Chen Ling grasped the strap of the backpack on his shoulder, reached back with his fingertips, and took out a piece of talisman paper.
But just as he tried to ignite the talisman paper to see what was going on, the sound stopped.
He was not sure whether the villagers above knew what was happening below. He only heard the old man in black shouting with all his might, "What are you standing there for? Put your things away!"
Chen Ling turned his head and looked at the darkness behind him.
The deep color covered everything tightly, and even the uneven earthen barriers on the corridor beside him could not be seen clearly.
"Is anyone there?" he asked in a low voice.
Clang.
The sound similar to the collision of chains was heard again.
Chen Ling frowned, looked straight ahead, reached into the basket, took out the little lamb, and put it in the place designated by the old man in black.
As the animal's body fell to the ground, the sound of the chain suddenly increased, rapid and urgent, like a beast that had been hungry for too long and was eager to enjoy a long-lost delicacy.
The cold air rushed towards me, carrying a sharp sound.
Chen Ling raised his hand to cover half of his face, leaving his eyes exposed to see what was going on, but the rope around his waist suddenly pulled him up.
Just as he left the corridor, the sound of chains became louder, as if many chains were being dragged across the ground by something.
The first moment he stood firm, he wanted to look back, but a villager was quick to cover the stone slab back.
The old man in black stepped on the stone slab with one foot, listening to something. After a moment, he looked up at Chen Ling and said, "Little brother, you have worked hard just now."
Chen Ling said it was not hard and he did not intend to play Tai Chi with these ignorant villagers. He just told them what he heard below.
He asked, “What is that?”
The old man in black said, "That is the messenger of the Yellow God, and also his slave."
"So they are here to help Huang's father ghost get the sacrifice?" Chen Ling paused, then said, "Or to clear the way for him?"
"I told you, it's disrespectful to call Huang Shen like that! You will be blamed!" The old man in black was touched and exploded on the spot. He glared fiercely and said, "Also, you can't leave now."
Wu Weiwei shouted, "Why? We agreed to let us go after the sacrifice is completed."
The old man in black sneered: "Because someone from our village is missing, what if she hides in your car and secretly follows you away?"
Chen Ling had nothing to be afraid of, his only worry was that the gold and jade would be discovered.
But now is not a good time to have a conflict. He seemed to hesitate and think for a while: "Okay, but we have to leave before dark. Otherwise, the guild will definitely send someone to look for us... By then, things may not end so well."
The old man in black didn't want to make a big deal out of it, and it was still several hours before dark. He still didn't believe that with so many people they couldn't find a little girl!
"All right," he said, "I'll let you go before dark."
To prevent the people in the ancestral hall from escaping, they locked the door of the hall before leaving and sent two people to guard outside.
Wu Weiwei looked at the ancestral hall that looked like a cage, feeling irritated: "Brother Chen, how are we going to get the gold and jade away then?"
“Assistant Qiu will definitely tell Mr. Jiang that we are also in the guild hall. When he arrives and can’t find anyone, he will definitely call. If the call is also unsuccessful, he will probably send someone out to look for us…” Chen Ling cast his gaze towards Jiang Yu. At worst, he could still pin his hopes on the old ancestor and ask him to slip away for help.
But by that time, it would not be Jiang Shengxing who would be asked for help, but the police.
It's good to have a plan. What Wu Weiwei fears most is to rush around like a headless fly. With a plan in mind, his mind naturally shifted to other things.
Wu Weiwei asked: "Brother Chen, did anything happen to you down there just now?"
"Didn't you hear it?!" Chen Ling was stunned.
Wu Weiwei shook his head: "No."
Jiang Yu: "I heard it. It was the sound of chains colliding."
Wu Weiwei let out a cry, completely confused: "Then why can't I hear it!"
"It's indeed the sound of chains." Jin Yu's voice came from under the table.
She struggled to lower her hands and feet from the crossbeam of the table, knelt on the ground and moved out little by little.
After a brief reprieve, she stood up, holding onto the altar. "I don't know what's hidden underneath. Every time we perform a sacrifice, I can always hear a clanging sound."
Chen Ling turned around and walked over and asked, "Have you been down there too?"
"No, it was my brother who went down there..." Jin Yu's eyebrows drooped as he spoke, his fingers clenched in his hands, and his knuckles turned white. "He said there were monsters hiding down there... pale-faced monsters with bloody mouths. They were chained and would crawl up from the depths of the tunnel like dogs, and then lie in the dark underground to eat the freshly slaughtered livestock..."
