Chapter 29: Feather
After learning the cruel and despairing truth, Li Jiahong was dazed for a long time, but when he came back to his senses, he did not scold his wife. She had already paid for the mistake she made in her youthful recklessness by being trapped in a vegetative state in a fifteen-year cycle of repeating nightmares.
Moreover, how could an ordinary person living in peaceful prosperity ever conjecture that the so-called mysterious ritual was actually real?
The ignorant are not innocent, but they should be blameless.
Li Jiahong comforted his wife and let her stay in the hospital in her hometown for proper rehabilitation treatment. Fifteen years had taken away his wife’s health and beautiful appearance; without several years of treatment, she would not be able to get out of bed and walk or live normally.
And he still had to continue searching for his child, despite the slim hope.
So, Li Jiahong began investigating the university club his wife had participated in back then. His fifteen years of experience searching for his child were not entirely in vain; at least they had honed his extremely sharp ability to capture information and his outstanding investigation skills. Although he now looked down and out, he was at least once a top student from a prestigious university, and thinking things through was not difficult for him.
After a thorough investigation, Li Jiahong discovered that the club his wife had joined in university had disbanded long ago. When he visited her former club members, he was shocked to find that almost without exception, the club members who had participated in that mysterious ritual back then had all suffered “accidents” just like his wife—except that everyone else had already died unnaturally.
After comparing the cases of those who had accidents, Li Jiahong discovered that they all shared several common points.
One, they had participated in that year’s mysterious ritual.
Two, those people all had accidents in the year their child turned three, after getting married and having a child.
Three, the adults had accidents, and the children disappeared without a trace.
Looking at the three information points he had summarized, Li Jiahong fell deep into thought and derived three core questions from these three key points.
What exactly was that mysterious ritual?
If the ritual really summoned an unknown mysterious creature, that thing called Huo Gu, why did it specifically act when the child was three years old?
If it just wanted to take the child, why did it also kill the adults?
Li Jiahong was particularly puzzled. He scoured the internet, even returned to his alma mater to peruse the library’s hidden classics, visited masters, but he only learned what the creature named Huo Gu really was.
From fragmentary records in various classics and rumors passed down by word of mouth, Huo Gu was a sneaky creature living in another dimension. No one had seen its full appearance with their own eyes; they only knew it roughly resembled a rat person. They seemed to like raising the young of all creatures and then taking those young back to their lair.
No one knew where they came from or what their purpose was in raising the young.
If Li Jiahong wanted to find his child, he had to find a way to locate Huo Gu, which was not easy. Just when his search was at a dead end, he accidentally discovered a strange “netizen” in a missing person post on an online forum.
The netizen’s online name seemed to be based on the person’s real name, somewhat absurd and quirky—it was actually called “Lin Ling’s Magical Wonderful House.” The other party left a message under such a serious missing person post, seemingly offering help but actually promoting their own store.
At first, Li Jiahong also thought this netizen was a scammer, and not even a professional one.
But later, while browsing other posts on the forum to collect clues, he kept seeing “Lin Ling’s Magical Wonderful House” in other posts.
Interestingly, this netizen’s comments varied each time and would patiently argue with other netizens. It was obvious they were not using a machine to spam; it seemed more like they were typing manually. This made Li Jiahong somewhat admire them, thinking: Even if the other party is a scammer, at least they have proven they have great perseverance and patience.
Until a few days ago, Li Jiahong saw Lin Ling again in a nearly buried post, but this time it was different—Lin Ling was not arguing remotely with netizens but had received thanks from a netizen named “Gloomy Cloud.” The reply time was not long ago, just a few days before the current date.
It was unclear what “Gloomy Cloud” was thanking them for—it was headless and tailless—but precisely such a reply felt real enough. At least these two must know each other offline.
This couldn’t help but surprise Li Jiahong. He didn’t think it was a show because the probability was too low; after all, scammers wouldn’t specifically choose such low-heat posts to perform. If he hadn’t deliberately dug for information, he might not have found this post.
Li Jiahong couldn’t help but start re-examining “Lin Ling’s Magical Wonderful House.” With a try-it-out mentality, he returned to the original missing person notice post where he first saw Lin Ling and sent a question in the other party’s thread: “What method can you use to help find someone?”
