When Li Yi boarded the flight to the United States, the window seat allowed him to clearly see the familiar land outside the window gradually disappearing. The outline of the city under his feet blurred little by little, and the mountains and rivers turned into winding lines until they completely disappeared under the sea of clouds. His hands unconsciously clenched the armrests, his knuckles turned white, and his heart was intertwined with uneasiness about the unknown road ahead, like a lonely boat in the vast ocean, not knowing where to sail to. However, at the same time, an irrepressible excitement also quietly surged in his heart, like an explorer who was about to embark on a mysterious adventure, about to step into a completely unfamiliar and challenging field. He knew that when he went to the United States, he would rely on the metaphysical power that he had devoted himself to studying since childhood, but is now controversial in the modern era of technology supremacy. This power, like a long-forgotten mysterious key, can it unlock those hidden mysteries shrouded in the light of science? He was full of expectations and a little hesitant.
The plane landed smoothly in a foreign land. Before Li Yi could fully recover from the fatigue of the long flight and the reverie of the future, he was quickly picked up by the FBI car that had been waiting for a long time. Looking through the car window, looking at the street scene passing by outside the car window, the towering and cold buildings rose from the ground and reached the sky, like giants made of steel and glass, exuding a majestic and repellent atmosphere. Entering the FBI headquarters, it was even more busy. The hurried agents shuttled through various passages with serious faces and their eyes revealed concentration and coldness, as if the air around them was almost frozen by the tension.
In a spacious and bright conference room filled with a solemn atmosphere, several FBI executives had already sat upright and waited for a long time. Their eyes revealed deep anxiety and helplessness, as if they were tightly bound by invisible shackles. When they saw Li Yi, a young oriental face, their tense expressions, as if facing a great enemy, were slightly relieved, as if they had finally caught a faint ray of hope after groping in the dark for a long time.
"Mr. Li, thank you very much for coming all the way here." A senior agent named Thompson was the first to break the silence. He stood up and walked towards Li Yi with a steady pace. His voice was low and hoarse, as if carrying the fatigue and anxiety of these days, "We are really exhausted by these cases. Conventional investigation methods are completely useless. It's like being trapped in a fog and can't find a way out."
As he said, Thompson held up a thick stack of files with both hands and pushed them in front of Li Yi with a solemn look. Li Yi gently flipped it open, and the first case that caught his eye made him frown slightly. It was an old and gloomy manor, located in a remote place far away from the hustle and bustle of the city, surrounded by dense and deep woods, like a mysterious corner forgotten by time. It is said that every full moon night, when the silvery moonlight pours like water on every inch of the manor, there will be bursts of strange crying in the manor. The crying is sometimes shrill, breaking the silent night sky; sometimes it is sad, like complaining and crying, echoing between the empty rooms and long corridors, making people creepy.
Whenever the residents living nearby talk about this, they will show a look of fear on their faces. They described vividly that they had seen vague figures wandering in the manor many times. Those figures are like ghosts, with erratic figures, sometimes flashing in front of the window, and sometimes disappearing in the corner of the wall. But once someone dares to approach, those figures will disappear in an instant, leaving only a bone-chilling chill, which makes people tremble with fear. After receiving the report, the police sent elite police forces to investigate many times, and also specially installed the most advanced monitoring equipment to try to capture any clues. However, strange things happened again. Whenever night fell, the monitoring equipment would always fail inexplicably. The pictures taken were either snowflakes or pitch black. No useful clues could be captured at all, as if a mysterious force was deliberately obstructing the emergence of the truth.
The police also tried to investigate from the historical background of the manor, but found very little information. It was only heard that this manor belonged to a prominent family hundreds of years ago, but then the family suddenly declined, and the manor changed hands several times. No one knew what happened during this period. As time went by, the manor gradually became deserted, and the surrounding residents also kept away from it. It was not until these strange events occurred frequently that it was brought back to people's vision again.
Li Yi closed the file, closed his eyes, and his mind began to run fast. The hexagrams of the Book of Changes, the directions of the Eight Diagrams, the aura of Feng Shui, and the laws of astrology emerged one by one, as if ancient secret books were opened in his heart. He knew that there must be some kind of internal logic behind these seemingly supernatural phenomena, and metaphysics was the key to exploring this logic. Although there were many doubts about metaphysics from the outside world, his years of study made him firmly believe that metaphysics has a unique insight into the dark places that science cannot reach.
"I need to go to these crime scenes for on-site inspections." Li Yi raised his head and said with a firm look. The determination revealed in his eyes seemed to have penetrated the wall and looked at the mysterious manor, ready to uncover the truth behind the layers of fog.
