Chapter 143: A Tangled Truth

Before Cui Yue could process his thoughts, he saw Huang Juan casually toss her knife aside. Using the blood stained on her finger, she drew a circle on the cement floor enclosing four arrows.

Upon seeing that symbol, Cui Yue turned pale with shock.

Wasn't this the exact same bizarre symbol branded onto Liu Mengran's body that night?

How could this be? Why would Huang Juan draw such a symbol?

Could it be that her death...

While Cui Yue was still hesitating, Huang Juan finished drawing the symbol, stood up unsteadily, and let out a few laughs. Suddenly, her body went limp, as if she had abruptly lost consciousness, and she collapsed directly onto the idling machine in front of her.

Huang Juan's face landed squarely, jamming right into the rapidly rotating gears of the machine.

A crisp, muffled thud echoed.

It produced a teeth-grating sound.

Blood splattered all over the machine. In an instant, her entire face was mangled beyond recognition by the gears, leaving a horrifying, bloody cavity where her nose had been.

Huang Juan's long hair was also sucked into the machinery. Because the gears were jammed, the previously idling machine finally ground to a halt.

Huang Juan slumped motionless over the machine. Blood dripped down her neck, gathering into an increasingly large pool, until it finally formed a massive puddle that completely swallowed the bizarre symbol, leaving not a trace behind.

The patch of black fog also gradually dissipated, vanishing without a trace shortly after.

At this moment, Cui Yue had no idea what was going on. Why was this dream so vivid? It felt as if that night's events were simply being replayed.

Yet, why would this appear in his dream?

Cui Yue hurriedly pushed the door open and rushed inside, reaching out to pull Huang Juan off the shredding machine.

However, the moment his hand touched Huang Juan's corpse, a bizarre phenomenon occurred—his fingers slid right through her without any physical contact. The corpse before his eyes transformed into an illusory shadow, only to return to its solid appearance a moment later.

"How can this be? Is it just because I'm dreaming?"

Cui Yue raised his hand to look at his own palm, utterly perplexed.

Suddenly, Cui Yue remembered drinking with Zhang Hu in the guardroom that night, going out to use the restroom after drinking too much, and catching a glimpse of Huang Juan's ghost.

By that time, the accident involving Huang Juan had already occurred during his very first night shift.

Cui Yue's attention was drawn back to the large pool of blood on the floor and the fruit knife. Later on, he had heard that Huang Juan's case was never officially classified as murder or suicide. Therefore, the crime scene could not possibly have left behind that weapon!

"Does that mean someone else was behind this, someone who cleaned up the traces and took away the fruit knife after the incident?"

Who on earth could it be?

Cui Yue suddenly wondered if waiting here might allow him to encounter the person behind the scenes.

Just as Cui Yue hesitated whether to remain in the same room as Huang Juan's corpse, a flash of white light blinded his eyes, the surrounding scenery shifted, and the deafening noise of the machinery vanished entirely.

The scene transformed. Behind the wall of the factory entrance guardroom, a skinny youth stood by a tree, looking around anxiously. Cui Yue took a close look, and his heart skipped a beat—wasn't that himself?

*Could it be?* Cui Yue thought with a sinking heart. The moment he turned his head, he saw a woman covered in blood, her eyes blazing with intense resentment, lunging straight at him!

Caught completely off guard, Cui Yue hurriedly reached out to dodge and instinctively closed his eyes.

Yet, that ghost passed right through Cui Yue's body and lunged toward the skinny youth instead...

"Ah!"

With a loud gasp, Cui Yue startled himself awake, his entire body drenched in sweat.

The ceiling remained the familiar ceiling, and the mottled patches on the wall were completely unchanged.

The factory, the machinery, Huang Juan—all of them had vanished without a trace!

Cui Yue breathed heavily, rubbing his eyes. The furnishings in the room were completely normal.

"Why would I have such a dream?"

Why did Huang Juan's death involve that symbol? And right, that fruit knife hadn't been at the crime scene at all.

What on earth was wrong with him? Why would he have such bizarre and surreal dreams?

Could there be a hidden truth behind Huang Juan's death? Was what he saw in his dream the actual process of the crime?

Using a dream as evidence was something Cui Yue had never even heard of before. Perhaps the symbol had left too deep an impression on him, causing his subconscious to connect the two events.

A faint gleam of light in the corner flickered unsteadily, exuding an exceptionally eerie vibe.

Taking a deep breath, Cui Yue quietly slipped out of bed and crept toward it on tiptoe.

With a sudden lunge, he slapped his hand down over the faint light, casting caution to the wind, and yanked it out!

When Cui Yue pulled it out for a closer look, he felt utterly foolish. The thing he had grabbed was merely an old piece of clothing he hadn't gotten around to washing.

The faint light had also disappeared. Cui Yue hurriedly felt around the garment in search of anything unusual.

"Clink!"

Suddenly, an object rolled out from the inner pocket of the clothing and dropped onto the floor.

The sudden sound startled Cui Yue. He hastily picked it up, cradled it in his palm, and examined it closely.

A beast-head jade pendant lay quietly in Cui Yue's hand. It felt warm and silky to the touch, yet it emitted a faint, eerie glow in the dark room.

"Ah!"

Cui Yue gasped once more, his hand shaking so violently that the pendant dropped back onto the bed.

His face turned ashen as he stared at the jade pendant, speechless for a long time, his mouth hanging open in lingering shock.

"This—isn't this Wei Luoyang's jade pendant? How did it end up with me? I clearly..."

Cui Yue carefully recalled the details of that day. He had indeed buried the iron chest and the jade pendant together in front of the grave.

So how could this jade pendant be in his hands now?

Cui Yue looked again at the outerwear scattered on the floor. That was right; this was the exact outfit he had worn to Yunshan Village, still unwashed.

At this thought, his scalp tingled and a layer of cold sweat broke out across his back.

The beast-head jade pendant lay on the bed. Its beastly eyes lacked the dignified sharpness of other mythical creatures; instead, they carried an inescapable hint of malevolence no matter how one looked at them.

"Cui Yue, what's wrong?"

Aunt Li's anxious voice came from outside the room.

"Mom, Mom, it's nothing! Just had a nightmare. I'm fine, go back to sleep."

"Are you really okay?"

"I'm fine, fine, don't worry. I still have to go to work tomorrow morning."

Cui Yue forced a yawn to brush it off.

Aunt Li pressed her ear against the door to listen for a moment longer, still uneasy. With a worried sigh, she muttered,

"This child, why has he been having nightmares so often lately?"

With that, she shook her head and returned to her bedroom.

Cui Yue's mind was a tangled mess. Staring at the beast-head jade pendant, he pondered repeatedly, certain that he had indeed buried it in the grave.

As for how this thing had traveled here and attached itself to him, he had not the faintest clue.

Cui Yue snatched up the beast-head jade pendant, intending to throw it out the window, but his hand hesitated mid-air.

How this thing came to be required further investigation; he would figure it out later. If this item truly proved to be inauspicious, throwing it away carelessly might lead someone else to pick it up, and wouldn't that cause disaster?

If misfortune is meant to be, there is no escaping it; if it is not, there is nothing to fear!

How much worse could his situation possibly get anyway?

He was already neck-deep in debt and had nothing left to worry about—whatever tricks this thing had, it could bring them all on.