Chapter 27: Mission Reward Items (Part 3)

“This morning, we found them in different coffins. When discovered, they looked as though they had already been dead for decades and had become mummified corpses. Their identities were finally confirmed through DNA comparison of clothing and body tissue.

“At first, the plan was for Captain Ye to take the mission, but after comprehensive consideration, if the sect master makes a move, it will definitely be foolproof.”

Chen Yi’s gaze fell on the mission title, Mountain Village Hanging Coffin Incident. Silently, he carefully read through the information again.

…

Little Tanshi Village was a village located deep in the mountains of the southwest. Its geographical position was even more remote than Lishui Village, and its transportation in and out remained in a relatively primitive state. One had to walk down the mountain before one could take transportation from the roadside.

The person who reported the case was the newly appointed young village chief of Little Tanshi Village. Ten days ago, he reported that three men had disappeared from the village over three consecutive days.

Afterward, the local guard team took responsibility for the case. Through five days of visits and investigation, the guard team members eventually found the mummified corpses of five missing males inside the hanging coffins on the mountain wall.

The reason the number of victims changed from three to five was that while the guard team was investigating, two more men in the village disappeared.

Only after the guard team members urgently relocated the villagers out of the mountain village did they stop more deaths from occurring.

After that, the case was transferred from the criminal guard team to the Demon Suppression Bureau.

At that time, the Demon Suppression Bureau had not yet been formally established and was still called the “Mystic Creature Special Research Center,” while the Night Watchers were still called “special action team members.”

Chen Yi had also only recently made contact with the state, and the relevant departments did not yet possess the ability to immediately handle this aberration incident.

With one delay after another, an entire week passed.

The Night Watcher squad with cultivators stationed in it immediately set out for Little Tanshi Village. But after one night passed, not only had the aberration not been exterminated, even the Qi Refining entry-level Night Watcher had been sacrificed.

The viciousness of this aberration made the relevant departments decisively request support.

In the end, the job fell to Chen Yi.

Case 110: Mountain Village Hanging Coffin Incident

Killing Rules:

Time: 23:00 until dawn

Location: Within the bounds of Little Tanshi Village

Incident: All the dead are male. One person disappears each night. When discovered, all are in a mummified state, buried inside hanging coffins on the mountain wall.

Notes: Aberration form unknown. Birth conditions unknown.

…

This time, flying from Lishui Village to the mission location took a full two hours. Moreover, because the helicopter could not land in the mountains, by the time they finally got off at the tree farm in the national forest park, the sky had gone completely dark.

The Night Watcher squad that had received advance notice was waiting here and received them.

After Chen Yi ate dinner, he learned the new information for this mission.

The national forest park was located north of Little Tanshi Village. Its boundary was separated from Little Shitan Village by a cliff approximately one thousand meters long and around three hundred meters high.

The hanging coffins where the bodies had been discovered were on that cliff.

Starting from the tree farm and reaching the mission location on foot would take an ordinary person three hours.

Compared to Little Shitan Village, the cliffside hanging coffins were clearly far stranger, and the Night Watcher squad also suggested that they begin their investigation there.

The leader of this Night Watcher squad had the surname Zhang. He clearly did not understand Chen Yi or the sect’s situation, but he knew that the support sent this time had the ability to resolve this matter.

He told them everything he knew.

“Little Shitan Village is extremely closed off and rarely contacts the outside world. They are self-sufficient. Even the village cadres are selected by themselves, and they are extremely xenophobic.

“The village has a total of sixty-four households and 231 people. Not many young people go out to work. It belongs to the category of an extremely impoverished village, but it’s also very difficult for the government’s assistance work to be implemented there. They are extremely wary of all outsiders.

“If not for these consecutive deaths this time, they never would have agreed to move out of the village.

“As for the hanging coffins on the back mountain, that tradition dates back many years. The local government even carried out a survey in the past, wanting to turn the cliffside hanging coffins into a tourist attraction, but because the villagers of Little Shitan Village strongly opposed it, the plan was shelved.

“However, for nearly a hundred years, the villagers of Little Shitan have all used earth burials. The custom of burying corpses in hanging coffins has long since disappeared.”

The food Chen Yi had just eaten rolled in his stomach. After all, he had not graduated from criminal investigation, nor was he a medical student. Treating coffins and corpses as the “after-dinner dessert” truly made him feel a bit nauseous.

Unfortunately, everyone here, including these brigade captains who held important positions in the Demon Suppression Bureau, all looked as though they regarded him as their backbone and trusted him, which meant Chen Yi had to listen whether he wanted to or not.

If he had his way, they would simply go over at the appointed time. No matter how powerful the aberration was, it would have to stumble.

He was not at fifth-stage Qi Refining, but seventh-stage. He had broken through a small bottleneck and reached the late stage of Qi Refining.

Moreover, his Sword Manipulation had reached master level, and his Gale Legs and Delusion-Piercing Eye Technique had both reached expert level. The Delusion-Piercing Eye Technique in particular, once activated, allowed Chen Yi to see through all illusions and falsehoods.

He should be able to steamroll it.

But the others, especially the several brigade captains who had come for further training, were extremely cautious about aberrations. They held the attitude that no amount of vigilance was too much.

They actively questioned the Night Watcher squad leader nonstop, and in the end, they all made the decision that once day broke tomorrow, they still had to first conduct interviews and investigation in the village.

Chen Yi thought about it and said nothing, so the matter was settled like that.

His method was not suitable for the others. On this trip, he had been specially instructed to train these future brigade captains, so under the premise of not affecting the mission, cooperating with their rhythm was very necessary.

The night at the tree farm was very peaceful. Deep in the dense forest, far away from the bustle of prosperity, there was instead less of the mortal world’s clamor and desire. Chen Yi did not smell even the slightest stench of aberration. The air was so fresh it was like it had been mixed with cold, sweet sugar, even slightly better than Lishui Village.