Thompson and others immediately made arrangements, and a team of agents escorted Li Yi to the ancient manor. When the car slowly approached, before entering the manor, Li Yi could feel a strange aura coming towards him, like a layer of cold fog, quietly covering his whole body, making him shiver. After getting off the car, he looked around and saw that the architectural style of the manor was simple and solemn, but it exuded an indescribable gloom. The copper lock on the gate was rusty, as if it had not been opened for a long time. The surrounding trees were lush, but it gave people a sense of oppression, as if these trees were guarding the unknown secrets in the manor.
Li Yi walked into the manor along the stone road, holding the compass tightly in his hand. The compass needle was trembling slightly, as if it was echoing with the mysterious power around him. He explored the changes in the aura in the manor step by step according to the eight trigrams. When he walked to the backyard of the manor, the compass needle suddenly spun wildly. Li Yi's heart moved, knowing that there must be a mystery here.
He squatted down and carefully observed the ground, and found that there was a place where the soil color was slightly dark, slightly different from the surrounding. With his understanding of Feng Shui, he judged that there might be some special structure underground here, which affected the aura of the entire manor. Li Yi asked people to bring tools and dig carefully.
Not long after, an ancient box broke out of the ground. The box was engraved with strange symbols, which seemed familiar. Li Yi remembered that he had seen similar records in ancient books. This should be an ancient seal symbol. When the box was opened, a black mist gushed out, accompanied by a shrill cry. The surrounding agents retreated in fear, and subconsciously raised their guns.
Li Yi was calm and composed. He muttered something and quickly formed several hand seals in his hands. These were the exorcism hand seals he created based on Taoist metaphysics. As the hand seals were formed, the black mist gradually dissipated and the crying gradually stopped. It turned out that this manor was once the residence of an evil wizard, who performed many cruel black magic rituals here, and was later sealed by local residents. But as time went on, the seal loosened, which led to the frequent occurrence of these strange phenomena.
I thought the matter was over, but just as everyone was preparing to evacuate, a strong wind suddenly blew in the manor, and sand and stones flew. The originally clear sky was suddenly covered with dark clouds, lightning and thunder. Li Yi's face changed, realizing that things were far from simple. Behind this sudden change, there might be a deeper conspiracy.
He looked around and found with his keen insight that the layout of the manor was faintly showing a huge Bagua formation in the strong wind, and the position they were in at the moment was the center of the formation. Li Yi thought to himself that this was no accident. Someone must have done it deliberately, wanting to use this ancient formation to cause a greater disaster.
At this moment, a black shadow shot out from the darkness and rushed straight towards Li Yi. Li Yi dodged to the side and looked closely. It turned out to be a black cat with a strange red light all over its body. Its eyes were like two burning charcoal fires, revealing endless ferocity and weirdness. This black cat is obviously not an ordinary thing. It shuttles freely in the formation, and every jump brings a gloomy wind.
Li Yi knows that this black cat is the embodiment of the evil power guarding this place. If it is not subdued, the consequences will be disastrous. He quickly took out a talisman from his arms, chanted a spell, and the talisman instantly ignited a blue flame. Li Yi threw it hard, and the talisman flew towards the black cat. Just when it was about to touch the black cat, the black cat flashed and avoided the attack of the talisman, and then made a sharp cry, as if mocking Li Yi's futility.
Seeing this, the agents shot at the black cat one after another, but when the bullets approached the black cat, they deviated from the track and scattered all over the ground. Li Yi realized that conventional means were completely ineffective against this black cat, and he had to use the power of metaphysics to fight it.
He calmed down, closed his eyes, and immersed himself in the world of metaphysics again. After a moment, he opened his eyes, with determination and determination in his eyes. He quickly adjusted his aura according to the principles of astrology and the mutual generation and restraint of the five elements, then picked up a stone from the ground and threw it towards the southeast corner of the manor. This seemingly random throw actually contains deep meaning. The southeast corner belongs to the Xun position in the Eight Diagrams, which is the place of wind. Li Yi's move is intended to disrupt the Feng Shui aura of this place and weaken the power of the black cat.
Sure enough, as the stone fell to the ground, the black cat's movements became obviously slower, and the red light in his eyes dimmed a little. Li Yi seized the opportunity, formed a hand seal again, chanted an ancient spell, and a golden light shot out from his hand and went straight to the black cat. The black cat wanted to dodge, but it was too late. After being hit by the golden light, it let out a shrill scream and turned into a ball of black smoke and dissipated in the air.
With the disappearance of the black cat, the violent storm in the manor gradually subsided, the dark clouds dissipated, and the sky returned to clear. But Li Yi's face was still solemn. He knew that although the crisis at hand had been resolved, the mastermind behind this series of strange events had not yet appeared. What other conspiracy they had was unknown.
Back at the FBI headquarters, Li Yi informed Thompson and others of his findings in the manor, and proposed that in order to completely solve these mysteries, they needed to start with historical figures and ancient documents related to the manor to find clues. Thus, a more difficult investigation began. They shuttled through various libraries and archives, looking up those long-forgotten materials, and gradually approached the truth...