IWOL Chapter 158: Phantom in the Mirror

This was the first time Dong Zheng did something like sneaking into someone’s house. Even so, he was still quite skilled at it. After confirming that there was no one in the hallway, he quietly opened the window and climbed inside.

As soon as he entered, he felt that something was wrong. It had only been one day since the memorial service, but the hallway looked very different. Every window and every lamp had the purple sachet that he’d seen on the second floor the other day. A strange, faint fragrance floated in the air, making Dong Zheng a little nauseous.

At this point in time, even the servants were sleeping, and there was no one in the hallway. After confirming his destination, Dong Zheng walked stealthily toward the entrance of the basement

Contless sachets hung on the lamps, blocking the light and making everything darker and more purple. Dong Zheng held his breath. Since there wasn’t much he could do, he hurried through the hallway. He was about to turn a corner when he found that a door was opened a gap.

A dazzling light shot out from it, coldly reflected on his retinas.

Dong Zheng was startled. He immediately turned sideways to hide. However, the light didn’t follow him but soon disappeared.

Dong Zheng frowned and slowly approached the door. Ficks had taken the only flashlight in the house, and he himself wasn’t carrying any lighting tools. However, he was able to enhance his vision by adjusting the data flow to his visual port, allowing him to cope with ordinary darkness.

Through the gap in the door, Dong Zheng discovered that this room was…full of mirrors.

The light he’d just seen seemed to be the mirror reflecting the moonlight. However, because of his position, it specifically shone on his eyes.

Countless mirrors showed him looking in through the gap on the door.

Dong Zheng turned around to make sure that there was no one around, opened the door wider, and slipped inside.

It was a small room of no more than ten square meters. It originally ought to be used for storing junks, but aside from the door, it was now covered in mirrors. Even the ceiling had mirrors.

The mirror magnified the small space infinitely, and Dong Zheng could see countless himself from the front, side, and back.

In the center of the room was a circular formation painted with many, dense words that Dong Zheng couldn’t understand.

What was this for?

He didn’t know.

He was about to turn around and leave, but at this moment, he saw a person standing behind him in the mirror. He was taller than Dong Zheng, with dazzling red hair, but his face was blurry.

“Allen?” Dong Zheng immediately whirled around, but there was no one behind him. Yet, the mirror reflected the figure still standing behind him.

A hallucination?

Dong Zheng took a deep breath. After he’d calmed down, he asked the security bacteriophage in the kernel world to check for abnormal data. The result soon came out: No abnormality. The firewall had dutifully blocked everything that shouldn’t have come in?

What could this be?

Just like how Allen had often done when he was still alive, he had one arm slung warmly on Dong Zheng’s shoulder. Dong Zheng stared at the young man in the mirror, but much as he tried, he couldn’t see his face clearly.

A figure suddenly appeared next to him. It was a young woman in her twenties, with her long hair pulled up high, a jade bracelet on her wrist, and Emir daggers hanging at her waist. She held Dong Zheng’s arm affectionately, leaning her head on his shoulder.

Although he couldn’t see her face clearly, Dong Zheng knew her image by heart.

This was his biological mother, Liu Yueqiang, who he’d once dreamed about and who had given birth to him with difficulty and died prematurely.

Dong Zheng took a deep breath, not moving at all. He couldn’t bear to destroy this scene in the mirror, but he wasn’t fooled by this image. Dong Zheng moved his fingers slightly and released Cui Zuojing from the prisoner space.

“What’s the matter?” In Cui Zuojing’s view, Dong Zheng was just standing in the mirrored room, staring at himself in the mirror for a long time.

“Do you see anything?” Dong Zheng asked him.

Cui Zuojing also stood beside him, so that their two figures were reflected in the mirror. But soon, Allen’s figure appeared. Henry stood behind him. Yuan Yu, Lin Shuxi, Michel…All these people who’d laughed with him but had left forever in the end. They all appeared one by one.

Cui Zuojing had nearly forgotten what they looked like.

He was silent for a moment, and then he whispered, “I saw those who’d died.”

Dong Zheng took one more glance at the mirror, then he turned and left the room.

“I don’t know what method was used here to allow the living to see the dead.”

“Illusions?” Cui Zuojing also wasn’t nostalgic. He’d always been a determined person. Indulging in false phantoms would lock people up in decadence forever.

“It shouldn’t be. There’s no abnormal data in my kernel,” Dong Zheng whispered. “Ferdinand must have built this to meet George. There should be a witch in this house. I don’t know what level this witch is, but this shows that the rumor saying that George’s spirit had come back wasn’t wrong.”

After returning Cui Zuojing to the prisoner space, Dong Zheng closed the door to the mirrored room and continued to head to the basement.

As he was about to turn the corner, he suddenly heard someone talking. He immediately hid on the other side of the cupboard.

The voices gradually approached, one male and the other female. Since they were speaking in low tones, Dong Zheng increased his hearing and could barely make out what they were saying.

The man asked, “There seemed to be something wrong with the young master’s body. Even if this is the case, would you still be able to continue the ceremony.”