Chen Yi stood at the second-floor window of the forest ranger’s small building and looked toward the north.

Intentionally hanging Aura Observation to proficiency, paired with expert-level Delusion-Piercing Eye Technique, presented him with a mass of scarlet clouds in the distant sky. It was thick like a living placenta and was still slowly wriggling. Nourished by crisscrossing blue-purple blood vessels, deep within it, a figure brewing majestic hostility appeared and disappeared faintly.

Chen Yi stared at the red figure for a while. After sensing no threat, he withdrew his gaze.

Concealment circulated, lowering Chen Yi’s sense of presence as well, to avoid alarming the aberration and attracting it with his scent, which would cost him a good night’s sleep.

Early the next morning, Chen Yi was woken by movement downstairs. He got up, came to the window, and looked outside.

Mornings in the great mountains were especially refreshing, even in midsummer. A thin mist filled the forest, and when one looked into the distance, wisps of cloud coiled around it, like an immortal realm on earth.

It was still the same position where he had seen the blood-red placenta yesterday. After daybreak, the red clouds had already faded greatly, but they could still be seen.

This was the benefit of cultivating Aura Observation.

Observing feng shui, distinguishing aberrations, and, when the technique reached the acme of perfection, even seeing the movement of mountains, rivers, terrain, and dragon veins, borrowing the nation’s fortune to perform heaven-and-earth-overturning abilities.

From ancient times until now, although feng shui masters were a minor path, everything feared study. If one walked a path to its extreme, it was also formidable.

Chen Yi saw an aberration in broad daylight, withdrew his gaze expressionlessly, lowered his line of sight, and saw the captains squatting under the eaves smoking.

Young people nowadays did not like smoking. They knew it was unhealthy. But Night Watchers were under immense pressure from life and death. From top to bottom, they were all old smokers. The sect space kept the air clean and did not allow smoking. Occasionally, when Chen Yi left the space, he could see a long row of big backsides squatting on the field ridge, puffing clouds and exhaling mist.

It was not a good hobby, but it was quite real.

Night Watchers were people too. They also feared death. If they were already risking their lives, who cared about one pair of lungs?

“Sect… Consultant Chen!” Captain Sun from the Magic Metropolis waved. “You’re awake? Come down and eat!”

“Okay.”

Chen Yi’s external identity was either consultant or expert.

After going downstairs and eating a light breakfast, their group of eight, including the local three-person Night Watcher squad, set out from the tree farm.

On the road, Captain Zhang said, “We should leave early and come back before nightfall. That aberration really is vicious. Before we investigate clearly, we must not run into it. Even the advanced Night Watcher sent by the brigade couldn’t handle it. We still have to be careful and cautious.”

Chen Yi actually remembered the warrior who had been sacrificed. He had been quite young, seemingly only twenty years old, a very shy and earnest person. He was one of the second batch of team members who had come in with Captain Sun from the Magic Metropolis. Because personnel were tight, he had been sent to carry out missions as soon as he reached Qi Refining entry. No one had expected him to remain here forever.

The mountain road was hard to travel, but this was not difficult for the people from the sect. The ones who slowed down the progress were instead the local three-person Night Watcher squad.

It truly took them a full three hours to reach the place.

For the same distance, Chen Yi estimated that if he moved at full speed, he should be able to arrive in less than half an hour, and that was only because the mountain road was difficult to walk.

“Here. Look.”

Standing by the mountain wall, they saw a small path carved from rock, as though embedded into the grayish-white stone. When walking through it, the mountain wind blew straight through, howling as though it could sweep a person up into the sky.

In the direction Captain Zhang pointed, Chen Yi saw coffins placed one after another in the middle of the mountain wall.

Those ancient, rotten coffins had been sitting there for who knew how many years. Some coffin lids had even vanished, while others were half-open and half-closed.

“The dead were found here, here, and here,” Captain Zhang said. “Although we respect local customs, we still have to consider issues like epidemics and falling. Seventeen years ago, the municipal criminal investigation team of Qing City arranged for forensic doctors to come here to open the coffins and examine the bodies, as well as verify kinship and register everything in a file.

“So we have records of what should be inside these hanging coffins.

“The ones who reported that there was something abnormal with the hanging coffins were several women in the village. Their homes are all in the closest position to the hanging coffins. They said they could hear shrill howls for several days in a row, as though they were coming from the mountain.

“That is also why we ultimately locked onto the hanging coffins.”

At this point, probably because the aberration this time was too sinister and especially vicious, Captain Zhang looked as if a chill had run down his spine despite the blazing sun overhead.

His gaze swept around and somehow landed on Chen Yi’s face.

Through observation, he had already realized that Chen Yi was the true leader of this squad.

He asked Chen Yi, “What kind of aberration could this be? Could it be some thousand-year-old corpse dragging people into coffins to suck their blood, which is why the victims become mummified corpses?”

Chen Yi did not speak.

He glanced at the sun nearing noon. It had completely concealed the traces of the red clouds. Proficiency-level Aura Observation was still a little too low. When conditions were poor, it was very difficult to discover clues. But as for using the Delusion-Piercing Eye Technique, its main function was not observing ghostly energy. Every field had its specialization, and it would not be better than Aura Observation.

“Let’s go to the village first.”

Chen Yi decided to go to the village and have a look.

Later, using Aura Observation would give him the answer. There was no need to stay here and tussle with corpses.

Once he spoke, no one objected. They followed the steep stone stairs winding down along the cliff, then walked forward for more than half an hour. Finally, they saw Little Tanshi Village in the distance.

Chen Yi looked at the village not far away and immediately noticed something wrong.

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