"Scrape—"
"Scrape—"
The footsteps behind them in the mist seed like relentless maggots gnawing at their heels, following the group ever more swiftly. In the chaos, Tong Han missed his footing and fell, a human head tumbling out of his arms.
The closest to him, Mi Shu, was quick to react and grabbed him, preventing him from falling into the roadside ditch.
"Are you okay?" Noticing that Tong Han was clutching her right leg, Yang Xiao suddenly rembered her leg was still injured and frowned.
Wincing in pain, Tong Han stood up. The human head of Lu Youcheng, which had fallen, was picked up by Wuma Haoming. This ti, Yang Xiao took the head, allowing Tong Han to proceed with less burden.
The four of them, carrying four human heads and a jar of wine, moved quickly through the fog. They finally reached the riverbank before the ghost villagers could catch up to them, revealing a dilapidated wooden bridge as the river level had dropped, no doubt their only path to survival.
The riverbank was muddy and soft, slowing down their pace significantly. However, the ghost villagers behind them remained unrestricted. Though their steps seed stiff, their speed did not decrease and they staggered towards them unrelentingly.
At the critical mont, Yang Xiao handed the two heads he was carrying to Wuma Haoming and Mi Shu, urging them to hurry onto the bridge. Then, arriving last, Tong Han was right by his side. Without a word, he hoisted her onto his back and sprinted towards the wooden bridge with all his might.
"What are you doing?" Tong Han panicked, struggling involuntarily. She could now see the faces of the ghost villagers behind her, each filled with endless resentnt. "Put down, or you won’t get away either!"
"Shut up, stop moving!"
"I am a deserter from the Resentnt Sect, and you are the captain of the Patrol Defense Office. What good does saving do? My survival is only a threat to you!" As the ghost villagers behind them reached out, trying to grab Tong Han, she could not bear to involve another friend in her death.
"Enough! I consider you a friend, and yet you’re telling we are not a match? Are you deluded about ?"
Tong Han was montarily stunned. She had not caught up with Yang Xiao’s train of thought, but the next second she found herself set down, then with a powerful shove, she was flung forward. Before she could react, she landed in an undignified position on the muddy ground in front of the bridge. Wuma Haoming and Mi Shu, who had already reached the bridge, imdiately ran over to drag her onto it.
Without the burden of Tong Han, Yang Xiao’s pace quickened considerably. He finally reached the bridge ahead of the pursuing ghost villagers.
The mont Yang Xiao’s foot touched the wooden bridge, the relentlessly pursuing ghost villagers seed to receive a collective signal and stalled. A few seconds later, they turned around and headed straight for the riverbank. Soon, under the astonished gaze of the four, one by one they walked into the river, and the darkening water gradually subrged their bodies until they disappeared.
Only then did the group truly believe that these ghost villagers were targeting them, intending to corral them onto this bridge to cross the river.
Of course, if they were caught midway, it would an a certain death.
"Let’s go." Ti was of the essence, and they dared not delay even for a mont, preparing to continue their journey imdiately. Their final destination was the Ghost Temple in the forest.
But before they could turn to leave, the mist on the shore seed to be stirred by sothing. Then, a figure erged from it, startling everyone—it was Cheng Cha!
Soon, Cheng Cha also spotted Yang Xiao and the others on the bridge and imdiately waved to them, but in response, Yang Xiao and the others turned and ran.
When they were almost across to the other side, Yang Xiao looked back and saw "Cheng Cha" also on the bridge, chasing after them. His hands were empty, and the head belonging to Quan Doufeng was nowhere to be seen.
Once Wuma Haoming got off the bridge, he planned to run into the woods, but Tong Han called him back. The group of four stood on the opposite bank, waiting for Cheng Cha to co over.
"Do you really believe he’s human?" Wuma Haoming was anxious. After everything they’d been through, he could no longer distinguish between reality and deception, but he knew that soone who could co and go from the Du Family Ancestral Ho unscathed and deal with the nurous ghost villagers in the mist was unlikely to be a living person.
Seeing that Yang Xiao and the others were no longer running, Cheng Cha on the bridge also slowed his pace, approaching them gradually while continuously gesturing to reassure them.
"He must be human." Yang Xiao concluded after observing. After all, the ghost villagers could not cross the river, or they would have caught up earlier. Moreover, the creatures from Du Family Village that were neither human nor ghost did not have the capability to impersonate living people.
Stepping forward cautiously, Cheng Cha imdiately began explaining his experiences during that ti, needing to prove he was not a ghost but a human.
"You touched a face outside the window, and then?" Tong Han pressed.
"Then, I retraced my steps, picked up Quan Doufeng’s head, and turned it away from the window. Suddenly, the person outside changed their tune and started calling out Quan Doufeng’s na." Cheng Cha was still visibly shaken by the mory. "I took advantage of the confusion to run out through the main door."
