We got into Cheng Xiaojuan's Range Rover, Zheng Bingbing and I. We drove over the mountains in the middle of the peninsula to the coast on the other side. From the high ground, it looked like a bay of ordinary shape.
"This doesn't look like Old Turtle's Bay either? Where did the name come from?" I asked Cheng Xiaojuan.
"I don't know either, maybe this place used to be famous for turtles? Anyway, it doesn't produce them anymore, but it's rich in sea cucumbers. I'll give you some top-quality ones later to replenish your energy," Cheng Xiaojuan said with a smile. She made a promise before the task was even done, which was proper etiquette.
We drove down into the bay, not the turtle, but the bay, along the curved coastal avenue. The shore of the avenue was almost entirely villa areas. It's not that there were many villa areas here; I noticed that the whole Lushun City had many villa areas, and they looked quite old. Perhaps it was due to the strong economic foundation here, with a high proportion of wealthy people.
Soon, we arrived at a newly developed European-style villa area. The entrance was quite grand, imitating the style of the Arc de Triomphe, about six or seven stories high. I estimated that the cost of such a gatehouse alone would be several million. No wonder they were worried about losses; the investment was too large.
However, there was only a gatehouse and no guards. Cheng Xiaojuan said that originally, the villa area had recruited a team of retired soldiers as security, and they were quite spirited. But after the haunting incidents, the security team all fled one after another, and the property management company also ran away. No one took over, and this place became an abandoned community.
"Then what about the owners who bought houses here before?" Zheng Bingbing asked. "They can't possibly not come home, can they?"
"People who can afford to buy houses here, how could they have only one home?" I chuckled. Villas, unless they are primary residences, are places where wealthy people go for weekend or holiday getaways. Few people live in villas year-round, unless they are of a well-off family or middle class who can just afford to upgrade their lives and consider a villa their only home.
However, looking at the conditions here, the entry barrier was clearly too high. A villa would cost at least thirty million yuan to start, which was not affordable for ordinary middle-class families.
As we entered the villa area, I immediately activated my sight technique. Indeed, within the entire area, there were only the three of us living people. There were quite a few ghosts, scattered randomly in various places. They didn't exist in units of villas; some were inside villas, some outside, some in the plaza, and two were on the outer perimeter of the villa walls.
Just as the Range Rover was about to run into a ghost, I told Cheng Xiaojuan to stop, otherwise, the ghost would have passed through her driver's side.
Cheng Xiaojuan braked and asked me nervously if I saw anything.
I didn't say anything, afraid of scaring her. After getting out of the car, I walked up to the ghost. It was a female ghost, wearing a white nightgown, with long, flowing hair and a pale complexion. She should be a ghost who drowned. All ghosts have very low activity during the day, especially under strong sunlight. I had witnessed this in Heishan Fort before, so she didn't pay attention to me, and might not have even noticed my presence. She was just standing there as if sleeping.
I didn't disturb her either. I put my hands on my hips and looked towards the mountain peak behind the villa, then pretended to look at the surrounding terrain.
"Xiaojuan, does this piece of land have any history?" I asked. "Did anyone tell you anything when you bought the land?"
"No, they just said it was the last large-scale, developable plot of land in Old Turtle's Bay," Cheng Xiaojuan said. "Old Wu, did you find anything?"
She actually called me Old Wu. Alright, it seems to be a common way of addressing people in official circles.
I nodded. "If I'm not mistaken, this used to be a graveyard."
Graveyards have no aura, and I didn't see any "graves." I only deduced it from the positions of these dozens of ghostly figures. Their distribution was chaotic if considered in order, but if we imagined them as grave mounds, it would make sense.
"A typical iteratively developed mass grave," I said.
"What do you mean by an iteratively developed mass grave?" Zheng Bingbing asked.
I frowned and looked at her. "Shouldn't you be asking this as a Yin Messenger? Isn't this your specialty?"
But in fact, this was a term I invented myself.
"It means that new graves are built on top of old ones, and it has gone through many generations, forming such a chaotic situation. Some graves even overlap."
"Could it be another ancient massacre site?" Zheng Bingbing reminded me. Heishan Fort was like that, a village where local bandits had massacred people, which created such great resentment.
This is Lushun, so it's possible!