Chapter 84: When I Met Zhao Mingyue on the Road?
The already tense atmosphere became so suffocating that it felt like trying to breathe underwater. The funeral procession consisted of over thirty people, all staring at you with those icy, unyielding gazes.
Not a single word was spoken, nor did anyone move; they all stood there frozen like statues.
The sound of the suona stopped too, leaving only a flurry of paper money floating in the air.
Zhao Mingyue felt her scalp tingle under the gaze of those people and tugged at Bai Yu’s sleeve.
The scene was exceptionally bizarre, and Zhao Mingyue knew trouble was lurking. Just then, someone from the crowd called her softly, “Hey, Zhao Mingyue!”
Bai Yu turned to see a man from the village waving at her, signaling her to come over quickly.
“Cousin?”
Zhao Mingyue recognized him and hurriedly dragged Bai Yu in that direction, avoiding the funeral procession’s line of sight. On the way, Bai Yu glanced back at the pitch-black coffin, sensing something thick with resentment inside.
If ghosts were ranked, the little ghosts from Sunshine Apartments and Thirteen Middle School would surely be at the bottom, while the likes of Red-clothed Female Ghost Xiao Lian and the Old Principal were on a completely different level altogether. There was an evident power hierarchy between these two types of ghosts as well. Xiao Lian was a bit stronger than the Old Principal, and the ghost in the coffin, based on its resentment, was slightly weaker than the Old Principal but definitely belonged to the Red-clothed Female Ghost tier.
And they hadn’t even stepped into the village yet; encountering this was already wild enough.
Bai Yu was growing increasingly fascinated with the place. Previously uncertain, she was now sure that the group of madmen must be looking for this location.
When that time came, Hu Village would likely attract a ton of lunatics, turning it into absolute chaos.
“Cousin, I’m back! Uncle called me earlier to say tomorrow is Grandma’s eightieth birthday,” Zhao Mingyue said, maintaining a distance of over three meters from the man, adding softly, “This is my friend who came with me today, named Ruoxi, Zhao Ruoxi.”
“Same surname Zhao; maybe she’s related to our family.”
Zhao Mingyue knew the village rules—no outsiders in the village.
The man before her looked about twenty-seven or twenty-eight, with unkempt hair, deeply set eyes, and dull skin. He had stubble and bloodshot eyes, like he hadn’t had a good sleep in ages.
“Yeah, got it. Tell your friend not to wander around the village. There’s a family banquet tonight; you go on your own, don’t bring her,” the man said, stealing a glance at Bai Yu. The moment he locked eyes with her, it seemed he saw something terrifying, his expression suddenly darkening. Without saying another word, he turned and walked away.
“Hey, Cousin!”
Zhao Mingyue called after him, but he ignored her, quickening his pace down another small path until he vanished from sight.
“That’s Zhao Yingcai, my uncle’s oldest son. He’s looked down on my family since we were kids and often scared me. Once, he tricked me outside with candy and slapped me twice; my sister ended up fighting him because of it. Basically, not a good person at all,” Zhao Mingyue said, not bothering to chase him as she watched Zhao Yingcai disappear.
“Let’s go to my place and hang out for a bit; forget about them. We’ll head over later in the evening.”
Bai Yu raised a hand, “No rush; I want to check out the village.”
“Alright then.”
With Bai Yu in tow, Zhao Mingyue ventured deeper into the village. It wasn’t very big, only about a hundred households, but the layout was quite strange, with numerous winding paths. The houses weren’t close together but rather scattered in a rather chaotic manner.
Typically, villages have houses in rows with spacious roads in between, but Ping Shan Village was different. The houses were not aligned; there was one in front and another behind, like a disrupted chessboard with the buildings as pieces on it.
Because of this chaotic arrangement, the village lacked wide roads, having only an intricate network of small paths.
“Why do these doors all have black cloth and scissors hanging on them?” Bai Yu asked as she passed several closed-off homes, examining them closely. Every one of them was the same: heavy black cloth draped over the doorframe, and a pair of scissors suspended from it. She also noticed the doorsteps were unusually high.
These steps weren’t just a matter of height. Normally, you could walk in without needing to leap, but here the step was at least twenty centimeters high, requiring a careful lift of the foot to avoid tripping.
