Chapter 156: What a Coincidence

Based on my deduction, Lin Feng should not be here right now.

Judging from all the information we have gathered so far, the Mazhuang Village is a rather important place for Lin Feng.

One could even say it is one of her primary strongholds. According to my calculations, Lin Feng's underlings first gathered kidnapped victims from various places here for screening.

The useful ones were taken away, while the useless ones were directly dumped into the Corpse Pool.

Now, Mazhuang Village no longer has any foothold for Lin Feng.

Given my understanding of her, she should have shown herself by now, but the fact that she hasn't points to a single conclusion.

Despite all the events that have transpired, none of them have actually touched upon her core interests.

Since she doesn't care much about anything happening out here, there is only one place she truly cares about.

The Corpse Pool!

The question is, where exactly is the Corpse Pool located right now?

"Mayor, you are much more familiar with Mazhuang Village than I am. Are there any water pools around here that people generally dare not approach?"

Fearing the mayor might not understand, I continued to elaborate: "I mean the kind of place everyone turns pale at the mention of, a water pool that no one has visited or even spoken of ever since Lin Feng appeared several decades ago."

"A water pool?" The mayor pondered for a moment before shaking his head directly. "There really isn't anything like that. We hardly have any water pools in Mazhuang Village."

Hearing him say this, I was genuinely stunned: "No water pools?"

My eyes rolled as I looked at the mayor in disbelief and asked, "That's impossible, are you mistaken?"

"There are no water pools in Mazhuang Village?"

"There are pools, but they aren't as eerie as you describe, nor are they particularly large. Many middle-aged people like to wash their clothes in them, and there's nothing special about them."

"Then while washing clothes in such a pool, hasn't anyone noticed anything unusual? Is there any foul odor?"

The mayor still shook his head: "No, the water down there is quite clean. Every summer, quite a few people go down to swim, and it's not even that deep."

Reluctant to give up just like that, I decided to go down into the water myself to take a look.

In matters like this, it is always better to be safe than sorry.

However, when I came back up from the water pool, my mind was filled with question marks.

Could Wang Zihao's intelligence be flawed? There really was nothing down there, and the water was quite clean to boot.

At this moment, Yin Cheng, who had been following me quietly all along, spoke up: "Jiang Huai, this pool you are looking for—could it simply be a place name, and not actually related to a body of water at all?"

What Yin Cheng said felt like a new door had opened in my mind.

He was right. Upon hearing the term "Corpse Pool," I had instinctively jumped to conclusions and associated it with a literal water pool.

Before I could even speak, the mayor chimed in: "Now that you mention it, there does seem to be such a place, and a Master has already gone there!"

The mayor slapped his thigh and said, "Mr. Jiang, the place you are looking for must be there—Dry Pool Ravine!"

"Wait..." I stared at the mayor with tightly furrowed brows.

Through his words just now, an intensely ominous feeling arose in my heart: "What's this situation about a Master already going there, and where on earth is this Dry Pool Ravine?"

Dry Pool Ravine is a depression deep in the large mountains south of Mazhuang Village.

During the war years, that place was once an enemy stronghold. After it was wiped out, more than a thousand people inside all perished.

Although that was a gratifying event, not long after, the residents of Mazhuang Village began to feel that something was amiss every night.

They could always hear strange shouting voices and hurried footsteps.

Yet when people went out to check, they found nothing at all.

As time went on, this sensation became increasingly pronounced, and those with weak vital energy even ran into the malevolent spirits of those enemies.

Quite a few people died because of this.

This was precisely the reason why my grandfather had previously come to Mazhuang Village.

At the time, the incidents at Dry Pool Ravine led everyone to suspect that people were dying because of those lingering spirits.

As it turned out, after my grandfather arrived, he discovered it was connected to Lin Feng. Of course, taking advantage of that opportunity, my grandfather also dealt with the issue at Dry Pool Ravine.

However, grandfather said that the Yin and baleful Qi in Dry Pool Ravine was far too heavy, requiring thirty years of purification to be completely eradicated.

Therefore, grandfather had only set up a powerful formation at Dry Pool Ravine back then and warned everyone never to enter it.

Once the time limit was reached, he would naturally send someone to handle the matter of Dry Pool Ravine.

Yet, grandfather had never mentioned any of this to me.

The question returned to its starting point: "Mayor, who was the Master you mentioned just now..."

"Right! He's also someone from your shop, called Master Song. In fact, your grandfather personally instructed him to come."

Song Zhong? My mind was filled with question marks. My grandfather actually told Song Zhong to come?

What on earth was going on here?

Seeing the utter confusion on my face, the mayor even pulled out the call logs between grandfather and him: "Look..."

Could things really be such a coincidence? Why didn't grandfather let me come?

I took a deep breath. Setting aside the malevolent spirits of this place for a moment, if this truly is the Corpse Pool I have been searching for, then Song Zhong is in grave danger!

"When did he go?"

"Yesterday, before the trouble broke out in Mazhuang Village. He even told me he would need a few days and brought plenty of dry rations into the mountains. Who knows how he is doing right now?"