"Wait." Wu Weiwei ran over and put his foot on the carpet, fearing that the two men would immediately lift the stone slab to tease him.
"You all went down, what about up there? Didn't we leave when it gets dark? And what if someone comes to check on us?"
"Give me your ink line." said Chen Ling.
Wu Weiwei uttered "oh" twice in succession, lowered his head, took out the ink line from his bag and handed it over.
Chen Ling found the end of the thread, tied it to his hand, and then took out the Sanqing Bell and hung it on it. "Hold the other end of the ink line in your hand. Once you hear a sound and someone approaches, shake the ink line vigorously. I will return immediately when I hear the bell."
It's a good idea, but someone has to stand guard at the door.
Jin Yu seemed to notice that there was a lack of sentinel among the group, and took the initiative to suggest: "I'll help you keep watch, and wait for Wu..."
Wu Weiwei introduced himself: "Wu Weiwei, he is my brother Chen Ling, and that one is Brother Jiang."
Jin Yu remembered it and continued, "Wait a minute, Wu Weiwei will help me get to the top of the wall, and I'll climb up to the roof from the top of the wall. I can see farther from there. If anything happens, I'll blow a whistle."
Although she is a girl, she is definitely more familiar with the situation in the village than these outsiders.
Chen Ling: "Thank you for your help. Please be careful."
Jin Yu smiled at the young man and said, "It's my duty. I can't let you do everything. I should also contribute."
Many of those who left the village had old-fashioned ideas and hoped to return to their hometown one day. If the disgusting extreme superstitions in the village could really be dismantled, my parents would be able to return to their hometown to enjoy their old age.
The blood under the carpet had not completely dried yet, almost sticking the carpet and the floor together.
Chen Ling pulled up the heavy carpet, threw it aside, and used his fingernails to dig a crack in the floor. Instantly, the blood and stench that rushed out of the crack made him gag.
A hand reached out from behind and covered his mouth and nose.
Jiang Yu's hand carried the same scent as his body, making people unable to help but take a few more breaths.
Looking down at the young man, the man took the stone slab with his fingers, and with a little force he pushed it aside, leaning it against the column of the ancestral hall.
As the two jumped down one after another, Wu Weiwei quickly began to let out the line.
The ink line was very thin and didn't look very big, but it was actually more than two hundred meters long. This was the first time he had used it all at once.
Looking at the pile of wires being pulled down at his feet, Wu Weiwei frowned with some worry.
Jin Yu called him twice, but seeing that he was lost in thought and didn't hear, he simply patted him on the arm and said, "Hey, why are you daydreaming? Help me, I'll climb up to the roof first."
Wu Weiwei then came to his senses, tied the tail of the ink line to the leg of the nearest altar, and then went to the small courtyard of the ancestral hall with Jin Yu.
In order to prevent accidental intrusion, there was no time to call people back.
When passing by the gate of the ancestral hall, Wu Weiwei took a broom from the corner, removed one end, leaving only the bamboo pole part and inserted it into the two door handles of the wooden door.
Jin Yu had already reached the top of the wall and was jumping up with all his might.
But I’m not tall enough and can’t reach the top of the wall.
Wu Weiwei coughed lightly, afraid that he might be misunderstood as a pervert if he touched something he shouldn't, so he said very seriously, "I'm sorry."
"Why are you so serious?" Jin Yu smiled. "Just hold my legs and push me up."
Wu Weiwei did as he was told, and since the girl was very light, it was not difficult for him at all. However, Jin Yu had to climb up with great difficulty, and even broke her nails before she could sit on the top of the wall.
She frowned and looked at her broken nail, took a breath in pain, and cursed, "It's so annoying. I almost lost my life just to get a household registration booklet, and my nail was even split."
Wu Weiwei thought of something and asked, "I remember you said that you moved away twelve years ago, but wasn't this village just built not long ago?"
Jin Yu understood, "You mean, why is the household registration book in the new village?"
Seeing Wu Weiwei nod, Jin Yu frowned, looking gloomy: "I'm telling you, don't underestimate those old people. After we left, they immediately searched the entire village. They divided the valuables among everyone and threw away the worthless ones. If they found important documents, they held them in their hands and waited for us to come to them."
