Top Horror Novelist - Chapter 16

Before Chi Yiyin could see the scene beyond the door clearly, an unpleasant smell rushed out through the crack of the door.

The smell of traditional Chinese medicine mixed with a moldy smell of a room that had not been ventilated for a long time, and there were even traces of a bloody smell mixed in.

Chi Yiyin once smelled this smell in the room of an old person who was dying. It seemed to symbolize twilight and death, which made people instinctively felt sick.

“Yuze, can we leave after seeing your mother? Auntie still has a lot to say to you.”

The aunt gently took Chi Yiyin’s arm, she was extremely resistant to stepping into the room, and wanted to take Chi Yiyin out.

The room was dark with no lights on.

But with the light from the red lantern, Chi Yiyin could still see the scene beyond the door clearly.

The originally luxurious furniture decorations were dumped on the ground. The carpets, windows, and curtains were messed up. It was a heap of mess everywhere. Behind the door, there were wine bottles and jugs scattered on the ground.

A large amount of red liquid was stained on the ground. Chi Yiyin thought it was blood, but after sniffing it carefully, he realized that it was actually wine.

——One of the most famous specialties in this area, Red Daughter.

[Key item triggered: Red Daughter.

From the time when a daughter was born, the wine was selected and buried deep in the ground, and when the daughter is married, it is dug out to entertain guests. This is the custom of Gushu Town, which symbolizes the family’s blessing and importance to a daughter.]

But now, the mother dug up the wine herself, refused to see her children, and hid in her room to drink all day, drinking up the wine that should have been unsealed when her daughter got married.

As soon as Chi Yiyin took a step, he bumped into a wine bottle on the ground, and it made a rolling sound.

He frowned and looked at the housekeeper, asking what was going on.

The housekeeper sneered, his voice was cold: “As the madam of the Ma family, she should contribute to the prosperity of the Ma family. If you can’t make the family prosperous, then you don’t deserve this position.”

After he finished speaking, the housekeeper bowed to the aunt, turned around and walked towards the banquet hall.

The aunt seemed to want to leave with the housekeeper, but since Chi Yiyin was by her side, she also knew that she couldn’t speak ill of a parent in front of their child, so she forced herself to smile and said, “Yuze, didn’t you say you wanted to see your mother? Come on.”

“Let’s leave after we visit her. Don’t disturb your mother’s rest.”

As she spoke, she took Chi Yiyin by the hand and walked into the room on her own initiative.

This was the appearance of the main house of a typical wealthy family. It was different from the desolate ruins that Chi Yiyin had seen a century later. There were precious ornaments everywhere in the house, but a thick layer of dust had accumulated on them. It seemed that no one had come to clean them for a long time.

Chi Yiyin could even hear rustling sounds, like some insects and ants crawling.

This should not be the proper living environment for a wealthy businessman’s wife.

His eyes dimmed.

Unless… this madam had done something, so that several children in the family did not come to visit her, and even the servants in the family treated her so harshly.

No wonder the aunt didn’t come to visit her sister, she must have known something. She knew that Madam Ma was not sick at all.

How was it possible for a sick person to drink to such an extent? Perhaps Madam Ma knew something and became decadent under the shock from it?

Through the gauze of the bed curtain, Chi Yiyin could vaguely see a blurred figure, and the silhouette was reflected on the curtain. The red light and shadow made it look less like a human being, but more like a corpse.

The aunt refused to leave halfway, and forced a smile on Chi Yiyin, saying: “I won’t go, your mother is sick and doesn’t like to see outsiders, it seems that she has already fallen asleep at this time. Yuze, go say hello to your mother and let’s go.”

The aunt didn’t want him to lift the curtain, even when he was close to the bed curtain, she nervously clenched the corner of her clothes.

Chi Yiyin narrowed his eyes, doubt arose from within his heart.

He promised the aunt with his mouth, and his footsteps gradually approached the mahogany bed, as if heeding the aunt’s suggestion.

But just as the aunt let out a long sigh of relief, Chi Yiyin immediately seized the opportunity at that moment. He rushed towards the mahogany bed, and at the same time raised the bed curtain with one hand.

