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The already frozen atmosphere became even more suffocating, oppressively heavy.

The gazes of the over thirty people in the funeral procession all turned to them at the same time, those icy eyes staring intently.

No one spoke, no one moved, everyone just stood there blankly.

Even the suona had stopped, leaving only countless joss papers fluttering in the air.

Zhao Mingyue felt a chill run down her spine from their stares. She reached out and tugged on Bai Yu’s sleeve.

The scene was eerily strange, and Zhao Mingyue knew there would be trouble. Just then, someone called out to her in a low voice, “Hey, Zhao Mingyue!”

Bai Yu turned her head to see a man from the village waving at her, gesturing for her to hurry over.

“Cousin?”

Zhao Mingyue recognized the man and quickly pulled Bai Yu in that direction, running to avoid the funeral procession’s gazes

On the way, Bai Yu looked back at that pure black coffin, staring deeply. She didn’t know what was inside, only able to see the thick resentment.

If ghosts were divided into levels, the little ghosts in Sunshine Apartments and No. 13 Middle School were undoubtedly the lowest,

While red-clothed ghosts like Xiao Lian and the old director were much more powerful, on a completely different level. There were also strength differences between these two types of ghosts.

Xiao Lian was somewhat stronger than the old director. As for the ghost in the coffin, judging from the resentment alone, it was only slightly weaker than the old director, but definitely also belonged to the level of red-clothed ghosts.

They had only reached the village entrance and already encountered this.

Bai Yu became more and more interested in this place. She couldn’t be certain before, but now she was sure those lunatics would definitely find their way here.

When that time came, the later village would likely attract many lunatics. It would definitely be a chaotic battle.

“Cousin, I’m back. Uncle called earlier and told me tomorrow is Grandma’s 80th birthday.” Zhao Mingyue spoke softly, maintaining a distance of over three meters from the man. “She’s my friend, Ruoxi, who came with me today.”

“Also surnamed Zhao, maybe she’s related to our family too.”

Zhao Mingyue knew the village rules, outsiders weren’t allowed in.

The man in front of her looked to be in his late twenties. His hair was messy, his eyes sunken, his skin dull, his face covered in stubble, and his eyes bloodshot, as if he hadn’t slept well in a long time.

“Mm, got it. Tell your friend not to wander around or look around in the village. There’s a banquet tonight. Come by yourself, don’t bring her.”

As the man spoke, he glanced at Bai Yu. The instant he saw her, it was as if he had seen something extremely terrifying. His face immediately darkened. Without another word, he turned and left down another path.

“Hey, Cousin!”

Zhao Mingyue called out from behind, but the man ignored her completely, quickening his pace and disappearing from their sight.

“That’s Zhao Yingcai, my uncle’s eldest son. He’s always looked down on my family and often bullied me. Once, he even lured me out with candy and slapped me twice after I went out. My sister got into a fight with him over that. Anyway, he’s not a good person.”

Zhao Mingyue couldn’t be bothered to chase after him. She stared in the direction Zhao Yingcai had disappeared and told Bai Yu.

“Let’s go, let’s sit at my house for a while, don’t worry about them. We’ll go over at night.”

Bai Yu raised her hand. “No rush, let’s look around the village first.”

“That works too.”

Leading Bai Yu, Zhao Mingyue headed deeper into the village, which wasn’t very large, only a little over a hundred households in total.

But the village layout was quite strange, with an excessively high number of internal paths. It wasn’t that the houses were very close together, but rather that they were arranged in a very chaotic manner.

Normal villages had houses arranged in rows with a few wide main roads in between, and small paths between the houses.

But Pingshan Village was different. The houses weren’t arranged in rows, but rather were staggered, like a scrambled chessboard, with the houses as the pieces.

This arrangement of houses was why there were almost no main roads in the village, only a complex network of small paths.

“Why are there black cloths and scissors hanging on these doors?”

Bai Yu walked past a few tightly closed houses, looking them up and down. Almost every house was the same, with thick black cloth strips hanging on the door frame, and a pair of scissors tied to the cloth, hanging straight down.

Not only that, she also noticed that the thresholds of every household were unusually high.

The thresholds here didn’t refer to conditions, but literally the thresholds at the doorways.

Normal thresholds could be crossed without taking a large step and wouldn’t hinder normal walking.