Wu Weiwei couldn't help but click his tongue, "That's too much."
“Is that so?” Jin Yu carefully bent his body, grasped the wall tightly with his ten fingers and began to climb towards the eaves. “Last year, someone came back to take something and was caught red-handed. The village chief and his group of people went crazy and pinned him to the ground.”
Hearing that there was no more after the climax, Wu Weiwei urged: "What happened next?"
Jin Yu took a few breaths and said, "Then, the village chief and the others didn't know that the big brother was a policeman. Before returning to the village, the big brother told the local police station that if he didn't come out before dark, they should go in and look for him."
Finally climbing under the eaves, she reached out and grabbed the wooden relief under the eaves, then slowly stood up.
Perhaps to ease her nervousness, she spoke faster, "When the police from the police station arrived, the man had been drugged and passed out. If the police uncle had not been tough, listed a lot of legal clauses, and brought weapons, the village chief and his men would not have let him go."
Wu Weiwei couldn't find any words to describe this group of people who were so feudal and pedantic that they were completely hopeless.
He now even doubted whether the villagers knew that the ghosts who came to eat the sacrifices on the 18th of every month were not Huangfu's ghosts, but a group of evil ghosts that might eat people.
While Jin Yu was working hard to climb onto the roof, Chen Ling and Jiang Yu continued walking in the corridor.
The corridor was very long, brightly lit by the faint blue flame in the ancestor's hand. The surrounding barriers were moist, reflecting the blue flames, which were dotted all around.
Chen Ling was fine. He was a little shorter than Jiang Yu, so he didn't need to hunch his back. He moved forward slowly and freely, occasionally looking back at the man who was hunching over with a wronged look on his face.
After about ten minutes, he couldn't hold it in any longer: "Don't you feel hot?"
The tunnel was closed and the air was thin. Chen Ling felt like he was placed in a sealed jar with his feet on a burning fire.
Jiang Yu came closer, his body temperature was icy cold. He rested his chin on the young man's neck and pressed his cheek against the young man's profile: "Are you feeling better?"
It's more than just better. It's like being in the magma hell one second and in the fresh and clean heaven the next.
Chen Ling couldn't help but rub his face against the other's face and hummed with satisfaction.
But now is not the time to seek coolness, so she briefly cooled down her body, put her backhand on the man's shoulder, and pushed him away a little: "Go on."
I don’t know how long I walked, but the air suddenly became less thin and the temperature around me dropped.
The humidity in the air increased significantly, and water droplets kept dripping down from above my head.
Chen Ling quickened his pace and saw a glimmer of light ahead.
He walked faster and faster. When he was completely out of the corridor, the ink line on his wrist suddenly straightened, and the Sanqing Bell shook, making a few crisp sounds.
There was no other choice but to take down the Sanqing Bell and the ink line and place them on the ground.
At the end of the corridor, there is a large cave with a pool of water in the middle, which should be connected to the water source outside.
On the edge of the cave, there are countless small ceramic jars.
There is a piece of talisman paper pasted on each ceramic jar.
—Yellow talisman paper, a talisman to ward off ghosts drawn with red cinnabar.
There are many ways to draw each type of talisman, and the talisman papers on these jars all start with "imperial decree" and have a squiggly "ghost" character in the middle. There is no seal at the bottom. Obviously, the people who draw the talismans do not want these talismans to be very effective.
To put it bluntly, it is only used to temporarily suppress a town.
When encountering a day with heavy yin energy, or when the evil spirits of ghosts increase suddenly due to some special reason, the effectiveness of the talisman paper will be suppressed by the evil spirits and become useless.
Chen Ling walked over, opened the jar and took a look. He could see the bottom at a glance.
The dark brown walls of the altar were covered with dried bloodstains. The sharp negative and hostile energy inside made people subconsciously alert.
He took out a piece of talisman paper and held it between his fingers. Then he opened the second jar, and the third jar... They were all empty.
"Brother Jiang, these jars are used to raise ghosts. But where did the ghosts go?" Chen Ling couldn't figure it out, "Did they take them out for a walk?"
