zhi stared up at the beam, realizing her earlier assumptions might have been wrong.

Zhou Xuan’s death had nothing to do with Liu Dajun. The Liu Dajun family wasn’t the start of the serial massacre—Liu Youcai’s family was. Though she hadn’t yet found the graves of Liu Youcai’s parents and sister, they likely died the same day as Zhou Xuan.

Then Li Zhi remembered something: earlier, while searching the graveyard for clues, she’d seen Liu Youcai’s tombstone.

The birth and death dates on it were several months apart from the massacre, so she hadn’t paid it much attention at the time.

Now, she picked up the ancestral tablet on the table again. According to the inscription, Liu Youcai had died on February 10th of that year, while Zhou Xuan died on July 14th—five months apart. On the surface, the two deaths seemed unrelated.

But Li Zhi had a bold new theory.

Zhou Xuan had been three months pregnant when she died, meaning she likely conceived around March or April.

To the men who’d trafficked her, women were nothing more than tools for bearing children. So when Zhou Xuan was sold to the village chief’s family, Liu Daqiang must have assaulted her immediately.

Assuming Zhou Xuan became pregnant soon after, the chief’s family would have cut off her thumb to prevent escape and chained her up to stop suicide attempts. That meant Zhou Xuan had been sold here around February—matching Liu Youcai’s time of death.

Was Liu Youcai’s death connected to Zhou Xuan?

Was that why, five months later, Liu Youcai’s parents forced Zhou Xuan to marry his spirit tablet in a ghost marriage? Was it vengeance for their son? Or did they believe Liu Youcai had loved Zhou Xuan and wanted to “gift” her to him in death?

Li Zhi was certain the woman in red she’d seen was Zhou Xuan. But had she hanged herself, or had Liu Youcai’s parents killed her?

Regardless, she’d died in this house.

Pregnant and chained up on the second floor of the chief’s home, Zhou Xuan couldn’t have escaped on her own.

The most plausible explanation was that Liu Youcai’s parents had stolen her.

And when Liu Daqiang discovered his “wife” was missing—what would he have done?

Standing in the cold doorway, Li Zhi looked toward the chief’s house.

Perched on higher ground with a stone-reinforced foundation, it exuded an air of authority. She could almost picture the scene at dusk—the family rushing out in fury, shouting, “Zhou Xuan is gone!”

The entire village would have mobilized to help Liu Daqiang search.

Meanwhile, Liu Youcai’s parents would have stood right here—where she stood now—watching the frantic crowd run toward the village entrance before smirking and shutting the door.

But Zhou Xuan couldn’t have gotten far.

With her thumb severed and her body frail, Liu Daqiang and his men would have searched in vain. Eventually, they must have noticed something amiss—perhaps a villager had seen Liu Youcai’s parents sneaking her away, or some other clue gave them away.

Liu Daqiang would have stormed back to the village and confronted them.

Li Zhi turned to look behind her.

The beam loomed directly above the doorway.

If Liu Daqiang had burst in from where she stood, the first thing he’d have seen was Zhou Xuan’s body hanging from it.

Before now, Li Zhi hadn’t understood why Liu Daqiang—after living peacefully in Liu Village for over twenty years—had suddenly snapped that year, slaughtering his neighbors in a series of gruesome massacres.

Now, she knew.

Zhou Xuan’s death had triggered his madness.

Seeing his “wife”—pregnant with his child—hanged in a red wedding dress in Liu Youcai’s house was enough to send him into a violent frenzy.

So the first family he slaughtered was Liu Youcai’s.

Liu Youcai’s parents, his sister, even their yellow dog—all fell beneath his blade.

The signs of looting in this house suggested the village chief might have distributed Liu Youcai’s family’s belongings to placate the villagers. But none of them could have guessed this was only the beginning.

By afternoon, the weather grew even gloomier. Liu Village seemed perpetually shrouded in gray, starved of sunlight—which explained why the plants here withered, devoid of life.