The woman’s voice sounded a little elderly. “You have to believe me. Since I can let Mr. Ferdinand see George, I have a way to bring him back.”

They walked past the window. Dong Zheng peeked over and saw that the man carrying the lamp was Ferdinand’s personal servant. Next to him was a small woman in purple robes with a hood covering her face. Even so, it was clear that she wasn’t young anymore.

They wanted to use witchcraft to revive George?

They walked quickly, as if they were in a hurry. Dong Zheng followed at a distance all the way to the basement entrance.

The manservant looked around carefully to ensure that no else was there. Then, he went downstairs with the witch. Perhaps it was because he was planning to come up soon, or perhaps due to other reasons, he didn’t lock the door behind him.

Dong Zheng waited for a while, guessed that they must have already reached the bottom of the stairs, and then he carefully opened the door and walked into the basement.

As he walked down the stairs, Dong Zheng discovered that this underground area was like a whole new world. Ferdinand’s mansion was very large and so the underground basement wasn’t small. The temperature inside was very low, the walls were painted with strange witchcraft runes everywhere, there were many piles of statutes of little people in the corners, and the ceiling was covered in sachets filled with spices.

There were indications of “witchcraft” everywhere, giving people a sense of fear and oppression. The basement was full of the strong scent of spices, and Dong Zheng couldn’t hold his breath so he could only temporarily allow himself to smell them.

But the smell was very unusual.

Without knowing where the servant and the witch had disappeared off to, Dong Zheng took his time leaving the stairway. As he walked along the spacious corridor, he realized that, based on his memory of the layout of the mansion, it was leading him to toward mirror room he’d just seen earlier.

After bypassing a locked room, Dong Zheng finally heard their voices again. He used the darkness as cover and approached quietly toward the direction of the sounds, one hand on the handle of the deboning knife at his waist.

The light from the lantern in the servant’s hand pointed the way for him. Dong Zheng hid behind a glove box covered with dust-proof cloth and watched the two people in the distance.

They were standing next to a coffin. The lantern had been set aside on a small side table, its light revealing that everything around them was dressed up like an altar. The witch was leaning over the coffin, seeming to be checking something.

There were several wires that were connected to the coffin and plugged into the wall.

After a while, the witch said hoarsely, “It has to be sped up. George’s body can’t last for long.”

The manservant asked, “But the police have been so vigilant these days. How can….”

“We have already collected eight sacrifices. We’re just short of one more and then we can make a deal with Death,” the witch said. “Success or failure depends on how much Mr. Ferdinand is willing to pay. You don’t want to ruin everything, do you?”

Eight offerings?

Dong Zheng was shocked. Since George’s death, there had been five homicides in the town of Wisteria. But there were two missing people, and if the man who’d died in the car accident was counted…that made exactly eight dead people.

The manservant was silent for a moment. Finally, he nodded and said, “Okay. I’ll think of a way to try again. I’ll bring the last sacrifice tonight.”

After they’d finished their conversation, they left. Dong Zheng watched the male servant and the witch walked away with the lantern, and after a while, there came the vague sound of the basement door being locked.

They were gone?

Dong Zheng left his place and walked up the steps to the coffin, only to discover that it was a freezer with the boy’s body lying in it.

George died by swallowing a gun, and so his death definitely wasn’t beautiful. However, the body was cleaned up, and his face was lying quietly inside, looking like a very cute child.

His left hand was missing, and despite being frozen, there were already signs of decay along the cut.

It’d probably happened before the police returned George’s body to Ferdinand after an autopsy.

The so-called sacrifices should be the left hand of the murdered victims. Dong Zheng didn’t know if this box actually contained any supernatural elements, but if the necessary “sacrifices” were collected, would George really come back from the dead?

He didn’t think so.

Since it was a sacrifice, the left hands of these corpses would also be stored in the basement, and the sachets were probably hung up in an effort to cover up the rotten smell.

Dong Zheng temporarily left this area and went to inspect other places. He wasn’t in a hurry to leave. Since the male servant had gone to collect the last “sacrifice,” he would definitely re-enter the basement tonight. At that point, Dong Zheng would look for an opportunity.

Most of the rooms were locked. Dong Zheng didn’t know the specifics, but he understood that it wouldn’t be easy to handle the victim’s body under the police’s nose. They must be placed in a few locked rooms, otherwise there wouldn’t be so many sachets hung up to cover the smell.

The basement was very large so Dong Zheng took some time to explore it all. Since he didn’t turn on the lights, he ended up fumbling around in the dark.

Suddenly, he heard the sound of something tipping over, which seemed especially loud in this eerily silent basement.

Dong Zheng immediately found a place to hide behind. He held his breath and silent for a long time, but there were no other movements.

Was it a mouse?

He didn’t know.

He waited for a long time and, having found no other abnormalities, he could only continue to explore more carefully.

He soon found a gun in the corner with three bullets in it.

Dong Zheng held the gun and walked forward silently.

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