In the empty courtyard, the lanterns and plants moved without wind, adding an eerie atmosphere to this Yin Residence.
Sun Yan advanced down the corridor, watching paper money dancing in the air, only to turn into flying ash upon hitting the ground, as if trapped in an endlessly looping nightmare world.
"How exactly should one explain this place, a Grotto Heaven? Sumeru World? Hell?"
Sun Yan flicked his cigarette onto the wooden pillar in the corridor, and to his surprise, the surface, despite being made of wood, instantly burned a small hole.
Sun Yan shook his head in bewilderment and quickened his pace.
The immediate concern was to uncover the truth behind this door, and hopefully locate the missing police officer and those two priests.
At the end of the corridor was a circular arch that led to a courtyard with multiple side rooms.
Sun Yan reached the door of the first side room and pushed it open, immediately startled by four unmoving figures sitting at the table inside.
With the aid of his phone's light, Sun Yan discovered that these were merely papery men, and his initial panic subsided.
"Papery men…" Sun Yan stepped closer to examine their features, growing increasingly alarmed the more he looked.
After seeing the crime scene data provided by Henry, he instantly recognized that these papery men resembled the victims from the 401 homicide case.
"Why would dead victims have corresponding papery men in this Yin Residence?"
As Sun Yan puzzled over this, the papery men suddenly lifted their heads, bending their eyes to look at him with a strange grin.
"Are you also here to offer sacrifices to Master Hui?"
"Master Hui resides in the adjacent courtyard. If you want to live here, you need his approval. Go over and kowtow a few times."
"We'll take you there now, go ahead, hurry up."
The papery men stiffly stood up and intended to grab Sun Yan and push him out of the room.
Bang!
Sun Yan swung the iron hammer in his hand directly at one of the papery men.
He smashed a hole in the papery man's head on the spot, breaking several of the bamboo supports inside.
The remaining papery men sat back down, reverting to their previous motionless state.
"Master Hui?" Sun Yan was somewhat puzzled. Then, a thought suddenly flashed through his mind, prompting him to run out of the room and into the adjacent side room.
Sure enough, there were also several differently shaped papery men inside, maintaining positions as if they were eating and drinking, like residents here in the Yin Residence.
The third room, the fourth room, the fifth room... Sun Yan searched through each one until he finally found the answer he was looking for in one of the rooms.
He saw a papery man dressed in a police uniform standing in the room, though made of paper, its face displayed a lifelike expression of panic, as if it had seen something terrifying.
The missing police officer.
"So it's exactly like this!" Sun Yan realized.
The so-called Yin Residence is naturally only for the dead to enjoy; living people entering it risk losing years of their lifespan at best, or their lives at worst.
A Yin Residence must have an owner, and someone has set one up in this apartment, clearly to offer sacrifices to something.
This thing could be an Evil Spirit or something non-human.
And these papery men representing the deceased were specially chosen because their birth characters matched, making them suitable offerings to the 'master' here.
"Only deceased people have corresponding papery men appearing here. Since Officer Frank is still alive, the old woman hasn't burned his representation because perhaps Frank's soul still lingers in the mortal world, making him unsuitable to be sent to the Yin Residence."
Pete said that the old woman from 201 would often come to the 7th floor to burn paper money, indicating that she secretly maintained the energy of this Yin Residence. These papery men were crafted and burned by her. What on earth is this person trying to achieve with such a grand setup?"
Sun Yan walked out of the side room, staring at the tiles on the courtyard wall with a serious expression.
The courtyard was adjacent to the main hall, which was the center of the entire Yin Residence and the place where its owner lived.
Thinking about the mention of Master Hui by the papery men, Sun Yan weighed the iron hammer in his hand, took a deep breath, and vigorously flicked away his cigarette butt.
"Having come this far, there's no reason to back down. I want to see whether this Yin Residence is formidable or if I am the mighty General Sun." Sun Yan quickly rounded the courtyard wall and entered the main hall.
As soon as he passed through the archway, he saw two men in priest robes worshipping at the temple's steps outside, like they were possessed, indiscriminately kowtowing.
