Two luxurious SUVs drove on the road, with Jiang Shan driving alone behind the group of private team vehicles.
According to Wang Xiaoqiang's Intelligence, the journey from Dachang City to Chen Family Village was about two hours. Jiang Shan timed it, coldly watching the SUVs ahead from his car.
"They truly don't know what's good for them."
Watching the people in the SUVs still fooling around, Jiang Shan silently observed everything.
"Since the other party wants to go, there's no reason for me to stop them; after all, I'm not their parents."
"Adults make their own decisions, and then they must pay the price for their actions."
Since they were so eager to go, Jiang Shan happened to be short on people to scout the 'path' for him.
At this moment, the man drinking in the back seat glanced back at Jiang Shan's car, then spoke to the others inside:
"Has this little bastard become someone important just because he's a Ghost Controller? Look at him, he's not as useful as my little toe. Damn it, is the Xiaoqiang Club so short-handed that they sent us this thing?"
After speaking, the stubble-covered man took another large gulp of alcohol.
"Hahahaha, Old Cao, you say I'm hurting people's feelings, but you're cursing even worse than me! But did you guys see it? There's a Gold box in that little bastard's trunk!"
The man called Old Zhao said while driving. His words instantly attracted the attention of the remaining three people in the car. Someone asked:
"Is that true, Old Zhao? You old things aren't trying to fool us, are you?"
"It's true. I saw it when Manager Wang opened the trunk," Old Zhao replied.
The men in the car exchanged glances, and their voices lowered slightly. Old Cao said with a ferocious look:
"Ghost Controllers, these living dead people are truly rich. When we get to Chen Family Village, we'll find a chance to kill him. Then we'll dump the Corpse in the mountain forest where the Manager went missing. We'll even save the damn Manager! That pure Gold box is enough for us brothers for several lifetimes!"
"Stop dawdling, damn it! Check your weapons, your guns, make sure they're ready, so we can take down that little bastard in one go!" Old Zhao suddenly said.
"Once we pull this off, we brothers will be set for life. Why should we keep working like slaves? He’s just a young Ghost Controller; none of you better mess this up for me!"
After Old Zhao finished speaking, the men in the car began checking their specially made weapons:
Golden Bullets, a Golden Baton, smoke bombs laced with Gold powder, and Gold crossbow bolts.
If you didn't know better, you'd think they were playing some famous first-person shooter game.
But these were all real gear, real enough to kill a Ghost Controller.
As they were about to reach Chen Family Village, Jiang Shan noticed the private team's SUV suddenly stop by the roadside. He deliberately slowed down, wanting to see what they were doing.
He saw the "professional team" relieving themselves in the woods by the roadside.
Big and small.
Jiang Shan: .
After everyone resumed driving, Jiang Shan noticed that the further they went toward Chen Family Village, the denser the woods along the road became, even unnaturally so.
He looked through the car window at the gloomy woods. Even on a sunny afternoon with the scorching sun high in the sky, the intense sunlight was blocked by the large leaves, the size of human heads, making the entire forest exude a chilling gloom.
Although the woods were quite eerie, Jiang Shan didn't sense anything unusual, but he remained vigilant.
"What a terrible road, it's shaking me to death," the driving Old Zhao grumbled.
The road leading to Chen Family Village changed from a two-lane highway to a single-lane road, and the road conditions worsened until it became a dirt track!
Even in the SUV with shock absorbers, they were jolted until they felt nauseous.
Meanwhile, Jiang Shan, who was driving, tried calling Chen Yue several times, but the calls wouldn't connect. He had seen the message she left him before setting off; she had indeed moved here, but for some reason, she hadn't left him any messages since moving to Chen Family Village.
Jiang Shan frowned deeply, looking at the increasingly dense trees by the road, and couldn't help but look around.
He felt these trees were strange, especially the closer they got to Chen Family Village, the stranger the trees grew.
The trees surrounding Chen Family Village were common deciduous broad-leaved trees, but their height and density exceeded natural laws, starting to grow in an unknown direction.
Moreover, for some reason, driving on this country lane didn't feel refreshing or pleasant to Jiang Shan; instead, it felt oppressive, carrying an inexplicable sense of suffocation.
Recalling the map of Chen Family Village, Jiang Shan felt that the village seemed to be enclosed by these woods, much like how people pen in livestock.
But humans eat livestock; do trees eat people?
After a short stretch of muddy road, the group's view suddenly opened up.
A stretch of asphalt road that looked newly paved appeared before them, and not far away was a Village.
Jiang Shan observed that there weren't many farmlands around the Village. This Village was different from the rural areas he was used to; from a distance, almost every house was a two-story Western-style building, with exquisite decorations resembling villas.
This matched Wang Xiaoqiang's Intelligence:
Chen Family Village was not a traditional farming settlement but one of Dachang City's representative modern tourist villages.
The incredibly luxurious hotel in the center of the Village was particularly eye-catching. Although it wasn't many stories high, its decoration, resembling a gilded pavilion, carried the air of an imperial palace.
But as Jiang Shan drove into the Village, he felt it was increasingly strange. His most direct feeling was:
Desolation.
So desolate that in a Village centered on tourism, there wasn't a single person in sight on the roads.
The empty streets and deathly silence made this place look exactly like a dead village!
To prevent Chen Family Village from being like Huanggang Village—where the entire Village evolved from Fierce Ghosts—Jiang Shan unhesitatingly activated the Ghost Domain of the Dead Face Ghost.
But suddenly, Jiang Shan was horrified to find that the Dead Face Ghost's Ghost Domain could not spread out!
Unlike the Ghost Post Office incident, where the suppressive nature of the location prevented his Ghost Domain from manifesting at all, this time...
This time...
Jiang Shan glanced at the Ghost Domain, which had a radius of less than four meters, cold sweat dripping down his forehead.
His Ghost Domain was restricted!
This meant that Chen Family Village was already enveloped by a Ghost's Ghost Domain, and the Ghost Domain Strength of this Ghost far surpassed that of the Dead Face Ghost inside Jiang Shan!
What made Jiang Shan most nervous was that he hadn't sensed anything unusual at all, entering the Fierce Ghost's Ghost Domain completely unprepared.
Not even the slightest strange feeling...
Jiang Shan took a deep breath and began scanning the Village. He then noticed: not only were many ornamental trees planted along the roadside, but some houses even had various types of trees planted all around them.
These trees shared a common characteristic: their planting locations were extremely haphazard.
One tree here, another there, making the entire Village look messy and disorganized, nothing like a tourist village.
Since things had come to this,
Jiang Shan could only maintain a high level of vigilance, following behind the private team's car toward the hotel in the Village center.
As for why he was heading to the hotel, it was because he sensed the aura of a Ghost Character there.
And this aura was related to the part of the Ghost Character he had left on Chen Yue, which had not yet been triggered.
Although there was a possibility of the Fierce Ghost using her as bait, Jiang Shan understood the ability of the Ghost Character well enough to be certain that Chen Yue had not yet encountered a Fierce Ghost, and her location, barring any surprises, should be at the hotel.
But if the person is at the hotel, where is the Ghost?
Thanks to DJ and Eight-Faced Buddha brothers for the monthly ticket support. This is the first time receiving monthly tickets for the new book, so I'm adding an extra chapter!
Here, my deepest thanks to all the brothers reading this book!