Original Suspense Novel: "Wizard Manor" EP59

Finally, returning to nothingness. Chen Mo put down the booklet. Lao Zhou hadn't left the Fog Valley for sixteen years. He moved to a small town at the foot of Nantou Mountain, less than thirty kilometers from here. He hadn't gone anywhere after retiring. He couldn't. But he was here now. In Snow Velvet Manor. Above the door. Chen Mo stood up, rushed out of the secret room, passed through the passage, and climbed the stone steps. He didn't even glance at Zhang Zhenyu's corpse as he ran through the cellar, his footsteps echoing in the hall as everyone looked up at him. "Lao Zhou!" he shouted. But Lao Zhou wasn't in the hall. "Where did he go?" Chen Mo's voice was urgent. Fang Guodong pointed towards the main door. "He just went out. Said he was going to check the vents in the backyard, there might be an external passage there." Chen Mo's heart clenched. He rushed to the main door, pushed open the heavy panel, and the blizzard poured in, blurring his vision. He saw Lao Zhou's footprints in the snow. They led all the way to the rock face behind the manor, but the footprints disappeared before the rock face—Lao Zhou had entered some kind of entrance, a crack leading into the mountain that Chen Mo had never discovered. Chen Mo stepped on the snow and chased after him. The wind cut his face like a knife. He bent down and squeezed into the crack. Inside was a natural cave, narrow but passable. A thin layer of ice coated the cave walls, and the air was piercingly cold. After walking for about five minutes, the cave suddenly widened, forming a natural cavern about the size of a basketball court. A very thin crack at the top of the cave let in daylight, illuminating the scene in the center. (To be continued)