Aunt screamed in horror: “Don’t, don’t look at it!!!”

Chi Yiyin’s pupils constricted, and he froze in front of the bed curtain.

What he saw lying among the silk brocades was not the graceful and elegant Madam Ma he had imagined at all, but…

A female mummy.

The moment the bed curtain was lifted, many flies and insects rushed out with buzzing sound. At the same time, a rotten stench that had been covered up also rushed out, which was disgusting.

The mummy was wearing fine silk clothing and a jade necklace around its neck, but its long hair was dry and messy, and it appeared that its last days were not good.

And she tightly covered her neck with her hands, her palms were shriveled like dried chicken feet, her mouth was wide open with a ferocious expression, and her deeply sunken eye sockets were dark and looking upwards, her death looked to be extremely painful.

Caught off guard, many people in the live broadcast room looked directly at the empty eye sockets and were taken aback.

[Fuck, I’m scared to death! I just threw my phone out.]

[Fuckkk!!! Ouch, this is too disgusting, like squid skin, ahhh]

[Wait, how did the anchor play this branch line? I’ve seen many live streams of this instance, but it’s truly the first time I’ve seen this scene.]

[Huh? Madam Ma is dead??? How do you pass the custom clearance! What kind of home is this when the mother is dead?]

[Who, who is this anchor? He is *trembling*… It’s too terrible. Hiss, my hair is standing up.]

The aunt’s scream hurt Chi Yiyin’s eardrums, but after the initial shock passed, he quickly calmed down.

He shook out the folded handkerchief in his suit pocket and wrapped it in his hands, and began to examine the neck of the mummy, even opening the mouth of the mummy, and looked inside.

This scene left the audience stunned, especially when Chi Yiyin reached into the mummy’s mouth to find something, it made their scalps tingle.

[Is this anchor a forensic doctor in reality? Isn’t he afraid when he sees a mummy in this state?]

[I didn’t feel anything before, but now I really want throw up as I’m eating!]

Because the hands of the mummy were stretched all the way to her neck, this meant that she probably died of suffocation.

Seeing that the aunt hadn’t recovered from her fright, and there were no other NPCs around to stop her, Chi Yiyin immediately investigated the cause of Madam Ma’s death.

Was it an accident, disease, or murder?

This would determine whether the mother was among the objects of the female ghost’s hatred, and perhaps based on this clue, he could find out what happened that year.

After confirming that Ma’s mansion was the haunted mansion he had gone to, Chi Yiyin began to doubt the clearance conditions of the instance.

If the story he heard in reality was real, judging from the fact that the eldest daughter was forced to marry, it would be difficult for the Ma family to reconcile—not to mention, he had seen everyone except the master of Ma family dead.

The eldest miss of the Ma family had turned into the female ghost, the bones of the three younger siblings were under the table in the banquet hall, and the madam of the Ma family died in her room and turned into a mummy…

Harmony? Hah.

Chi Yiyin touched a foreign object in the mouth of the mummy, and after wrapping it in a handkerchief, he took it out. When he saw the object clearly, he instantly understood the cause of Madam Ma’s death.

“Aunt…”

He stood up straight, and just when he was about to call the aunt to ask, he heard a sudden “bang!” from behind him, as if something had fallen.

The aunt’s screams and maddened murmurs also stopped abruptly.

Chi Yiyin remembered there was still the female ghost behind him, so instead of turning his head hastily, he lowered his eyes to look at the ground.

A ball slowly rolled over.

It was like the ball in the youngest brother’s hand. It stopped as it touched Chi Yiyin’s shoes.

The first thing he saw was a dark mass, the ball thumped on the floor twice, and finally stopped to a still.

Then, the black ball dissipated, revealing a wide-open eye, looking up at Chi Yiyin.

[Wahhh!!!! Go away! Don’t touch me!!!]

[Mom, mom, there’s a ghost!!]

[What’s going on with this instance? What about the family reunion? Why is it so scary!]

And Chi Yiyin realized at this time that this was not a ball at all, it was clearly the aunt’s head!

