1TWITF[C Chapter 74

Chapter 74

An Xingyu was still rooted to the spot, the thick, pungent smell of blood drilling into his nostrils. It wasn’t until Luo Ying excitedly tugged at him that he snapped back to his senses.

In the past, An Xingyu would have been overjoyed, but… after witnessing Lu Yanli’s death, he was in a deep emotional trough, and only nodded silently.

He didn’t know that this was because Lu Yanli had hypnotized him, and only thought that he had a deep emotional connection with him and was unwilling to part.

“Let’s go quickly, we’re going to the forbidden area.” Luo Ying tugged at him again.

“Wait, I’ll bring him too.” An Xingyu stubbornly shook her off and walked towards Lu Yanli.

But she couldn’t lay a hand on An Xingyu.

This was also why Lu Yanli and An Xingyu were pulled back into the village as soon as they escaped to the entrance; outside the village, she couldn’t attack.

An Xingyu walked forward step by step, squatted down, reached out and dragged Lu Yanli’s corpse forward, then turned around and carried him on his back.

Luo Ying was puzzled: “What are you doing?”

This was the sentence that Lu Yanli had silently instructed him just now. An Xingyu concealed the last sentence, “find Lin Chu”. He was now full of distrust towards Luo Ying, so naturally he couldn’t tell her the news that Lin Chu was still alive.

Lin Chu wasn’t dead, could Lu Yanli be resurrected in the same way?

Luo Ying frowned, but An Xingyu had already carried the person forward, so she couldn’t say anything, and had to walk alongside him.

“Since you are also a child of god, I won’t hide it from you. Have you seen a jade pendant on Lu Yanli?” Luo Ying gestured the shape, “Two fish, head to tail.”

She stared at An Xingyu, her voice gentle.

Just as An Xingyu was about to answer, a burst of stinging pain in his mind made him unconsciously change his words: “I saw it, it was taken away by Lili.”

This answer obviously dissatisfied Luo Ying, she whispered something to herself, then continued: “Not necessarily, Lu Yanli is a very cunning person, we need to search his body.”

An Xingyu was very uncomfortable with her proposal, but reason told him that it was inevitable. In order to dispel Luo Ying’s doubts, he had to lay Lu Yanli’s corpse flat on the ground, preparing to search his body.

The instant he turned around, his pupils shrank.

Just now, after Lili had dug out the other party’s heart, she had inevitably dug out a small piece of cloth from the chest, and the button there had fallen off, revealing a small patch of pale skin.

And he also had a mark on his body!

This discovery immediately plunged An Xingyu into an even deeper emotional vortex.

As fellow believers, concealing it from Luo Ying was not in accordance with the code of conduct. But Lu Yanli was also a believer, so An Xingyu felt much more at ease.

Luo Ying stood beside him supervising, she always had a smile on her face, but it made people very uncomfortable. Seeing that she really couldn’t find anything, she could only believe An Xingyu’s words.

“It seems that Lili really took it. We have to find a way to get it back.” Luo Ying muttered to herself.

As she spoke, they slowly stepped into the forest.

The sky was already pitch black, and after entering the forest, it was even darker than dark. Luo Ying carefully turned on the flashlight for lighting.

The forest, which should have been calm, also became fraught with danger, and seemed to be able to smell the bloody smell and the smell of rotting protein in the air.

And… and the fishy smell of certain animals.

An Xingyu suddenly noticed the corpse on his back move.

His whole body stiffened, and he quickened his pace.

He suddenly remembered that the cat-faced old woman had undergone a strange transformation because a raccoon cat had approached her corpse.

Lu Yanli wouldn’t also undergo a strange transformation, would he?

An Xingyu suddenly felt a little apprehensive. Even if he and Lu Yanli were currently on the same side, he had to admit that the other party was very difficult to deal with. If he really became a zombie, he wouldn’t be any worse than other powerful ghosts.

The corpse on his back was getting colder and colder.

“Hurry up, hold on a little longer.” Luo Ying deliberately quickened her pace, hoping to make An Xingyu throw the corpse away, but the other party insisted on carrying it, not falling behind even a step. Soon, the two arrived outside the forbidden area.

No matter how much An Xingyu usually exercised, he was still an underage high school student. Carrying a corpse for so long made him extremely tired. As soon as he stepped into the forbidden area, he noticed a beam of tangible gaze coming from above.

Who was it?

He looked up, but could only see circles and circles of pale white tombstones, unable to see whose gaze it was.

He was brought to the forbidden area, then what?

Luo Ying said, “Wait, wait for our other companions to arrive, and then we’ll enter this ancient tomb together.”

She pointed to the raised hillside in front of her.

“This is actually an ancient tomb?” An Xingyu sighed inwardly.

Since Lu Yanli chose to let Luo Ying take the scroll, it meant that he didn’t intend to keep it a secret from her. An Xingyu honestly replied, “The village chief said it’s a treasure map.”

