Zhangmen'ao?

Just hearing the name felt like there was something unusual about it.

The driver seemed like a talkative fellow and casually started explaining, "That place was all about coal mining in the early years. I heard people got crushed to death when there were cave-ins."

"Later, after the coal was all dug out, those mine shafts were all sealed up."

"The people in that town are all strange and obsessive. A lot of the young folks have gone out to work as migrant laborers. And the road is an old one from before, hasn't really been repaired much."

A town like this wouldn't be very modern in its development, even somewhat closed-off and backward.

Zhangmen'ao was located in a crevice between three mountains, shaped like an overturned, broken bowl. Its only exit was a narrow "Ghost Gate Gorge".

In the past, the big freight trucks used to take this road.

The driver asked a question, but Zhang Daotian brushed it off with a few words, so he didn't probe further about why they were going there.

By evening, they could vaguely make out the outlines of some houses in the distance.

A road sign by the roadside bore the characters for [Zhangmen'ao].

Zhang Daotian got out of the car to take a look. The town was indeed surrounded by mountains on three sides, with only one large passageway left.

The terrain was low-lying, and in terms of feng shui, it leaned towards being a "Yin-gathering land". It really couldn't be considered a particularly good place.

He just wasn't too sure if there was any miasma in those mountains that could affect people.

The town wasn't particularly large. Zhang Daotian and the others asked around as they walked, barely managing to find a place to stay.

Just as the driver had said, there were indeed fewer young people in their twenties.

They were mostly elderly folks and some middle-aged men sitting by the roadside, smoking and chatting.

Those middle-aged men had sallow complexions, with the whites of their eyes murky and slightly yellow, their pupils slightly dilated.

The elderly, meanwhile, had even grayer, bluish-white faces, with some small grayish-brown spots on both sides of their temples. When they looked at people, their gazes occasionally went blank.

There were no children chasing and playing around in the nearby shops or on the streets.

Pei Qi rubbed his arms and shuddered for no reason. "Weird, it's not even cold today."

He looked around everywhere with considerable curiosity.

Some of the shops in this town still retained their old appearance.

It had quite a period flavor.

He even took out his phone and snapped a few pictures.

[Mei Qingchuan] rubbed the agarwood bead bracelet in his hand, his gaze shifting from the faces of those middle-aged men to the faces of the elderly, slightly pondering.

[What's wrong, Host? Do you think there's something wrong with this town?]

[No, don't think a poor complexion means someone's possessed by a ghost or something. I remember seeing something about this on the news... Zero, give me a rundown on knowledge about...]

The townspeople were playing cards or chatting.

But they still occasionally and discreetly cast their gazes towards Zhang Daotian and his group.

"Oh, need a place for the night? I clean these rooms often, they're very tidy!"

The person who greeted Zhang Daotian and the others was the proprietress of a small restaurant.

She looked to be in her thirties or forties, her complexion still fairly decent, with her hair tied up and wearing a patterned apron.

She seemed quite enthusiastic, wiping down the tables and chairs several times with a cloth.

This town wasn't exactly big, but it wasn't exactly small either.

It seemed they'd probably have to stay here for the night.

There weren't no people passing through for work or temporarily staying.

But most of them were travel-worn and in a hurry.

It was rare to see people like Zhang Daotian and his group.

They looked like they were out traveling to relax.

The middle-aged owner of this shop.

That is, the husband of the proprietress, sized them up several times from head to toe.

However, upon seeing the large sum of money for the accommodation, he smiled, revealing a mouthful of uneven, blackish-yellow teeth.

"The air in our mountains here is actually pretty good. You folks staying in the city every day, those cars are so noisy. Coming to a place like ours for a stroll is actually really nice!"

The middle-aged man showed off a few lines.

He told the proprietress to start cooking, then went back to sit on the small stool by the entrance to smoke.

He probably figured it would be a while before the food was ready.

Xiao Gui'an thought about the small general store they had just passed and looked at Zhang Daotian. "I'm going out for a bit."

"Huh? Mr. Qingchuan, where are you going? I'll go with you."

Zhang Daotian had already investigated the area and hadn't detected any demonic, evil, or Yin ghost energy. This place seemed quite normal.

But he still felt something was a bit off.

"It's fine, I'm just going to that shop we passed to buy a few bottles of water. I'll be right back."

"Alright—"

Thinking that Mei Qingchuan might want some private space, to make a phone call or reply to a message or something.

Zhang Daotian nodded and didn't follow.

The middle-aged man by the entrance heard their conversation and pointed ahead. "Oh, oh, that shop... just turn at the street up ahead, and it's right there..."

After sitting down, Pei Qi leaned close to Monk Huizhi and asked in a low voice.

"Master, is the person we're looking for here? How do we find them? By showing that orchid token?"

He wasn't worried about them being scammed or falling for a honey trap or anything.

After all, Zhang Daotian and Monk Huizhi's abilities were right there.

Even if he didn't fully understand them, they definitely had real skills.

And this is a society governed by law now!

He couldn't possibly run into every kind of bad thing, could he?

But after experiencing the strange and terrifying events that happened to him.

Once the novelty of being in a new place wore off, Pei Qi inexplicably started feeling suspicious and jumpy again.

While their group was sitting inside the restaurant, other people came in.

They looked like locals from the town, with no sense of restraint.

Their conversation, tinged with a local accent, wasn't hushed and drifted on the wind into Zhang Daotian's ears.

"The Lin family... I heard all the chickens at that chicken farm died... all black blood..."

"No way, did some unclean thing really get in?..."

"Might as well just keep taking the old remedies. It's been so long, and nothing's happened, right?"

"That doctor meant well, didn't he keep running around everywhere, back and forth, helping out?... Called... a volunteer!"

"...The older folks in my family... after taking the medicine, they've been quieter lately..."

"Yeah, my Taozi also seems like he can walk and jump around, much more energetic than before."

Listening, Zhang Daotian and the others learned that not long ago, a doctor doing volunteer service had come to this town and opened a clinic.

But it seemed that along with this doctor came something else. Anyway, strange things had been happening frequently in the town lately.

It was making everyone a bit irritable and restless, with people feeling unsettled.

And they couldn't find the root cause.

Quite a few people in the town actually didn't reject that doctor.

After all, the doctor was quite kind-hearted, not only prescribing medicine and treating illnesses for them.

He also often lent a hand with other households' matters, taking care of the elderly and children and such.

Then, the name of that doctor they were talking about finally came out of a resident's mouth. "We don't understand any of this. Let's just pick a time and go ask that Doctor Bai Zhi again!"