"The talisman paper could not have been drawn by Huang Fugui. There might be someone else raising the evil ghost." Jiang Yu carried tissues with him. He used the snow-white and soft napkins to wipe the young man's fingers that had touched the lid of the ceramic jar.
Chen Ling frowned and thought deeply, "You say, does Huang Fu ghost obey the talisman painter, or does the talisman painter obey Huang Fu ghost?"
"I think it's the former." Jiang Yu casually tore off a talisman and held it in his hand. "The person who drew the talisman must have great skills. He shouldn't be someone who can be manipulated by others."
Chen Ling's eyes were glued to the talisman paper. The strokes were smooth, the cinnabar was bright red, and even the yellow paper was thin and flexible, the kind that wouldn't get stained by ink.
This person is not only powerful, but also very rich.
Chen Ling couldn't understand why this man wanted to help Huang's father feed ghosts. "Do you think this man is the same one who attacked me with the paper figurine before?"
Jiang Yu's face suddenly turned gloomy, and the hostility between his brows made the temperature of the entire cave drop to freezing point.
Chen Ling couldn't help but shudder, and exaggeratedly threatened: "If it's really him, I will beat him until he cries and calls for daddy!"
He glanced at the man secretly, and seeing that he still looked very bad, he said with lingering fear: "How about leaving it to you? I'll go and deal with Huang's father ghost."
Jiang Yu's expression relaxed, "Okay."
Chen Ling observed a three-second silence for the Taoist priest whom he had never met before.
There was nothing in the cave except the empty jar. Chen Ling planned to look somewhere else. He walked to the water's edge, supported himself on the ground with his hands, and lowered his head and body down.
The water is running. The water that comes out from the spring at the bottom makes the water ripple. The algae below dance together, making it impossible to see the situation at the bottom of the pool.
He looked up at Jiang Yu: "I think I saw something down there."
Jiang Yu walked over, his nose wrinkled slightly, "It's death energy."
Chen Ling thought about it and stood up: "I'll go down and take a look."
Jiang Yu wanted to say something when he saw him take off his T-shirt neatly.
The young man raised his hands, grabbed the hem of his clothes and pulled it up. The clothes easily slipped off his body, revealing a smooth belly with not-so-obvious abdominal muscles.
Chen Ling felt a little embarrassed. This was the first time he was shirtless in front of a man.
He pursed his lips and smiled embarrassedly at Jiang Yu, then lowered his head and began to unbutton his trousers.
The button was too big and the buttonhole was too small, so I couldn't unbutton it at once.
For some reason, Chen Ling felt that the old man's gaze on him became scorching. He cleared his throat, pulled the corner of his lips and said casually: "It's too difficult to untie. I'll go back and find someone to fix the buttonhole."
A black shadow came over and enveloped the young man completely.
Jiang Yu reached out, grasped the back of the young man's hand, and took it away, "I'll help you."
Watching the pair of slender white hands moving under his abdomen, Chen Ling felt his mouth dry and his whole body hot. The flow of time repeatedly stopped at this moment, and the air around him burned strangely, making people feel suffocated.
Chen Ling looked at the man's slow movements, "Is it done?"
At the same time Jiang Yu took his hand away, Chen Ling felt the waistband of his pants loosen.
Chen Ling suddenly felt embarrassed to take off his pants. He closed his eyes and repeatedly hinted to his boyfriend that since they were each other's boyfriends, it was okay to ask him to help take off his pants.
Yes, not really.
After preparing myself mentally, the temperature on my face seemed to subside.
He quickly took off his pants and shoes, sat down by the pond, and slid into the water little by little.
The water was so cold that it made him shiver.
Jiang Yu placed his warm hands on his cold shoulders: "Be careful."
Chen Ling responded vaguely, took a breath, and completely submerged his body in the water.
The water in the lake is very clear and the view is almost unobstructed.
He adjusted his direction and went to the bottom of the pool. When he pushed aside the tangled algae, he was so scared that he almost choked on the water.
The bottom of the pool was covered with white bones, large and small, and bones from different parts of the body almost covering the entire bottom, like a white carpet, entwining the waters with the breath of death.
