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Chapter 462 The Evil Forbidden Land, the Three-Eyed Statue

There are no other buildings within a hundred meters of this small building.

Like an abandoned stone tower, it stands alone in the middle of a wasteland overgrown with vegetation.

It looks quite old, with large patches of gray plaster peeling off, revealing dark red bricks underneath.

Dark green vines climbed all over the corners and eaves, almost swallowing the entire building.

All the windows were welded shut with thick, rusty iron bars, seemingly to completely block the exit.

They even went so far as to use curtains to block out the view inside, making it seem completely airtight.

The first floor doesn't even have a single window, only a tightly locked, rusty iron door.

A large lock, corroded beyond recognition, hung on the door.

The entire building seemed to have been forgotten here, exuding a mysterious and deathly stillness that was completely out of place with the luxurious Chen Family Manor.

"Based on my senses from tracking this place last night, this should be the location."

Fang Cheng's gaze swept around and finally landed on the tightly locked iron gate.

"Leave it to me!"

Pan Wendi rubbed his hands together, his face full of excited anticipation.

"Be careful."

Fang Cheng solemnly instructed, "If you encounter any situation, shout out, or use your ability directly to get out first."

Pan Wendi grinned and gave him an OK sign.

He turned around and walked to the wall of the small building, stretched out his palm and placed it on the rough wall, as if to feel the texture of the stone wall.

He then took a few steps back, took a deep breath, and gathered his strength.

Then, to Bai Ling's puzzled look, he suddenly sprinted forward and crashed directly into the seemingly incredibly thick wall!
"Hey……"

Bai Ling instinctively let out a cry of surprise, but the expected collision did not occur.

Pan Wendi's body emitted a faint light, and his entire being, like ink splashed into a calm lake, silently blended into the wall.

It disappeared in the blink of an eye.

This is the Pan family's bloodline ability—the ability to pass through walls.

Fang Cheng had already witnessed this on Yong'an Island, so he was not surprised.

This ability is different from Cheng Jiashu's spatial jump.

Cheng Jiashu needs to see a target within his field of vision to activate his ability, but Pan Wendi doesn't have to go through that trouble.

However, his ability has a limitation: he can only traverse short distances and cannot perform long-distance spatial jumps.

According to Pan Wendi himself, when he activates his ability, he can instantly decompose himself into atomic components, thereby penetrating obstacles.

After passing through, the body reforms, essentially becoming ethereal in some way.

This was the first time Bailing had ever seen such a peculiar ability, and her face was naturally full of novelty and surprise, her mouth agape for a long time.

The two held their breath and waited quietly outside.

One minute, two minutes... ten minutes...

Just as Bailing was getting impatient and was about to ask a question.

A short, startled cry could be faintly heard from inside the small building.

It's Pan Wendi's voice.

His voice, as if it had been cut off, was filled with shock and disbelief, and then it stopped abruptly.

"not good!"

Bai Ling's expression changed.

Before he could make a further move, Fang Cheng beside him had already moved.

He took a half step back with his right foot, his body sank slightly, and the muscles in his right arm instantly bulged.

He was like a fully drawn bow, clearly ready to force his way in with the most direct violence.

Just as Fang Cheng finished gathering his strength and his gaze locked onto the rusty, heavy iron door...

With a soft "plop," the muddy ground beneath our feet suddenly arched upwards.

Then, a dusty, dirty head popped out of the ground, like a radish that had just been pulled from the soil.

Bai Ling was startled, but after seeing the person's appearance clearly, she quickly stepped forward to help him up.

"Brother Wendy, are you alright?!"

Pan Wendi then emerged completely.

He lay sprawled on the ground, panting heavily, his face showing utter shock.

"Wendy, what just happened? What was inside?"

Fang Cheng also withdrew his fist, stepped forward, and asked in a deep voice.

"Damn, that scared me to death..."

Pan Wendi propped himself up on his knees, patted the dirt off his clothes, his face still pale:
"Fang Cheng, this place is eerie, fucking eerie!"

He grumbled under his breath, but not wanting to appear weak in front of the two of them, he forced himself to straighten his back and cleared his tight throat.

Then, the story begins to unfold:

"I had just gone through the wall when it was pitch black inside. There was a rotten smell mixed with mold, which made me cough."

"Luckily, I brought a flashlight with me. I quickly turned it on and shone it... My God! The lobby on the first floor was packed with coffins!"

“They were piled up like goods, one bite after another. I glanced at them and there were at least a hundred bites!”

Upon hearing this, Bailing couldn't help but gasp, feeling a chill run down her spine.