While he was inspecting the mummy, a certain existence forcibly sliced off the aunt’s head.

That black color was the loose hair of the aunt, and she didn’t know even how she died until the end. Fear was evident in her eyes.

In the dim room, only the light from the big red lanterns outside shone in, reflecting on the floor like blood on the ground.

The room was dead silent.

The surrounding precious wood furniture did not add a bit of richness to the room at this moment, but instead brought a heavy sense of oppression, making it hard to breathe.

A shadow suddenly flashed out of the window.

Chi Yiyin immediately looked up when he saw the shadow on the ground, but only caught sight of a red corner of the clothes outside the window.

His long legs stepped forward decisively and chased it out, but crashed into a sea of ​​red lanterns.

… The entire mansion was hung with red lanterns everywhere, but there was no joy at all, the red gave a strange and gloomy feeling.

No matter which direction Chi Yiyin looked at, he could only see red lanterns. The black and white Hui style mansion seemed to have become a blood soaked hell. When the lanterns shook, the lights and shadows swayed and overlapped, like countless ghostly shadows.

As if there were ghosts wandering everywhere in the whole mansion. They lingered in this place dully, unable to leave and do not know their way back.

They were faintly visible under the red light, their pale faces carried the gloomy feeling of the dead, and whimpering wind passed through the corridor, like a group of ghosts crying at night tirelessly.

But Chi Yiyin just paused outside the door, and then strode towards the direction where the figure flashed past.

He pushed aside the red lanterns one after another, as if he was struggling to walk through the crowd of ghosts. The lanterns, which were supposed to be light, were extremely heavy, as if every one of them was as heavy as an adult man.

A bamboo lantern made of red paper, with the big red letter “囍” stuck on it, the candlelight danced and licked by a tongue of fire, as if a ghost wanted to burn him to death here.

T/N: 囍 (double happiness) = symbol of man and woman at a wedding

But Chi Yiyin still passed through the overwhelming red, and vaguely saw a figure standing in red like blood.

The woman was wearing an old Chinese-style wedding dress, her long skirt dragging through the ground, a golden crown on her head, swaying gracefully, standing with her back to Chi Yiyin, so he couldn’t see her face clearly.

But Chi Yiyin didn’t even hesitate, and immediately called out to the woman: “Miss Ma—!”

“Ma Yuze.”

Chi Yiyin’s eyes were calm, and he lowered his voice and asked the woman in wedding dress, “You don’t want to marry, don’t you? What you want is not family harmony at all, you just want your own freedom in life.”

What is the most taboo thing for ghosts?

Memories during life, names after death, causes of death.

 Chi Yiyin, who had been visiting haunted places all year round to find inspiration knew this very well, but he still did not hesitate to call out the identity of the woman in the wedding dress and speak out about her life.

As soon as Chi Yiyin spoke, the temperature in the entire mansion dropped sharply, as cold as an ice cave.

He even saw white mist that he blew out when he spoke and breath out.

The graceful ghost turned slowly but gracefully and looked at Chi Yiyin with empty dark eye sockets.

Chi Yiyin stood tall, like an ancient well without waves, quietly waiting for the answer from the woman in wedding dress.

At the same time, his palm silently held the notebook in his pocket.

Amidst the thick white mist, the woman in wedding dress slowly turned around and looked in Chi Yiyin’s direction.

At that moment, hundreds of red lanterns all broke from midair and fell to the ground.

The entire blood-red mansion fell into darkness.

In the next second, flames ignited the lanterns, and the red color spread all over the ground in an instant like winding blood, and the sea of blood was boundless.

The woman in the wedding dress crossed her hands in front of her chest, her red nails were as sharp as knives, she stood in the sea of blood.

She was covered with a blood-red veil, and her face could not be seen clearly. The wind blew up and lifted a corner of her veil, revealing only her pale and bloodless chin.

But Chi Yiyin seemed to be able to feel that her gaze was looking straight at himself through the red veil.

The mansion was covered in blood, and a group of ghosts roared and rushed towards Chi Yiyin from all directions—!