"No." Chen Ling suddenly interrupted, "The image you described is different from Huang Fugui."
Jin Yu opened his mouth and said, "I, I don't know. My brother told me all this."
"Things raised by feeding on raw meat and blood are bound to be vicious and bloodthirsty." Jiang Yu's calm voice sounded, "The ones below are not Huang's father ghosts, but ghosts. They are feeding ghosts."
Chen Ling looked up and asked, "What about the chains? Are they used to control them?"
Jiang Yu looked at the face full of curiosity and said coldly: "Think for yourself."
Chen Ling said "oh" and actually lowered his head to think carefully.
If an ordinary chain wants to lock up a ghost, the person controlling the chain must not be an ordinary person.
Either a sorcerer or the Yellow Father Ghost.
Regardless of the former or the latter, the purpose of raising ghosts is either to drive them, to use them for sacrifice, or...
Chen Ling suddenly asked, "It is rumored that Huang's father ghost can devour ghosts and monsters. Is this true?"
Jiang Yu nodded: "Eat ghosts for food and dew for drink."
Chen Ling was silent for a moment, thinking that Huang's ghost father couldn't be so trendy that he even knew how to hoard food.
Jiang Yu glanced at him and asked, "What did you think of?"
"If those chained creatures are really ghosts..." Chen Ling thought it was a bit absurd, "Could it be that they are the food that Huang Fugui has stored for himself? Let the ghosts eat fresh blood and flesh regularly to stimulate their hostility, so that they will taste better?"
Wu Weiwei: "How perverted."
Chen Ling felt the same way. It was more than perverted, it was too heavy just to think about it.
Jiang Yu didn't say yes or no, he looked at Jin Yu who had been lowering his head since he finished speaking and asked: "Where is your brother?"
"Brother..." Jin Yu was thinking while listening to them. Suddenly, when he heard someone asking about his brother, he was shocked. He raised his head, and his eyes were filled with tears. "My brother died. He was sacrificed to that monster..."
Chen Ling doesn't want to hurt anyone, but the secret of the village must be solved.
He took out a pack of tissues from his backpack and stuffed them into her hand, softening his voice: "Wipe your tears first." When she had almost wiped away her tears, he asked, "Can you please tell me what happened? How could your brother tell you this?"
Jin Yu also wanted this place to be destroyed as soon as possible so that the ugly customs could be wiped out.
She sobbed a few times, closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
After calming down, she slowly said, "Today, I should have been the first one to place the sacrifice. This is the custom in the village. The next morning after the sacrifice, there will be a human sacrifice. My brother was forced to place the sacrifice the day before and accidentally saw those disgusting things."
"The weather was bad that day, with heavy black clouds hanging in the sky, as if the sky was about to fall. But the villagers were very excited because it was the 18th day of the lunar month. There were not many young people in the village at that time, so the elders gathered in front of the ancient well in the center of the village at noon and slaughtered livestock, then forced my brother to put the animals down in the ancestral hall."
Jin Yu held the tissue that had been soaked with tears, and said with hatred in her tone: "But something unexpected happened that day. The rope that was pulling my brother broke for some reason, and he suddenly fell down while being pulled back..."
The bottom of the tunnel from the ground is about five or six meters deep. Falling from the middle is no joke. Fortunately, there were new offerings placed at the bottom.
The bloody flesh provided some cushion for Brother Jin Yu, preventing him from injuring his legs and feet.
He hunched his back and barely stood up by holding on to the wall. Before he could do anything else, he heard the sound of chains dragging, clang, clang, from sparse to rapid, from single to noisy.
Although he was afraid at that time, knowing that his friends in the village who were about his age would leave this world forever in the early morning of the next day after they placed the sacrifices, he was also happy.
The old people in the village all said that after offering sacrifices to the Yellow God, the village would have good weather, the villagers would be healthy and live long, and the evil ghosts that would make trouble on the 19th of every month would be suppressed by the well-fed Yellow God... Brother Jin Yu was afraid of the unknown existence, but proud of his contribution to the village.
Just as he was feeling complicated and mixed emotions, the sound of chains was getting closer and closer, and finally stopped in the darkness closest to him.
It seemed like something was hidden in the darkness. Although I couldn't see anything, I could clearly feel a terrifying gaze fixed on my face.
