131: Chapter 131 Rose Garden

Half an hour later, the george patton sped through the rainy night streets and finally came to a slow stop outside the gates of an old residential community named "Rose Garden."

Lin Ye was in no hurry to drive in.

He pushed open the driver's side door first, opened a black umbrella, and stood in the rain examining the architectural layout of the residential complex.

In the early hours of the morning, most of the windows in the complex were dark, with only a few dim yellow streetlights casting faint halos through the rain and mist.

The complex's architectural style was typical of tower blocks built over a decade ago. Much of the exterior wall tiles had peeled off, exuding an air of dilapidation.

Lin Ye narrowed his eyes slightly as Pure Yang True Qi circulated within them.

In his field of vision, the flow of the entire complex's energy field became clearly visible.

"Interesting..." Lin Ye sneered.

Leng Yue had pushed open her door at some point and now stood quietly by Lin Ye's side.

Raindrops falling within an inch of her body seemed to hit an invisible barrier, sliding off automatically without dampening even the hem of her clothes.

"Husband, the feng shui layout here has been tampered with."

Leng Yue looked where Lin Ye was pointing and offered her judgment in a flat tone.

"Indeed."

Lin Ye pointed at the two high-rise buildings in front of the complex arranged in a flared " eight" shape and explained to Zhao Xue, who had just stepped out of the car.

"Miss Zhao, when you rented the apartment, did the landlord say anything?"

Zhao Xue looked bewildered, clutching her umbrella handle tightly. "Nothing... I saw the rent here was a third cheaper than market price, so I rented it."

Lin Ye nodded and pointed ahead with the tip of his umbrella:

"Look at how those two buildings are aligned. Wide in front, narrow in back, forming a long, narrow wind corridor in between that blows straight toward Building 14 where you live."

"In feng shui, this is called the Heavenly Slash Sha. The wind gap acts like a blade, slicing away vitality day and night."

He pulled back his umbrella tip and pointed to the dried-up artificial lake in the center of the complex, as well as the rows of weeping willows planted along its edge.

"Add to that the artificial lake. It was supposed to be a water layout that gathers wealth, but the water has been drained, exposing the mud at the bottom. Surrounding it are weeping willows. Willows belong to the Yin element and are commonly used in folklore to ward off ghosts, but planted beside dried-up dead water, they become Soul-Banner Streamers."

"Thus, the Heavenly Slash Sha breaks down the Yang aura of the living, while the dried-up Yin water layout gathers wandering spirits from all around. If living people stay here too long, even if no ghost comes knocking, their qi and blood will deplete, and bad luck will haunt them."

"Your severe insomnia is the result of this building's feng shui gradually whittling away your Yang aura."

Hearing Lin Ye's easy-to-understand explanation, Zhao Xue's legs went weak, and she almost fell to her knees in a puddle.

Before, she had only thought the greenery in the complex was nice and the trees made it pleasantly cool; who could have imagined such dangerous principles were hidden behind it?

"Don't panic. We can deal with the feng shui issue slowly later. Tonight, let me handle that roommate of yours you've never met first."

Saying that, Lin Ye turned and got back into the car, driving the george patton directly into the complex and parking it beneath Building 14.

The old elevator made heavy steel cable grinding noises, the numbers ticking slowly on the display screen until it finally stopped on the 14th floor.

The moment the elevator doors opened, a gust of cold, damp air rushed over them.

The sound-activated lights in the hallway flickered twice, emitting a buzzing electrical noise before barely lighting up to cast a ghastly white glow.

The floor tiles were covered with a fine layer of water droplets, and the air was filled with a strange odor reminiscent of moldy old clothes mixed with burnt paper.

Lin Ye walked at the very front, his right hand habitually resting on the side pocket of his tactical backpack.

When he reached the door of Room 1404, he stopped.

"Boss Lin... what's wrong?"

Zhao Xue hid behind Leng Yue, not even daring to breathe heavily.

Lin Ye didn't answer.

He looked down at the threshold at his feet.

On the outside of the threshold, a thin layer of white powder had been sprinkled at some point.

Under the ghastly white light, the powder looked extraordinarily striking.

Lin Ye squatted down, pinched a bit of the powder with his fingers, and held it to his nose to smell it.

It wasn't flour; it was bone ash.

"Looks like the courier delivery guy has already cased the joint ahead of time."

Lin Ye brushed the dust off his hands and stood up, a sharp glint flashing in his eyes.

He pulled out a Lightning-Struck Peach Wood Ruler wrapped in red string from his backpack and lightly knocked three times on the doorframe.

"Thump, thump, thump."

The knocking sound echoed through the dead-silent hallway.

