NOVEL NEXT Chapter 248
At 18, Jiang Yaofei's mother passed away from a serious illness.
At that time, Jiang Yaofei couldn't articulate how sad he felt, not only because he had siblings at home, but also because his mother had a violent temper and solely believed in corporal punishment. Jiang Yaofei was practically beaten from childhood to adolescence.
So, if he had to name the person he feared the most in life, it was undoubtedly his own mother.
He still remembered, probably around the age of eleven or twelve, when his mother was at her strictest with him.
Due to his rebellious phase in early adolescence, he was almost beaten every day, and beaten severely. Sometimes he would limp when walking, or he couldn't even stand, only sit.
It was also during that period that Jiang Yaofei's adolescence was brutally suppressed by his mother. He didn't know how he survived that period, but he certainly didn't want to remember it. Experience more on My Virtual Library Empire
The moment he saw the old woman crouching in the corner, Jiang Yaofei's body instinctively shuddered. He was not scared of any strangeness but of the deep-seated fear of his own mother that came from the bottom of his heart.
The old woman in the corner slowly stood up, turning her ashen face towards Jiang Yaofei, devoid of expression.
Jiang Yaofei began to tremble like a sieve, as if every part of his body was aching, reminiscent of the pain after being beaten brutally.
The old woman faced him and slowly extended her left hand, gently beckoning him.
Jiang Yaofei shuddered violently and quickly realized that this person couldn't possibly be his mother, nor her soul. Even if his mother had turned into a strange entity, she wouldn't appear here.
It was the red coffin that was the problem!
After coming to his senses, his gaze shifted to the open coffin and then back to his "mother," who had already started walking towards him.
The "Magnetic Shielding Clothes" had malfunctioned!
Upon seeing the "mother" approaching him, Jiang Yaofei immediately activated the "Strangeness Interferer" he held in his hand. The old woman's movements halted for a moment, as if she lost her target, but her gaze still fixed on him.
Jiang Yaofei didn't dare to delay any longer. He turned around, opened the door, and didn't care if the Pallbearers were outside; to him, it seemed even more dangerous inside the house at the moment.
After he flung the door open, he dashed out with his head down. The old woman behind him let out a harsh, raspy sound from her throat, as if she quickened her pace to pursue him. Just as Jiang Yaofei's back passed the doorway, the old woman's fingers stretched out to grab him but caught nothing but air.
Then the hand retracted; she didn't follow him outside.
Jiang Yaofei didn't have time to look at what the Pallbearers inside the house were doing. He just focused on the door lit by the moonlight and charged towards it, regardless of anything else.
He had the Strangeness Interferer in hand and was confident that in just a short while, if he sped up, no strangeness could catch him.
The moment he burst through the front door of the house, Jiang Yaofei looked back and saw that the four Pallbearers were still standing in a circle, facing each other, in the middle of the outside room, doing nothing.
"What on earth is happening? What are they doing?" Jiang Yaofei didn't stop; he quickly ran across the street to the shelter of a house eave. Once he was certain he had left the dangerous area, he crouched cautiously around the corner to watch.
The four Pallbearers did not follow him out, nor did they even glance in his direction.
Jiang Yaofei tried to keep his eyes wide open. He could vaguely make out the tall figures of the Pallbearers standing in the house across from him.
In less than a minute, the four Pallbearers suddenly started to move, but they didn't leave. Instead, they turned around and entered the inside room where the red coffin was placed, disappearing from sight.
Jiang Yaofei let out a sigh of relief, thinking that the scream he had heard earlier—if it really belonged to a colleague—meant that his colleague might already be dead.
He couldn't stay here any longer. While the Pallbearers were all gathered in that room, he decided to go back immediately, call the others, and rush to the house closest to Plum Blossom Forest; they would look for an opportunity to break through the Lantern Woman's barrier and then escape to the entrance of the village.