The girl paused, hesitated slightly, and nodded, "I was just thinking the sa."
After climbing over a broken low wall, the two entered a household. The wooden structure in the yard was already in ruins, with damp, rotting fishing nets piled up in the corner. It was clear that the nets were originally hung on wooden racks for drying, but now even the racks had collapsed.
Heading towards the largest wooden house in the yard, where the doors and windows were gaping open, Yang Xiao noticed as he approached that one door on either side had fallen inward onto the ground, severely damaged, with a broken bolt still in the door.
This did not look like natural decay; rather, it seed as if sothing had forcefully smashed it open. In this scene, the first thing Yang Xiao thought of was a ghost.
The house was small, and there wasn’t much inside. A quick look around was all it took for Yang Xiao to know that it was ho to a fisherman, in a fishing village.
A painting hanging directly opposite the door caught Yang Xiao’s attention. The painting was eroded and sowhat blurry, but one could still make out two people depicted in it, a man and a woman, likely a couple who owned the room. Strangely, the man on the left had a stiff expression, lifeless eyes, and an overall deathly aura, while the woman on the right had a beaming smile, which, upon closer inspection, seed increasingly fake, just like a wax figure.
Suddenly, a gust of wind blew, lifting a corner of the painting with a flapping noise, conveniently covering the woman in the painting’s face.
"Be careful, this painting... it seems a bit off," the girl standing behind Yang Xiao suddenly spoke up, her voice tinged with caution.
"It is off. Everything in this room is almost rotten through, even the wooden windows are completely decayed, yet this painting is still so well-preserved," Yang Xiao said, staring intensely at the woman in the painting and slowly stepping back, "Let’s leave here for now."
The two carefully exited the room and were about to return the way they had co, climbing back over that low wall, when suddenly, Yang Xiao stopped in his tracks.
The girl was taken aback, but before she could ask anything, she heard Yang Xiao chuckle coldly, staring at the broken low wall and saying, "Your Excellency has waited for us so long, co out and et us."
No sooner had he spoken than the girl widened her eyes; from behind the broken wall erged two figures, Taoist 9 and Taoist 189.
Yang Xia’s gaze was fixed on Taoist 9, a portly man. Just a mont ago, for a split second, his Human Bone Staff had detected a strong murderous intent coming from this man, and had they returned the way they ca, they would have been attacked by him.
The Taoist 9 man chuckled and raised both hands, which were empty, "Folks, don’t misunderstand; we just happened to pass by here."
"Just passing by, and you happen to ambush around the corner?" Yang Xiao mimicked the Taoist 9 man’s laugh, though it was in a joking tone, the warning was real.
"Who’s ambushing you? Don’t you know there’s a ghost here?" Taoist 189 spoke up discontentedly, a tall and skinny man, whose occasionally exposed skin revealed his advanced age, speaking in a raspy voice, "The situation here is very wrong. Set aside the competition for now. That scream earlier was from one of our group, at the other end of the village. We were planning to check it out; co with us."
The man’s tone was poor, and he spoke with a commanding air, but Yang Xiao didn’t care; he needed allies for cooperative action, especially since he might need scapegoats at critical monts.
"Master sister, let’s go together," Yang Xiao turned his head and suggested.
Upon his utterance of ’master sister,’ the other two focused their attention on Taoist 127 girl, who cooperated by puffing out her chest and said solemnly, "Okay."
With the temporary team ford, the group of four, led by the elderly Taoist 189, reached a yard at the northwest corner of the village. Before they could get close, a person appeared from around the corner, bumping straight into them.
It was Taoist 24, also a woman.
Naturally, Taoist 24 also joined the group, and the five of them entered the yard together, all feeling a bit tense, since they had already slled a bloody stench, making it clear that the scene of the incident was right here.
This yard was slightly larger than the others they had passed, besides the rotting fishing nets, there was also a small wooden boat, and a large pile of shells in the corner.
Old Taoist 189 went over, picked up a shell and, applying a little force at his fingertips, crumbled it as if it were a brittle cookie. He rubbed his fingers together and clarified, "It’s a pearl shell, also known as a pearl oyster, the fishern here not only fish but also harvest pearls."
The group approached the house door as the stench of blood grew stronger. The house faced a main hall, with a room on each side, and inside the right side room, there currently lay a body.
’Lay’ was not quite appropriate, more precisely, a mass of body parts, as the corpse was completely disfigured, chopped into pieces only slightly larger than a fist, with bones also broken—the scene was horrifying.
Bearing their disgust, among the body parts, they found a broken mask, clearly marked with Taoist 40.
"What killed him?" Taoist 24 asked, picking up a piece of the flesh with her fingertips, noting the pieces were not entirely even and had rough edges, not like they were cut by a blade or chopped, but more like they were torn apart by hand.
Just the thought of a ghost squatting down, tearing a live person into pieces bit by bit, was enough to drive one to despair.
User Comments
0 comments from readers