After sending the message, Li Jiahong felt his behavior was somewhat ridiculous. He had always been the one who least believed in these things, yet now he was starting to believe a netizen who seemed to be a scammer spending lots of time lurking on online forums every day.
He had truly gone a bit crazy in his search for his child.
But unexpectedly, just a few minutes later, Li Jiahong received a reply from “Lin Ling’s Magical Wonderful House.” He just glanced at the message, and his heart nearly jumped out of his throat.
Lin Ling’s Magical Wonderful House: I rent out some things here. For finding a child, that thing is 50 a day.
“Finding a child? How does he know I’m looking for a child? I’ve never used this account to post anything about finding a child on this forum.” Li Jiahong’s mind was in turmoil; in that instant, he suddenly felt a pair of eyes hidden in the darkness peeping at him. But when he turned around, it was just the shabby environment of an ordinary black internet cafe.
Tension and panic surged to his heart. For the next few days, he didn’t dare log into that forum again, afraid that upon logging in, all the popping messages would be replies from “Lin Ling’s Magical Wonderful House,” fearing the other party would reveal more information about him.
However, after a few days, when he calmed his mood and logged into the forum account again, he found that “Lin Ling’s Magical Wonderful House” had not bothered with him at all.
For some reason, upon getting this result, his mood was somewhat complex.
After much thought, he decided to ask the other party one question: “Master, what is that thing you mentioned?”
This time, Lin Ling did not answer his question directly in the post but private messaged him an address, telling him that if he was sincere, he should come to the place at that address to find him.
But after getting the address, when Li Jiahong tried searching it on map navigation, he found that navigation had no record of this address at all.
So, Li Jiahong decided to go there in person to find Lin Ling’s Magical Wonderful House.
For the matter of finding his child, he was of course 100% sincere.
Li Jiahong stood in front of the forest cabin embraced by pagoda trees, looking at the two evil spirit masks full of scrutinizing menace on the redwood door. He steadied his mind, went forward to knock, and pushed the door open after getting permission from the person inside.
The inside of the house was brightly lit. Standing in the room, he realized that this small dwelling was actually not cramped but somewhat spacious. All sorts of bizarre objects were arranged on rows of shelves, with no specific order and no price tags.
There were two people inside the house: a young man lying on a rocking chair petting a cat, dressed in casual clothes, looking relaxed as if meditating with eyes closed; and a man around thirty years old wearing red clothes, seemingly the shop assistant, who had just been tidying the shelves. When he saw Li Jiahong enter, he came forward with a smiling welcome.
“Hello, Mr., what do you need?” the man asked with a smile.
Li Jiahong observed that the red-clothed big man in front of him was somewhat clumsy and inexperienced in his etiquette as a shop assistant, looking like he had just entered the trade. Nevertheless, Li Jiahong still felt an inexplicable fear toward this shop assistant with the proper smile, always feeling that his gaze was somewhat terrifying, or perhaps something was not quite normal about him.
Li Jiahong slightly lowered his line of sight and said, “I’m here to find Master Lin Ling. I… I’m looking for my child.”
“Master?” The man blinked, then seemed to understand something and said in realization, “Oh, you’re here for our boss.”
“Wei Jiang, just let the guest come over directly.” At that moment, a voice came from the side of the coffee table in the corner of the room. Li Jiahong and the red-clothed shop assistant looked over and found that the young man who had been lying on the rocking chair petting a cat had somehow silently arrived at the coffee table to brew tea.
“Yes, boss!” Hearing the young man’s friendly and gentle voice, the red-clothed shop assistant responded very solemnly, as if receiving a decree.
At this point, Li Jiahong noticed the red-clothed shop assistant’s instinctive action of standing at attention and saluting like a soldier, guessing that the red-clothed shop assistant had probably been a soldier before.
And through the red-clothed shop assistant’s abnormal behavior, Li Jiahong realized that the young man now sitting at the coffee table brewing tea was the “master” he was looking for.
Because the master’s appearance differed greatly from what he had imagined, Li Jiahong was stunned for a moment, then felt some regret.
Had he really been scammed after all? And by a little scammer at that.