“Treasure map… where is the treasure?” Luo Ying raised her flashlight and aimed it at the painting.

An Xingyu then stepped forward to point out the details to her.

Neither of them noticed that in the corner, Lu Yanli’s chest was rising and falling slightly, as if his heart was slowly beating.

Just then, Luo Ying suddenly noticed something, and immediately vigilantly looked around.

“Did you hear that?” she asked softly.

“Hear what?” An Xingyu was puzzled. Soon, he heard it too.

It was as if… something was crawling over from there.

Luo Ying’s face changed: “It’s a snake! Let’s go quickly!” Seeing that he was still planning to turn back, she pulled him hard, “People are dead, don’t care so much, let’s go!”

“Shouldn’t snakes be hibernating?” An Xingyu retorted in a low voice, but still followed behind her and ran upwards.

After they ran far away, a pair of hands stretched out from the darkness and dragged Lu Yanli’s corpse away.

An Xingyu asked as he ran, “When will our companions arrive?”

Luo Ying replied, “On the first day of the Lunar New Year, on the day they offer sacrifices to their ancestors.”

“By the way, the village chief also said that this year is the sixtieth year, and a cycle is about to pass. Do you know what’s going on?”

So, she needed a Lu Yanli to inquire about information.

An Xingyu frowned.

Cycle… what exactly is it? What happened sixty years ago?

Did they have to wait until the ancestral sacrifice to get the answer?

But, the villagers were all dead, who would offer sacrifices to their ancestors?

Speaking of this question, Luo Ying wasn’t very worried: “It doesn’t matter, many, many companions will come tomorrow, enough to complete the ritual.”

At the same time, at the foot of the mountain, a team of red-robed people slowly moved forward.

The mountain wind was biting, blowing up their cloaks, and one of them had their hat blown off.

What was horrifying was that after the hat was blown off, it revealed a skeleton!

The other people wearing red cloaks were the same. Under the shadow of the hat brim, there were pale white skeletons inside!

This team of red-robed people were all dead! But they still remembered their mission.

They were going… to go up the mountain.

*

Lin Chu shuttled through the tombstones, looking at one grave after another, firmly remembering the tombstones along the way.

They all had names and surnames, and detailed birth and death dates. It was pitch black at night, with no stars or moon, but because the tombstones were pale white, she could see clearly.

As she looked, cold sweat broke out on her forehead.

“No… why is it like this?… How is it possible?”

Lin Chu couldn’t believe her eyes.

Was it an illusion? It must be an illusion!

How could such a thing happen?

No, not necessarily, she couldn’t jump to conclusions easily. Weren’t there plenty of weird events? What was important now was to look more, summarize the rules, and then extract useful information from them.

Lin Chu took a breath and ran to another circle, crouching down.

Her movements were nimble, and did not attract attention. But this forbidden area was too large, and she ran a long way before reaching the other half of the circle.

Sure enough… she hadn’t seen it wrong.

Lin Chu took a deep breath.

A cycle of sixty years?

Was there really such a thing? Could this cycle refer to the lives of the villagers? For example, resurrecting in units of sixty years.

But that wasn’t right either… Lin Chu quickly overturned her guess.

It seemed that she still had to wait for the ancestral sacrifice.

She didn’t know what the village would arrange. She looked up at the sky and then at her watch.

It was only three or four in the afternoon, but it was already completely dark. When time slowly passed into the night, they would usher in the final darkness!

Inside Upper Immortal Village, there was no one.

But the little girl’s body was filled with an even deeper, more intense aura of coldness, making her even more terrifying than before!

After she entered Zhang Bo’s house, she turned around and walked to the yard, looking in the opposite direction from the gate.

The location of this house was very special, backed by the back mountain. From here, she could just see the black shadow of the back mountain in the night.

In the entire village, only Zhang Bo’s house was located here, because Lili was guarding it before, guarding at the foot of the back mountain, and those things in the mountain didn’t dare to come in.

But now…

The little girl showed a lovely smile.

If Zhang Bo was here, he would not mistake her for someone else.

She was not Lili at all, but Zhang Bo’s deceased daughter, Zhang Huixuan! It was just that she was about the same age as Lili when she died, and she was also wearing a red dress, so the villagers had mistaken her.

This was also why she had to attack Zhang Bo’s family first. After so many years, it was difficult to guarantee that they would not recognize her. If they asked the guardian deity for protection, it would be difficult for her to escape.

The little girl stood in the yard, and the surrounding houses suddenly decayed at an extremely fast speed, as if decades had passed in an instant. Then, the houses collapsed with a bang!

At the moment the houses collapsed, the air instantly turned cold.

An extremely gloomy and cold aura slowly spread out from the ruins, as if some monster was slowly resurrecting.

*

“Are you sure that the direction pointed to by the treasure map is here?”

Her other hand held a small mirror, and her eyes traced the direction indicated by An Xingyu.

An Xingyu hesitated for a moment, then nodded.