But the thresholds here were completely different, at least twenty centimeters high. One had to intentionally step over them, otherwise they would trip.

It was as if these thresholds were meant to block something from entering the house.

As she spoke, Bai Yu noticed something else. She walked over and stood in front of a door, squinting at a talisman pasted on it.

The talisman paper was small, no longer than a finger, and red in color.

The pattern drawn on it was also interesting—a pair of ears.

As she leaned in, the talisman’s inscription flickered, and suddenly Bai Yu heard a voice in her ears, as if hundreds of people were whispering together in a jumbled mess.

It felt like her eardrums were being torn apart, a surge of inexplicable resentment rising within her.

Bai Yu’s expression remained unchanged, while the talisman on the door sizzled and began to burn, turning to ashes and scattering in the air in less than half a second.

With the talisman gone, the annoying whispering in Bai Yu’s ears also disappeared.

“Interesting.”

Bai Yu turned around and walked to the door of another house they had just passed. Sure enough, there was also a talisman pasted in the corner.

She reached out and peeled off the talisman, examining it closely. Before it could self-combust, she memorized the pattern on it.

Zhao Mingyue followed behind, completely unaware of what Bai Yu was doing. She only saw her squatting at someone’s door, using her hand to scrape something off their door.

At the third house, the same high thresholds, the same black cloths and scissors, and the same talisman.

“Drawn by the same person.”

After comparing the three, she was certain the brushstrokes on them were from the same hand.

Bai Yu stood up, looking across the street.

When they arrived, there was indeed a main road at the village entrance. Both the wedding and funeral processions had taken it, just that one came from the west side of the road and the other from the east.

Now it seemed that with the village’s disorderly layout, this main road had divided the village.

If she wasn’t mistaken, the situations on the west and east sides of the village were different, the biggest difference possibly being the evil gods they worshipped..

Bai Yu made a judgment in her heart and immediately set off.

“Bai Yu, what’s wrong?” Zhao Mingyue hurried to catch up.

“Made a discovery. When we get to the east side of the village, remember not to speak.”

“Ah, okay, got it.” Zhao Mingyue had just been thinking that she had to rely on herself this time. She had to at least provide Bai Yu with some useful information.

In the end, even on her home turf, she still couldn’t be of use.

Without asking more, they crossed the road in the middle and arrived on the east side.

Sure enough, as soon as they got there, Zhao Mingyue felt that something was off There seemed to be people talking in her ears, whispering, but she couldn’t make out what they were saying.

The source of the voices was also strange, sounding like they were right by her ear and yet also inside the houses.

On the east side, Zhao Mingyue finally saw living people. There was a middle-aged woman sitting at a door, cracking melon seeds and muttering something, her expression solemn.

She could hear the woman say, “Tsk tsk, the second son’s wife from the butcher family at the west entrance died. He doesn’t even seem sad. Must be fooling around with someone else. I bet he killed his wife himself.”

At first, Zhao Mingyue thought the woman was talking to someone sitting in the yard. But when she got closer, she discovered that the door beside the woman was actually closed.

Peeking through the crack in the wooden door, it did seem like there was a person sitting behind the door. A dark shadow could be seen.

Seeing Zhao Mingyue, the woman instantly shut her mouth and stopped cracking melon seeds, staring at her with her head raised.

After a long while, she finally spoke, “Which family are you from? What’s your father’s name? Never seen you before.”

Zhao Mingyue was about to speak, but then remembered what Bai Yu had just told her. The words reached her lips but she swallowed them back, averting her gaze without saying a single word.

Seeing Zhao Mingyue ignore her, the woman asked again, “Hey, kid, I’m asking which family you’re from. You should at least know your father’s name, right?”

At this moment, Bai Yu walked over. She glanced at the middle-aged woman, her gaze shifting to the seemingly unoccupied house next door.

The black cloth and scissors were still there, but the threshold was gone.

She reached out and peeled off a talisman. The talisman paper was deep purple instead of red, and the symbol on it had changed from ears to a mouth. Unfortunately, she couldn’t understand the words on it.

“Ears, mouth, eyes.”

The instant she took hold of the talisman, Bai Yu felt a burning sensation on her tongue, followed by a piercing pain.

Clenching the talisman tightly in her palm, the burning sensation on her tongue quickly disappeared. When she opened her hand again, fine ashes fell from her palm.

