After Swapping Identities With My Archenemy - Chapter 2

Chapter 2: The Ghost Village

Xinmin Villa is a suburban villa park in the North City District, also known as a traditional wealthy area.

Winter days get dark quickly. When they arrived, it was already night. The greenery here was excellent. Amidst the dense shadows of the trees, a breeze carried the last wisp of osmanthus fragrance, which was refreshing and pleasant.

After they decided to come to Xinmin Villa, someone called Shen Wensi. An old man on the other end said that there was a joyous occasion here and they wanted to invite two masters to check the horoscopes and consecrate the ancestral tablets.

First, they invited Shen Wensi, and then her phone rang as well.

After the person took out her magic tool, she was worrying about how to get there when she saw Shen Wensi hail a taxi and motion for her to get in.

She gritted her teeth and followed. When the driver heard they were going to Xinmin Villa, he immediately raised the price. Without thinking, Shen Wensi told him to start driving.

She didn’t get a chance to say anything. She just watched as the other person’s small house gradually disappeared from her sight, and her face wrinkled up.

The two-hour bumpy ride almost made her throw up. They finally arrived at their destination, Xinmin Villa.

She looked at her wallet with some embarrassment. There were only three人民币 bills left.

Shen Wensi didn’t ask her again. She took out three red bills and handed them to the driver, getting out of the car smoothly without even blinking.

Damn it, how could she be so rich? She was so poor that she only spent three hundred yuan a month on food.

As soon as Jiang Huaiyi got out of the car, she already started to regret it. This broken place didn’t even have a street light.

She stood on the small path at the intersection, looking at the calm person beside her, wailing in her heart. Being a ghost cultivator was great; she wasn’t afraid of ghosts at all.

After thinking about it, she still took out a hundred-yuan bill and handed it to the other person. She wasn’t someone who liked to take advantage of others.

Shen Wensi used two fingers to block her hand: “You use it.”

Well, she didn’t want it. Jiang Huaiyi looked at the little money she had left and decided not to offer it again.

The two stood in front of the muddy path. This place was far from the city. Compared to the howling wind in the city, it was surprisingly calm here.

A light rain had just fallen, and the originally flat dirt road had become a bit muddy. Jiang Huaiyi sighed, watching the taxi speed away.

She changed into her rain boots and stepped onto the small path. The architecture here was unique to wealthy families from the last century.

The small houses were completely different from Shen Wensi’s modern detached villa. Every house was a Western-style garden villa.

In front of each house was a very exquisite Chinese-style garden, facing north and south. The main door was on the west side. The balcony outside was a curved white marble.

The roof was a specially made glazed flat tile double-sloped roof. The outer walls were mostly built with a mixture of pebbles and cement. The red and yellow staggered, and the reddish-brown painted wooden shutters were tightly closed, making them very beautiful. Even after decades, such architecture was still not outdated.

If you looked at it during the day, it would be dazzling, but at night without the lights on, it looked a bit ghostly.

Of course, there were more old-fashioned wooden courtyards with carved beams and painted pillars. Two yellow lanterns hung on both sides of the high courtyard gate. When the wind blew, the lanterns would sway. From a distance, they looked like two ghost fires flickering up and down.

Jiang Huaiyi was already a little nervous. It was difficult for her to walk on the dark path. Master Ge’s house was inside Xinmin Villa.

For some reason, no one came out to greet them.

As the car’s light faded, Jiang Huaiyi took out her pager, wondering how long the built-in flashlight would last.

Then, she heard a click. Shen Wensi turned on a flashlight. The bright light shone a few meters away.

The darkness around her was suddenly illuminated. She secretly breathed a sigh of relief and followed her into the village.

The sounds of insects and birds seemed to have disappeared along the way. From the flickering light of the flashlight, they could see that the courtyards on both sides had been uninhabited for a long time.

The weeds in some courtyards were as tall as a person, and they couldn’t see what the entrance looked like.

Shen Wensi walked very fast. Jiang Huaiyi had to follow her closely, but she didn’t want to get too close, so she was struggling a bit.

She didn’t see a loose stone under her feet and stumbled, almost bumping into her back.

Then she found that Shen Wensi’s pace had slowed down. She grabbed her black backpack, her face cold, and motioned for her to walk in front.

Jiang Huaiyi quickly thanked her: “Thank you, Fellow Daoist Shen.”

The words slipped out quickly. The Ghost Cultivators looked down on the Xuanmen Cultivators the most. Jiang Huaiyi hurriedly covered her mouth. She had called her “Fellow Daoist.”

She secretly looked over and saw that the other person’s face had indeed darkened.

Her hands were twisted into a ball in her pockets, and she was thinking about how to ease the atmosphere.

Then she heard Shen Wensi’s voice from behind her: “Do you know why this place is called the Ghost Village?”

Jiang Huaiyi’s ears perked up. Although she wasn’t very interested, knowing more about these scary things would only make her more afraid.

But her mouth spoke before her brain did: “What?”

She really hadn’t heard of it. Usually, other than her shishu introducing her to jobs, she rarely inquired about outside matters. Most of what she knew was from her shishu and shijie.

