In Yang Xiao’s mory, among all the statues in the temple, there was only one armored general, which coincidentally was the likeness of Zhang Songde.
This matched up.
No wonder the bodies of Zhang Songde and his three companions couldn’t be found; it turns out they were secretly transported away by the people of the Earl Mansion and stuffed into the statues as an Internal Filling.
Thinking of the eight other Land Temples, Yang Xiao couldn’t help but feel a chill, guessing that each statue must be hiding a body.
Yet there was sothing he couldn’t understand. According to Fang Zhou Lou Huixiang, Zhang Songde was dragged into the well by a ghost, aning his body was taken by a ghost. But if that was so, how did the people of the Earl Mansion obtain the body? Could it be... the people of the Earl Mansion could make transactions with ghosts?
The secrets of the Earl Mansion were being unraveled bit by bit, yet Yang Xiao felt not the clarity of dispelling clouds to reveal the sun but instead like he was stuck in a quagmire, the more he struggled, the deeper he sank, feeling an overwhelming sense of helplessness.
It was foreseeable that the Earl Mansion was playing a grand ga, a ga that had quietly begun a hundred years ago with the construction of the first Land Temple.
A single Marquis Mansion, over a hundred years’ ti, countless generations had invested untold amounts of wealth and effort, as well as the lives of hundreds and thousands, all for one plan. The scale of this plan was beyond Yang Xiao’s imagination, but as Xiang Fengchen said, it must be an act against the heavens.
And at the core of this plan was the Ancestor, the remnant of the forr dynasty, the Ninth Prince.
Yang Xiao suddenly rembered a saying: when an Evil Spirit descends into the world, it must face Heavenly Judgnt. To avoid being struck dead by Heavenly Thunder, the Evil Spirit will delude people, disguising itself as a righteous deity, deceiving the ignorant to build temples and offer incense, using the fragrance to conceal its Evil Qi.
What exactly the Ancestor was Yang Xiao dared not assert, but he was certain it was not human, allowing it to beco a Marquis would definitely be a disaster.
Yang Xiao, cup by cup, urged Mr. Liu to drink. Overwheld by alcohol, Mr. Liu beca drunkenly incoherent, and inadvertently, Yang Xiao extracted so more information from him.
According to Mr. Liu, his cousin had been serving in the mansion for the tenth year, but throughout this ti, he had never once seen the true face of the mansion’s lord.
Not just the lord, even the clan’s relatives he had never t face-to-face; these people behaved very oddly, usually moving about at night, their faces covered with frightening, strange masks.
Their marriages and funerals were also very secluded, not exposed to the outside. The new family mbers brought in were people his cousin had never seen, and the mansion’s funeral rites were extrely bizarre. One day after an old man in the mansion passed away, a friend of his cousin, also a servant in the mansion, ca to him pale and terrified, and disclosed sothing horrid.
The previous night, the steward had summoned him to watch over the deceased. Alone in the hall with the coffin, in the depth of the night, dead silence all around, his curiosity about the coffin grew.
After all, having served in the Marquis Mansion for such a lengthy ti yet never seeing these lords’ true faces, he thought since the person was dead, the mask would surely have been removed. So, taking advantage of the quiet, he tiptoed to the side of the coffin.
The coffin had not yet been sealed for burial; bracing himself, he lifted the lid. The Earl Mansion, with its vast wealth, naturally selected the finest wood for the coffin, which was substantially sturdy. The lid was heavy, and with all his strength, he only managed to pry it open a crack. Straining to look through the gap, he witnessed a scene he would never forget—a body horribly mutilated, as if ravaged and torn apart by nurous wild beasts, the bones left with re remnants of flesh. It was a ghastly sight.
Indeed, as he had expected, there was no mask on the face of the body. But underneath the mask was a face so terrifying it almost made him faint. The face was like bark, with pockmarks all over, features grotesquely distorted and misplaced, nostrils flared inside out, and on each side of the forehead was a tumor-like protuberance. This was no human; it was a monster!
Soon after recounting this to his cousin, the man disappeared. By the ti his cousin heard news of him again, he was already dead, said to have succumbed to a sudden illness.
But his cousin rembered this man always being in good health. When he ca to share this incident, he was simply too frightened, without any other apparent issue.
Having heard this, it was clear what had happened—the man had been silenced by the Earl Mansion. As the saying goes, disaster cos from the mouth, and that applied here.
But on second thought, perhaps from the mont they arranged for him to keep vigil, the people of the Earl Mansion had never intended for him to live.
With a "thud," Mr. Liu’s head hit the table, followed by him sprawling across the table, falling into a deep sleep, his breath reeking of strong alcohol.
"Mr. Liu? Mr. Liu?" Just as Yang Xiao was getting to the heart of the matter, prepared to ask more, there was no awakening Mr. Liu.
The man was of average character but had decent drinking manners; once drunk, he would sleep without disturbing or annoying anyone.
Staying any longer held no aning, so Yang Xiao left a piece of silver for the drink and got up to leave, finding the other three to reconvene.
While walking back, he shared the information gleaned with the other three. While Yang Xiao was urging Mr. Liu to drink, the others hadn’t been idle; in a desolate alley not far from there, they had discovered a carriage of the Earl Mansion. There was a small, locked courtyard with four thin-coffin-like containers concealed under straw mats.
Xiang Fengchen took the risk to look inside. The coffins contained blood and so disgusting viscous fluid, just like the fluid on the body of the ghost in the well the previous night.
User Comments
0 comments from readers