Chapter 218 The Columbus of the Detective World

Peng Guanhai’s voice grew low, like a string that had been stretched too taut for too long and was finally released.

“Seven years ago, the Public Security Bureau commissioned me to find a Xia Descendant named Lu Tao.”

He said,

“I have that mirror. Finding someone is almost too easy for me. The mirror told me Lu Tao was no longer in the Human World. I reported this finding to the Public Security Bureau as well.”

Peng ZhenNi furrowed her brow.

‘What does finding people have to do with a mirror?’

But she didn’t interrupt.

She knew about this case—it was the one that had made her grandfather start acting so strangely.

Peng Guanhai’s brow furrowed even tighter.

“Later, Lu Tao died. But the time of death was wrong. The medical examiner said Lu Tao had been dead for three days, killed in a car accident. They even found the driver responsible. But that’s impossible! The Public Security Bureau asked for my help a week ago, and Lu Tao was already dead by then! It… it just doesn’t make any logical sense!”

His brow slowly unfurrowed, replaced by a fear that chilled him to the bone.

“Unless.”

His voice dropped even lower.

“Something exists that can make the dead move and maintain their vital signs. It’s like the Ghosts in horror movies that possess human bodies. To verify this hypothesis, I began searching for missing persons, forgoing food and sleep. And just as I thought, Lu Tao wasn’t the only one. I spent a year finding three other missing persons with incorrect times of death.”

“So, ‘Ghosts’ do exist.”

Peng Guanhai said, enunciating each word,

“They absolutely exist.”

Peng ZhenNi’s eyes narrowed slightly.

She could still try her best to understand what her grandfather was saying.

But the moment he said “Ghosts,” she found herself unable to accept such supernatural concepts.

‘How can there be Ghosts in this world?’

‘Grandpa must be possessed. He’s having another episode.’

Peng Guanhai’s breathing quickened.

“If there are Ghosts in this world, then where do they come from? They can’t just appear out of thin air!”

Jiang Chaosheng narrowed his eyes.

“Eternal Hell.”

Peng Guanhai’s eyes instantly lit up.

It was the light of a drowning man grasping a piece of driftwood, the light of a lonely traveler who had finally met a fellow journeyman after seven years.

“Yes, yes! It’s Hell!”

No one in his life would ever believe him.

He didn’t dare tell anyone else the secrets he had discovered.

In seven years, Jiang Chaosheng was the only person who could understand what he was saying.

Peng ZhenNi stared at Jiang Chaosheng in astonishment.

‘Eternal Hell? How come he’s going crazy too?’

Peng Guanhai continued, his words tumbling out faster and faster, like a dam that had finally burst after holding back for too long.

“And that’s not all. I also wondered, where do people go after they die? To verify that Hell truly exists, I started experimenting again. I placed the belongings and hair of dying people on the mirror. When a person is alive, the mirror can show their location. Of course, that’s a given, because the mirror can find any living creature in the Human World. But after a person dies, the mirror’s surface shows a dark red color. I used to think the dark red represented death, but…”

He paused, an almost fanatical light bursting from his eyes.

“What if the dark red represents the color of Hell? The mirror actually found the person—they’re in Hell!”

Jiang Chaosheng’s mind was turning quietly. He said softly, “Keep talking.”

He had been searching for information about Hell.

He never expected that information about Hell would be discovered by a mortal detective.

‘But… what exactly did he discover to warrant a warning from Hell?’

Peng Guanhai swallowed hard.

“If Hell exists in the world, then where is it? And how can mortals enter Hell? So I continued my experiments. I discovered that within one second of a person losing their vital signs, the Homing Mirror shows the deceased is still in the Human World. I wondered, could that one second be the time it takes for a soul to travel to Hell? Later, when I refined the measurement to the millisecond, I found that the time it takes for people from different states and provinces to reach Hell varies.”

His voice quivered with excitement.

“This major discovery made me very excited. The fact that it takes different amounts of time for people from different regions to reach Hell means their distances to Hell are different. The entrance to Hell can be found! I began to travel the world, searching for the location closest to Hell.”

Peng ZhenNi frowned.

“This is utter nonsense! You couldn’t have succeeded! How can there be a Hell in this world? Is this insane quest to find Hell the reason our whole family has had to scrimp and save?”

Peng Guanhai’s eyes suddenly widened, his bloodshot eyeballs turning crimson, like an old beast cornered and with no way out.

“No! Think about how your parents died! It’s because I was getting too close to the truth that they warned me!”

Peng ZhenNi was stunned.

“You’re saying that because you were close to finding Hell, something warned you to stop looking? That’s insane!”

Peng Guanhai didn’t answer.

His hand trembling, he reached into his waistband and took out a neatly folded piece of paper.

It was a map made of linen, its corners frayed from wear.

The creases were dark brown, marks left from being unfolded and refolded countless times.

“This map contains sixty-three locations.”

He handed the map to Jiang Chaosheng.

“These sixty-three locations are the places closest to Hell. Because for the deceased in these sixty-three locations, the travel time to Hell is within a millisecond. And I don’t have the professional equipment to measure units smaller than a millisecond.”

Jiang Chaosheng took the paper.

It was densely covered with place names from all over the world—Meiqi Country, the Philippines, East Sakura, the Xia Kingdom, and so on.

The things of the Extraordinary World were just this wondrous.

A mortal detective, with just a mirror and seven years, had managed to draw a map between the Human World and Hell.

Peng Guanhai let out a long breath, as if a heavy burden he had carried for seven years had finally been lifted.

“Now that I’ve given this to you, I can relax.”

