"Did you hear the rumors about this place and come over? Judging by your attitude, you don't actually believe what they say, do you? Who believes in this kind of feudal superstition nowadays? It's just a gimmick to fool people."
These were just a few thoughtless young people. Even in this situation, Nie Chongyang and Liang Ping, with their professional ethics, couldn't help but try to persuade them.
Nie Chongyang, standing next to Liang Ping, spoke up, "Whether feudal superstitions are worth believing is another matter. However, we are here on official business, though the specific details are not convenient to disclose."
As he spoke, Nie Chongyang took out the work ID that had fooled Old Master Cui and waved it in front of the young people.
"However, I advise you to leave this place. Regardless of whether these feudal superstitions are true or not, this place is indeed not very safe. You'd best leave."
Nie Chongyang and Liang Ping's work IDs were indeed very effective at fooling people.
Seeing these, who wouldn't feel a bit uneasy? Since they wouldn't disclose their work content, others would inevitably overthink it.
Nie Chongyang's words did cause some wavering among the young people.
Seeing this, Liang Ping added some more force.
He said, "The situation here is difficult to explain at the moment, but it's getting late. You should leave with us first. Whether you decide to return here later is up to you to judge."
"Although, in our personal opinion and professional ethics, we would certainly hope that you would leave, if you truly refuse to go, there's really nothing we can do to stop you. However, if anything happens later, we can't guarantee that we'll be able to take care of it."
"After all, we are only human, not deities. No matter how capable we are, we can't stop someone from courting their own death."
Liang Ping paused for a moment, then continued, "There are no places to stay nearby. Even if you want to find lodging, it would only be with the local residents. You came here to take risks today and were stopped, so I believe you wouldn't want to stay here."
"We are here to find someone to take us to a hotel or inn in town. It will be dark soon. If you want to leave, it's best to leave with us."
However, out of personal consideration and for certain reasons, Liang Ping had other ideas he wanted to implement.
He looked at Ding Yijie and said, "However, you, although you dislike reporting people, given our family relationship, I definitely won't abandon you. So I advise you, no matter what your companions think, you'd better leave with me."
"You wouldn't want me to inform your family, would you?"
Ding Yijie's expression immediately turned very unpleasant, and he glared at Liang Ping with a dark face.
Liang Ping asked again, "Are you coming with me?"
Ding Yijie gritted his teeth and said, "...Yes! Since you've said so, can I really not go?"
It was easy to imagine that Ding Yijie must have kept his risky venture a secret from his family. For something like venturing into a haunted house, regardless of whether the haunted house was truly haunted or not, parents would surely scold and spank their children for being so mischievous and daring to do such things.
In any case, they would absolutely not allow their children to take risks.
When faced with anything that might put their children in danger, most parents in this world tend to err on the side of caution.
Seeing that Liang Ping had managed to persuade the group of reckless young people, Nie Chongyang then said to Old Master Cui and Ah Qing, "I'll leave it to you."
Seeing that Nie Chongyang and Liang Ping had indeed persuaded these young people, Old Master Cui and Ah Qing also breathed a sigh of relief. However, thinking about what Liang Ping had said to scare the young people earlier, they felt a bit uneasy.
Therefore, they couldn't help but inquire further.
Nie Chongyang told them to come here as little as possible, and if they did come, to try not to linger, and then there would basically be no problem.
So there wouldn't be any major issues.
The locals were already wary of this place, so there weren't really any big problems. They were slightly reassured, mainly thinking that if there were any significant dangers, given Nie Chongyang and Liang Ping's profession, they wouldn't completely conceal it and just watch ordinary people like them get into trouble.
Ah Qing listened to what Liang Ping had said earlier, and then Old Master Cui personally explained a few things to Ah Qing. Ah Qing immediately understood why Liang Ping and the other person had come to find him and readily agreed.
After everything was settled, the group finally left the ruined house.
Nie Chongyang and Liang Ping, along with the young people, five of them in total, making seven people. Fortunately, Ah Qing drove a thin-skinned Jinbei van back to the village, which could barely fit them all.
The young people couldn't help but complain a bit, but there was nothing they could do.
They had already chickened out, and now that they were following along, they had no other options for the time being.
They couldn't possibly find a villager's house to stay in the village.
Not to mention the poor lodging conditions in the village, but also, the villagers seemed to dislike people trespassing in the ruined house. Once they knew about their situation, they would inevitably gossip.
With their stubborn temperaments, if they argued with people, who knew what would happen.
They did have some self-awareness, and they weren't entirely unreasonable.
On the way to town, because Liang Ping and Ding Yijie had established a family connection, Ding Yijie sat with Liang Ping. Nie Chongyang, Liang Ping, and Ding Yijie were squeezed into the back row.