Were they not Raine and Betar?
Unlike the papery men, these two, like Sun Yan, had living flesh, but as Sun Yan approached, they showed no reaction whatsoever.
Kneeling on the ground like puppets, even when Sun Yan kicked them, they showed no signs of awareness, their souls seemingly absent from their bodies.
Sun Yan looked inside, where in the middle of the hall were two vermilion lacquered coffins, their surfaces densely inscribed with the word 'Sacrifice' written in ink.
Numerous papery men knelt around the coffins. Although the room was silent, Sun Yan imagined he could hear wailing cries.
"If refining Longevity Pills for continued life is a sham, then the true purpose behind the old woman's killings must be this. Those 81 suitable target candidates listed in the notebook aren't chosen for their hearts to refine Longevity Pills, but rather because their birth characters perfectly fit the Yin Residence, assisting whatever sinister presence is being worshipped here."
Pulling the General Sun Mask from his pocket and putting it on, Sun Yan knew at this moment that he was no longer facing humans but encountering extreme danger. He could only trust in his Magical Artifact.
As he stepped onto the stairs and entered the room, the two coffins seemed to sense the presence of an outsider and began trembling incessantly.
The papery men kneeling around the coffins stood up stiffly, surrounding Sun Yan.
Yet before they could touch Sun Yan, their bodies burst into a cyan-green flame, turning to ash on the spot and leaving behind scattered paper ashes.
"What mortal dares disrupt my altar?"
A sharp and low sound suddenly reverberated inside, and Sun Yan finally noticed a thick curtain behind the two coffins.
As the papery men burned away, the curtain quietly slid open, revealing a shrine table hidden behind it.
On the shrine table were offerings of three livestock, six domestic animals, incense burners, celestial plaques, and statues.
The most eye-catching was the statue at the center—a carved figure of an old man with a sharp nose, narrow face, and mouse-like eyes.
"Master Hui's Yin Immortal position?" As Sun Yan read the words on the celestial plaque, he felt a sudden sense of astonishment.
Gray, Yellow, Fox, and Liu are well-known among the five Immortals in folk beliefs. If one could invite them home, they could also be called Family Guardian Immortals.
Master Hui refers to the Hui Family, but this title of Yin Immortal seems inappropriate, not to mention Sun Yan is in North America, where having a self-proclaimed Yin Immortal named Master Hui be worshipped in the Yin Residence makes its origins murky and questionable.
Just as Sun Yan stared at the statue, it twisted its body, stepping down from the shrine table.
Leaning on a cane, the old man walked leisurely to Sun Yan, his mouse eyes gleaming with a turbid light: "Mortal, do you see me as human or as god?"
As soon as Master Hui asked this question, Sun Yan felt an invisible force enveloping him.
He had a premonition that no matter how he answered, he would end up losing his life and fortunes.
This was not a question but a means to compel someone to remain and offer sacrifices in the Yin Residence.
Sun Yan then recalled his grandfather's 'Mountain Chasing Manual' which mentioned that since ancient times, many rural people would establish shrines for wild animals, plants, and wandering souls, offering worship to them as immortals.
And these costly sacrifices would result not in protection but rather in ruin and destruction.
Such ghostly worship was termed 'impure shrines'—offering to impure shrines not only yielded no benefits but brought calamity.
Zhengyi Celestial Master Dao once proposed 'People should not make impure offerings to other gods, preventing ghosts from consuming food.' Without gods in the temple, offering sacrifices only wastes food and drink.
Therefore, one could destroy the mountains and break the temples, dismantling the temples and vanquish the ghosts.
The Hui Family might be Family Guardian Immortals in the Northeast, but once in a foreign land, in North America, their nature could be ambiguous between good and evil.
Faced with the sinister inquiry from this mysterious Master Hui, Sun Yan, under the General Sun Mask, cold eyes gleaming, suddenly exerted all his strength in a powerful hammer blow smashed down on Master Hui's face.
"To hell with you; why don't you see whether I look like human or god first!"