Did the village chief not look for a mirror in the room for decades? She didn’t believe that this treasure map would be so easily discovered.

“Where do you think it’s wrong?”

Luo Ying shook her head: “It’s hard to say, but I still feel that something is wrong.”

She put away the mirror, and the flashlight was still shining brightly, “Look, if it’s not flipped, where does the tail of this fox point to?”

The place it pointed to had a small courtyard, presented in the deep green forest. At first glance, it looked a bit like a small black hole, backed by a mountain.

“Looking at it this way, the place it points to should be—” An Xingyu’s eyes widened slightly, “It’s Zhang Bo’s house!” Only Zhang Bo’s house was located behind the mountain.

“Zhang Bo?”

“It’s where Lili, the guardian deity of the village, lives. Lili is Zhang Bo’s granddaughter.” An Xingyu repeatedly calculated in his mind, and his delicate eyebrows gradually wrinkled.

So that’s how it is… No wonder the mirror image of this portrait is also a pretense. After the mirror image is flipped, you can recognize that it is a map, and the direction pointed to by the fox’s tail is the center of the forbidden area. But after recognizing that it is a map, you need to look at it according to the image before the mirror image, and the place it points to is obviously different again.

He subconsciously wanted to share this news with Lu Yanli, and then he remembered that Lu Yanli was dead.

But he always felt that this somewhat terrifying man couldn’t die so easily.

What they didn’t notice was that a young woman was squatting not far from the two, listening to their conversation clearly.

Lin Chu circled back and found the two. She knew An Xingyu but didn’t know who the woman next to him was, so she chose to lurk to the side, and as a result, she heard a lot of useful information.

Good, good, the sky is so dark, it’s actually beneficial for me to commit crimes.

But, where’s Lu Yanli?

Lin Chu muttered in her heart and continued to squat down.

Their people, who are they?

I can’t tell, An Xingyu actually has another identity.

In a corner of the slope that none of the three noticed, a black shadow was slowly digging open one of the graves.

The tombstone of that grave also had the birth and death dates and the name of the deceased engraved on it. Judging from the name and age, it was a five or six-year-old boy surnamed Zhang.

The dark clouds slowly dispersed, and the moon revealed its light, shining on the face of the black shadow.

Who else could it be but Lu Yanli?

After filling the soil, Lu Yanli pulled a corpse from his side.

This corpse looked exactly like him, with a hole pierced through his chest. He was already dead, but something was wriggling in his heart.

But Lu Yanli didn’t see it.

He started digging a pit in a position some distance away from this grave. The tools were brought out from the village before. The soil was soft, and he dug quickly. Before long, Lu Yanli buried his corpse in it.

Then, his gaze turned to the distance.

How could he take back the jade pendant from An Xingyu while hiding it from Luo Ying?

After doing all this, would Zhang Huixuan really let him go?

As time passed, Lu Yanli simply sat by one of the graves, closed his eyes and dozed off, waiting for the arrival of midnight.

The end of the year was approaching, and ghosts and monsters were causing trouble.

On the first day of the Lunar New Year, sacrifices were made to ancestors and gods.

A cycle of sixty years… the monster in the back mountain…

Lu Yanli always felt that he had overlooked something, or rather, he was again bewitched by the weirdness, so that he did not pay attention to some abnormalities that should have been discovered.

What did I overlook?

Midnight was approaching.

All living things were silent.

Was it a ghost? Or something else?

Soon, Lu Yanli noticed that the ground under his feet was faintly making some sound.

Lin Chu had climbed to the top and was gazing into the distance, dumbfounded.

Not only the mountain under their feet, but also a dark mountain in the distance was moving.

What was going on?

All four were surprised and incredulous.

The little girl, squatting in Zhang Bo’s house, guarded the ruins.

A cycle of sixty years, the earth dragon turned over, the mountains turned, and the thing hidden on the other side of the mountain was about to come out.

He also thought of that hole.

It seemed that the mountain was slowly turning around, and after it turned around, it was not known what would happen, so it was better to avoid it first.

On the other side, Luo Ying and An Xingyu were also running very fast.

“What’s on the other side of the mountain?”

“I don’t know, but it’s definitely not something we can directly contact.”

The ground under their feet was still shaking, and the surrounding mountains were trembling. They knew that this wasn’t an earthquake, this was… something was about to come out from the back mountain!

And at this moment, they all had a strong intuition—when that thing came out, they would immediately lose their lives!

Upper Immortal Village, Zhang Bo’s house.

Those were… one by one, figures wearing shrouds, their faces indistinguishable, appearing in the mountain. They stood quietly on the mountain road, and looking closely, they were all bloody, their faces rotten corpses.

One after another, the figures stood neatly in the dark mountain road, almost merging with the pure black background. Looking at them, it was almost impossible to see the end of the team. It was difficult to say how many there were.

Then, those figures all raised their heads and slowly walked down the mountain.

Judging from their speed, when the mountain completely turned around, they would completely leave the mountain and come into the mortal world!