A Guest in a Ghost House Chapter 68 Because We were Family 5

Madman Zang didn't stay for long. It was as if he had deliberately shown up just to look for me. I asked if it was possible to leave with Madman Zang out of concern for my safety. Madman Zang smiled, he told the officers to escort me to my house and told me I'd be alright with them.

It was already daytime when I arrived back home. I was surprised to find my mom still chatting with Witch Yan in the living room. They immediately stood up as soon as they saw me.

"Mom and auntie, have you slept at all?" I was intantly saddened to see my mom's tired face.

My mom shook her head with a smile. As she was about to answer me, Witch Yan interrupted her with a question and a serious expression, "Where have you been?"

She walked over to me, looking at me seriously. My mom was also surprised. She hurried over to me and grasped my hand while looking at me clearly. She worried that I had done something wrong. Not that there was anyway she would be able to tell if I had.

"I didn't go anywhere. I just went to the place where the arson case happened." I looked at Witch Yan apprehensively. What happened tonight had seriously frightened me, to make things worse, Xiao Lingdang had also disappeared.

"The arson case..." witch Yan repeated in a low voice. Suddenly, she shouted, "Ah!" and walked quickly over to the desk. She took out of a box filled with letters and began reading one of them, extremely focused.

I walked over to her, carefully watching her strange and erratic movements. Although I had no idea what she had just discovered, I knew there was something wrong.

Witch Yan studied the letter for a moment, and then sat on a sofa, "God's will."

I was thoroughly confused. I realized she wasn't going to volunteer the information, so I asked, "Auntie, what did you find?"

Witch Yan did not answer me, so instead, I willingly told her about everything that had happened tonight. I didn't hold anything back from my mother's best friend. I told the truth, including everything about Xiao Lingdang and Lulu.

After she knew the truth, she glanced at my blood-red bracelet and asked me to carry it wherever I went, no matter what. I thought perhaps Witch Yan might know more about the bracelet. When I tried to ask her about it, she interrupted me. She just said that I would know at the appropriate time.

I knew that masters had a reputation for being mysterious. So I didn't even bother to asker her for more information, it was probably useless anyway. She did calm me down however, by saying just three words, "It is fate."

I even decided to tell her about the book and the mirror. It turned out that Witch Yan couldn't see any of the two items either, just like Madman Zang. In fact, she was a bit suspicious of my intentions and wondered if I was teasing her.

She performed a small incantation because of my sincere tone and managed to see the shadow of the book and the mirror. That certainly helped her believe me.

That was when she got serious again, she told me that it'd be best not to look at either item. She told me that the items had an evil aura about them. Moreover, witch Yan asked me not to look into what was going on in the pictures. She simply made sure that the dead families in the arson case were the same people in the picture. She still couldn't make out any more details or information from the strange picture.

Witch Yan suddenly gave me some bad news. If I chose not to care about the picture, the worst that would happen is I'd just be scared. However, if I began to care about what was going on in the picture, I would have to care about everything that had occurred with the people in the picture. Not just this time, but every time I'd get one of these pictures. That was the curse that I'd be facing.

Witch Yan said that it was good that I had my connection to the ghost house. It was also great that I knew both her and Madman Zang, she said all of this should keep me safe. I almost felt like crying. "Should" didn't sound too certain!

The word "should" made me a shiver down my spine and made me feel a bit cold inside. All this just had to happen as I was planning to bring my mom and Xue'er to move in to the Ghost Building.

These two basters just had to disappear all of a sudden! Witch Yan suggested I ask Xiao Lingdang and Lulu. After all, they had gone with me the night before. The problem was, I had no idea where those two were either.

I had never chatted with Witch Yan this long before. We all yawned and went back to our homes. However, when I got there, I wasn't sleepy anymore. I opened my computer, which had remained idle and unused for a long time. I logged on to my WeChat. He Xiaru's avatar was flashing like crazy. I clicked her chat window and saw a long link, it seemed endless and it looked like it had been spammed in the chat over and over again. I clicked it and saw that it looked like one of those websites used to download things P2P.

"I'm probably going to get a virus from this…" I thought to myself. Eh, whatever. I closed the window, deciding it was probably best to go look at something else. After some web browsing, I came across something that had been posted yesterday on the forums. It was a simple post that simply stated "A retired teacher, Zhang Sheng, died in his bedroom. The cause of death was a heart attack, caused by shock.

