Chapter 46 - 46 43 Thirty Years in Photographs

Words : 1626 Updated : Sep 12th, 2025

46: Chapter 43: Thirty Years in Photographs 46: Chapter 43: Thirty Years in Photographs The road conditions seemed familiar, but he couldn’t recall where it was. At this moment, Zhou Xuan was gripping the steering wheel and heard the sound of a night watchman’s gong outside the car. “Dong~~dong dong dong!” One slow and three quick beats, signaling the fourth watch. The sound of the gong made Zhou Xuan feel a bit anxious. As the car moved forward, he could hear the night watchman’s gong every few hundred meters. “Is the gong sound this frequent?” Zhou Xuan even suspected he was stuck in a ghostly maze, thinking the car was moving forward when in fact, he was going in circles. It wasn’t until he saw a sign of a clothing store beside him that he realized it was the “West Market Clothing.” He had heard of “West Market,” the largest market in Taiping West Road. Despite its size, it was rather quiet. After all, Taiping West Road was a famous shanty town. The biggest difference between the shanty town and the bustling and affluent areas was the number of night watchmen. Nowadays, clocks were becoming increasingly cheaper, and Ping Shui Prefecture’s economy in Jing Country was no less than top-tier. The demand for night watchmen in bustling and affluent areas was small since clocks were common. Only in some crowded, poor alleys would there be night watchmen. The residents of Taiping West Road struggled just to have two meals a day. For most families, clocks were a luxury, so they relied heavily on night watchmen. The narrow terrain of Taiping West Road meant that one or two night watchmen couldn’t handle it all, and the public works department naturally hired more people. “No wonder it seems familiar, I had soy milk here with Master Brother two days ago.” Zhou Xuan continued driving, following the seven people. After much effort, he finally made it through Taiping West Road, only to enter Taiping Road again. The road conditions became increasingly familiar, and after traveling a long distance, Zhou Xuan saw the seven people getting closer to an alley that was even more familiar to him. Wangfu Lane, Mr. Dai’s home was at the deepest part of this lane! “So all this time, I retraced the route to pick up Mr. Dai, and these seven are heading to Wangfu Lane with lanterns… Could it be that old Mr. Dai is still holed up in the Dai Mansion?” Zhou Xuan had a slight psychological shadow about the Dai Mansion. Last time, when he picked up Mr. Dai, he whimsically conversed with his own white noise and ended up tuned in to a wandering soul named “Qing Lian.” Through the writings left by “Qing Lian,” he concluded that someone named Qing Lian had been killed by Mr. Dai, in a soul-destroying kind of way… After going through this incident, thinking about entering Dai Mansion made Zhou Xuan feel a bit resistant. When the car followed the seven people into Wangfu Lane, Zhou Xuan looked back at the rear window, and the little resistance he felt disappeared. The entire windowpane, the left half was distinctly darker than the right. Zhou Xuan knew the reason, there was a shadow crouched behind the car. He had sensed it when the shadow had crawled onto the car in the Zhou Family’s courtyard. A bizarre shadow from the Zhou Family’s Troupe certainly wasn’t there to bother him. “He must have been sent by Sister to protect me secretly,” Zhou Xuan thought. … The Dai Mansion’s grand gate was tightly closed in the dead of night, the white lantern hanging high above growing nearer to Zhou Xuan. Upon reaching the gate, he stopped the car and followed the seven people to the entrance. The old hunter knocked on the door urgently, and after several knocks, the door opened, revealing an elderly gentleman with deep wrinkles. The elderly man was dressed in a plain white suit and was the old butler of the Dai Mansion. Zhou Xuan had heard from Liu Tianen that Mr. Dai had moved his family to Mingjiang Prefecture years ago, only hiring temporary staff, with the household occupied by just him and the old butler. The old butler held a wind lamp, but the light was too low to illuminate the faces of the seven people clearly, so he lifted it high, intending to take a closer look. However, as soon as his eyes met the old hunter’s, his gaze scattered, and with a lowered head, he moved numbly to the back of the line and placed his hands on the shoulders of the person in front. He was forcibly controlled by the six corpses. With the door open, Zhou Xuan followed the guiding old hunter, striding into the Dai Mansion. The shadow on the car transformed into a long snake and slithered down, entering the