The next day, the remaining uncle and nephew indeed did not bother Qing Ling again, and they did not even step foot into the back courtyard.
Qing Ling made something to eat for himself and, feeling somewhat curious as to why the two of them were so silent, went to the front courtyard to take a look. He happened to spot the uncle and nephew behaving like madmen in the courtyard. Clearly, both of them were right there in the courtyard, yet they acted as if they could not see each other at all. Having gone without a single drop of water for a full day and night, both of them looked thoroughly disheveled as they kept walking in circles around the courtyard. By the looks of it, they were clearly saying something, but Qing Ling could not hear a thing.
This was undoubtedly another one of Shang Changheng’s methods.
Qing Ling did not look much longer and turned back to the back courtyard.
The two uncles and nephews of the Qing family truly could not see each other. In their eyes, there was only themselves in this ancestral hall courtyard, and the sky remained pitch black. They had no idea how much time had actually passed, but the sky over this ancestral hall seemed as though it would never brighten again.
Darkness, solitude, and a life-claiming fierce ghost hiding in some unknown place combined were enough to drive a person mad.
The Qing family uncle and nephew were in precisely this state right now. They had tried all sorts of ways to escape, but in the end, they would still circle back to this small courtyard and see the black wooden door resembling the gates of hell. They had also knelt on the ground and wept bitterly, yet no one ever paid them any attention, as if they had been abandoned here all alone.
Another day passed, and Qing Ling did not go to the front courtyard, so naturally, he did not know that Qing Conglan could no longer run and had collapsed in the front courtyard with his breath hanging by a thread.
Qing Wenlin, who had been running in the darkness all along, also lost his strength, but he could not find even a single drop of water. Thirsty, hungry, and exhausted, he no longer thought about how to escape at this point, but instead wanted to find something to eat and drink. As he dragged his heavy footsteps around the courtyard, because there was no lamplight, his foot abruptly tripped over something and he took a tumble.
Qing Wenlin could not care about his scraped palms, so he climbed up and looked backward, his eyes instantly splitting in fury.
He saw that the person sprawled on the ground was none other than his Second Uncle, whom he had not seen for who knows how long. At this moment, however, Qing Conglan’s face was ashen grey, his expression numb and dull, looking entirely like a fierce ghost. He even reached out his hand toward Qing Wenlin, crawling forward stiffly, inch by inch.
“Save, save me, I don’t want, I don’t want to die.”
The tone was gloomy and bizarre.
The tightly stretched string in Qing Wenlin’s mind snapped instantly. He climbed up like a madman, tumbling right beside the birch tree in the courtyard. He randomly picked up a stone and smashed it fiercely toward that ghostly face.
On the other end.
Qing Conglan collapsed limply on the ground, suddenly noticing someone staggering toward him and even tripping over him.
When he saw clearly who had come, Qing Conglan was almost moved to tears of joy. He had no idea how long he had been trapped alone, so seeing a familiar, living person all of a sudden naturally brought him great happiness.
However, the look of terror Qing Wenlin revealed after climbing up made him feel that something was amiss. Immediately, with a voice so hoarse it was barely functional, he whispered, “Wenlin, I am your.”
Before he could finish his sentence, that mud-stained stone kept drawing closer and closer in his eyes of extreme terror. Qing Wenlin’s expression was so ferocious it was almost distorted, and Qing Conglan had nowhere to hide as that angular stone slammed right into his face.
In Qing Wenlin’s eyes, that numb, ashen-grey face showed no change at all. Having been trapped here to this extent, he had long since plunged into madness. The stone in his hand struck Qing Conglan’s face over and over again, while he viciously muttered, “You want to kill me, then I will finish you off first! Finish you off! Go to hell!”
Before long, Qing Conglan’s dead face turned into a truly dead face. It was no longer numb and bizarre, but unrecognizable and covered in blood.
Qing Wenlin, on the contrary, smiled foolishly. Clutching that stone, his face stained with splattered blood, he murmured, “Ha, haha, you’re dead, you’re dead!”
Suddenly, the darkness and thick fog that had shrouded the ancestral hall all this time dissipated. Daylight poured down, and Qing Wenlin raised his head in wild joy. In his chaotic mind, there were only four words: rebirth.
He pushed open the door of the ancestral hall and indeed saw a path forward. Following that path, he walked onward, walking all the way until he caught sight of the Qing family estate in the distance.
Exuberant and jubilant, Qing Wenlin was out of his mind and thus completely failed to notice that he had not walked for very long at all along this entire journey, nor did he notice that there was not a single person on the road. It was not until he pushed open that gate representing the path of survival.
In an instant, the bright daylight vanished into thin air. He was standing right at the entrance of the gloomy and bizarre ancestral hall, with a starless, moonless pitch-black sky above and grayish-white fog behind him.
Qing Wenlin’s smile froze on his face. He was utterly confused, and the drop from the path of survival to a dead end drove him to even greater madness.
“Why did I come back?”
“Am I still alive?”
“Or did I die long ago?”
Qing Wenlin roared at the top of his lungs, then suddenly realized he was still clutching the blood-stained stone. He slammed the stone fiercely against his own head, once, twice, until he no longer had the strength to move.
Qing Ling discovered that this matter had come to an end only because of panicked shouts from outside, yelling that someone was dead and shouting about reporting it to the officials. Since other people had entered, Shang Changheng must have finished what he needed to do.
The servants in the courtyard were flustered and panicked. They had no idea what was going on these past two days; running back and forth outside several times, they had been unable to find the ancestral hall. Now that they had finally found it, the moment they stepped inside, they saw four corpses sprawled across the front courtyard.
Qing Congnan, who had died a miserably bizarre death; Zhao Yunrou, covered in blood; Qing Conglan, whose face was no longer recognizable; and Qing Wenlin, who still clutched a stone with his skull sunken inward, this entire family had died in a chaotic mess.
