Chapter 9: A Home Away from Home

“Is this the white lantern? I heard that when you Huaxia people used to hold funerals, you would hang these… I’ve seen many pictures in books, but this is my first time seeing one in real life.”

Anna’s height easily reached the lantern, and driven by curiosity, she wanted to take a closer look. But the squad leader pulled her away abruptly.

“Let’s go~ This thing is unlucky, and it could even be dangerous in practice.”

“I know, Wenwen, I’m not going to touch it recklessly.”

Anna trusted her close friend without question, then turned her gaze to the unlocked redwood door, strong arms braced against it.

Creak—

The heavy wooden door, somewhat decayed, pushed inward.

The courtyard was overgrown with weeds, the stone path hidden beneath, and the cold wind unrelenting, chilling to the bone.

After confirming nothing was amiss in the front yard, the four of them stepped onto the faintly visible stone path buried in the grass and approached the main entrance of the mansion.

The door, adorned with exquisite wood grain, was unlocked, but no one rushed to open it. After all, the incident had already begun, and danger might lie just beyond this door.

They used the old method again.

Everyone stepped back as far as possible. The squad leader gently pushed the door with a trekking pole.

As the door slowly opened, everyone held their breath, prepared for battle.

When the door finally swung wide, nothing leapt out, and no human silhouettes were visible.

But a strong, overwhelming stench poured out, like an invisible slender arm sliding down their throats, fingers lightly squeezing stomach walls and tugging at their esophagus.

Though they had undergone various training at school, none had prepared them for this kind of sensory assault.

Except for Roddy, the other three all felt intense nausea.

The squad leader reacted swiftly, pulling out masks prepared in advance from her backpack and handing one to each person, easing their discomfort.

Setting aside the interference of the odor, they all entered the mansion’s hall.

The space had been arranged as a funeral parlor.

Pure white drapes waved around the hall in rippling patterns, fluttering constantly in the cold wind.

A redwood altar table stood in the center.

Four bowls of white rice, long moldy, held burnt-out incense sticks.

The dishes and fruits had completely rotted, with decomposers nesting within, feasting on this hard-earned banquet.

One strange observation stood out: the funeral items were traditional and complete in every respect—except for one crucial element.

The deceased’s portrait.

At this moment, the squad leader’s demeanor shifted sharply behind her mask. Her piercing gaze swept the hall quickly before issuing the next directive:

“From now on, we must maintain squad integrity and move together. We’re conducting a thorough inspection of the mansion. Once safety is confirmed, we’ll return here to clean up these moldy things.”

Under her leadership, the full-house inspection began.

All windows in the mansion were covered with white floral paper, greatly reducing the light and casting a stubbornly dim hue over the interior.

This gloom only served to emphasize the white lanterns hanging along the corridor, which became the indispensable sources of light.

The tense inspection concluded swiftly.

No anticipated dangers or strange occurrences surfaced. The mansion was empty of any human presence, and the missing portrait was nowhere to be found.

Notably, the master bedroom on the second floor was spacious and well-lit. If safety could be assured, they could rest there instead of camping outside.

With no problems found in the main building, only the backyard remained unchecked.

Strangely, there wasn’t a single window facing the backyard on either floor.

However, Gao Yuxuan observed carefully that windows did exist but had been sealed shut with cement long ago.

The main building had only one door leading to the backyard.

It was a modern iron door, completely out of place with the old mansion’s style.

There was no keyhole, and it was locked solidly from the inside, seemingly blocked by a heavy object behind it, impossible for the four of them to open.

With no other options, they had to circle around the mansion, attempting to enter the backyard by climbing over the wall.

The front yard’s walls were perfectly normal, but the backyard’s walls were topped with rusty barbed wire, sharp as blades.

From beyond the wall, only the twisted top of a tree was visible, somewhat resembling the locust tree Roddy had seen in the woods when he found the wooden box.

Perhaps this tree was directly connected to their current investigation.

The squad leader took out all the protective gear—knee pads, wrist guards—from her backpack, preparing to fully arm herself and attempt to climb over the sharp wire.

Standing at the back of the group, Roddy sized up the wall and suddenly proposed, “Let me stand on Anna’s shoulders. Maybe I can cut the wire from above. It’ll be safer that way.”

Anna enthusiastically agreed, pounding her fist into her palm. “Good idea! Wenwen, you shouldn’t climb alone—you might get caught and risk tetanus.”

“Alright then, it depends on how well you two work together.”

There was no denying Anna’s physical fitness was impressive.

As Roddy stepped onto her shoulders, Anna, crouched low, rose steadily without any wobble.

Even combined, their height barely reached the top of the wall.

Roddy, gloved on his left hand, tried to grip the edge of the wall for stability.

Whirrr!

The electric saw they had bought from the convenience store roared to life for the first time.

Driven by the motor, its alloy blade teeth easily cut through the rusty, rough barbed wire.

As a large loop of wire fell away, the top of the wall opened wide enough for one person to pass through.

Roddy hoisted himself up nimbly, clearly skilled at this.

When his eyes fell upon the backyard, his entire body visibly stiffened, and his voice turned cold.

“The iron door to the main house should be openable from inside. You guys wait by the door. I’ll open it from the inside.”

With that, Roddy leapt smoothly into the backyard.

The squad leader and the other two quickly returned to the mansion.

Along the way, Anna whispered into the squad leader’s ear, “Wenwen, this guy really knows his stuff—his balance is solid, and he works cleanly and efficiently.”

Wen Wu’s eyes curved into a narrow smile above her white mask. “He’s impressive.”

When the three returned to the iron door leading to the backyard, they could faintly hear heavy objects being moved behind it.

Then came the sound of the electric saw cutting again.

Snap!

The internal chains were cut and dropped.

The sliding iron door slowly opened.

The backyard was revealed.

All three high school students standing at the entrance froze, their expressions shifting rapidly and repeatedly.

It wasn’t only a visual shock—

There was an overwhelming stench, a thick, pungent odor carried on the cold wind.

It penetrated their masks, invaded their nostrils, and made their tongues, sealed between teeth and lips, keenly taste its abnormal flavor—far stronger than the smell in the hall.

The mingling of scent and sight delivered the most extreme mental assault.

Like a high fever, it seized their consciousness, washing over their thoughts from within.

If the earlier sensation at the foyer was the appetizer, this was undoubtedly the day’s signature main course.

Anna was the first to break, vomiting heavily on the spot.

Gao Yuxuan clutched his abdomen and turned away toward the mansion’s restroom.

The squad leader gripped her mask tightly with both hands.

After a brief struggle in her eyes, she steadied her agitated stomach and scrutinized the scene before her once more.

The entire backyard was strewn with the corpses of cattle and pigs, along with the waste produced after death, swarming with flies and insects.

Strangely, despite the intense stench, none of them had smelled anything from outside the walls, as if the backyard were shrouded by some invisible barrier.

The animals’ corpses and odor were not the true focus.

The squad leader’s gaze swiftly fixed on the center of the yard, on the enormous twisted old locust tree.

Four people dressed in traditional Huaxia clothing hung by hemp ropes in different parts of the crooked tree.

Their bodies decayed unevenly, but their protruding eyeballs all stared uniformly at the mansion.

Staring at the only exit.

Staring at the young intruders.

Given the funeral theme of the mansion, it seemed they had arranged their own funeral—and the guests had turned out to be the four who found the mansion’s key.