I hesitated, and the ghost infant in Hua Gu’s arms began to wail. This was the first time it had cried since attaching itself to us.

“Oh, la la, oh la la… What’s wrong, little treasure?” Hua Gu rocked back and forth while soothing the infant. The ghost baby swung in her embrace like it was on a swing, a far cry from its treatment by Wang Jue. In no time, it was coaxed into smiling widely, ceasing its fussing.

“It’s getting late; perhaps you two should rest now, and we can discuss what to do tomorrow,” Hua Gu suggested. Wang Jue and I wholeheartedly agreed. Although time seemed to flow strangely in the Sea of the Dead, the sheer volume of events that had transpired left us utterly drained.

So, Wang Jue and I took the guest room, while Hua Gu and Ah Li took the master bedroom to rest with the ghost infant.

The night passed uneventfully; the moment my head hit the pillow, I fell into a deep sleep. When I opened my eyes, the sky was already bright. I rolled over to check the other side of the bed; Wang Jue was long gone, already up and getting ready.

I shuffled into the living room in my slippers. Breakfast was laid out on the table, accompanied by a note left by Hua Gu, stating essentially that she and Ah Li had gone out to buy groceries and told us to rest well at home, assuring us they’d be back soon.

Looking at the note, a question mark suddenly popped into my mind: “Wang Jue, did you see Hua Gu and Ah Li this morning?”

“No, only this note Hua Gu left on the table.”

“How did Hua Gu write a note while holding the ghost infant? Who made breakfast? How can she go grocery shopping with two children?” I rattled off three questions in quick succession, a strange excitement bubbling up inside me. My intuition screamed that this was a chance to finally shake off the little murderer that was the ghost infant.

“I don’t know. When I got up to use the washroom last night, I happened to see Hua Gu coming out for a drink of water, but she wasn’t holding the infant. I thought that was odd, too!”

We then analyzed the situation together, realizing that the ghost infant’s behavior in Hua Gu’s arms last night was indistinguishable from that of a normal baby, lacking that desperate clinging attachment it usually displayed! This current setup was perfect; we absolutely had to seize this opportunity to ditch the infant.

Wang Jue had a flash of inspiration and said, “Why don’t we just leave them here and head to Silent Mountain by ourselves?”

He had finally voiced the exact thought I had been harboring. If we had waited for them to return, the infant would undoubtedly have latched onto one of us, refusing to let go before we could leave for Silent Mountain. But if we left now, unable to stop us, he would have no choice but to obediently stay with Hua Gu, acting like an ordinary baby.

Okay, decision made, let’s go! Wang Jue left two thousand yuan on the table with a note explaining that we had left. We packed two maps, the car keys, and some basic hiking gear into our backpacks, each taking one, and sped out of the city limits.

Our destination was the school situated between the four mountains. Wang Jue theorized that if that location had genuinely been a mountain once, we might be able to ask residents of nearby villages about its history. If not, we would use the process of elimination to find the next suitable location.

After leaving the city, the car quickly carried us into this school nestled deep in a mountain ravine. Honestly, the person who decided to build a school in this remote spot—cut off from any village on either side—must have been utterly brainless. There wasn't a hospital or even a small town nearby; all the public amenities that should have accompanied a school were missing. The single, isolated building stood alone in the hollow of the mountain, looking for all the world like a haunted ruin.