Chapter One Hundred and Three: The Mist Inn Has Opened Its Doors

Yes. I heard this place used to be nothing but weeds, utterly desolate, and since it was the poorest spot for dozens of miles around, they simply called it the Weed Village.

As the two of them talked in the carriage, they had already reached a barren mountain road. There were no farmlands or great trees in sight, only a few low shrubs and small trees. Looking at this wasteland, Luo Hanya said, “How strange. We only crossed one mountain, and it feels as if we have entered an entirely different world.”

Aku was silent for a moment before speaking in a faint, distant voice. “Because the ground here is filled with the dead.”

“A burial ground?”

“Yes. This place sits right in the path of the wind. The air blowing in from the sea carries salt with it, turning the land alkaline. No crop can survive here. A place without life, fit only for burying the dead. So the nearby towns and villages made it their cemetery and buried their dead here.” Aku’s voice grew colder and colder, as though mourning this dead land.

Suddenly, a few raindrops struck Luo Hanya’s face. He lifted his head and looked at the sky. Sparse drops continued to fall, and the storm was about to break.

“The sea!”

When the battered old carriage climbed a rise, Luo Hanya suddenly saw the sea.

A black sea.

He froze. He had seen the sea countless times before, yet in this script, in this desolate place, it gave him an entirely different feeling. Though he could only gaze at it from afar atop the hill, with several kilometers still between them, he could already find no words to describe it. Beneath the black clouds gathering before the storm, the distant horizon blurred into nothingness; the dark clouds merged with the pitch-black sea, and the salt-bleached dead earth, swept by a bitter wind, revealed a scene of decay and death before his eyes.

Aku did not continue onward. He silently leaped down from the carriage and gazed sorrowfully at the distant scene. After a long while, he suddenly shouted toward the distance, “Misty Inn! Go on.”

Luo Hanya was startled. Rubbing his eyes, he looked ahead and saw, on a barren cliff where scarcely even grass grew, a lone black house standing by itself, completely fused with the dead and decaying landscape.

At last we are here... It is not quite as different as I imagined.

Luo Hanya jumped down from the carriage and glanced at the black house in the distance. With a slightly grave expression, he addressed Aku, who stood several meters ahead with his hands clasped behind his back. “Many thanks. I only wonder what the elder truly wants.”

“You still remember to ask about the reward. How rare.” Aku did not turn around. “Go on first. If you can come back alive, then I will give you your reward.”

“You are...?”

“Go. If you can come back alive, then you will know everything...” Aku cast him a sidelong glance and sighed before turning to leave.

Luo Hanya’s eyes flickered; clearly he had already guessed something. He bowed to Aku. “May I ask where the elder resides?”

Heavy raindrops struck Aku’s face and slipped straight through him to the ground. He shook his head. “You know too much. Sometimes, knowing too much is not a good thing. Are you not afraid of me?”

“I am afraid. I have been afraid of you all along, and only just now did I finally set down the heart that had been hanging in my throat.” Luo Hanya smiled faintly and spoke neither humbly nor arrogantly.

Aku nodded. “Good that you remember the reward. If you had forgotten that matter, the world would look very different now.”

“Then may I ask what the elder wants now?”

“If you come back alive, then place the black box where I live...” Aku’s voice grew more and more ethereal. Suddenly, a streak of black lightning split the sky. Luo Hanya blinked at the flash, and when he opened his eyes again, Aku and the battered carriage had vanished without a trace.

Only Luo Hanya remained on the wasteland, walking alone, like a solitary traveler who had trudged for centuries.

Night had fully fallen. The sea wind at night, mixed with icy rain, came raging like little imps, tangling his hair and soaking his collar. Through the trembling strands before his eyes, Luo Hanya looked toward the Misty Inn, now only a few hundred meters away.

It was a three-story wooden building, wholly exuding an air of decay. The accumulation of years had made it even gloomier. Its sole sign of life was a few tufts of wild grass sprouting from the rotting blackness, trembling violently in the bitter sea wind.

Seen from here, the inn looked like the set of a horror film hastily assembled from a pile of broken boards, and in the storm it appeared even more decrepit. The ruinous structure, creaking incessantly, seemed not to have been lived in for a very long time. If someone claimed the inhabitants inside were all ghosts, Luo Hanya would immediately agree. After all, he had already traveled all this way beside one ghost.

Thinking of Aku again, Luo Hanya still felt a lingering fear. Though the journey had gone smoothly, he had never dared to relax his guard. He kept remembering how Aku had emphasized the reward repeatedly before departure, and that reminder had just saved his life.

“Sure enough, this is a nightmare script. Every step hides a murderous trap.”

He shook his head, driving stray thoughts from his mind, and walked toward the Misty Inn with the cold composure of a machine.

As the distance shrank step by step, the dim sky and the chilling rain and wind made the inn’s full shape seem ever darker, ever more eerie.

Although it was only a few hundred meters away, Luo Hanya felt as though he had just run a marathon. Five minutes later, panting hard, the sweat on his forehead was washed away at once by the icy rain. The heat in his body seemed to have been drained dry, and he staggered forward with his cold, stiff limbs before stumbling to a halt at the inn’s door.

Up close, the Misty Inn did not seem nearly as terrifying as it had from afar. Its main door was decayed and ruined, made of old planks from some forgotten age, swaying ceaselessly in the wind and rain with a creaking sound.

Luo Hanya wiped the rain from his face, took a deep breath, and raised his hand to knock on the door.

Knock, knock.

At almost the exact same instant, thunder boomed overhead, and a bolt of lightning split the sky, flashing before his eyes.

Luo Hanya shut his eyes. The lightning and thunder jolted him again, while in his mind he was already piecing together the mysteries within the Misty Inn.

How long had it been? About a minute, perhaps? Luo Hanya opened his eyes, his brows tightly furrowed. The door seemed to be made of fine wood, only too old; no matter how good the material, it could not withstand the erosion of time.

It was simply too dilapidated. Luo Hanya could almost hear the door’s lament beneath his fist.

“Ow... easy... easy...”

Just as his fist fell again, a trembling groan came from within the plank. Luo Hanya’s hand froze instantly. He stared gravely at the door before him.

“Could there be someone behind the door?”

Suspicious, Luo Hanya pressed himself against it and peered through the crack.

Yet inside was only darkness and deathly silence. The entire inn seemed like a giant tomb, and beyond this door lay the underground chamber where coffins were stored.

Luo Hanya gave a cold smile and continued pounding the door, shouting even louder, “Is anyone inside?”

The sound of wind and rain from the sea immediately swallowed his voice.

No more sound came from behind the door. Then, all at once, the great door let out an “eeeh” and slowly opened.

Luo Hanya widened his eyes, licked his lips in excitement, and fixed his gaze on the gradually opening door.

The long-closed Misty Inn was open for business once more, on this black night of wind and rain...