It felt like those steps were meant to prevent something from entering the house.
While she was speaking, Bai Yu spotted something else. She walked up, squinting at a talisman stuck to the door.
It was a small red piece of paper, not even as long as her finger, depicting a rather interesting design: a pair of ears.
As soon as she leaned in closer, the symbols on the talisman flickered, and a voice suddenly filled her ears, like a hundred people whispering simultaneously, creating a jumbled, excruciating cacophony that felt like tearing through her eardrums, flooding her with an inexplicable rage.
Bai Yu’s expression remained unchanged as the talisman on the door started to burn with a sizzle, turning to ashes and dispersing into the air in less than half a second.
With the talisman gone, the irritating chatter in her ears also vanished.
“Interesting.”
Bai Yu turned and walked to the next house they had passed earlier, and sure enough, there was another talisman affixed in the corner.
She tore it down, glanced at it carefully, and noted the design before it self-combusted.
Zhao Mingyue followed behind, completely clueless about what Bai Yu was up to, just watching her squat down in front of someone else’s door, pulling something off.
At the third house, the same high doorstep, the same black cloth and scissors, and notably the same talisman.
“Same person drew these.”
After comparing three of them, she was convinced that the handwriting belonged to the same individual.
Bai Yu stood up and gazed across the road.
When they first entered, there had indeed been a wide road at the village entrance, used for weddings and funerals alike; both processions emerged from opposite sides.
Now it appeared that with such a disorganized layout, that large road was essentially dividing the village in two. If she guessed correctly, the western and eastern parts of the village were experiencing different situations, largely based on the differing beliefs towards the Evil God.
With a judgment in mind, Bai Yu immediately moved forward.
“What’s going on, Bai Yu?” Zhao Mingyue hurried after her.
“I made a little discovery. Once we reach the east side, remember not to speak.”
“Ah, okay, got it.” Zhao Mingyue had just been thinking that she had to rely on herself this time; she needed to provide Bai Yu with useful information, however minimal.
Yet somehow, arriving in her own territory, she ended up being not much use after all.
Without further inquiries, they crossed the middle road and arrived at the east side. Upon arrival, Zhao Mingyue could feel something was off. She could faintly hear voices whispering, indecipherable but definitely present.
The source of the sounds was peculiar, seeming to be close to her ear yet also coming from inside the houses.
Finally, on the east side, Zhao Mingyue spotted actual people—middle-aged women sitting at doors, munching on sunflower seeds, murmuring to themselves with serious expressions. She caught one sentence, “Tsk, tsk, the second old man’s wife from the west village died, yet he doesn’t seem bothered. He probably got involved with someone else. I bet his wife was killed by him.”
Initially, Zhao Mingyue thought the woman was speaking to someone sitting in the courtyard, but as she got closer, she noticed that the large door beside the woman was closed, and through the gap in the wooden door, it indeed looked like someone was sitting behind it—a black shadow.
When the woman saw Zhao Mingyue, she immediately shut up, ceased her seed-crunching, and stared at her, finally asking, “Which family are you from? What’s your father’s name? Haven’t seen you before.”
Just as Zhao Mingyue was about to respond, remembering Bai Yu’s previous warning, she swallowed her words and averted her gaze, remaining silent.
Seeing Zhao Mingyue’s disregard, the woman pressed on, “Hey, kid, I’m asking you which family you’re from, you surely know your father’s name, right?”
At that moment, Bai Yu approached. She glanced at the middle-aged woman, her gaze drifting toward the seemingly abandoned house beside them.
The black cloth and scissors were still there, but the high doorstep was missing.
She reached up and removed a talisman pinned to the door, which was now a deep purple rather than red, with the symbols changed from ears to a mouth—the text, unfortunately, was incomprehensible to her.
“Ears, mouth, eyes.”
As she grasped the talisman, she felt an unbearable burning sensation in her tongue, followed by searing pain. She squeezed the talisman tightly in her palm, and the sharp piercing sensation in her tongue quickly dissipated. Opening her hand revealed a flurry of fine ash falling from her palm.
“It seems someone has already been here; that person named Chen Yun was just a puppet.”