Shen Wensi: “This was originally a famous wealthy area. It’s just that during the unrest many years ago, many young masters from these wealthy families died. Most of them were unmarried young men.”

“The wealthy families got together and bought a group of girls. They put them alive into coffins to marry their sons who had died early.”

Jiang Huaiyi shivered. Wasn’t this the feudal dross of the last century, marrying ghosts?

The richer people were, the more they cared about these things.

Jiang Huaiyi said: “Isn’t this a waste of people? What happened later?”

Shen Wensi: “These girls were buried on the same day. That day, the village was in a state of chaos. The wealthy families told the people from all the villages within ten miles to come for a feast the next day. When the people from outside arrived, there were dead bodies everywhere in the village. Not a single person was alive. They were all hanged from the big locust tree in the ancestral hall. From then on, Xinmin Villa became the Ghost Village.”

The first thought that flashed through Jiang Huaiyi’s mind was how many people were in the village. If they were all hung on one tree, wouldn’t the tree break?

“Could this be a rumor? After all, this place is too far from the city. It’s also possible that everyone moved to the city.”

Shen Wensi noncommittally nodded: “What you said makes sense.”

Many villages were like this. They were far from the city. After people moved to the big cities, only some old, weak, and sick people were left in the village. When the old people died, the village would completely disappear.

But the facts proved that Jiang Huaiyi was wrong, because after they walked for a while, they saw a tall ancestral hall.

Next to it was an old locust tree that covered the sky. The trunk of the tree would take at least five or six people to wrap their arms around.

The branches and leaves of the locust tree covered the sky, and standing underneath, they couldn’t see the moon at all.

Shen Wensi’s flashlight shone on it, but she couldn’t see the bottom. The shadowy things hanging down one by one, and some things of unknown origin were swaying slightly in the wind, which made her think of the corpses Shen Wensi mentioned.

Jiang Huaiyi swallowed and said: “It can’t be such a coincidence, can it?”

A strong gust of wind blew, and a section of a white-boned arm fell from above, landing right at her feet.

She felt her breathing stop and subconsciously grabbed the clothes of the person next to her.

The person’s cold voice came from the side, but this time with a hint of mockery: “It seems those people have developed to the tree. What do you call this? ‘Hanging themselves on a southeast branch’?”

Shen Wensi glanced at the hand on her clothes and asked annoyingly: “Just a broken arm, how could it scare Daoist Jiang like this?”

Jiang Huaiyi: …

She finally understood why this person was so taciturn at the main house. With this open and hidden mockery, if it were one of her hot-tempered fellow disciples, they would definitely start fighting as soon as she spoke.

But Jiang Huaiyi’s temper wasn’t bad. Compared to the rumor coming true, she was more afraid of standing under this ghost tree now.

She silently let go of Shen Wensi’s clothes and forced a smile: “I was just afraid you would get hit. Let’s go. If we don’t go now, we won’t have dinner.”

She didn’t know if the other person saw the smile on her face, but she really silently put down the flashlight.

After passing the ancestral hall, they should be close to Master Ge’s house. As the two were about to leave, they saw a pale gray face at the black and white entrance of the ancestral hall when the flashlight swept past.

Jiang Huaiyi was so scared she almost passed out. She suspected she was seeing things and quickly asked Shen Wensi to shine the flashlight on it again.

The flashlight swept over, and they saw that there was indeed a thin old man standing next to the wall.

With the flashlight on him, his face was full of wrinkles. His eyes drooped, and his mouth was turned down. His entire face was lifeless, and he was dressed in all black from head to toe.

He almost merged with the black door panel behind him. No wonder Jiang Huaiyi only saw a head floating in the air just now.

He was also holding a light yellow silk lantern in his hand. The candlelight was very dim, which was why she hadn’t seen it just now.

The old man didn’t know how long he had been standing there. When he saw that the two had finally discovered him, he showed his yellow and black teeth and smiled: “The two masters must be the ones our master invited, right? Why did you come together? This way, please.”

His smile was stiff, as if he was used to being subservient. He bowed, and his already short stature was almost touching the ground. He made a “please” gesture, turned around, and walked in front, holding the lantern with both hands.

Jiang Huaiyi breathed a sigh of relief. Thank goodness he was a living person. One more scare and she would have run away.

They walked inside. After passing a boundary marker of Xinmin Villa, they stepped onto a blue brick road.

The houses here looked much more normal, and there were even stalls of various vendors, but they looked like old items.

This was a bit like the popular ancient town tourist areas outside. If this place developed, it would be a good place.

When they arrived at the town, the streets on both sides were much brighter.

Finally, she felt a trace of human presence. Jiang Huaiyi relaxed. Whether it was with her eyes or her senses, she felt that there was nothing wrong with this town. She let out a long breath and completely relaxed.

Shen Wensi turned off her flashlight. After walking for a while, the old man led them to the front of a wealthy family’s house.

Unlike the other houses, the Ge family’s door had red lanterns, probably because of the joyous occasion.

The old man took two steps forward and opened the door. The scene inside was bustling and lively. The sound came out the moment the door was opened.

With just one glance, Jiang Huaiyi clenched her fists. She saw a red coffin placed in the center of the main hall.

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