Thinking of this, Li Jiahong felt annoyed and almost turned to leave, but then he remembered that the other party had pinpointed his situation at once online, so he felt that since he was already here, he should at least clarify this doubt.
“Please.” Wei Jiang smiled and gestured, leading Li Jiahong to the front. Li Jiahong nodded stiffly with a smile, following Wei Jiang’s steps through the shelves, head down, toward Lin Ling.
On the short distance following behind Wei Jiang, Li Jiahong suddenly noticed that the big man in front of him had a strange walking posture. The strangeness was not in the lower body but in the upper body, which had a constant bumpy unsteadiness, as if it might fall over at any moment.
“Does this person have a bad waist?” Li Jiahong thought to himself, his gaze focusing on the big man’s thick waist. It was then that he suddenly discovered that above the other’s waist, there was actually a pair of wooden shackles tucked there!
Li Jiahong’s legs trembled involuntarily, and he staggered, nearly falling to the ground. He suddenly had a terrifying conjecture.
Could this be a den of organ smugglers, and he was the one tricked into coming in, with Wei Jiang’s shackles meant for him?
When he arrived in front of the young man with the warm smile and sat down, looking at the steaming teacup, he always felt there might be some sedative ingredient in it, so he didn’t dare to lift the cup or move.
Lin Ling smiled and said, “Mr., you’re the one who contacted me online not long ago about wanting to find a missing child, right.”
Lin Ling’s one sentence slowly settled Li Jiahong’s disordered thoughts. As soon as the child was mentioned, Li Jiahong’s train of thought returned to the beginning.
Li Jiahong: “…Yes, I just didn’t expect you to be so young.”
Lin Ling said with a beaming smile, “I’m not young anymore; I just look baby-faced.”
Li Jiahong forced a smile and then said, “You told me to come find you. I wonder how you can help me?”
“Tell me your story first.” Lin Ling said unhurriedly, also pouring himself a cup of tea, gently blowing on the hot tea, then slowly sipping it.
Li Jiahong licked his dry lips, secretly watching Lin Ling’s throat as he swallowed, confirming that Lin Ling had drunk the tea. Only then did his tense shoulders slowly relax. He hesitantly picked up the teacup in front of him and tasted a small sip of the tea.
It was Biluochun; the tea aroma was very fragrant, and the tea soup’s mouthfeel was perfectly balanced between smooth and astringent.
“Good tea, delicious.” Li Jiahong couldn’t help praising. When he saw Lin Ling’s slightly amused smile, his old face reddened, knowing that his little scheme earlier hadn’t escaped Lin Ling’s eyes. From this, he couldn’t help but gain a bit more respect for Lin Ling.
At least this young man in front of him was not as simple as he appeared on the surface.
Li Jiahong cleared his throat, thought for a moment, then slowly recounted his experience to Lin Ling one by one.
He spoke at some length, but not chaotically. Lin Ling showed no impatience and listened very seriously to the story that had happened to Li Jiahong.
“…That’s how it is.” After finishing, Li Jiahong felt thirsty and noticed that Lin Ling had refilled his tea. He immediately drank another cup in one gulp.
Lin Ling nodded, his gaze somewhat profound. After pondering while sitting in the chair for a moment, he got up and went straight to the shelf directly behind Li Jiahong, taking out a white feather with black edges from the second layer from the bottom.
“Take this.” Lin Ling handed the feather directly to him, without providing any vessel to store it.
Li Jiahong took the feather somewhat blankly. “What is this?”
“A bird feather. Give it to your wife.” Lin Ling explained how to use the feather.
“To my wife?” Li Jiahong was confused. “Does this have any direct relation to finding my child?”
He had prepared himself to hear this young “fake master” talk nonsense, thought of all possible ways the other might play tricks, but didn’t expect him to do nothing and instead go straight to the point, bluntly “selling goods.”
“Yes.” Lin Ling said with a smile. “Haven’t you thought of one possibility: it might come for your wife again?”
PS: The network lagged when uploading the chapter earlier; it pasted twice during the process, now fixed.
The Eastern mysticism debuting this time should be one of the more famous ghost monsters on the internet in the past decade. Please collect and vote, etc.
