A red light flickered like a candle flame, and through the gauze curtain, it showed a strange bright red. Luo Yu'an's eyes, which appeared through the crack of the door, also reflected the red light, covering her suddenly shrunken pupils.
The footsteps of the man outside the door suddenly stopped. He just walked to the door where Luo Yu'an was. The two were separated by a door. Luo Yu'an could even clearly hear the sound of the man swallowing his saliva.
Fear, invisible fear in the air like a silk thread that gradually becomes tighter.
"What the hell?" The voice outside the door sounded weak.
Suddenly, the red light in the center turned into several lights, which lit up one after another, illuminating the inside of the shrine. The shrine building was only covered by a few layers of curtains, and the red light shone through them. They could clearly see a shadow swaying inside the shrine.
She... or was it him, who walked from the darkness to the red light, with a thin and slender body, moving in a strange posture, and looking at his shadow it seemed as if he was dragging a long piece of clothing.
The door suddenly made a slight sound, and Luo Yu'an's vision was blocked because the man outside the door unconsciously stepped back, just blocking her sight.
Luo Yu'an took a step back and raised her head, only to find that the red light outside was even brighter, and she could even see clearly the shadow of the man against the door.
"Someone? Who is playing tricks... Gulp... Gulp..." The man's curse suddenly stopped, and a vague sound came out of his throat, which made people imagine and feel creepy at the same time. Luo Yu'an stared at the water mark on the door with his eyes wide open, and he could almost imagine how this large mark was splashed there just now.
Then, a sharp scream came from outside, belonging to another female prisoner. The piercing scream of fear and the subtle sound of the man dying mixed together and pierced her ears from far or near. She couldn't see what kind of attack the man had just encountered, but the two people in the rooms on the left and right must have seen it clearly.
Before coming here, Luo Yu'an spent half a month in the Yulin District Prison, surrounded by death row prisoners, most of whom were more cruel than ordinary people. The female prisoner next door was said to have committed dozens of major robberies and murders with her husband in the past ten years, and later killed her husband because she was dissatisfied with the distribution of property. Such a woman is now screaming in fear.
Luo Yu'an watched stiffly as the figure outside the door disappeared, then looked at the crack in the door through which light came again and slowly moved closer.
The first thing she saw was a foot on the edge of the corridor outside the door, a lonely and discarded foot.
In an instant, all her senses awakened, especially her sense of smell. She seemed to realize that she had been holding her breath. After taking a deep breath, the bloody smell mixed with the scent of unknown flowers strongly impacted all her senses.
A broken leg wouldn't scare her so much, as she had seen the most horrific scene half a month ago. But the blood flowing from the leg slowly turned into red lines that connected to the shrine. This weird scene was beyond her imagination.
How could blood turn into red lines? There were even more than one blood line, scattered in the shadows on the ground, and red lines were wriggling on the tiny pieces of objects, as if being pulled by someone and falling into the shrine.
Luo Yu'an saw a strange shadow standing in the shrine. The strings connected to him made him look like a puppet. The puppet was pulled by the blood string, and the shadow kept expanding on the curtain, as if it was about to leave the shrine.
The fear of the unknown pierced her heart. Luo Yu'an dared not look any further, but her body was too stiff to move. She could only hold the door in vain, hoping that the door would protect her from being caught by the monster in the shrine.
However, this approach was obviously futile. Following two screams and the sound of a door being pushed open, Luo Yu'an felt his body lighten and flew backwards in a daze.
The door in front of her opened wide, and several red lines grabbed her and dragged her to the horrible world outside. The world she saw through the crack in the door suddenly spread out in front of her. She saw more clearly the red on the ground, as well as the other several doors that were opened wide. The other two people hiding in the house were also dragged out by the red lines.
The woman was trying to struggle, the man was frantically scratching the red line on his body, and Luo Yu'an didn't dare to move. She stared at the bright red light inside the shrine, terrified to the extreme.
The shadow with countless red threads on his body approached a curtain. The blood-colored threads pulled the curtain open, revealing the true appearance of the figure.
His head was lowered, his face hidden in the shadow of his long black hair, his body was completely wrapped in a strange white dress, as if there was no flesh or blood inside. The long white sleeves on his side dragged on the ground, and countless blood lines extended from under the sleeves.
Like a human, yet not like a human.
She didn't know when it started, but the entire courtyard turned into a cage of crisscrossed blood lines. Countless blood lines divided the world she saw in front of her eyes into pieces. The monster with white sleeves stepped on those blood lines, like a white spider lying on a red spider web.
The blood line lifted the broken pieces and brought them in front of him. A sleeve that seemed to have life covered them. After a chewing sound came from somewhere, the piece of meat quickly disappeared.
Luo Yu'an suddenly realized that the four death row prisoners were here to be eaten! She originally thought it was a hope for life, but she didn't expect it to be the abyss of death. After realizing this, she saw the monster stepping on the blood line to another man.
The man struggled violently, yelling and swearing in panic. It was probably because of his "noise" that the monster chose him first.
The sleeve that had swallowed up the flesh and blood was still pure white, and it floated over the man's head like a cloud. In an instant, the gushing red turned into countless blood lines extending from under the sleeves, making the red lines of the entire courtyard more dense.