Chen Ling felt that the air in his lungs was almost gone. He quickly fiddled with the bones and soon found a complete pelvic bone in the middle.
There were cracks on both sides of the pelvis, as if something had broken out from inside and caused them to split.
He quickly returned upstream and while paddling, he was suddenly entangled by a piece of seaweed. The bones at the bottom of the pool suddenly moved, forming complete skeletons one after another.
They were like hungry beasts, rushing forward, you stepping on me, I rolling over you, and rushing madly towards Chen Ling.
Chen Ling puffed out his cheeks, not daring to relax at all.
He looked around, picked up a sharp-angled stone, and ran the force of gravity over his middle finger.
Blood gushed out, and as his fingers moved, an evil-breaking talisman gradually formed in the water.
The next moment, Fu Cheng was slapped away by him. Those things that were awakened by the anger of the living person collapsed one after another in the blink of an eye and sank again into the complex and dense algae.
Chen Ling couldn't hold it any longer and paddled desperately with his limbs.
The moment his head emerged from the water, a pair of hands reached out, grabbed both sides of his ribs, and carried him out of the water.
Chen Ling was really close to suffocation. It was only a minute, but he felt like a century had passed. He held the old ancestor in his arms and refused to let go. His rapid and exaggerated breathing sounded in the man's ears one after another.
Jiang Yu sat on the ground, with one of his long legs straight and the other bent, sandwiching the young man in the middle.
He gently stroked his back and kissed his wet hair: "Are you feeling better?"
“No…nothing…” Chen Ling couldn’t utter a complete sentence, and he looked like a drowned rat.
Jiang Yu moved his body a little further away, loosened his hands and held his face instead: "I'll give you a breath."
"Ah?" Chen Ling opened his mouth in surprise, watching the man's dark eyelashes approaching him, thinking, is he so cruel? He is sitting in the center of the ghost jar, right above the dead bones.
But even in such a strange environment, he gradually felt that the burning pain in his lungs was relieved a lot.
A cool breath soothed all the uncomfortable symptoms he suffered from lack of oxygen.
Well, it's a bit magical.
Chen Ling felt comfortable and refused to show any more tenderness. She pushed the man away coldly and put on her clothes and pants.
The underwear was wet, and even though some of the water seeped onto Jiang Yu's body, it still couldn't prevent it from wetting his outer pants as well.
Jiang Yu glanced at the young man's trousers stuck to his body, revealing the lines of his buttocks. He looked away and swallowed.
Chen Ling didn't notice anything unusual about him. He put on his shoes and stood up from the ground: "I just saw that the pelvis with bones was cracked below. I wonder if a new Huangfu ghost was born from the corpse."
Jiang Yu's voice was dry, "Yeah."
Chen Ling looked at him strangely. They were all so familiar with each other, so there was no need to be so cold.
He added: "I remember that the body found in the guild hall also had something wrong with its stomach... No matter how many Huangfu ghosts there are, we must notify Li Hongyu and the others immediately."
Jiang Yu still didn't look at him, his eyes stopped at a certain spot on the cave wall, "Yeah."
"…" Chen Ling thought he was just having a fit and continued, "Do you remember what Jin Yu said, that after the human sacrifice, the evil ghosts that come out to make trouble on the 19th of every month will be suppressed by the Yellow Father Ghost? Tomorrow morning is the 19th of the lunar calendar, and I'm worried that something might happen."
Jiang Yu finally shifted his gaze to the young man's face and said something inexplicable: "Someone is coming."
Immediately afterwards, the Sanqing Bell lying at the entrance of the corridor rang.
The Sanqing Bell drives away evil spirits and wards off bad luck, causing the silent deathly energy beneath the pool to become agitated. The water in the pool surges violently, as if it is about to jump out of the pool.
Chen Ling ran to the entrance of the corridor in three or two steps, picked up the Sanqing Bell, and pinched its bell tongue hard.
After the ringing stopped for two or three seconds, the water in the pond returned to normal.
He grabbed the ink line and the Sanqing Bell in his hands and ran out without looking back: "Let's go."