I thought about it for a moment and realized that Su Qing might have been responsible for that. That foolish woman had figured out how to take care of the problem. As morbid as it sounds, it might have ended up being a good thing that he was now dead. Well, I finally completed the mission given to me by grandpa Huang. I almost feel as if I should apologize him. He gave me a lot of money, but I dealt with the problem regarding his granddaughter only once. Then again, if he had paid me in RMB, I would have been more proactive.

I burned some time by scrolling past several posts in a forum. That was when a certain title caught my eye, "Is he dad or grandpa?"

My heart skipped a beat. Was is possible that the post was related to the dead family in incendiary case? I got a bit excited, and immediately clicked on the post. "Damn it..", the post was locked, so I'd need certain permissions to be able to read the actual post.

I did have access to the comments, though they weren't very informative. What an exaggeration! Disgusting! Calling me grandpa…. There was no way these comments were going to help me deduce what the article was about.

I skipped past the nonsense and continued reading the other users' comments. This post must have been trending at the time. There were seven pages of comments, after some scrolling, there was one comment that attracted my attention.

It was a guest account, so that meant whoever posted it had not bothered to register on the site. The comment was simple, "I know this family, they lived in the old city."

I had a feeling this post was related to the arson case. I sent a message to the administrator. I was hoping the administrator would allow me to check out the post since I was a veteran in the forum.

Some time passed and the administrator still hadn't replied to me. I noticed the time on the computer. It was close to 5 am. The admin for the page was likely still lying on their bed.

I clicked on the post again, I found out the person had created the thread had already registered with the forum. His name was strange, "Going Away". He had apparently registered a year ago. However there was no other record of any other post besides this one. There wasn't even a record of any comments he had posted. It was as if the account had not been used since it had been registered.

I went through the person's profile, but I could not access any more information, since I was just an average user in the forum. If the profile was accurate, the original poster was a young girl, a student.

I sent a message to the owner of the account, but I never got a reply. Fortunately, things were going well, I felt like my research was leading me towards something. Now, I just had to wait for the administrator to allow me to check the registration information.

I went over the related posts again, but there were no new clues. I was feeling extremely sleepy at this point, so I went straight to bed.

As soon as I laid down, the computer screen began flashing. Just as I was getting up to check it, the screen went black. I figured it must have just gone into power-saving sleep mode. I didn't care enough to check it, I was way too sleepy at the time.

When I woke up, my mom was sitting beside me. She looked at me apprehensively, while witch Yan closed her eyes. She was murmuring and chanting prayers.

I was curious as to why mom and witch Yan had come to my place, so I asked, "Mom, why are you here?"

Mom looked at me apprehensively, "Do you know how long you have been sleeping? I couldn't wake you up. I will call 120, if witch Yan tell me you are fine."

"How long did I sleep?" I asked surprised. I knew I was on my computer for a while last night, but not for long. I thought I was feeling pretty great. I don't even remember dreaming anything.

"You slept for a whole day."

My mouth dropped, I couldn't believe it. I picked up my phone to check the time, but my battery had died. I rushed over to plug it in.

Witch Yan began asking me about the quality of my sleep. After I told her that I slept great, she said nothing. She then pulled my mom aside quietly until they were out of the room. It was like the feeling I imagine a patient having when a doctor shakes his head and walks out of a ward.

I was getting gradually more upset, just when I was getting really worked up, my mom came in. She said I should just go and take a shower to relax. In the meantime, Witch Yan performed some religious rites in which she asked rice to help me with this ordeal.

I was familiar with this process. When I was younger and would get sick, my mom would have others perform the same ritual. The difference of course, was that they didn't have the abilities of witch Yan.

The process was relatively simple. First, she took out a bowl and filled it with rice. Then, she lit the incense and bowed in worship, she then mixed the incense ashes with the rice. After that, she poured water half-way into a bowl. Finally, based on what the person performing the ritual was asking for, she would place the rice and ash mixture into the bowl in a certain way. I didn't really know more details about it, and I wasn't sure about the results we'd get from it. Either way, it was comforting.

After I finished washing up, I noticed a small altar in the living room. She didn't protest me standing behind her as she lit the incense. She worshiped and walked around with a serious look.

Witch Yan was murmuring while she worshiped. She spoke very quickly, so I couldn't hear anything clearly except for my name.

After some time, Witch Yan put the incense into a bowl filled with rice. She had me bow to the incense three times, a sign of worshipping. And then she took out a half bowl of water which she had just prepares.

Witch Yan stretched three fingers out to remove some rice stained with the incense ashes. She closed her eyes and murmured, slowly putting the rice in her fingers back into the bowl.

Chapter end