Luo Yu'an closed her eyes. She didn't scream in vain like the other female prisoner, she just closed her eyes tightly, just like she did when she encountered something unacceptable before.
Then, the woman's screams stopped abruptly, and the rich floral scent and rust smell in the air became even stronger, so strong that it was suffocating. She knew what had happened and what was going to happen next. Although she didn't scream, she couldn't help shaking all over.
The monster approached her, as light and soft as a cloud, and its sleeves, which carried the scent of an unknown flower, enveloped her.
Here it comes! Here it comes!
There was a sudden pain in his neck, as if something had bitten him. Luo Yu'an imagined that his head would be bitten off the next moment, and then like the other three people, nothing would be left.
The pain in her neck continued, but the sharper pain she had imagined did not come. The sleeve that was encircling her stopped and then began to tremble suddenly.
Luo Yu'an's eyes lit up, and she saw the sky above her again, which was cut into countless pieces by the blood lines. The blood lines that bound her suddenly loosened and fell down, and the monster standing in front of her suddenly bent down -
"Ugh..."
Luo Yu'an sat on the ground, staring blankly at the monster slowly crawling on the ground and spitting out blood. Its arched back was like a bone spur that was about to pierce through the thin white clothes at any time.
After the vomiting subsided, he was hung up by the blood line, with his long sleeves hanging at his sides. Luo Yu'an felt as if he looked at him, and then quickly retreated back to the shrine with a red light like a kite.
The blood lines were still around her, and there was no sound in the silent courtyard. She was the only one left.
Shivering suddenly, Luo Yu'an got up and stumbled towards the only exit of the yard. The door was locked, and the two old ladies' plain voices could be heard from outside.
"There's no sound from inside. Ujigami has probably absorbed all the evil this time, and will form a cocoon again tomorrow."
"Well, everything needed for the ceremony has been prepared, don't worry."
Luo Yu'an's hand, which was about to touch the door, trembled and she withdrew it. She finally woke up from the shock of death and monsters and realized that if she knocked on the door now, the two people outside would ignore her and even kill her.
She didn't know where this was, but from everything she saw and heard when she was sent here, she could tell that this was a secret, ancient, special place with privileges, and they wanted to kill her as easily as crushing an ant.
Unable to escape, and this square courtyard... Luo Yu'an turned her head and looked at the marks on the ground and the dark rooms. She couldn't escape at all, and there was no place to hide in the room. As long as she waited until tomorrow, she might be found. They would kill her, or send her back to Yulin District Prison to wait for the original verdict.
At this moment, Luo Yu'an suddenly thought of her sister. Her weak eyes and limp steps became firm again.
"No, I can't die yet."
Dawn breaks.
Ghost month, the fifteenth day.
The full moon still hanging in the sky was a little red, and two white-haired clan girls held red lanterns and opened the gate, preparing to prepare for the rebirth ceremony of the clan god as they did every time before. However, what came into view was not an empty courtyard, but a blood-stained courtyard that had not changed since last night.
"Bang-"
The red lantern rolled to the ground and quickly burned. Under the burning flames, the faces of the two old men turned pale and stiff. "How could this happen!"
"Why hasn't Ujigami started to sleep yet?"
The three bloodstains in the courtyard were very obvious. The two saw them at a glance, but they could not find the last trace no matter what.
"Oh no, there's something wrong with the sacrifice this time!"
"How could such a mistake happen!"
"Hurry up and ask them to send more sacrifices. We can't waste any more time!"
In a panic, the gate was closed again. After an unknown amount of time, the gate opened again. Luo Yu'an, hiding in the dark space under the corridor, heard the sound of chaotic footsteps above his head.
It seemed that someone was tied up and placed in the corridor. The footsteps of the person leaving faded away, and then there was silence for a long time.
Luo Yu'an hugged himself tightly and curled up, with his eyes wide open, watching the sunlight shining in through the gap in the corridor, and the red liquid dripping through the gap.
"Tick, tick..."
Luo Yu'an lay there stiff, and finally moved her fingers in the long silence, trying to move herself out of here. She carefully poked her head out from the gap under the corridor and saw that the whole yard was empty, the blood lines in the sky were gone, and the sunlight around 3 or 4 in the afternoon illuminated most of the yard, and the gorgeous shrine building in the center was bright and brilliant in the sun.
If it weren't for the bloodstains nearby, she would almost think that last night's nightmare was just a dream.
Suddenly, there was a noise at the gate. Luo Yu'an quickly hid herself back. She heard several people coming into the yard. Each of them was very silent and tried to move as quietly as possible. The two old ladies lowered their voices and said:
"We must find that person!"
"She has already affected the cocooning of Shishen. We cannot let her disturb Shishen's rest here!"
"Hurry up, even if Ujigami has already started to 'fall asleep', we can't disturb Ujigami for too long."
"Daughter, what should we do if we find someone?"
"Kill him."
These cold conversations were right above her head, and Luo Yu'an trembled. The fear that she would be found and killed at any time made her try to curl herself up in the gap. But she knew very well that this yard was only this big, and she would be found soon.
Casting his desperate eyes towards the shrine, a crazy idea came to Luo Yu'an's mind - what if he hid inside