Chapter 34: The Third Test

Chapter 34: The Third Test

Inpatient Building, Shanqing Third Hospital. Ten o’clock in the evening.

Gao Yang sat on a bench in the hallway outside his father’s ward, enjoying a bowl of flavorful malatang. Officer Huang had brought him the late night snack. He heard that Gao Yang’s father was in the hospital after getting into a car accident, so he ‘swung by’ once his shift ended.

There was no one else in the hallway. With a half-burned cigarette in his mouth, Officer Huang asked, “How’s your dad doing?”

“He woke up for a while this afternoon. He said he was thirsty. Then he had some water and fell asleep.” Gao Yang bit into a beef ball. The splattering juice was so hot that his tongue involuntarily curled up.

“Alright, let’s get to business.” Officer Huang shook off some ash. “Someone from the organization went to you, right?”

“White Rabbit of the Twelve Zodiac SIgns. I was with Qing Ling,” Gao Yang said honestly. Then he explained what had happened in the karaoke earlier.

“The one who found me was called Heavenly Dog[1],” Officer Huang said calmly. “My test went similarly to yours. I was first told to kill a robber. He was a wanderer. I didn’t want to kill him. Then I was told to kill my wife. Of course I would refuse to do it. And I passed just like that.” Embark on a quest to the commencement at n0v#lbin★

“Why didn’t you kill the robber?” Gao Yang was curious. Had Officer Huang realized that it was a trap just like him?

“Well, I would’ve killed him if he didn’t happen to be the nephew of my wife’s cousin. My wife is very close with her cousin, and they chatted on phones every day. Now that my wife’s pregnant, I don’t want something like that to put her in a bad mood. Who would’ve thought I would get to the right decision that way?”

So it’s the power of love. Gao Yang chuckled.

Officer Huang turned to him. “Heavenly Dog told me that you have the hint for the third test.”

“Yeah.” Gao Yang took out the brass key. “We were told to find the door for the key and go on a tour. Then we’ll pass the test. The door should be in the Shanqing District.”

Officer Huang took the key and pinched it between his thumb and forefinger to get a thorough look, his eyes glinting. “Shouldn't be hard. I’ll take care of it. Wait for me to contact you two.”

“Got it.”

After Officer Huang left, Gao Yang finished his malatang and returned to his father’s ward. He set up the foldable chair by his father’s bed and lay down with a blanket.

He closed his eyes, but sleep eluded him.

He accessed the system to check his Luck points.

As expected, meeting White Rabbit didn’t give him a bonus. It seemed that he had to undergo actual danger for that to happen, and the greater the danger, the greater the bonus. With danger came the risk of death, of course, which was a fair trade-off.

“Where are we going?” Qing Ling asked.

Officer Huang took the lead. “We’ll get there soon. It’s right ahead.”

“That’s where the door is?” asked Gao Yang.

“Yeah.” Officer Huang continued to lead the way. “Judging by the design, the brass key White Rabbit gave you is likely a door key for an old house. There aren’t a lot of houses that old in Shanqing now. The retro walking street is one, but the doors of those houses actually all have modern locks installed despite the old school design of the buildings. The Lotus Street used to have a lot of old houses too, but they were all torn down last year for renewal...”

Officer Huang paused and took a breath. Out of habit, he unholstered his gun and checked the bullets before continuing his walk. “I was thinking about where else in Shanqing would we find old houses that use brass keys like this, and I could only think of one place...”

“Can it be...Gu Family’s Village?” Fat Jun had a lot of weight to carry with his body, so he had been lagging behind the group. The moment he uttered the village’s name, however, he hurried to catch up with Gao Yang. Then after thinking about it, his insecurity persisted, and he quickened his pace further to walk alongside Qing Ling, the strongest fighter among them.

“Oh?” Officer Huang was surprised. “I didn’t expect you to know. It’s been thirty years, I think.”

“The father of a highschool classmate of mine is a reporter, and he’s done an editorial about the incident. It’s creepy as hell. My classmate used to tell us about it every day like he was telling a ghost story.” Fat Jun nervously looked around.

“What’s the story?” Wang Zikai got curious. “You’re both being so cryptic about it.”

“It’s the brutal homicide of an entire family. There was a family of five in the Gu Family’s Village. They died overnight with their bodies cut into many pieces and scattered around different parts of the village.” Officer Huang added, “My mentor was in charge of the investigation, so I’ve heard him talk about it.”

“Has the case been closed?” asked Gao Yang.

Officer Huang shook his head. “No.”

“Why?”

“Less than a fortnight after the homicide, all fifty-three residents of the village disappeared.”

“They disappeared?”

“Yes. It was as if they had evaporated without leaving any trace. My mentor had done everything to search for them in the village short of digging three meters into the ground, yet he found nothing. It remains a cold case even after he retired.”

Everyone quietly waited for Officer Huang to continue.

Dusk descended upon their surroundings, and the forest became dim. Chilling wind rustled the leaves every now and then. The atmosphere suddenly grew eerie.

Officer Huang took out the brass key and said in a low voice, “The door is somewhere inside the Gu Family’s Village.”

1. The Japanese mythical creature tengu. The name is written as 天狗 in both kanji and Chinese, which literally translated as Heavenly Dog or Sky Dog. Since dog is one of the twelve Chinese Zodiac Signs, I go with the literal translation to keep with the theme of the organization. ?