Jiang Yu took a few steps with his long legs and caught up with the young man. In less than ten minutes, the two arrived at the bottom of the ancestral hall.
The sound of banging on the door outside the ancestral hall continued. The people outside had obviously been unable to bear it any longer. The village chief had already started shouting for people to bring wooden stakes and break down the door violently.
Going up one by one was too slow, so Jiang Yu carried Chen Ling on his back without saying a word. He saw his five fingers easily pierced into the wall of the tunnel, and with a push of his feet, his body jumped from the dark space into the light and landed steadily.
When Jiang Yu put the man on the ground, he took the ink line from Chen Ling's hand. He turned his wrist flexibly and no one could see clearly how he did it. In short, the ink line was taken back in the blink of an eye, rolled up on the ink fountain, and returned to Wu Weiwei's hands intact.
Wu Weiwei was dumbfounded. He took off the Sanqing Bell that was stuck on the line and handed it to Chen Ling.
Then he stepped out and looked up: "Can you get down by yourself?"
Jin Yu took a shortcut and planned to climb down directly from the roof. At this time, he was holding on to the beam under the eaves with both hands, and his body was swaying back and forth in the air like a leaf blown by the wind.
Wu Weiwei was afraid that she would fall and get hurt, so he walked over and spread his hands: "Just jump, I can catch you."
Jin Yu pouted in disdain: "Don't look down on me, and besides, men and women shouldn't touch each other, I have a fiancé."
Wu Weiwei: “…”
These days, people who have a partner are considered amazing.
After Jin Yu finished speaking, his ankles hanging in the air moved, and his hands suddenly loosened.
She fell to the ground, staggered two steps to stand firm, and looked towards the door with some annoyance: "What should I do?"
Chen Ling raised his chin towards Wu Weiwei and said, "Go open the door first. Jin Yu hides first." He lowered his eyes and thought for a moment, then said, "We will find a way to lure them out. You find a chance to take a long detour from the mountain to the parking yard. We will wait for you to arrive before we leave."
Jin Yu nodded repeatedly and nimbly hid under the altar.
With a loud bang, the door of the ancestral hall was knocked open.
The old man in black came in angrily with the villagers and started to accuse them: "Why did you bolt the door and not let us in? What do you mean?"
Chen Ling snorted coldly and said confidently: "You treat us as prisoners and don't even allow us to lose our temper."
The old man in black had a fierce look in his eyes, and even though his hair was gray, he did not look like a man in his seventies. He brought his men to surround them, and sized up the three men from head to toe with a hawk-like gaze.
Then, he ordered people to carefully check the situation inside and outside the ancestral hall. After confirming that there was no damage, he reluctantly said, "Someone is here to take you away."
Chen Ling looked at Jiang Yu, "Is it Jiang Shengxing?"
Jiang Yu: “Probably.”
I was worried that this group of people might change their minds and not let them leave after dark, but now, reinforcements have arrived.
The old man in black was extremely unhappy. The gold and jade were not found. He had already discussed with his subordinates to keep these people tonight and capture the youngest-looking one as a human sacrifice early tomorrow morning.
Who knew that such a large group of people would suddenly come, each of them tall and strong, carrying black weapons.
Their brutality may be useful against younger generations who adhere to filial piety, or those who bully the weak and fear the strong, but it is useless against those who are more unreasonable and are determined to use violence.
There was no other choice but to come to the ancestral hall in person to ask them to leave.
Chen Ling saw a little fear in his unhappy expression, and he sighed in a troubled manner, saying, "I know that Huang's father ghost needs human sacrifices. We also need living sacrifices to please the gods."
The old man in black's eyes moved, and his tone was no longer as harsh as before, "Why do you say that, little brother?"
Chen Ling said: "I saw Jin Yu, just outside the ancestral hall. I saw her running to the west through the crack in the door, probably trying to escape from the village."
The old man in black didn't think too much about it. He was full of anxiety at this moment.
In the twelve years when no human sacrifices were offered to the gods, the harvests were poor, an old man died of illness every year, and small-scale mudslides occurred during heavy rains... The gold and jade were what they had waited so hard for, and they were the only means to regain the gods' blessing. They could not let her get away!