2: Echoes under the blood-red setting sun

Lin Feng snapped his eyes open and found himself standing in the courtyard of the Zheng Family Old Residence.

But the courtyard before him was a world away from the ruins he had just seen.

Here, there were pavilions and terraces, with carved beams and painted pillars, clean and elegant.

Several servants dressed in Ming Dynasty attire hurried past him with their heads bowed, yet they passed right through his body as if they couldn't see him.

Lin Feng looked down at his hands.

They were translucent, like a patch of thin mist.

"Am I... soul-transmigrated?"

No, this felt more like being an... observer, unperceivable by this world.

His gaze was instantly drawn to a figure under the corridor.

It was a middle-aged man in a navy blue scholar's robe, with a refined and lean temperament, standing under the eaves with his hands behind his back, fiddling with a jade pendant.

It was the very "ding lou jade pendant" he had just dug up!

Just then, an old man who looked like a housekeeper came running, crawling and stumbling, his face covered in blood, tears, and despair.

"Master! The capital... the capital has fallen!"

The housekeeper's voice was as hoarse as a broken bellows.

"The Emperor... has hanged himself on Meishan!"

With a "clatter."

The jade pendant in the middle-aged man's hand fell onto the bluestone floor. His body swayed violently, his face turned pale, and he kept muttering:

"It's over... the Great Ming... is over..."

Lin Feng's heart felt as if it were being squeezed by a giant hand.

He understood.

This wasn't some VR movie; this was soul-transmigration into the scene of a massive historical tragedy!

The images before him began to accelerate and flash back frantically.

The once-bustling Zheng Manor became completely desolate, and the atmosphere in the house grew more oppressive by the day.

That middle-aged man, the head of the Zheng family, Zheng Wenzhao, spent all day locked in his study, sitting silently before the ancestral tablets.

One night.

Messy hoofbeats and beast-like shouts came from outside the manor!

"Bang!"

A group of Qing soldiers with "Money-rat tail" hairstyles kicked open the gate and swarmed into the courtyard like locusts! They grabbed everything they saw and dragged away any woman they found.

Zheng Wenzhao rushed out with bloodshot eyes, trying to stop them with the moral integrity of a scholar.

"Stop! You barbarians!"

The response he got was a rifle butt slammed hard against his forehead!

"Bah! The country is gone, and you still dare to put on airs before your grandpa?" a Qing soldier leader said with utter disdain.

Lin Feng watched helplessly, his chest tightening until he couldn't breathe. He wanted to roar, but no sound came out; he wanted to charge forward, but his body passed straight through those people.

He could do nothing.

Once the Qing soldiers had looted enough and retreated, the vast Zheng Manor was left in a shambles.

Zheng Wenzhao's wife, unable to bear the humiliation, hanged herself that night. His young daughter, still a toddler, was trampled to death in the chaos.

The successive blows completely shattered the heart of this Ming scholar, but they also ignited the final spark of ferocity in his blood.

His eyes became hollow, yet they held a chilling madness.

Another dusk came, the sunset as red as blood.

Zheng Wenzhao changed into a brand-new crimson official robe and called the remaining members of the household to the main hall.

His son, daughter-in-law, and several loyal old servants.

"The Great Ming has fallen; our rivers and mountains are lost."

Zheng Wenzhao's voice was devoid of emotion, yet it was more resonant than clashing metal.

"My Zheng family has received imperial favor for generations. As subjects of the Great Ming, how can we bow to the Tartars and live ignobly in this world?"

He slowly drew a short blade from his sleeve.

The blade glinted coldly in the setting sun.

"Rather than wandering outside and being humiliated by barbarians, it is better... for our whole family to meet the national calamity together. When we reach the Yellow Springs, we shall be loyal souls of our Great Ming once more!"

"Father! You've gone mad!" his son let out a terrified scream.

But it was all too late.

*Puchi—*

Blood splattered.

Lin Feng closed his eyes in pain.

But the screams of women and the cries of children, mingled with Zheng Wenzhao's blood-weeping laughter, hammered into his soul one by one.

After an unknown amount of time, all sounds ceased.

The entire manor was as silent as death.

Lin Feng opened his eyes stiffly.

Zheng Wenzhao, carrying the dripping blade, walked step by step to the center of the courtyard. He dug a hole and buried the "ding lou jade pendant," now stained with his family's blood.

"Ding lou, ding lou... The nation is about to collapse; how can it be stabilized?"

He let out a mournful cry to the heavens, then raised the short blade, bowed thrice and kowtowed nine times toward the north, and finally slashed his own throat.

Warm blood stained the ground beneath his feet.

This was the truth behind this "haunted house."

There were no ghosts or monsters, only the fierce martyrdom of a scholar when a dynasty collapsed, and a tragic song branded into the depths of time and space!

This wasn't some sensational ghost story!

This was a bloody national tragedy, so heavy it made it impossible to breathe!

[Ding! Historical Echo has ended.]

The cold mechanical voice abruptly pulled Lin Feng back from that blood-colored history into reality.

He sat up abruptly, gasping for air like a drowning man, drenched in sweat.

"Brother Feng! Brother Feng, wake up! Holy crap, you scared the hell out of me!"

Wang Dalong's fat face, filled with anxiety, wobbled before him.

It took a few seconds for Lin Feng's vision to focus. He heard Wang Dalong's voice and the noisy comments in the livestream chat.

He slowly opened his palm.

The "ding lou jade pendant" lay there quietly. The jade was still warm and smooth, but in Lin Feng's eyes, it felt as heavy as Mount Tai.

This was no longer just a priceless ancient jade.

On its back, it carried the will of a family to die for their country, engraved with the unyielding spirit of a nation.

He couldn't forget Zheng Wenzhao's final mournful cry, nor those lives that fell in pools of blood for the sake of their integrity.

He could not, and did not deserve to, treat this piece of history as a trophy for changing his own fate.

"Fatty..."

When Lin Feng spoke, his voice was incredibly hoarse.

"Turn off the livestream. We... call the police, and then contact the Cultural Relics Bureau."

Wang Dalong was stunned: "What the hell? Brother Feng, have you lost your mind? This thing! It's worth at least six figures! That's our rent for the rest of our lives!"

"I'll figure something out about the rent." Lin Feng interrupted him directly, looking up with a determination in his eyes that felt foreign to Wang Dalong. "This thing... it should go where it belongs."

Looking at the jade pendant in his hand, Lin Feng seemed to see that blood-red sunset again, and Zheng Wenzhao's final resolve.

He suddenly felt as if a great weight had been lifted from his heart.

He was at peace.

Some things really are much more important than money.

At this moment, the obsession born from poverty in Lin Feng's heart shattered with a "crack."

Wang Dalong's mouth hung open; his brain had stalled.

Looking at Lin Feng, he felt this was even more absurd than seeing a ghost earlier.

Was this still the socially anxious, withdrawn, shut-in Brother Feng he knew?