"After I ran out, I realized the village was filled with fog, and ghost villagers were wandering around. I didn’t dare to run aimlessly, so I just followed behind the ghost villagers. They seed to be purposefully moving eastward. I guessed they were probably chasing you, so I followed them."
Cheng Cha sighed, "Worried about being discovered and not daring to follow too closely, I only dared to co out when I saw these ghost villagers all walking into the river from a distance."
The fog on the opposite bank of the river gradually dissipated, revealing the blurry outline of the village, with the bright moonlight spilling down and illuminating the riverbank. Suddenly, the group noticed a winding footprint on the ground not far from them.
Sothing had walked out of the river not long before, the footprints skewed, with the toes pointing outward, leading towards the forest in the distance.
The group walked over cautiously, the surrounding area silent. Yang Xiao forcefully stepped beside the footprint to make one of his own, and then everyone realized that Yang Xiao’s footprint was much shallower, indicating that the other person’s weight was significantly heavier than Yang Xiao’s.
"It’s the ghost monk." Yang Xiao imdiately realized that, initially, the people of Du Family Village had bound the monk with large stones to sink him in the river.
Hearing this, the faces of Cheng Cha, Tong Han, and the others also turned grim. It seed that tonight, the ghost monk’s corpse had walked out from the bottom of the river.
However, this also showed them the way, as they just needed to follow the footprints to find the hidden Ghost Temple in the forest.
The forest was utterly silent, as if devoid of any living creature, only the sound of rustling footsteps. Each person bore imnse pressure, whether they would live or die depended on this night.
The crucially important jug of wine was cradled in Yang Xiao’s arms, guarded with utmost care, while the remaining people carried the heads.
The group moved in a line through the dark and silent woods, remaining alert to their surroundings, hardly speaking. With the prestige they held now, if they were seen by soone unaware of the truth, it would probably scare them to death.
"Hiss—"
Cheng Cha, who was at the front, tripped over sothing and nearly fell; when the others ca closer to inspect, they found it was an overturned stele hidden among the weeds.
The stele, clearly weathered by the years, was mostly broken, only the bottom half buried in the soil remained. After clearing the nearby weeds, everyone clearly saw two characters engraved on the stele: "Extinct Village."
This scene seed familiar to Yang Xiao; he imdiately thought of those who had disappeared in reality. So of them had similar bizarre dreams before disappearing, dreams in which they arrived at a strange village and walked into the woods, eventually vanishing after seeing a dilapidated temple.
And one woman was tripped by a stele in the woods before seeing the temple.
The stele seed like a warning, but Yang Xiao had a different interpretation; in his view, the stele also served as a marker, signifying that they had walked beyond the bounds of Zhuwang Village.
The group continued onward, and about ten minutes later, they finally erged from the woods to see a hollow with an ancient temple standing within it.
The outer walls of the temple had already collapsed, and the main structure was overgrown with vines and weeds, clearly long-deserted, likely for decades.
The group approached slowly, for the footprints on the ground led straight here, following the footprints around the collapsed courtyard walls, and they led directly to a wall of the temple.
After pulling back the vines on the wall, there was no door behind them, not even an entrance, just an old, damp stone wall. Knocking on it with fists, the wall was very thick.
But the ghost monk’s footprints disappeared here, with the toes pointing at the wall, as if he had walked straight through it.
Unable to find an entrance, the group walked around the temple, hoping to find a door or even a window, but as they circled to the back of the temple, the sight before them stunned everyone: the original old and decrepit temple suddenly appeared brand new, with a clean ground, even stone walls, and a wooden temple door that still had a plaque hanging on it, with three characters written horizontally: "Xin’an Temple."
Not sure if it was his own illusion, but upon seeing the three characters of "Xin’an Temple," Yang Xiao’s slightly restless heart actually cald down.
At that mont, a faint light flickered from behind the wooden door, indicating there was soone inside. With no way to turn back now, Yang Xiao was the first to step forward and gently knock on the door.
The door wasn’t locked, and with a light tap, it actually opened. The inside was not very large, about a hundred square ters, divided into two areas by several hanging curtains. In front of the curtains, there was a stone table laid out with five wide, shallow porcelain bowls, typically used as drinking bowls, which corresponded perfectly to their task of ceremonial drinking tonight.
Besides, near the door on the right side of the wall stood four straw figures tied up with straw, as tall as an ordinary person but headless, with a few straw ropes hanging from the neck area, as though for securing sothing.
Seeing this, Yang Xiao motioned for everyone to place the heads they had brought on top of the straw figures’ necks and tie them with the straw ropes.
Just as the last head was secured, a light suddenly flared from behind them, and turning around instantly, they saw the light was coming from behind the curtain—it was a candle being lit, and at that mont, a bizarre silhouette was also cast by the candlelight on the curtain.
The figure was of normal human size, but its grotesquely swollen head was 7 or 8 tis larger.
User Comments
0 comments from readers