Li Zhi stepped out of the house and scanned the overgrown yard. Walking to where the little girl had disappeared earlier, she pulled three sticks of incense from her backpack, lit them, and burned a stack of spirit money.

“Are you Liu Youcai’s sister? This offering is for you. Will you come out and talk to me?”

A cold wind rustled through the dead grass, but after waiting a while, the girl didn’t appear.

Li Zhi stood. “I’m staying at the chief’s house. If you want more offerings, come find me there tonight. Have your dog bark three times, and I’ll know it’s you.”

Liu Youcai’s family had no proper graves, so no one would have made offerings to them. That little ghost had probably been starving all this time. If incense could lure her out, the next steps would be much easier.

Shouldering her backpack, Li Zhi was about to leave when she caught sight of the collapsed earthen stove out of the corner of her eye. She paused.

Her gaze fixed on the dirt-covered plastic tarp beside it. After a moment, she walked over and pulled it aside.

Beneath it was a tightly fitted wooden cover. Though the plastic had protected it, time and moisture had caused the wood to rot, sprouting white mold.

Even so, the grain was still visible—fine, even, and faintly red. Li Zhi crouched and leaned in, ignoring the musty smell, until she caught the faint, distinctive fragrance of peach wood.

This was a lid made of peach wood.

And the significance of peach wood went without saying.

There was definitely something sealed beneath this cellar.

Gripping the edges, Li Zhi yanked the lid open. A pungent stench surged from the darkness below, so strong it made her eyes water. Clumps of dirt crumbled into the hole as she listened—it didn’t sound too deep.

After waiting for the smell to dissipate slightly, she lit a candle, lowered it inside to test the air, and—seeing the flame stay alive—jumped in with her flashlight.

The cellar was only about two meters deep. The circle of daylight above shrank to a distant dot as she moved forward. Though the air had improved, the stench still stung. She relit the candle, using it as an oxygen gauge—if it went out, she’d leave immediately.

The camera followed her flashlight’s beam as it cut through the darkness. Viewers inside and outside the副本 held their breath, watching her explore what looked like a tomb passage:

—Li Zhi’s seriously fearless. She just jumps into creepy places without hesitation.
—Watching her solo this副本 really shows how strong she is.
—I’ve always thought people underestimate her. She’s way more capable than she lets on.
—What’s sealed down here? Zhou Xuan’s grave?
—This is Liu Youcai’s house. Wouldn’t it be his parents?

The comments flooded in, and gifts poured into the live stream. Just when viewers thought things couldn’t get more intense, Li Zhi always proved them wrong.

She’d raised their tolerance for horror.

This cellar wasn’t like the ones she’d seen in rural areas before. After jumping down, she found herself facing a narrow passage lined with peach wood panels identical to the lid, each covered in yellow talismans.

Tucking her flashlight into her sleeve, she gripped her baseball bat and advanced cautiously, candle in hand.

The deeper she went, the weaker the flame grew—though it didn’t extinguish. The temperature plummeted, a bone-deep chill crawling up from the ground. Li Zhi shivered, goosebumps rising on her skin.

The flickering candlelight cast eerie shadows on the talisman-covered walls.

The passage stretched about ten meters before opening into the true cellar—a small, brick-lined space meant for storing food. But now, two coffins sat in the center.

They were identical to the ones she’d seen in the chief’s house, bound with red thread and sealed with talismans. The only difference was that the threads here were broken in the middle. Li Zhi moved closer, candlelight revealing gnaw marks on the lids—likely from rats.

Then, with a soft puff, her candle went out.

A cold gust brushed the back of her neck.

Where did that wind come from?

Slowly, Li Zhi pulled out her flashlight and turned around.

Two meters away stood an elderly couple clad in head-to-toe black funeral attire, their faces ashen.

Seeing her notice them, they grinned in unison, their smiles stretching unnaturally wide.