Chapter 23: The Octagonal Tea Pavilion

After downing a few pots of tea, Ye Feifan returned to his room to prepare for his evening investigation.

Having adapted to the sealing of his cultivation during his previous experience, Ye Feifan surmised that his abilities would likely be suppressed again this time. It seemed that anyone who stepped into Beichen Tea Pavilion faced such restrictions, rendering his spatial pouch useless.

He packed a waterproof flashlight into his schoolbag, intending to use it as his primary light source. In the darkness of a rainy night, the flashlight would prove invaluable, allowing him to use the reflection off metallic objects to locate that blood-stained needle.

Since the Zhang family insisted on concealing information about the two servants, Ye Feifan had no intention of prying. Should anything go wrong, he would simply watch from the sidelines with a mocking smile.

According to his experiences in his past life, the ten-thousand-year-old lightning-struck wood he had acquired from the Treasure Appraisal Auction could suppress ominous forces, but it required a period of ritual devotion—borrowing the power of faith to subdue the malevolence. Carrying it on his person felt unwise; if the ominous entities were scared off, his mission would be impossible to complete.

Opening the window, Ye Feifan looked out into the courtyard of the guesthouse and was surprised to see the waiter carving something into the large tree with a knife. The man was clearly suspicious. Gently moving away from the window, Ye Feifan observed the performance from behind the curtain, but could discern nothing of note.

"Cultivation takes precedence. I shall investigate further tonight."

After closing and locking the doors and windows, and pushing a table and chairs against them for good measure, Ye Feifan closed his eyes and drifted into his dreamscape. He sat quietly, absorbing the essence of dreams, even using the system to set an alarm.

...

The darkness was absolute, devoid of even a sliver of light, until the ringing of the alarm shattered the long silence, jolting Ye Feifan awake.

What happened? Was it time?

Eleven o'clock sharp!

Silently turning off the alarm, Ye Feifan ended his meditation, shouldered his bag, and slipped out of the room with the utmost caution.

Using cover to reach the backyard, he found the tree and shone his flashlight on the low-beam setting to examine the characters carved by the waiter.

The waterproof flashlight featured two controls: a red pressure-sensitive button for momentary light, and a sliding switch with four settings—off, low, medium, and high. Ye Feifan was currently using the low setting.

"I saw him!" After searching for a long while, Ye Feifan found only this repeated phrase.

Something was wrong.

Ye Feifan doused the light and, without lingering, vaulted over the wall.

Behind the guesthouse lay an old alleyway—also known as the Old Street Lane—paved with flagstones and flanked by residential houses. A short distance away stood the back entrance of a pleasure house.

"The back door is constructed quite strangely..."

Ye Feifan tucked the flashlight into his bag and moved cautiously through the alley. His silent boots ensured he made no sound, allowing him to hide instantly if any disturbance arose—a true artifact for exploration.

Walking along the wall, he soon spotted the back entrance of the pleasure house, adorned with red lanterns. The door was closed and appeared unguarded, though he felt certain someone was watching from within; such doors were often left for men who snuck in, providing an escape route should their wives come calling.

Without pausing, Ye Feifan bypassed the door and ventured deeper into the alley. Time was of the essence; he was determined to slip into the back door of the Beichen Tea Pavilion before midnight.

He remembered Zhang Da mentioning that Chen Yi had fled from the Beichen Tea Pavilion. That small place might hide a secret passage or a cellar, and the answers likely lay within.

Upon reaching the back door of the tea pavilion, Ye Feifan surveyed his surroundings. He saw several small alleys, some of which led to Fragrance Pavilion—he had passed through here before while chasing the No. 88 bus.

The back door of the Beichen Tea Pavilion was not locked, merely secured with a wooden bar. Ye Feifan removed the bar, slipped inside, and latched the door behind him.

Eleven-fifty?

Ten minutes left. Ye Feifan exhaled in relief, gazing toward the octagonal pavilion in the darkness, hoping to see something out of the ordinary.

Finding nothing, he sauntered into the pavilion and touched one of the pillars, only to find it tacky to the touch.

What was this?

Heart racing, Ye Feifan pulled the flashlight from his bag, clicked it to the low setting, and illuminated his hand.

Blood!

A shudder ran through him. He instinctively cut the light, feeling a sudden chill. It wasn't even midnight, yet here was fresh blood—this place was truly malevolent.

Wiping the blood from his hand, he shone the light on the pillar again, realizing it had been coated in a layer of blood, as if it were being used as paint. The blood was fresh, as if just applied.

Ye Feifan could swear he had been watching the octagonal pavilion intently; he had no idea how the blood had appeared, and there was no one else around. Perhaps the perpetrator of the case was lurking nearby, having manufactured an alibi with absurdly high-level methods.

Retreating to the back door, Ye Feifan found that the wooden bar he had used to secure it was gone, and the door would not open. Someone had locked it from the outside.

How was that possible?

Ye Feifan was stunned. He hadn't seen anyone leave... his cultivation had been sealed!

He felt a wave of confusion. The mission timer showed one minute to midnight; why would his abilities be sealed before the deadline? This defied all logic.

"Tick, tock..."

There was a sound!

Ignoring the locked door, Ye Feifan listened intently. With his flashlight in one hand and his sword hilt gripped in the other, he crept toward the source of the noise.

The sound was coming from the octagonal pavilion!

He stepped inside, and the sound vanished.

"Strange!"

He dimmed the light further. Black bloodstains on the floor caught his eye, dripping from the ceiling. He stared upward, but could see nothing. With the sound gone and the darkness feeling increasingly sinister, he had no choice but to activate the "Late-Night Vision Experience Card."

As the system product took effect, his pupils dilated into those of a cat, and the world transformed.

The entire Beichen Tea Pavilion was shrouded in a gray mist, while the octagonal pavilion itself leaned toward a deep, abyssal black.

Such heavy resentment!

The gray was merely yin energy, but the black was pure resentment. The tea pavilion was not as simple as it appeared. Fortunately, he had quietly gathered information about the place before arriving, or he would have been completely blind.

Several previous owners of the tea pavilion had disappeared inexplicably, as if evaporated into thin air, a fact that made many turn pale at the mere mention of it. With so little useful information, Ye Feifan had to deduce the truth from his own observations.

With his feline vision, Ye Feifan could clearly see the source of the danger: the octagonal pavilion itself. It was inherently perilous; even the back door carried traces of blood-light. The entire building was a nexus of crises.

A pendant hung from the ceiling, dripping blood. The pillars were covered in dense, meticulous writing. The killer had applied fresh blood to destroy the evidence, which had likely been written in blood originally.

He reached out to scrub at the pillar with a rag, but the blood would not come off; it had already seeped into the wood. One piece of evidence had been destroyed.

Just looking at the height, leaving such marks on the pillar was no easy feat. The victim must have leaned against the pillar to write, only to be discovered by the killer, who then smeared the pillar with the victim's own blood.

Thinking logically, the victim had been clever—hiding mysteries on all eight pillars. The killer had exhausted the victim's lifeblood to cover those secrets. Yet, the killer remained uneasy, bringing in blood from other sources day after day to repeat the process, always at night. He wondered if the murderer came by during the day as well.

The blood would dry by daylight, and others would assume the pavilion was simply undergoing renovations. The scent of blood was masked by spices; the killer had mixed in rouge and other aromatics.