Yin Shou Shu

Chapter 320 Ghost Town
The dark and gloomy ruins were overgrown with weeds.

The old minibus sat quietly in the middle of the ruins, and as the engine went out, the whole minibus fell into silence.

It seems to have blended into its surroundings.

Behind the old, mottled cement gate, one can vaguely see an abandoned factory area.

The architectural style of the 1960s and 70s stands faintly in the darkness.

A huge hole stands eerily at the end of this old factory area.

It looked like an abandoned mine.

The strange passengers who had arrived earlier in the minibus all dragged their belongings and filed in, entering the dark and deep hole.

Ran Qing and the other two exchanged glances, and Mo Li muttered under his breath, "...Could this be a coal mine?"

Yue Zhao is a well-known coal mining site in Southwest China. Although the land is barren, it is rich in coal resources underground.

This is a city built on the opening of coal mines. In the Yue Zhao area, most people are so poor that they can't even afford white rice and can only steam dried cornmeal as their staple food, but they can buy coal by the truckload to keep warm in winter.

As the origin of coal, the local coal prices are far cheaper than outsiders imagine.

Coal mines of all sizes are commonplace in the Yue Zhao area.

In regions like Laro, where a coal mine is named after itself and where miners' families can even form a small town, the underground coal resources are even more abundant.

“But this doesn’t look like the Laro mine,” Long Zongshu muttered to himself. “I’ve been to the Laro mine once, and it doesn’t look like this… However, the layout of this factory area is very similar to the factory buildings in the Laro mine.”

Ryuzoku, the only one of the three who had been to the Laro Mine, spoke authoritatively at this moment.

But after standing outside the door and peering out cautiously for a long time, he found that the factory inside was completely dilapidated and abandoned, with no residents or living people at all.

Although the Laro Mine, which Long Zongshu visited, was dilapidated and the houses were in ruins, it had a considerable population and people still lived there; it was not abandoned.

Ran Qing stood by the door, her gaze fixed intently on the ruins before her, and suddenly spoke.

"...It must be a ghost town."

Ran Qing's sudden judgment drew the attention of both Mo Li and Long Zongshu.

There was a hint of surprise in their eyes.

Long Zongshu was even more confused: "What ghost town?"

He subconsciously felt uneasy about the title.

Ran Qing calmly surveyed her surroundings. The ruins were overgrown with weeds, the houses were old and dilapidated, and the place was deserted and devoid of people.

The eerie fog from before had thinned considerably by the time we got here, but it hadn't completely dissipated.

A faint, almost imperceptible white mist still shrouded the ruins.

They could vaguely see the general situation in the ruins, but they couldn't see anything too far away.

Ran Qing calmly said, "Some places have special feng shui that attract wandering ghosts and spirits, causing a large number of them to linger and be unable to enter the underworld."

“And the places where these wandering ghosts gather in large numbers will undergo some changes at night, with some special houses and buildings appearing.”

"This is what is called a ghost town, or in some places a ghost market."

"After dawn, these desolate mountains and wildernesses will return to normal and the ghost town will disappear."

"But at night, especially in the latter half of the night when the yin energy is strongest, and wandering ghosts appear in groups, such ghost towns become dens of filth and evil."

"It will not only attract wandering ghosts and spirits, but may even draw in monsters and evil spirits from the nearby mountains."

"If a living person accidentally stumbles into such a ghost town, it depends on luck and their birth chart. Those with a strong birth chart can live safely until dawn."

"Those whose birth charts aren't strong enough might end up as one of the lost souls wandering in this fog..."

Ran Qing had seen the ghost market once before.

His first ghost-catching attempt after becoming a spirit medium occurred on Banan Road in Changba, where he encountered the ghost market.

However, the ghost market back then was gathered by female ghosts from wells. The ghost city in front of us is obviously much older and the situation is more complicated than that one on Banan Road.

They had at least reached the edge of the ghost town, but they couldn't see any wandering ghosts or spirits inside.

The ghost town, shrouded in mist, was eerie and deserted. All the passengers brought by the minibus had entered that dark mine shaft...

"The ghost we're looking for should be inside this mine."

Ran Qing stepped forward and headed directly towards the dark mine.

Upon hearing Ran Qing's explanation, Mo Li and Long Zongshu quickly followed suit.

The three of them quickly crossed the empty factory area and arrived at the dark mine at the end of the factory area.

Inside the dark mine, a chilling wind blew.

There seemed to be a lot of noise coming from inside.

But it wasn't the sound of workers starting up; it was more like the hustle and bustle of a market where people gather.

There seem to be many people inside this mine...

Ran Qing and the other two exchanged glances and walked into the mine side by side.

The moment they stepped into the shadows of the mine, they smelled a strong, suffocating odor.

It's the odor caused by poor air circulation in an enclosed space, a large amount of carbon dioxide mixed in the air, and the distinctive rusty smell of coal.

In a daze, the three of them seemed to have arrived at the forefront of coal mining.

However, what could be seen was not a mine shaft.

Instead, there were rows of neat staff dormitories, and in front of these dormitories was an old basketball court.

Ran Qing and his two companions were standing on the road outside the basketball court, with large maple trees planted on both sides of the road.

A series of shadowy figures moved around them.

These figures were dressed in work clothes from ten or twenty years ago, with a dull indigo blue color and a distinctive little hat, making it easy to tell at a glance which era they belonged to.

"...Is this really a ghost town?" Mo Li muttered to himself, cautiously and curiously looking around at his surroundings.

Long Zongshu suddenly noticed something and pointed in astonishment to a spot not far away.

A wooden house with tile roof stands not far away by the roadside.

The old wooden houses with tiled roofs stand out starkly in the workers' dormitory area built of bricks and cement.

But what's even more eye-catching is the middle-aged man sitting at the door of the wooden-tiled house.

He was thin and dressed in tattered, dirty clothes that resembled strips of cloth. His clothes were an older style with right-fastening buttons, making him stand out from the other figures dressed in work clothes.

The three of them were somewhat surprised by what they saw.

Mo Li looked at Ran Qing and muttered in a low voice, "The wandering ghosts here actually include some old things from decades ago?"

The wandering souls from different eras gather in the same ghost town.

The stark contrast between the clothing and architecture creates a strangely absurd feeling.

Long Zongshu asked in a low voice, "...If this ghost city has existed for a long time, have the ghosts inside also existed for decades?"

A terrifying old ghost that has existed for decades...

This has brought a certain kind of pressure.

Ran Qing calmly surveyed the ghost town before her and slowly said, "As long as there are ghosts, it's fine."

But something just felt off...

(End of this chapter)