Mysterious Resurrection: The Peddler

Chapter 22 Walking Backwards

"First of all, no matter if it's a Tianzi or Dizi room, each room can only be occupied for twelve hours. After twelve hours, everyone in the room must leave. It's nine o'clock in the evening now, which means you have to leave at nine o'clock tomorrow morning."

"Secondly, Taiping Inn does not allow visiting other guests. You can only stay in the assigned rooms. Of course, if you have the guts to knock on the doors of other guest rooms, I won't stop you, but I can't say what the consequences will be."

"Finally, the windows in the room cannot be opened after twelve o'clock. Boss, I can't guarantee that other guests will not sneak in through the windows and steal things."

The old man looked mysterious, but Luo Qin and the other three ordinary people didn't really listen. They just felt that they were extremely tired physically and mentally since they entered the inn, and they wanted to fall asleep right there. Even Cao Yang felt a little sleepy, but he suppressed it.

"What the boss said is the rules of this inn. Some of these rules are true, and some are false. Even if they are false, they at least provide a direction."

Cao Yang silently memorized these rules in his mind.

"That's about it. Here's the key. Keep it safe. Otherwise, you'll be trapped in the inn forever, and I, the boss, can't save you."

As he spoke, the boss took out a key from the counter and handed it to Cao Yang. He had already seen that Cao Yang was the leader among the four people in front of him.

Cao Yang took the key carefully. The key was not made of metal, but grayish white, and seemed to be made of some kind of bone. It felt cold and icy when he touched it, and there was a faint rotten smell on it, like the smell of meat that had been left for a long time and gone bad.

The old man gave his final instructions and then sat back in the armchair, then dozed off on the counter. Behind him was an old wooden door that was still intact.

"Follow me and do what the boss asks you to do. Open your eyes when I tell you to. Don't blame me if you die."

Cao Yang said coldly.

"Go through the door behind me, walk backwards with your eyes closed, and open your eyes when you hit the wall. You will be in your room. I wish you all a good sleep tonight."

The snoring sound was very strange, and it could last for one or two minutes in one breath. If it were a normal person, he would have suffocated to death long ago. But the owner of the snoring seemed to be unaffected and continued to snore loudly. The sound seemed to be getting louder and louder, and Cao Yang couldn't help but frown.

At first, there was a dead silence around them. The few people who closed their eyes felt that the dull oppressive feeling was almost suffocating. However, this dead silence did not last long, and soon a strange snoring sound was heard around them.

Cao Yang opened the wooden door, and behind it was a dark and endless path. Then, Cao Yang turned around, turned his back to the path and began to walk backwards. Luo Qin was the second one, as if she could only feel a little safe by sticking close to Cao Yang. Chen Zongtao and Chang Yiming followed closely behind.

This path seemed to be a dirt road. The people walked backwards with almost no sound of footsteps, except for a slight feeling of sinking occasionally.

"Squeak~"

Not only that, the snoring contained a supernatural power. The four people with their eyes closed felt inexplicably tired and sleepy, as if they were about to fall into a deep sleep in the next second. As a ghost rider, Cao Yang could still barely resist, but the three ordinary people in front of him had already yawned, and it was difficult to resist the erosion of the supernatural snoring.

The path under our feet seemed to have no end. The four of us walked backwards for five or six minutes and could still vaguely hear the snoring.

After a few minutes, the snoring completely disappeared, replaced by low roars and strange cries, as if a wild animal was howling. The sound was sometimes louder and sometimes smaller, and at its loudest, it was so loud that it could pierce the eardrums. However, this deafening sound also made the drowsy people regain some clarity, but Cao Yang soon realized something was wrong. "Wait, Chang Yiming is gone."

Chen Zongtao said with a trembling voice, Chang Yiming was in front of him, and he was originally walking backwards holding the corner of Chang Yiming's clothes, but just now the corner of the clothes was pulled off by Chen Zongtao. It's not that he used much strength, but a strange force suddenly came from Chang Yiming's body, which caused the corner of the clothes to be torn.

"Don't worry about him. If one person's death can bring temporary peace to the three of us, I think it's worth it."

Cao Yang said in a low voice. They had been walking for nearly ten minutes. An ordinary inn would not have such a large space. Now Cao Yang was basically sure that the old man was undoubtedly Boss Liu.

Luo Qin didn't say anything, but just kept backing away with his eyes tightly closed.

The strange roar also disappeared, and violent banging sounds began to be heard all around, as if the residents of a certain guest room were banging on the doors and windows like crazy. The sound lasted for less than a minute before disappearing.

"stop."

Suddenly, Cao Yang felt his back hit a hard and cold wall. The wall seemed to appear suddenly. It had not appeared even after he had walked for at least one kilometer, but now it appeared.

Cao Yang reached out his hand and touched back. It was a cold flat surface, which was definitely a wall.

"You can open your eyes."

Only after hearing Cao Yang's voice did Chen Zongtao and Luo Qin dare to open their eyes.

In front of me was a double-leaf wooden door with a retro style. On the lintel hung a dark yellow plaque with "Room 9, Dizi" written on it, but the plaque seemed to have been chopped off, almost splitting the entire plaque in half. It was no longer as dark as the passage just now, but there was a little light, not bright enough, but enough to see the words on the plaque clearly.

Through the door, you can vaguely see a few candles burning in the room.

Cao Yang walked forward, used the bone key to open the door lock that had long been rusted, pushed the door open and walked in. Luo Qin and the others followed him into the room, and nothing unexpected happened.

The room was well lit and had a simple layout, with a small bed, a table and two chairs. But there was a memorial tablet on the table, with two candles placed on either side of it.

Cao Yang's eyes fell on the memorial tablet, but he found that the photo on the memorial tablet was actually himself! There was also a small incense burner in front of the memorial tablet, with three incense sticks in it, but only one was burning, and it seemed that it had burned about one-eighth of its length.

"In ancient times, incense was used not only for sacrifices, but also for timekeeping. Boss Liu said that one can only stay in a room for twelve hours, so could these three incense sticks be a tool for calculating time?"

For safety reasons, Cao Yang did not change the original layout of the room at will. He just asked Luo Qin and Chen Zongtao to rest first, while he himself prepared to keep watch.

(End of this chapter)