She glanced quickly at the dark window behind her, then moved closer to Fang Cheng, almost touching his arm.

Pan Wendi swallowed hard and continued:

"I mustered my courage and went upstairs. I looked around the second and third floors, and they were all full of coffins. Only the fourth floor was empty, with nothing on it."

"Anyway, there seems to be nothing else in this building except for coffins, and in front of each coffin there is a wooden memorial tablet covered with a layer of dust."

"Holy crap, this isn't a residential building at all, it's basically the Chen family's giant morgue!"

"Is the name written on the memorial tablet?"

Fang Cheng's eyes flickered slightly, and then he asked.

“It’s written there. They all have the surname Chen, like Chen Derong and Chen Guangyao. They’re obviously the ancestors of the Chen family.”

Pan Wendi wiped the cold sweat from his forehead; his hands were still trembling slightly.
"I originally planned to check what was inside and then go back the way I came to report to you, but when I turned around, I discovered that there was a staircase leading to the underground in the corner of the first floor."

"The stairwell was pitch black, with an iron door at the bottom covered in talismans. It was so rusted it was almost crumbling, and red light was emanating from the cracks in the door. It was incredibly eerie."

"I thought to myself, you guys are still waiting for news outside, and I haven't found anything. I can't just go back like this, so I gritted my teeth and went straight through."

"Good heavens, guess what? That basement was no place for a human to stay. Not only was it dark, but it was also as cold as an icebox, with temperatures well below minus ten degrees Celsius."

"I felt a chill on my neck, so I quickly shone my flashlight around and found a dark blue stone altar in the center, just like the lotus platform where Buddha sits in a temple."

"There was a pile of bones scattered around, I don't know if they were animal bones or human bones, they were exposed and white."

"The walls weren't clean either, covered with crooked scribbles, red and black mixed together, looking dirty and creepy."

"As for that altar, it's even stranger, as it houses a deity of unknown origin."

At this point, Wendi Pan's voice couldn't help but change slightly:
"That thing looked really sinister. It was about half a person tall, had horns, three eyes, and was blood red all over, as if it had been soaked in human blood."

"In the third eye on its forehead is a glowing ruby, and the red light I see on it is coming from it."

"Also, in front of the statue is a large black lacquered coffin, the coffin lid is half open... inside lies a corpse, who looks to be in his fifties or sixties, an old man."

"Corpse?!"

Bai Ling unconsciously clenched the hem of her clothes and asked:
"Are you sure it's a corpse? It can't be... a living person, can it?"

"Certainly not."

Pan Wendi immediately retorted:

"I can sense that there is no trace of life on him. The corpse is dressed in a burial shroud, as if it had just died not long ago. The skin on his face is still waxy yellow and has not decomposed much..." Fang Cheng fell into deep thought after listening.

According to the traditions of the old society, some large families would indeed set up private mourning halls to temporarily place the deceased there, waiting for an auspicious day for burial.

But the entire building was filled with coffins; the scale was simply too exaggerated.

The remains of at least several hundred years and several generations of the Chen family are gathered here.

Even stranger were the three-eyed statue in the basement and the body of the recently deceased old man.

He remembered that the intelligence report from the Bridge of Helplessness clearly stated that all the recent victims of the Chen family were young adults, none of whom were over fifty years old.

The old man's body clearly did not match the description.

With this thought in mind, Fang Cheng's eyes darkened, and his resolve grew stronger.

This family is definitely hiding a dark secret.

Perhaps, the uncle and the professor came to Tiannan Province for this important secret.

"Wendy, go in again."

Fang Cheng suddenly spoke, his eyes fixed intently on Pan Wendi.

"what?!"

Pan Wendi's face instantly fell, looking as bitter as if she had swallowed a bitter pill:
"We...we have to go back in? I haven't recovered from that stench inside yet."

Fang Cheng ignored his complaint and instead added details in a deep voice:
"I need you to find out two things."

"First, carefully check those memorial tablets to see if the names 'Chen Shaoze,' 'Chen Qiwen,' and 'Chen Tailai' are there. Second, check if there are any corpses in the coffins."

"Boss, your request is way too much! You want to open a coffin too?"

Pan Wendi rubbed his hands together, then shrank back with a troubled expression.
"What if there's something... unclean in the coffin?"

"Go Wendy! We're keeping watch for you outside, we absolutely support you!"

Bai Ling then came over, waving her little fist to cheer him on, her eyes filled with amusement at the spectacle.

Pan Wendi glanced at the gloating behind Bai Ling's "encouragement," then looked at Fang Cheng's expectant eyes.

