Ning An's Wild Wish System

”It’s that painting, it has to be.”

Xiaohu looked at the ancestral hall, as if struck by some terrifying memory, his face twisted again, and his fear was so intense it was as if he’d seen Hell itself.

Lin Yanke shook her head, took out a Golden Light Talisman, and stuck it behind him. The warm, soothing aura that emanated brought Xiaohu back to his senses.

Wiping the cold sweat from his brow, he said with lingering fear, ”Our ancestral hall doesn’t just house tablets but also portraits of ancestors who made great contributions.”

”But these portraits are specially stored in a small room, and without the elders’ key, no one can get in.”

”As a child, we were most rebellious. The more the elders said not to do something, the more I wanted to do it. But the elders kept the keys very secure, so I couldn’t steal them. But that wasn’t a big problem either.”

He led everyone into the ancestral hall, saying with some embarrassment, ”Back then, internet cafes were popular in town, and you could learn all sorts of lock-picking techniques online. So that lock was no challenge for me.”

Crossing the high threshold of the hall, Lin Yanke laughed and said, ”It seems people in your town highly respect their ancestors, setting aside a special room for their portraits.”

”Respect, my ass!” Xiaohu suddenly turned his head, gritting his teeth, ”Tossing aside the portraits of our ancestors, is that what you call respect?!”

”Hmm?”

This time, everyone realized something wasn’t right.

Zhang Xingmin quickly asked, ”What did you see in there?”

Xiaohu stopped in his tracks, closed his eyes, and spoke with a voice tinged with fear:

”I saw ancestor portraits abandoned everywhere, mouse tracks evident all over. I also saw a battered yellow pearwood box, inside of which was a painting...”

”What painting?”

”I don’t know. I had never heard the elders mention the woman in the painting, but there she was. When I unveiled her, she looked as if she’d just been painted, life-like, more beautiful than anything I’d ever seen...”

”Then tell us, why did you say you’ve seen the little girl’s smile before?”

Ning An abruptly interrupted him, and Lin Yanke also had her hand on her waist, ready to deploy the Thunder Talisman at the slightest hint of anything suspicious.

In his current state, who dared let him keep talking?!

With his thoughts interrupted, Xiaohu’s eyes cleared instantly. Looking at the wary group behind him, he trembled and said, ”You see, it has to be that painting, it must be at work!”

The group remained silent, just watching him quietly.

Understanding something was wrong with himself now, Xiaohu gritted his teeth, steeled himself, and was the first to step up the staircase to the second floor, quickly heading in one direction, suddenly exclaiming, ”Where’s the studio? Where’s the room where our ancestor portraits were stored?!”

”Are you sure there was a room before?” Ning An asked back.

”Yes, absolutely!”

Xiaohu pointed to the wall beside him, his voice filled with unutterable despair: ”Right here, right here, there was definitely a room!”

As they spoke, Zhang Xingmin immediately notified the logistics team, pulling up photos of Enjiang Town.

Within seconds, the logistics tech team had locked onto all the photos of the Enjiang Town ancestral hall.

Most of the photos matched Xiaohu’s description; there indeed was a small room here!

”But why don’t these photos show the room?”

Lin Yanke pointed out several photos in confusion, which indeed matched the current layout of the hall.

”These were taken by tourists in the past two years. The tech department has already contacted them, and most have no impression; only a couple who had a fight here remember distinctly. They said there was no such room, and they even uploaded other photos!”

Ning An leaned forward. The photos provided by the couple indeed only showed a bare wall.

”Feedback from the tech team has come in. Starting from photos taken three years ago, this room was no longer there.”

Meanwhile, Xiaohu had picked up the phone and called the elders.

”Second Uncle, it’s me, Xiaohu, yes, yes...”

”No, how could I have fed guests those things, they are our bread and butter!”

Xiaohu suddenly changed the subject, saying:

”Second Uncle, do you remember the small studio on the second floor of our ancestral hall? The one you were so stern about, where you said ancestor portraits were stored.”

The phone was on speaker, allowing everyone to hear clearly as an old voice came through, muddled with a hint of confusion:

”What studio? Ancestor portraits? Our hall doesn’t have such a thing on the second floor...”

”Second Uncle, don’t play dumb. The police are listening next to me.”

Xiaohu’s voice shook, his face almost pressed against the phone.

”You brat, if we had ancestor portraits, we’d have brought them out for worship long ago.”

”That’s impossible! Do you remember that big key you carried?”

”I remember, that’s the key to our dog’s kennel. A Tibetan mastiff, you know, it needs a big cage and a big lock just to barely keep it contained.”

Xiaohu’s face turned ashen, his body swaying.

”No... it can’t be, when I was a kid, Fifth Brother also said he saw a door on the second floor...”

”Yes, that was before the national initiative for tourism development took off here; our town doesn’t have many attractions, so we came up with some gimmicks. That fake door was one, with just a wall behind it.”

But, before Xiaohu could roll his eyes and faint, the voice on the other end of the phone hesitated: ”You mentioned the studio, our hall doesn’t have one on the second floor, but as per our ancestors’ stories, there indeed should have been a room on the second floor.”