“Looks like someone has been here. That Chen Yun was just a puppet.”

Bai Yu thought of the woman she had killed at the school before. That woman could use a type of talisman, with a black base and an eye symbol.

Her talismans were quite powerful, especially against ghosts.

When she killed Chen Yun, she thought she was dealing with another game participant.

Now it seemed she had thought too much. Chen Yun was just a puppet, and the talismans in her hands were given to her by someone else, the real game participant.

That person had come to this village long ago and had even gained the support of an evil god, becoming something like a spokesperson. No, that evil god was very likely residing in her body. After reaching some kind of agreement, she could use the evil god’s power.

Making deals with evil gods often didn’t end well.

Finding an evil god in such a short time and making a deal without hesitation, this was very much in line with the usual style of those lunatics.

“Mouth represents not being able to speak.”

“Ears represent a prohibition on listening?”

“The west side represents the ear, the east side the mouth. If these are two evil gods, then what are the scissors for? To blind the eyes…?”

“And the thresholds, are they to keep out the living or the dead?”

“Mingyue mentioned before that there’s a group of immortal people in the later village, in other words, wax corpses.”

“Then in the former village, could there also be…”

Bai Yu didn’t really believe in zombies, but she believed in the existence of something similar to zombies.

Hypothetically, after a person dies, if their soul, or rather, their resentment, was forcibly sealed into their decaying, dead body through some method…

Could this so-called wax corpse, this layer of wax, be the seal?

Regardless, where are these wax corpses?

Do they have combat capabilities?

And what is the relationship between the west and east villages? What is the connection between the two evil gods?

Where does the eye fit into all this? If the scissors are really for the eyes, then that’s interesting.

“Zhao Mingyue, didn’t I already tell you…”

While Bai Yu was thinking, Zhao Yingcai suddenly appeared. Even Bai Yu didn’t notice where he had come from.

Zhao Yingcai walked over quickly. He deliberately avoided Bai Yu and headed towards Zhao Mingyue.

Bai Yu snapped out of her thoughts, her eyes narrowing as she looked at Zhao Yingcai.

Zhao Yingcai had just reached Zhao Mingyue’s side. He was furious, pointing at Zhao Mingyue’s nose, about to start scolding her.

Bang!

A palm viciously slapped Zhao Yingcai’s neck with tremendous force, sending him crashing heavily into a pile of weeds by the roadside, his head hitting a rock.

Dazed, he clutched his head and had just gotten up when his head was firmly stepped on.

“I ask, you answer.”

Bai Yu’s foot pressed down on Zhao Yingcai’s head. She bent down slightly, her ponytail hanging beside her face. She narrowed her eyes and said,

“Your god, what’s their true name?”

Zhao Yingcai could only see Bai Yu’s face and those pure black eyes as he rolled his eyes upward.

“Speak.”

Splat, blood splattered. A spike formed from blood threads under Bai Yu’s foot pierced into Zhao Yingcai’s mouth from the side, directly penetrating half his face.

“You know I’m a ghost, don’t play dumb.”

Countless tiny blood threads entered through the wound in Zhao Yingcai’s mouth, growing wildly inside until they enveloped his entire head.

“I, I don’t know!” Zhao Yingcai’s face twisted in pain.

“Your tongue has already been sacrificed to your gods. If I rip out your tongue, would that count as betrayal?”

Zhao Yingcai’s originally fierce eyes immediately turned panicked upon hearing Bai Yu’s words. He stammered, not knowing what to say.

“A-Ah, D-Divine Tongue Mother.”

“Mingyue’s parents, you dug them up?”

“Y-yes, yes.”

After uttering the words “Divine Tongue Mother,” blood began pouring from Zhao Yingcai’s mouth. Bai Yu was certain not all of it was her doing. She had only pierced this guy’s face, but hadn’t cut his tongue. Most of this blood came from his tongue.

“Zhao Mingyue is the vessel chosen by Divine Tongue Mother?”

“Yes…”

“When is the ritual?”

“Sev-Seven days…”

At this point, Zhao Yingcai had basically stopped struggling. Bai Yu lifted her foot, her face expressionless.

Zhao Yingcai wasn’t killed by her, but by Divine Tongue Mother, likely through some manifestation of will or a curse.

“Mingyue, you’re in trouble. If we hadn’t come this time, it would have been even worse.”