Finally, gritting his teeth and steeling his resolve:
"Alright! Since you've asked, brother, I'll brave any danger!"

After saying that, he took a deep breath, closed his eyes, turned around, and slammed himself against the building wall.

In the blink of an eye, it disappeared into it, leaving only a brief ripple of light on the wall.

This time, the wait lasted almost five minutes.

Just as Bailing clenched her fists around the hem of her clothes, looking somewhat worried.

Pan Wendi's figure suddenly burst out from the iron gate, staggering and almost falling.

"How about it?"

Fang Cheng reacted quickly and reached out to help him up.

"found it!"

Pan Wendi was slightly out of breath, and his face looked even worse than before.

“The memorial tablets for Chen Shaoze and the other two are all on the fourth floor. I have checked them one by one, and there is no mistake.”

"But... those three coffins were all empty!"

empty?

Fang Cheng's eyes narrowed and his brows furrowed.

Just then, his ears twitched, catching the faint sound of footsteps coming from afar.

Almost instinctively, Fang Cheng abruptly raised his hand, grabbing Pan Wendi and Bai Ling who were about to speak, and shouted in a low voice:
"Someone's coming! Hide!"

The three reacted quickly, slipping away and crouching low as they disappeared into a dense thicket of bushes, holding their breath.

A moment later, the footsteps grew louder and clearer as they approached.

A figure was seen walking briskly through the woods from the heart of the manor.

The man was tall and thin, dressed in a well-fitting black Tang suit, and his hair was neatly combed without a single stray hair.

It was Li Tiansheng, the Chen family's butler.

He went straight to the front of the small building, stopped, and cautiously scanned his surroundings.

After confirming that no one was around, he took out a bunch of keys from his pocket, skillfully picked out a brass key, and inserted it into the rusty padlock on the iron gate.

"crunch-"

The old iron gate was slowly pulled open a crack, and the sound of rust scraping against each other was particularly jarring in the silence.

Li Tiansheng did not go in immediately. Instead, he turned sideways, tilted his head slightly forward, and carefully peered into the dark doorway for a moment, as if to confirm the situation inside.

After a brief pause, he slipped inside, gently closing the iron gate behind him, leaving only a barely visible crack.

Behind the bushes, Fang Cheng, Pan Wendi, and Bai Ling exchanged a glance, all seeing the seriousness in each other's eyes.

Time passed by minute by minute.

The small building remained eerily quiet, as if it had swallowed Li Tiansheng whole.

About ten minutes later, the iron gate creaked softly again.

Li Tiansheng came out, his expression seemingly much more relaxed than before he went in, with a faint hint of relief on his lips.

He didn't linger and quickly locked the door again.

He glanced around warily again, then hurriedly retraced his steps and quickly disappeared into the woods.

"Isn't Butler Li supposed to be in the kitchen preparing our meals? What's he doing here?"

Pan Wendi lowered his voice, looking puzzled.

"Could it be... that he's the murderer?"

Bai Ling also whispered her guess.

Fang Cheng didn't speak, but just watched Li Tiansheng's departing figure in silence, lost in thought.

Once the footsteps had completely faded away, the three of them emerged from behind the bushes.

"What should we do next? Should I go back in and see what Butler Li just did?"

Pan Wendi clenched his fist, a hint of eagerness in his eyes:
"If all else fails, let's just burn this godforsaken place down and be done with it!"

After going in and out several times, he had clearly become less afraid of this "evil" morgue building.

"Being not."

Fang Cheng slowly shook his head.

My purpose in coming to Tiannan Province is to find out the truth behind the Chen family case and thus discover the reason for my uncle's disappearance.

Whether or not the murderer can be caught and brought to justice is not the primary task.

Based on the current investigation, the secrets hidden by the Chen family are far deeper than a case of murder by black magic, and may even involve the survival of the entire family.

It is unwise to get involved without understanding the specific circumstances.

“Let’s go back to the hospital first, meet up with Lin Chuqiao, and then discuss our strategy.”

After a moment's thought, Fang Cheng quickly made up his mind:

"If nothing else goes wrong tonight, bring Chen Xu'an here tomorrow and interrogate him face-to-face about the secrets of this small building, the statue in the basement, and the corpse."

The moment he finished speaking, his phone suddenly vibrated in his pocket.

Fang Cheng had just put his phone on silent mode for easier movement.

When I took it out, I saw Lin Chuqiao's name flashing on the screen.

His eyes narrowed suddenly, and he immediately pressed the answer button.

Lin Chuqiao's urgent and solemn voice came through the receiver.

"Fang Cheng, someone from the Chen family has run into trouble again!"

(End of this chapter)