Immediately after, a faint scraping sound suddenly came from inside the security door.

It sounded as if something was frantically scratching the back of the door with nails from the other side.

"Creak... creak..."

Zhao Xue covered her mouth, tears streaming down uncontrollably.

Lin Ye sneered and pulled out a Dragon-Finding Compass made of pure copper from his pocket.

As soon as the compass was taken out, the central magnetic needle began spinning madly as if crazy.

Finally, with a snap, the needle pointed straight downward.

The Needle at the Ocean Floor!

An omen of extreme misfortune—the ghost was right beneath their feet or right before them!

"Leng Yue, protect her."

Lin Ye instructed, then took the key handed over by Zhao Xue, inserted it into the keyhole, and turned it forcefully.

With a click, the heavy security door was pushed open.

No lights were on inside the room; it was pitch black.

But the moment the door was pushed open...

A bone-chilling coldness, accompanied by a thick stench of cheap joss paper incense, flooded out like a tide.

By the dim light filtering in from the hallway, Lin Ye could clearly see the scene inside the living room.

The open space where a coffee table and sofa should have been was now stacked with paper craft offerings of various sizes.

A Porsche sports car fashioned from colored paper, a paper mansion as tall as a person with closed doors and windows...

...and two pairs of paper boy and girl servants dressed in red-and-green burial clothes, their cheeks painted with two exaggerated spots of rouge.

The eyes of those four paper effigies were originally drawn with black ink.

But right now, dark red blood was oozing out from the corners of their eyes.

The eerie smiles on their lips were strikingly jarring in the darkness.

They were staring in unison at the three people standing at the door—Lin Ye and his group.

And right in the center of that pile of paper craft items sat an eye-catching object.

It was a brand-new, bright red silk shroud.

Hanging from the collar of the shroud was a black label, on which two words were crookedly written in white ink: Zhao Xue.

"Th-these things... I clearly threw them into the trash can downstairs! How did they come back on their own?!"

Seeing this scene, Zhao Xue's mental line completely collapsed. Screaming, she tried to back away, but Leng Yue grabbed her collar with one hand, holding her in place like a chick.

Lin Ye paid no mind to the paper effigies. He stepped straight over the threshold, walking across the joss paper covering the floor to reach the center of the living room.

He glanced at the mechanical watch on his wrist.

Eleven fifty-five.

There were five minutes remaining before the "delivery sharp at midnight" mentioned in the text message.

"Quite fast on their feet. Setting up a mourning hall in advance, are they?"

Lin Ye grabbed a handful of aged glutinous rice mixed with cinnabar from his backpack and quickly cast a circular Three Talents Evil-Locking Array around the dining chair in the center of the living room.

"Zhao Xue, go sit on the chair. No matter what sound you hear or what thing you see, do not step outside the red circle on the floor by even half a pace."

Lin Ye pointed at the chair in the center of the array, his tone leaving no room for argument.

How could Zhao Xue dare hesitate for a moment? She scrambled into the array, clutched the back of the chair tightly, closed her eyes, and shivered uncontrollably.

Lin Ye walked over to the sofa and sat down with a grand, bold posture.

Leng Yue naturally walked behind him and began massaging his shoulders, her dark golden eyes firmly locked onto the pile of bleeding paper effigies in the middle of the living room.

The second hand approaching twelve o'clock sharp was silently creeping forward.

"Tick-tock."

The wall clock made a crisp sound—twelve o'clock sharp.

At that instant, the temperature of the entire room plummeted to freezing point.

Exhaled breath condensed into white frost right before their eyes, and water droplets on the walls trickled down the wallpaper, as if the room itself were crying silent tears.

Right at that moment...

The remains of the smart speaker that had already been smashed to pieces suddenly lit up with an eerie green glow.

Right after, that distorted woman's voice abruptly echoed through the dead-silent living room.

"Ding-dong. Hello, Zhao Xue."

"Your toll money has been delivered. May I ask: will you put on the shroud and come with me yourself, or... shall I help you change?"

Accompanying those words, the four paper boy and girl effigies in the middle of the living room—previously motionlessly still—emitted a cracking folding sound from their stiff paper necks.

They turned their heads at the same time, their bleeding eyes staring intently at Zhao Xue sitting in the center of the array, their mouths curling into exaggerated grins.

A gust of sinister wind suddenly blew up, picking up the joss paper covering the floor and sending it flying through the air.

Sitting on the sofa and watching this unfold, Lin Ye slowly drew out the soul-suppressing copper coin sword glowing with purple-gold lightning from his backpack.

"Forced buying and selling?"

"In this territory of Jiangzhou, when it comes to shady deals, you're trying to show off with a broadsword in front of Guan Yu."