Bai Yu recalled the woman she had killed back at school. That woman was using a certain kind of talisman, primarily black with a symbol resembling an eye.
This talisman was powerful, especially against ghosts.
When Bai Yu had dispatched Chen Yun, she thought she was dealing with another game participant.
It now seemed she had misjudged. Chen Yun was merely a puppet, and the talisman in her hand was given to her by someone else—the true game participant.
That person must have been here long before, possibly supported by a certain Evil God, akin to a spokesperson. No, it was highly likely that the Evil God resided within her body, enabling her to harness its powers after forming some sort of pact.
Striking a deal with an Evil God rarely ends well.
Finding such a deity in such a short time and trading without hesitation—it aligned with the madmen’s usual style.
“The mouth signifies one cannot speak.”
“Do the ears represent a prohibition from listening?”
“The west side signifies ears, the east side symbolizes mouths. If these are two Evil Gods, what then are the scissors for? To stab out eyes…?”
“And the doorstep? Is it to keep the living out, or to keep ghosts away?”
“Bright Moon once mentioned that there are a group of immortals—wax corpses—in the back village.”
“Then what about the front village? Could it have some too?”
Bai Yu was skeptical about the existence of zombies, but she believed in something similar.
Just imagine: When a human dies, their soul—i.e., their resentment—could be forcibly sealed within their decaying corpse through some method, right?
These so-called wax corpses, could the wax be the seal?
Regardless, where were these wax corpses?
Did they have combat capabilities?
And what’s the relationship between the west village and the east village? What connections existed between the two Evil Gods?
What role did the eyes play in this? If the scissors were meant to guard against eyes, then things were getting intriguing.
“Zhao Mingyue, I believe I already told you…”
While Bai Yu pondered, Zhao Yingcai suddenly appeared, and even Bai Yu didn’t notice from where he had emerged.
Zhao Yingcai strode over, deliberately avoiding Bai Yu as he approached Zhao Mingyue.
Bai Yu snapped back to reality and squinted at Zhao Yingcai.
Zhao Yingcai reached Zhao Mingyue’s side, fuming with rage, and pointed at her nose, ready to unleash a tirade.
Bang!
A hand forcefully struck the side of Zhao Yingcai’s neck. With immense strength, he stumbled sideways and crashed into a patch of weeds, his head colliding with a stone. Dazed, he clutched his head and was just getting up when a little foot pinned him down hard.
“I ask, and you answer.”
Bai Yu pressed her foot firmly onto Zhao Yingcai’s head, bending slightly down, her ponytail dangling beside her face as she narrowed her eyes and said:
“What’s the true name of your deity?”
Zhao Yingcai could only see Bai Yu’s face and those pure black eyes, rolling his eyes back in fright.
“Speak.”
With a squelch, bl**d sprayed out as Bai Yu’s foot drove the bl**d threads from her sole into Zhao Yingcai’s mouth, piercing through half his face.
“You know I’m a ghost, don’t play dumb with me.”
Countless thin bl**d threads shot into the opening in Zhao Yingcai’s mouth and began growing wildly, wrapping around his head entirely.
“I—I don’t know!” Zhao Yingcai’s face twisted in pain.
“Your tongue has already been sacrificed to your deity. If I rip it out, would that count as betrayal?”
The previously fierce expression was instantly replaced with panic after hearing Bai Yu’s words. Zhao Yingcai stammered, unable to articulate anything.
“Ah, A She Godmother.”
“Were Zhao Mingyue’s parents unearthed by you?”
“Yes, yes.”
After saying the words “A She Godmother,” bl**d began to pour from Zhao Yingcai’s mouth. Bai Yu was sure this wasn’t entirely her doing. She had only pierced his face, not cut his tongue; most of this bl**d must have come from the gash in his tongue.
“Zhao Mingyue is the vessel chosen by A She Godmother?”
“Yes…”
“When is the ritual taking place?”
“Seven…seven days…”
After this, Zhao Yingcai had practically stopped struggling, and Bai Yu lifted her foot with an indifferent expression.
Zhao Yingcai wasn’t killed by her but rather by A She Godmother—likely receiving a spirit’s descent or a curse.
“Bright Moon, you’re in trouble. If we hadn’t come this time, it would have been much worse.”
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