He let out a cold laugh, a sound filled with so much—anger, sorrow, and the ferocity of a little man who had been cornered and was now lashing out.

“They murdered my child, killed my dog, and treated human life like dirt! Did they think a mere mortal like me had no way to get revenge? Wrong. Dead wrong! Like a paparazzi reporter, I will expose everything I know! You want to hide? In your dreams! They must know the wrath of a great detective!”

Peng ZhenNi shook her head.

“You’re truly insane.”

Peng Guanhai looked at his granddaughter, tears streaming down his old face. They flowed along the deep wrinkles of his cheeks, dripped onto his hospital gown, and spread into a small, dark patch.

“Jenny, none of you understand me. You all think I’m crazy!”

His voice was hoarse.

“But I’m right! This is the only way to save your mother! Your mother has a terminal illness. To save her, I have to rely on Supernatural Power. I could only gamble my entire life on the possibility of Hell!”

What he didn’t say was that Hell and the antique shop were the only two supernatural things he knew of.

The items in the antique shop had to be bought with one’s life, and a long life was exactly what his daughter lacked!

Peng ZhenNi didn’t speak, a hint of sadness in her eyes.

Her grandfather’s madness was because of her mother.

She knew. She had always known, which was why she could never bring herself to hate him.

Peng Guanhai suddenly remembered something, and his tone became urgent.

“Right, there’s a notebook in my office. It’s the notes I took while searching for Hell all these years. Sir, you can definitely make use of it!”

He had realized that while Jiang Chaosheng knew about Eternal Hell, he didn’t know where it was and was currently searching for it.

Therefore, he should tell him all the most detailed information he had.

Peng Guanhai pushed his granddaughter, his movements as urgent as a child’s.

“You two, go quickly! It’s in my safe—a cowhide notebook.”

Peng ZhenNi couldn’t refuse her grandfather and looked at Jiang Chaosheng. “Then, Sir, shall I take you?”

Jiang Chaosheng nodded. “Okay.”

On the way, Peng ZhenNi drove.

The streetlights outside the car window flashed by one after another, casting alternating light and shadow across her exotic features.

“Thank you, Sir,” she said suddenly.

Jiang Chaosheng asked, “For what?”

Peng ZhenNi glanced at him, a smile playing on her lips. “You must be an expert in psychology, right?”

‘From the moment Jiang Chaosheng walked in, my grandfather has done whatever he said.

Even considering the respect due to the son of an old friend, Jiang Chaosheng must also know some advanced psychological techniques.

Using psychological suggestions or Hypnosis to make Grandpa hang on his every word.

Also, Jiang Chaosheng had been listening to Grandpa’s ridiculous stories and responding with such seriousness.

Normally, that’s a therapeutic technique used by psychologists.’

“Thank you for playing along with my grandfather.”

Her voice softened.

“Grandpa was very happy today. I could feel it.”

Jiang Chaosheng was silent for a moment.

Outside the car window, the night was as thick as ink that wouldn’t dissolve.

“You shouldn’t think of your grandfather as a madman,”

he began, his tone serious.

“He is a very great man.”

He could imagine it: a Pursuer of the Dao searching the real world for a region that didn’t exist.

And yet, that region was real, just not within the bounds of the Human World.

In a way, it was a magnificent feat, almost the same as Columbus discovering the New World.

Peng ZhenNi chuckled and shook her head.

“Hell? That’s too crazy. I’ll never believe it. And don’t try to humor me the way you humored my grandfather.”

Jiang Chaosheng said no more.

Those things could kill people in the Human World, so it was better for Peng ZhenNi to not believe in Hell, to know less.

‘But… why didn’t those things choose to kill Peng Guanhai directly, instead choosing to harm his family?

A warning?

Why a warning?

If they just killed the main target, wouldn’t that end everything?’

“SCREECH—!”

Peng ZhenNi slammed on the brakes, the tires letting out a piercing shriek as they dragged across the pavement.

Not far ahead, a car driving on the wrong side of the road barreled toward them like an out-of-control beast.

Its headlights were blinding, and the roar of its engine tore through the quiet night.

Peng ZhenNi was a skilled driver.

She jerked the steering wheel hard, her car scraping past the side of the other vehicle in a narrow miss.

The oncoming beast slammed into the roadside greenery with a deafening, muffled THUD.

Peng ZhenNi gasped for air, her chest heaving, still shaken. “What kind of driving is that?!”

She unbuckled her seatbelt and pushed the door open to get out, intending to check if anyone in the other car was injured.

The door of the other car was pushed open from the inside.

An old woman in a hospital gown staggered out.

Her movements were unnatural, like a puppet pulled by strings.

Every turn of her joints had an indescribable sense of wrongness about it.

She had a faint smile on her face.

That smile, on the face of an old woman who had just climbed out of a car wreck, looked wrong no matter how you saw it.

Peng ZhenNi hurried forward.

“Ma’am, are you okay? Should I call an ambulance?”

She walked toward the old woman as she spoke.

A hand suddenly pressed down on her shoulder.

The pressure wasn’t heavy, but it was like a wall, pinning her to the spot.

Peng ZhenNi turned, looking at Jiang Chaosheng with suspicion.

Under the streetlight, his face was half in light and half in shadow, revealing no expression.

“Wh-what is it?”

Jiang Chaosheng glanced down at her.

“Weren’t you just doubting the things your grandfather pursues?” he said.

Peng ZhenNi blinked.

‘The things Grandpa pursues… Hell?’

Jiang Chaosheng turned his gaze to the old woman in the hospital gown, his eyes sizing her up as if looking at an interesting object.

“This is my first time seeing one, too,” he said. “An assassin from Hell.”