Nightmare Apostle

Chapter 842: Chapter 620: Cost_2

Watching the curling smoke rise, Fang Zhou felt a mix of complex emotions. This wasn’t just incense burning; it was three years of his life expectancy.

Without delay, bolstered by the incense, Fang Zhou’s courage grew significantly. Standing outside the door, he looked into the stone house illuminated by the lantern light. He could almost make out the entirety of the small space inside, approximately just a dozen square meters. In the corner, there was a dilapidated wooden bed, and something built from broken stones, possibly a stove or a heat source furnace, was also there. Due to years of disrepair, the wooden bed was rotten and riddled with holes, and the stone-built stove had already collapsed. freeweɓnovēl.coɱ

"Huff—"

Fang Zhou couldn’t help but sigh in relief. He was mentally prepared to discover either Nalan Shuo’s or Lou Huixiang’s body inside the room. Fortunately, nothing of that sort had happened.

He hesitated outside the door for ten seconds, but eventually, reason overcame fear. He cautiously stepped inside and re-examined the room. Next to the battered wooden bed, he found a very clear footprint. The footprint was fresh and uniquely shaped, unlike the narrow boots typically worn by servants, more like the shoes they were wearing.

This footprint could only belong to either Nalan Shuo or Lou Huixiang; they must have been here. Fang Zhou tried overlaying his own footprint on the other’s imprint. He realized that the former teammate must have bent down to inspect the decaying wooden bed.

More precisely, they were looking through the rotting holes in the bed to see if anything was hidden underneath.

It was something Fang Zhou hadn’t expected. His mind was fixated on the well outside, his ears perked up like those of a rabbit, always alert to any sounds outside. If he heard water noises or the friction of climbing the well rope, he would immediately run out towards the well, ready to throw a packet of ashes in the ghost’s face before it could climb up.

First, ensuring the door was open, Fang Zhou carefully bent down, mimicking his predecessor’s actions. Holding the lantern in one hand and the incense in the other, he peered through a larger hole downward. After a few seconds, the anxiety slowly eased from his heart. Under the bed was dirty, but there was no one hidden there.

When he stood up again, he realized that his back was completely soaked with cold sweat. Not wanting to stay any longer, he walked out of the stone house and approached the well.

Not daring to get too close, he first listened from about 3 meters away. Hearing no water or any other strange noises, he moved closer, mustering his courage to look down the well with the lantern. However, the light didn’t reach far, and the inside of the well was pitch black; he couldn’t see anything. He noticed the crumbling wooden planks that probably previously covered the well had been recently moved.

If nothing unexpected happened, it must have been Nalan Shuo and Lou Huixiang who did it. Watching the slowly burning Life Burning Incense, Fang Zhou felt a little comforted. He found a soft, relatively dry piece of wood nearby, lit it with the candle flame, and dropped it into the well.

He watched as the flame fell along the well wall — the well was much deeper than he expected, and it was a dry well, containing no water.

The falling flame quickly extinguished. Fang Zhou wasn’t sure if something was hidden at the bottom of the well. He searched nearby and found a few larger stones; he dropped them from different parts of the well opening. Based on the echoes, he determined that there was something soft at the bottom — possibly a person, a body, or some leaves and other detritus.

After a careful observation, he found no signs that anyone had gone down the well.

The fear of the well was deeply ingrained in his heart, and he had no intention of lowering himself down with a rope. After much thought, Fang Zhou painfully pulled out nearly half of the ashes and carefully chose a good spot to sprinkle them down the well.

Unfortunately, after a long wait, there was still no movement from below, so Fang Zhou decided to give up this place temporarily and move on to the next area.

He had considered the possibility of just staying put and running out the time, but he didn’t want to and didn’t dare; this would be akin to betraying his teammates and derailing the plan. Not to mention the consequences it could bring, once discovered, his teammates would not let him off.

None of Xiang Fengchen’s group were pushovers; in this group, he was the only sheep among wolves.

And now, as a part of this team, he must wear the wolf’s skin and stand together with them, sharing life and death.

But as he passed the stone house, he was suddenly attracted by a sound — a "pat pat" noise. He followed the sound and found a small window on the side of the stone house. The window frame was already in ruins, but the pasted window paper was still quite sturdy, mostly intact. At this moment, as a night breeze blew, it flapped the paper continuously against the window frame.

Fang Zhou slowly exhaled. Ever since arriving here, his nerves had been tightly wound, fearful of any oversight. Just as he was about to leave and continue forward, his raised foot suddenly stopped. He realized something very strange.

There was indeed wind, but it blew from his left, directly as the slowly dispersing incense also confirmed. However, the stone house on his right was different; the wind there blew from inside out.