Brother Jin Yu's heart began to beat wildly, and he began to feel at a loss. His mind was dominated by something called fear. After clearly sensing that his life was threatened, he instinctively shouted!
Help, help! Pull me up!
His voice was heartbreaking, and the superiors were also anxious. The old man in black ordered the villagers to quickly get the spare rope and throw it down at once.
Brother Jin Yu quickly bent down and picked up the rope from the bloody but still slightly warm belly of the lamb.
As he lowered his head to tie the clothes around his waist and abdomen, he suddenly felt something touch the back of his neck.
The cold and sticky touch reminded him of bloody fingers.
He shivered and closed his eyes, telling himself not to be afraid. That was the Yellow God who blessed them with good weather and good harvests. He was a god and would not harm anyone.
Perhaps he was too flustered and he couldn't tie the knot properly.
Brother Jin Yu stomped his feet in annoyance and accidentally slipped, falling on the raw meat.
He looked up subconsciously, and a pale face appeared in front of him.
Obviously, nothing should be visible, but that face becomes something special in the darkness, pale skin, eyes so empty that only the eye sockets are left, and a big grinning mouth with a bloody glow...
The mouth opened wider and wider, and stretched out the bloody red tongue towards him.
Fortunately, just when he was too frightened to react, the people above suddenly pulled him up, and the loose knot around his waist did not come loose.
The fear and joy of surviving the disaster made him ecstatic, but at the same time, the terrifying face continued to deepen in his mind.
Brother Jin Yu started telling people that there was a monster hiding under the ancestral hall and that the so-called god was actually a monster.
Gods should have kind eyes and a dignified appearance, rather than being scary or weird.
The younger generation has been exposed to many new things from the outside world, and the ideas about sacrifice to gods that have been instilled in their minds since childhood have begun to waver.
This kind of instability turned into collapse after Brother Jin Yu was forced into the corridor of the ancestral hall.
They left the village resolutely with their baggage, leaving behind a group of stubborn and pedantic old people.
"Wait." Chen Ling asked, "You left with them too, right? If so, why did you come back?"
"I came back to get my household registration book..." Jin Yu said, "I left in such a hurry that I forgot about it. If I could, I wouldn't want to come back, but I need a household registration book for marriage registration."
She said: "My parents, uncles and aunts, basically everyone in their 40s has left here."
"No wonder there are so many elderly people in their seventies and eighties here." Wu Weiwei said.
Jin Yu said: "My brother was no longer mentally stable before he died. He kept repeating what he saw down there."
Chen Ling asked, "What happened next? How was he sent to the ancestral hall as a sacrifice?"
"He was taken in by force," Jin Yu recalled. "I was only ten years old at the time. I saw him being taken away by a group of old men with hoes and rakes. They pushed him into the corridor of the ancestral hall at five in the morning before the sun rose."
"Didn't your parents stop you?" Wu Weiwei asked.
"It's useless..." Jin Yu said, "Who dares to touch those old people? If they do, no one can bear the consequences, and they will be punished by the village chief."
She shuddered as she remembered something. "You may not know, but the punishment was horrible. It was a whip on the back. The whip was made of thorn vine skin, very thick, and had thorns. Every time it hit me, my skin was torn apart."
Because of the monthly human sacrifice, there are fewer and fewer young and middle-aged people in the village.
However, out of pedantic filial piety to elders and fear of clan laws, no one dared to resist forcefully.
In the end, if it weren’t for Brother Jin Yu’s frightened words before his death, the courage to escape the village might still be suppressed in my heart.
Jin Yu wiped away the tears from the corners of her eyes with the back of her hand, and looked up at Chen Ling: "You said that the people below are ghosts and are the food of Huang Shen, so why did he do this?"
Chen Ling thought for a moment and said, "Be greedy."
Maybe it’s also for the purpose of “reproduction”.
After the new yellow ghost father is born, it cannot grow up just by the wind. They also need food.
Those human sacrifices that were placed in the ancestral hall were most likely the vehicles used by the Huangfu ghost to cast curses and give birth to new ghosts.
After the person who was cursed dies, his soul will become a fierce ghost or a resentful ghost because of the deep pain and fear he carried before death. The Huangfu ghost will handcuff them with chains and keep them by his side.
He asked: "About when did you leave the village?"
Jin Yu: “Twelve years ago.”
Chen Ling: "So if there are no young people as sacrifices in the next twelve years, will the village stop human sacrifices?"
