Chapter 13 Secret

The class monitor meticulously sorted through everyone’s leftover trash and packed it up to throw away in Ravenna. When she returned, she found everyone engaged in a duel with their own eyelids.

“Everyone looks so sleepy~ How about this! We’ll take turns standing guard, two hours each, so that everyone can have six hours of rest.”

Luo Di made the biggest contribution and put in the most effort today, and has been awarded the bed’s Qualification.

I’ll take the first shift today. I don’t know if it’s because I haven’t exerted myself much, but I’m not sleepy at all.

Almost as soon as the class monitor finished speaking, Luo Di had already fallen asleep in a rattan chair, and you could even faintly hear him snoring.

Gao Yuxuan then took out a moisture-proof mat to use as a floor mat, so that the big bed was completely given to Anna.

That’s perfect, Anna’s physique really can’t sleep anywhere else.

In such a dilapidated old house where someone had died, bedding and such were naturally unusable. Anna dismantled everything except the bed board and laid out her own moisture-proof mat before she could barely fall asleep.

“It’s so good to be young, you can fall asleep as soon as your head hits the pillow!”

The class monitor looked at the three sleeping soundly in the bedroom with a look of satisfaction, and there was not a trace of fatigue on her face.

The sound of the heavy rain pounding against the building created a very natural white noise, which also masked other noises.

The class monitor danced gracefully inside the room, her steps resembling those of a ballet dancer.

After the dance ended, she went to the old dressing table in the master bedroom, wiped the dust off the mirror, and then wiped the old wooden comb clean with a tissue.

Loosen the ponytail, apply some kind of pre-applied ointment to the wooden comb, and begin to slowly comb your hair in front of the mirror.

The class monitor’s face, reflected in the mirror, remained smiling, showing no sign of nervousness from the start of the practical training until now.

…

As the sun sets and night falls,

Unlike cities, which can remain brightly lit under ample artificial light, this small hill in the suburbs was shrouded in darkness.

The wall lamps that the squad leader and others had placed in advance in Ravenna’s room were working to keep the entire building bright.

【21:00】

As if he had set an alarm clock inside his body, Luo Di, who was assigned to the last shift of night watch, woke up on his own.

He thought someone would switch shifts with him, but instead, three pairs of eyes were staring at him.

“You’re awake?” the class monitor asked excitedly.

“What’s wrong with you?”

“Come quick~ Gao Yuxuan discovered the secret of Ravenna during his night watch, so he woke us all up. Considering that you’ve been working too hard today, we’ll all wait an extra half hour.”

“What secret?”

The squad leader stood mysteriously by the wall and tapped it with his hand, producing a clear, hollow sound.

” Gao Yuxuan estimated the length of the corridor and compared the width of the master bedroom with that of the adjacent room. He found that there was still a large gap between the two rooms, enough to fit a separate room.”

There’s a high probability there’s a hidden room inside, but we couldn’t find the switch; perhaps the owner of this place removed it beforehand.

Luo Di also tapped the wall with his finger, “It sounds like the wall isn’t very thick, we should be able to force it open, right?”

“Yeah~ I was just worried about waking you up.”

After a graceful turn, the class monitor stretched out her arms to the left, showing off her best friend.

Holding a stonemason’s hammer, Anna was ready to break down the wall with brute force. Judging from the age of the hammer, it must have been found inside Ravenna.

With the exertion of all the muscles in the body, the waist rotates and the arms swing out.

Bang!

Incredible strength,

With a single blow, several cracks appeared in the wall, and the point of impact was completely sunken inward.

Without stopping, another blow was struck.

boom!

The second blow smashed a fist-sized opening in the wall, allowing a glimpse into the pitch-black interior.

This kind of darkness makes people very uncomfortable. Having grown up in the city, they have almost no contact with darkness. Even the most remote streets and alleys are filled with light.

Upon seeing the inappropriate darkness, the squad leader quickly threw a touch-sensitive ball of light into it.

Snap!

The sphere is activated upon impact after falling inside.

Strangely, the orb emitted white light, but the reflected light turned red.

Continue smashing the wall.

Boom! With the third hammer blow, a large number of bricks collapsed one after another, revealing the secret dark room, while a completely different stench emanated from within.

Unlike the pure stench of decay in the backyard, the stench here was mixed with the smell of incense and candles.

The floor was littered with the corpses of crows, and the orbs of light thrown in earlier had landed on these dead crows. There was simply no suitable place to stand in the cramped, dark room.

The walls of the entire dark room were painted Crimson with raven blood.

Deep inside the darkroom was a ritual altar covered with a yellow cloth.

A metal oil lamp remained on top.

Rotten fruit offerings

Burnt incense and candles

Unused yellow talisman

And a family photo.

This is the first time the group has found a photo of this family since they arrived in Ravenna.

However, the objects primarily used for the ritual appear to have been removed.

Another noteworthy feature of this dark room is the four hooks on its ceiling, corresponding to the four corners of the rectangle, which appear to be used to suspend something.

Gao Yuxuan began to analyze, combining textbook knowledge with extracurricular knowledge, “Perhaps someone is ‘refining corpses’ here… If I’m not mistaken, these four hooks should be used to suspend the coffin.”

“Corpse refining?”

The first thing that came to everyone’s mind was the four corpses hanging on the locust tree, especially the old man’s corpse that was hanging at the highest point and difficult to burn.

Luo Di, however, had a rather discerning eye and noticed that something seemed off about the photograph on the altar.

*Smack smack* I put a plastic bag over the sole of my shoe, stepped on the crow’s corpse, and took out the black and white photo.

“This is!”

Everyone was stunned when they saw the photo.

Because there are five people in the photo,

The young men and women, the middle-aged woman, and the elderly woman were the four corpses that had been hanging in the tree earlier, and they have all been disposed of.

However, there was one person among them.

A middle-aged man in a wheelchair, dressed in plain clothes.

Although this old black and white photograph is somewhat blurry, it is clear that the person was in very poor condition and was probably seriously ill.

Behind this person, pushing the wheelchair, is the elderly man hanging at the very top of the locust tree, the one who is the most difficult to deal with.

The squad leader immediately pieced everything together: “I knew it! How could this old man and the middle-aged woman, with such a large age gap, be husband and wife? It turns out the old man is the housekeeper here.”

The man who is infected with the disease is the head of the household!

This guy must have been proficient in some kind of Taoist magic. He was seriously ill and didn’t have long to live, so he decided to refine his own corpse. His whole family was an important part of this refining process.

His family members were likely controlled by him with spells or had their minds altered, and he had taught them the relevant steps of corpse refining beforehand.

The first step in the corpse refining process takes place in this Secret Chamber.

The body was buried in a coffin and hung in the Secret Chamber, where it absorbed yin energy using the rich blood of crows. Once enough yin energy had been absorbed, the whole family would carry the coffin to the actual corpse-refining site.

It’s most likely some hidden cave.

The family then prepared the necessary items for Ravenna’s funeral, slaughtering all the pigs and cows they had prepared in the backyard. Once everything was ready, they all hanged themselves.

The corpses of pigs and cattle, along with the hanged man, nourished the locust tree in the backyard. Yin energy gathered at the tree roots and flowed downwards, thus achieving the final refining of the corpse.

Unfortunately, we interrupted it by arriving unexpectedly.

Everything that had been meticulously arranged was ruined. The head of the household in the photo might have climbed out of the coffin prematurely because the ceremony was interrupted, and might already be back in the old house.

The class monitor’s words seemed to plunge everyone into an ice cellar, freezing the atmosphere. Everyone’s heads turned towards the bedroom door, which was sealed with paper windows, and they remained motionless.