Liang Ping was sandwiched between Nie Chongyang and Ding Yijie.
It also took some time to get to town. It was boring in the car. Electronic products were scarce in those years, so even with a large group of young people in the car, they couldn't all be staring at their phones. Ding Yijie, with nothing to do, started a conversation with Liang Ping.
Although Liang Ping had scared and threatened him earlier, it seemed to be for his own good. Ding Yijie was unhappy for a while, but he wasn't an ungrateful person.
He didn't hold a grudge against Liang Ping.
After sitting for a while, Ding Yijie couldn't help but poke Liang Ping a few times.
Liang Ping turned his head and looked at him, signaling with his eyes, asking what was wrong.
It was already difficult enough for their group to squeeze into this thin-skinned Jinbei van, and even moving a little inside was difficult. The road conditions in the village were not very good, so even speaking a few words felt strenuous.
Ding Yijie asked Liang Ping, "You had IDs earlier, so you can't say you're here on official business. Can you tell us what you do?"
Liang Ping blinked, then pointed to his captain and introduced, "Captain of the Criminal Investigation Brigade. I'm his assistant."
The space in the car was so small that at least the young people in the back heard Liang Ping clearly and couldn't help but swallow.
"So you guys..."
Liang Ping gave a smile, "Don't overthink it. Ask less of what you shouldn't."
Ding Yijie said, "How can I resist that? Curiosity is inherent in everyone! Just tell me secretly, that haunted house, is it not about feudal superstition, but a murder case?!"
Nie Chongyang, standing beside them, chuckled and said, "I told you not to overthink it. But you really should go there less. Even if there's nothing there originally, your visit might create something."
The young people were all frightened and still felt lingering fear.
Liang Ping finally sighed and said, "At such a young age, you don't consider the consequences of your actions. You don't think about what would happen to your families if something were to happen to you at a place that might be truly dangerous."
"Didn't you inquire more about what happened here before you came?"
"A young couple had an accident here. Their families are sending their children off to the afterlife before their time. If something like that happened to you, could you really bear the consequences?"
Ding Yijie scratched his head and said, "We were too careless this time. Is it really that dangerous?"
"In this day and age, what kind of rumors aren't out there? Those haunted houses are basically fake, fabricated lies by others just to lure people in, and then there's nothing inside.
"We thought this place was fake too..."
Liang Ping admonished Ding Yijie, "If people really died, could it still be fake? If you investigated carefully, wouldn't you find police reports?"
Ding Yijie said sheepishly, "We just came to debunk it, to prove that those feudal superstitions don't exist."
Nie Chongyang and Liang Ping exchanged glances.
Then they knew how to scare these young people, and by keeping these young people with them and under their watch, they wouldn't be able to get into any more trouble.
Just as Ye Tiancheng and the others could change Lin Yanqin's fate, they themselves might also be able to change the fate of these young people by following suit.
After all, this was not the real world, and reality could not be changed.
But at least here, they couldn't let themselves have regrets.
Liang Ping finally said to the young people, "As the ancient saying goes, 'Three feet above your head, there are deities.' Whether these matters of ghosts and spirits are real or fake, they are ultimately the deceased. We should always have reverence, and maintaining a reverent heart is very important."
"If you lose this reverent heart, that is the beginning of a truly terrifying future."
After ending this topic, Nie Chongyang also discussed it with Liang Ping in the car.
Because some keywords would be blurred, they were not afraid to discuss these matters in front of the young people.
Nie Chongyang said, "It's strange. When we were organizing the case files before, how come we didn't seem to see any related cases for this place? Given how much it's talked about and that there were even deaths, we shouldn't have found no information at all."
Hearing Nie Chongyang's question, Liang Ping pondered for a moment.
He thought of a possibility.
Liang Ping said, "I had some doubts before, but considering the time constraint, and that we didn't see any case files for a place like this, it's possible that this case file was screened out before we saw it."
When Nie Chongyang and the others had just established the Special Operations Team, they had compiled case files of various bizarre and eerie events across the country, including those that were solved and those that were not, all of which were uniformly screened for them to handle.
Since they knew there were special circumstances, unsolved cases also represented new directions for solutions.
And they also needed to know if there were any matters that ordinary people didn't know where to seek help for, so that they could handle them and not just let them go.
Regardless of any aspect of safety, given their profession, it was very necessary for them to protect ordinary people.
However, due to the sheer volume of case files, screening them would definitely be difficult.
Therefore, they had screening standards and also needed to prioritize more urgent matters.
So, if such a situation occurred, there were basically only a few possibilities: either the case file had been screened out long ago, or it was indicated in the case file that the matter had already been resolved.