"As far as I know, it should be." Jin Yu bit her lip and said depressedly, "It's also my bad luck that they found me, otherwise I wouldn't have been arrested."
"How many ghosts does he need to store to be able to feed himself for twelve years?" Chen Ling felt strange. "Even if he eats one ghost every month, he would need 144 ghosts in twelve years."
Jin Yu was stunned for a moment, then said hesitantly: "But, there are not so many people in our village."
This village is not big. Even before everyone left, there were only about 400 people in the village.
"Before he died, my brother said that he didn't want to be the 98th victim." Jin Yu said.
Jiang Yu's eyes flickered slightly, and he asked, "Did anything else happen in the village?"
Jin Yu was stunned for a moment. "There is definitely nothing here. As far as I know, they have only moved here two or three years. But, but I heard that there was an incident in the village before. It was a fire."
"Fire?" Chen Ling had not expected this to happen. "Is it an accident?"
Jin Yu's expression changed several times, and he whispered, "If you must say, this is related to Huang Shen... or Huang Fu Gui."
Seeing that the dryness on her lips had become more serious, Chen Ling took out a new small bottle of mineral water from his backpack and handed it to her, "Drink some water first."
Jiang Yu glanced at him and pursed his lips.
Chen Ling was keenly aware of the unpleasant atmosphere emanating from the side, so he moved closer and put his fingers into the man's palm.
Jin Yu didn't notice these small details. She tilted her head back and gulped down a few sips, then said, "I heard it from the elders in the village. It is said that several decades ago, there was a village chief in the village who went crazy because he missed his daughter too much after she was sent for sacrifice. After he committed suicide, his ghost came back and insisted on asking the villagers for his daughter. When the villagers refused to hand her over, he burned the whole village with ghost fire."
A cold chuckle came from the side, and Jiang Yu raised his hand: "Sorry, please continue."
Jin Yu waved his hand. "That's the story. I don't know the details. I just heard that some villagers escaped the disaster because they went to the market. When they came back, the fire in the village was still burning. They tried many ways, such as fetching water from the river and burying the fire with ashes... but none of them worked. In the end, it was the ghost of Huang's father who brought heavy rain to put out the fire."
Huang Fugui is not a good guy. Why would he help put out the fire for no reason
Chen Ling scratched the man's palm with his fingers, "Brother Jiang, do you think that could have been directed and acted by Huang's father ghost?"
"Can you verify it?" Jiang Yu asked Jin Yu.
Jin Yu nodded repeatedly: "The remaining elderly people in the village can testify that they all saw that it was the ghost of Huang's father that caused the heavy rain."
Jiang Yu's lips were cold. "Huang Fugui is a kind of mountain spirit. It is not difficult for him to bring rain in a small area, but it is a great magical power for the villagers. This little trick is enough for ordinary people to worship him as a god."
Chen Ling asked doubtfully, "Did the village chief really set fire to the village because his daughter died? Did he really commit suicide?"
On the other end, Wu Weiwei suddenly spat.
He pressed his phone frantically, looking depressed: "Why is there no signal in this crappy place? I was going to check it online."
"It's like this here... The signal is very poor." Jin Yu said in a low voice.
Chen Ling glanced at the carpet under his feet and suddenly asked, "What do you think? If the village chief really turned into a fierce ghost, would he also be captured by Huang's father ghost?"
Jiang Yu saw through his thoughts: "Want to go down and take a look?"
Chen Ling said: "Huang's father ghost will definitely not let his food hoarders run too far. The other end of the chain may be in his hand. As long as we follow the corridor, we may be able to find his lair."
No matter how good I am at hiding, I have to return to my nest someday. Then I will catch him by surprise and beat him to a pulp.
"But Brother Chen, this is very dangerous. Did you forget that you haven't had time to draw the talisman paper in your backpack?"
"It doesn't matter. I still have the curse whip and the seal. Oh, and the slingshot you gave me last time is also in my bag." Chen Ling's expression was serious, his brows furrowed, "And I'm afraid that Huang's ghost will continue to kill people."
The corpse in Fengling Guild Hall and Wu Weiwei's experience are enough to show that Huang's father's ghost has been hiding in this underground tunnel for long enough.
He needs to find food and he also needs to "reproduce".
Otherwise, he wouldn't risk exposing himself by going to the hot spring club.
Jiang Yu was worried, even if he didn't need to take action himself, he had to keep someone under his watch: "I'll go with you."