The servants were dumbfounded on the spot, and the place descended into absolute chaos.
There were quite a few eerie things about the Qing family, such as the unfathomably deceased matriarch and eldest young miss, and now the entire family was wiped out. Just as they were about to go report it to the officials, they saw a young master dressed in a thin azure gown walking out from the back courtyard, saying coldly, “Don’t panic.”
The youth glanced at the disorder filling the courtyard and furrowed his brow, but his expression remained calm.
Someone recognized that this was the young master who had just returned to the Qing family. For a moment, they exchanged glances in dismay. Who didn’t know that on the very day this young master returned, the whole group that went to pick him up all hanged themselves outside the forest? Now, what a fine thing: the whole family had died until truly only he was left.
The servants exchanged glances, all reading the meaning in each other’s expressions, this was simply too bizarre!
Qing Ling straightened his sleeves. Since everyone was dead, the Qing family naturally had only him as an heir now.
“I am the head of the Qing residence now,” Qing Ling said calmly. “No one is allowed to touch the things here. Send someone to report this to the officials. In addition, prepare a carriage; I am returning to the manor.”
Although the Qing family could not be considered a prominent clan, they possessed quite a bit of family wealth. Since the Qing family members had schemed against him like this and pushed him into the massive pit that was Shang Changheng, taking some things from the Qing family as compensation was not too much to ask. After all, living people needed silver and cash. Having lived a meager life in the mountains before, he didn’t expect to become wildly wealthy now, but he couldn’t starve to death outside either.
If it were an ordinary slim and delicate young master, they usually wouldn’t hold him in high regard, but now, in their eyes, this clear-eyed and handsome youth was a life-claiming underworld judge. How could they dare disobey him?
Qing Ling finally managed to return to the manor. The two female corpses in the manor had already been buried, but following a round of memorial rites, there had been no news of the Qing family members for several days. Upon returning to find only this single young master left, and hearing that the main family had died down to just him, all the servants wore expressions as if they had seen a ghost.
Ever since he returned, this young master had been like a star of disaster. In less than ten days, he had cursed his entire family to death. This was simply too fierce!
Qing Ling, however, maintained his usual composure. First, he ordered a bath, and then he commanded the people beneath him to prepare all the title deeds and account books for the Qing family businesses. He didn’t understand the Qing family’s businesses, and he was not a businessman himself, but Qing Ling was not particularly worried, after all, he had Shang Changheng by his side.
There was nothing a ghost could not resolve.
When the newly appointed head of the Qing family finished his bath and was halfway through reviewing the account books, people from the government office also came looking for him. Although Lincang was called a city, it was actually about the size of a county, and the local magistrate was only a county magistrate. Qing Ling learned temporarily from Fu’er that this magistrate was named Luo Qingxiang, had participated in the imperial examinations, and had been serving as an official here in Lincang for four years.
The bailiffs who came to the Qing residence were also quite nervous.
After hearing the report about the Qing family ancestral hall, the yamen bailiffs were seeing such a horrifying and tragic scene for the very first time. There were corpses and blood all over the courtyard, not to mention that the Qing family master had died a bizarre death with his limbs forcefully snapped and his abdomen split open, spilling his internal organs all over the ground, yet the man had actually choked to death on water. The other two looked more like conventional homicides, only the methods were cruel. As for the second young master of the Qing family, he had beaten himself to death with a stone. Investigating further, the eldest young master of the Qing family had died in his room with the exact same cause of death as his father.
Searching further, they discovered a secret chamber beneath the ancestral hall. Inside the secret chamber, things were even more outrageous: a corpse was crawling out of a coffin, and seven chests held the corpses of seven children. When all the corpses were neatly laid out in the courtyard, every bailiff who came to investigate felt a chill run down their spine.
In such a small courtyard, where did so many dead people come from?
Connecting this to the stewards, servants, wife, and young miss who had died one after another in the Qing family, the entire Qing family was left with only that newly returned young master, who had seemingly spent several days in the ancestral hall alongside a pile of corpses.
Old residents of Lincang all knew that the people of the Qing family were somewhat bizarre. For several generations, their ancestors had remained in this small city, surviving multiple wars while still managing to become local wealthy merchants. In the eyes of everyone in the yamen, the current Qing residence was a bizarre, gloomy, and hot potato!
Until the bailiff caught sight of that surviving young master.
He was handsome, refined, and possessed an elegance that was beyond reproach, though he was a bit cold and expressionless.
The bailiff only took a single glance before not even daring to raise his head, trembling as he said that Lord Luo summoned him to the yamen for questioning.
Qing Ling was equally calm, having a carriage prepared and heading straight to the yamen. Magistrate Luo was approaching middle age and looked prosperous, not much like a scholar. He first asked a few questions about how the ancestral hall murder case had happened, and Qing Ling naturally answered that he knew nothing about it.
Magistrate Luo then stated, “That child’s corpse, if it relates to the Qing family, having your Qing family’s property confiscated and being exiled would be a light sentence. Do you realize this?”
Since they were not in the public courtroom, Qing Ling knew that some words were inconvenient to speak publicly. Hearing these words, he faintly understood what Magistrate Luo’s intention was in summoning him.
Official-merchant collusion, after all.
Qing Ling lowered his gaze to ponder for a moment, then lightly tossed out a sentence, “Then Magistrate Luo should investigate as you please.”
Seeing Luo Qingxiang frown, Qing Ling fixed his pitch-black eyes directly on him and said with ambiguous intent, “As for people, who doesn’t die? My lord, don’t you agree?”
Recalling that ancestral hall full of corpses, Luo Qingxiang suddenly felt his scalp go inexplicably numb.