Volume 1: Ghosts of the Underworld Chapter 27: Climbing a Perilous Peak in Vain (1)
The tour guide's soul was gone too, making Chen Long's mood extremely low, so he didn't chat with Yuan Tian for a few words and they dispersed separately.
First, Jiang Feng and the others moved the corpses out of the stone house and burned them with southern Ming fire. Then, they gathered everyone in the main hall for a meeting. After this incident, everyone lost their sleepiness. Miss Zhu cried and demanded to leave this place immediately, which annoyed Chen Long greatly. He had no choice but to send her and Yin Rou back to their room to rest, otherwise, it would be impossible to discuss anything.
The atmosphere was very depressing, and everyone had some worries in their hearts. Chen Long and Jiang Feng were suspicious of Yuan Hua and Yuan Tian, so they didn't have much to say. The Yuan brothers were the same. Li Yun's eyes had been red since she saw Shi Daoyou's brutally murdered body. She and Shi Daoyou were quite good friends, and now facing her icy corpse, she was naturally heartbroken. However, she was also strong, with red eyes but not crying or wailing.
"We must catch the murderer and cut him into a thousand pieces, this person is really too evil. If we don't catch him soon, I don't know how many more people will be harmed." Li Yunyu's face turned cold, she thought to herself, although on the surface she looked like a weak girl, but deep down she was a strong woman.
"What are you thinking about, Miss Li?" Chen Long broke the silence, although he had a secret agreement with Li Yun, but on the surface, of course, he had to pretend to be unfamiliar. He didn't even tell Jiang Feng about this matter, just to catch the murderer and gain a chance to survive. The murderer didn't scare him, what scared him was that evil spirit. As long as he had time to find a way out before the evil spirit reappeared, it would be fine. The murderer kept causing trouble for them, not only wasting their time but also making everyone suspicious of each other. Because more and more people died, the evil spirit could absorb resentment and increase its power by absorbing souls. Chen Long felt that it wouldn't take long for it to break through the seal.
Jiang Feng sighed, muttering to himself, and started smoking with his head down: "Damn it! I think the situation we're facing now is even more perilous than what's written in 'Taishan Mountain Breakout', it's really freaking unbelievable!"
"Breaking Out of the Taihang Mountains" is a 1995 TV series directed by Li Ni. The story takes place in 1940, when the Japanese invasion army launched a large-scale attack on the liberated areas. Chen Gong, a general stationed in the Taihang Mountains, led his troops to bravely resist and captured a Japanese colonel in a fierce battle. Enraged, the Japanese army intensified its military actions against the anti-Japanese base and launched a massive bombing campaign against the Taihang Mountains area, implementing a "prison cage policy". The 129th Division, under the command of Liu Bocheng and Deng Xiaoping, coordinated with the Taihang Mountains guerrilla force to launch an unprecedented and thrilling battle against the Japanese invasion army and Yan Xishan's Nationalist Army in Lujiayu, Heifengkou... After countless twists and turns, hardships, difficulties, and sacrifices, they broke through layers of encirclement, charged out of the heavy siege, crossed the Yellow River, and arrived at Yan'an.
The bloody battle was terrifying, but having no outlet for his energy and being unable to find the murderer was even worse. Jiang Feng was an impulsive person who would not hesitate to fight with others, but thinking about complex problems was really difficult for him. Originally, he didn't care about the death of the two drivers, assuming that the murderer had killed them for some purpose and that there must be a shocking secret behind it, perhaps even a hidden treasure. However, after so many people died in the past two days, even this tough guy felt a little scared. With the evil spirit and mysterious murderer, he might be the next to die at any time! So now all he could think about was how to get out, and some external things were no longer important to him.
A few people chatted for a while, all saying irrelevant things. When it dawned, they found a slope to bury the sleeping bag containing Shi's body. There was no other way; such a corpse couldn't be kept in the house or car. They could only think of ways to get out and clear the road, then find people to dig it up again.
At the end of spring, it gets light early, and by a little after five o'clock, it's fully bright. However, because it's cool in the mountains, everyone wrapped themselves in thick layers of clothing. With this temperature, climbing steep peaks wouldn't be reasonable, so everyone had to wait for the sun to come out and warm things up before setting off.
Around ten o'clock, the seven of them finally arrived at the steep and dangerous peak on the east side. The pine trees stood proudly on the cliff in the misty morning color, with waves of disordered clouds flying over their heads. The steep mountain wall was formed by a large number of dark brown stone blocks piled up, with countless corners protruding from both sides, which could be used to climb up with the help of such terrain.
"Alright! Yuan Hua and I will go up first to take a look. The two of us are physically strong and agile, so it won't be difficult for us to climb up. As for Jiang Feng's build, it's better for him to stay here with Yuan Tian and protect the ladies." Chen Long arranged this and refused the climbing tools that Zhu Xiansheng had enthusiastically handed over, saying in a deep voice.
Jiang Feng first stared at Chen Long, but then looked at the steep mountain wall and wisely did not retort. In a desperate situation, he could also climb up, but the physical strength consumed was not trivial. If there was no way out above, it would be a waste of energy. Letting Chen Long and others go explore the road first was the best solution. Yuan Hua represented one side of the Yuan brothers, and Chen Long also represented him, so under this circumstance, there wouldn't be any deception issues, therefore several girls didn't have any objections either.
He and Yuan Hua climbed up all the way, Chen Long paid attention to the direction of the mountain while trying to find a possible exit route, and at the same time, he was always on guard against Yuan Hua. He found that although Yuan Hua's movements climbing up and down from the rocks were not bad, they were not frightening either. Chen Long deliberately maintained his physical strength, keeping his speed at a pace that Yuan Hua could keep up with.
Is he hiding his clumsiness or did I misjudge him? Did my preconceptions turn out to be completely wrong? Chen Long thought to himself, suspecting that Yuan Hua was not unreasonable. Firstly, he and Jiang Feng were not suspects, and several girls had also been ruled out one by one. Yuan Tian's behavior was also quite normal, even helping everyone from time to time, hating the murderer. If he was the murderer, he could have just not told anyone about his medical knowledge. Maybe he was forced to do so because of Yuan Hua's existence, but Chen Long felt that he was not the murderer, nor an accomplice.
So there was only Yuan Hua, who was very suspicious because he acted too normally and calmly afterwards, making Chen Long feel that he lacked human emotions. To be honest, Chen Long felt that he himself was also such a person, but after committing murder, he also acted very normally and calmly, however that was because he had the ability to protect himself.
What made Chen Long suspicious was not these, but the words that Master Zhou said before his death, "pig, dry, and" three words. The sound of "pig dry" is very similar to "coarse", Master Zhou might have meant those two words. Coarse and smooth are antonyms, and Yuan Hua and smooth are homophones. Just this point can make people think about it for a long time. Maybe Master Zhou himself was not sure, so he added a "possible" word, probably meaning possible. At the moment of his death, Master Zhou had no evidence, of course, he couldn't be sure that Yuan Hua was the one who poisoned him, saying it out loud would have been useless, if it wasn't Yuan Hua, then he would have been slandering, and even after death, people would look down on him. He said these three words, which were not simple at all, in a state of confusion before his death, he could still imply the person present, without directly saying who he suspected. This made Chen Long feel that the guy was really wasted as a driver, probably because he had seen Yuan Hua touch her wine bottle before, which made him suspicious.