Dai Mansion just behind him. The lane returned to silence. But the quiet didn’t last long; along with the faint chirping of cicadas, a thin figure appeared at the mouth of the lane. S~eaʀᴄh the ηovёlFire .net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality. She carried a kerosene wind lamp and headed toward the depths of the lane leading to the “Dai Mansion”… … The opulence of the Dai Mansion could be considered overwhelming, with corridors and intricately painted columns, the craftsmanship meticulous, the carvings on each column subtle and fine. Details that exact demanded time, effort, and money… but the refined handiwork of craftsmen was far beyond what an ordinary wealthy family could match. Large photographs hung on the numerous columns of the corridor. The first photograph Zhou Xuan saw was of Mr. Dai, taken at the end of the last year, receiving a commendation from the government. In the picture, he was slender and wearing glasses with golden rims, holding a commendation order, stamped with dual steel seals from the government. His prominence was evident. The photographs that followed were essentially similar in nature to the first one, mostly showcasing the illustrious and proud moments of Mr. Dai’s life. After viewing over a dozen, Zhou Xuan noticed a pattern. These photographs weren’t hung randomly; they followed a timeline. The further he walked toward the end of the corridor, the younger Mr. Dai appeared in the photos. If you walked from the entrance of the corridor to its end, it felt like retracing Mr. Dai’s life in reverse. “Mr. Dai seemed quite rotund in his middle age.” Zhou Xuan paused in front of a column, where the photograph showed Mr. Dai in his middle years. Judging by his appearance and spirit, he looked to be about thirty-five to forty years old, with a chubby face and ears, sporting a general’s belly… These details weren’t important; what mattered was the strange sense of familiarity Zhou Xuan felt looking at this photo of the middle-aged, heavyset Mr. Dai, as though he had seen it somewhere before, yet he couldn’t recall where. “I couldn’t have possibly been to Jing Country over ten years ago, right?” As Zhou Xuan pondered over it, he continued to walk several meters toward the end of the corridor; after seeing three consecutive younger photos of Mr. Dai, the sense of familiarity grew stronger. “I’ve definitely seen it somewhere, I’m sure.” After muttering to himself, Zhou Xuan suddenly thought of someone! That person’s image rushed to him like a surge of electricity, causing a tingling sensation on his skin. He launched into a sprint toward the end of the corridor, glancing at the photographs on the columns as he ran. He dashed to the end of the corridor, his guess was confirmed in his heart! “It really is him!” A series of photographs showed Mr. Dai growing younger and plumper with each one! Perhaps the difference in appearance between two adjacent photographs wasn’t substantial, but there was a full thirty-year gap between the first and last photos, making them look worlds apart, which was why Zhou Xuan hadn’t immediately connected Mr. Dai’s image with that of the Big Head Monk. In the photograph at the end of the corridor, Mr. Dai was around twenty years old, with a physique resembling the fake Maitreya in the Corridor River, with an oily-glinting belly and thick earlobes… …Dai Siming was the “walker,” the foot of the Alien Ghost, chosen during the Corridor River drought! Was Mr. Dai of such a formidable lineage? “Perhaps Mr. Dai, as the Blood Well Spirit Communicator, owed his survival to fifty not to that doctor named Du Kaili, but to the Alien Ghost within him…?” Zhou Xuan hesitated for a moment, deliberating whether to continue seeking out Mr. Dai; after all, he had only heard Yuan Buyu’s lecture on Alien Ghosts yesterday. Alien Ghosts were unlike wandering souls or Evil Ghosts, as Lao Yuan had phrased it—they were on par with Gods. To be of the same caliber as Gods, what level of Dao would that be? “And I… Zhou Xuan… was just a handsome scholar, without the strength to truss a chicken, still uninitiated into Tangkou! Yet, here I was, contemplating extracting information from Mr. Dai’s mouth, and resolving the curse of the Blood Well? That was an Alien Ghost! What qualifications do I… wait, it may not be entirely hopeless.” In the instant Zhou Xuan learned Mr. Dai’s true identity, he mocked himself for being delusional but quickly calmed down upon acutely sensing a flaw in the connection between Mr. Dai and the Alien Ghost. “Mr. Dai has a weakness!” Zhou Xuan murmured to himself.

Chapter 46 - 46 43 Thirty Years in Photographs

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