The night was getting thicker and crows were heard from time to time outside the cave, and the air was getting colder and damper, but it was not reduced much by the firelight in the cave.

From the Taoist man's account, Ling Huayin and the others had a general understanding of the situation in the village. Two years ago, the people in the village suddenly contracted a strange sleeping disorder. They slept in the daytime and went out for activities at night, and most of them were unconscious.

They were unclear, spoke incoherently, and were crazy. Zhang Xingwen was the only person in the village who knew a little bit about Taoism. He told the villagers that those people were possessed by imps and needed to do something to get rid of the imps in their bodies. So the village chief gathered those people together.

They got together and asked Zhang Xingwen to perform the Fa on them. After doing the Fa for a day and a night, the villagers miraculously recovered. But within a few days, the villagers began to disappear one after another. Every morning, they disappeared.

The head of the missing person and bloody clothes would be found at the entrance of the village. On the seventh day, the village chief had no choice but to summon all the men in the village to discuss countermeasures. Lingyin Village has always believed in the mountain god, and the village chief was convinced of this disaster.

It is the mountain god who is angry, and it is necessary to hold another grand ceremony once every ten years to appease the mountain god's anger.

"Big sacrifice, what kind of big festival is it?" Ling Huayin felt uncomfortable when she heard these two words. She always felt that the strangeness of this village lies in this big festival.

Zhang Xingwen said sadly: "The big sacrifice is the tradition of this village. It is held every ten years. A girl under the age of 16 is selected from the village to be sacrificed. It is said that she will be betrothed to the mountain god as a wife, but everyone knows that the girl sacrificed

None of them survived the next day. Their heads were bitten off and thrown at the entrance of the village, their clothes were torn, and their bodies were not intact."

Ling Huayin was furious and yelled: "What kind of big sacrifice are you doing?! It's so inhumane! You..." Before she could finish her words, Ling Huayin's voice suddenly stopped as if she was suddenly frozen.

Situ Yan glanced at Ling Huayin and calmly reassured Elo: "She's fine." After saying that, he said to Zhang Xingwen: "Why do you still do this if you know it will kill a girl?"

Zhang Xingwen replied: "You don't know something. If we don't sacrifice the girl, then not just one person will die. We are not willing to let our relatives die for us! But those who got into the accident are all strong and healthy people."

A big man. In some families, there is only one working man, and the whole family depends on him. If he is gone, the whole family will collapse. We can only sacrifice a girl to buy the peace of more people.

"

Er Luo snorted coldly and said sarcastically: "What you said is really high-sounding. Only you can do it to exchange the life of an innocent girl for the safety of grown men like you."

Situ Yan didn't say a word to this, but frowned deeply and asked, "What exactly is the mountain god you are talking about?"

"We have never seen it. We all heard it from our ancestors. It is said that it lives on the mountain northwest of the village, but the villagers are afraid and no one has gone up to have a look."

E Luo quickly said to Situ Yan: "I separated from you just now and saw a road leading to the mountain, but I didn't see anyone living there so I didn't go up to look. Let's go take a look later?"

Situ Yan nodded, and then continued to ask Zhang Xingwen: "Since you have never seen the mountain god, how do you send those girls up? The girls can't go up by themselves, right?"

Zhang Xingwen replied: "The villagers tied up the girl to be sacrificed and put it by the river. When no one is around, the mountain god will send an envoy to take her away."

Situ Yan frowned deeply, "In addition to the mountain gods you mentioned, there are also messengers? What was the scream we heard just now?"

"Whenever the messenger comes, the moon in the sky will be obscured by dark clouds, and the lights in the whole village will be extinguished instantly. People in the village can only vaguely see a black shadow, and no one has really seen its true face. This time because of

The girl who was sacrificed ran away, and the mountain god was very angry when he found out. He was the one who sent an envoy to kidnap Bai Sanniang." After Zhang Xingwen finished speaking, he looked at the boy aside, the young man who rushed out just now.

"It's not you! If Bai Sanniang hadn't been pushed out by you greedy people, how could she have been kidnapped?!" The young man yelled at Zhang Xingwen with righteous indignation.

A man in the crowd immediately retorted fiercely: "Bai Sanniang walked out by herself, how can you blame us? Do you want other people to die? Whoever the mountain god chooses will suffer, and Bai Sanniang is herself.

If your fate is not good, you are going to frame the Lord?"

The young man was unconvinced and said: "What kind of adult? You just know a little bit of Taoism, and you are the same as that guy Bai Yi, and we are all in the same group!"

As soon as the young man finished speaking, two big men subdued him to the ground aggressively and warned him again: "I think you don't want to live anymore! How dare you say that, sir! If it hadn't been for your magic to protect us, we would have been killed by the mountain god.

have eaten!"

Zhang Xingwen quickly raised his hand to signal them not to mess around, and then said to Situ Yan with an embarrassed face: "Bai Ning's mother was taken away by the mountain god, and she was left alone. He has never gotten over that incident, so he has nothing to do with anyone.

People are extremely distrustful, please don’t mind.”

Situ Yan shook his head with interest, indicating that he didn't care, but smiled and said: "If possible, I would like to ask this child some questions."

Originally, the two big men were still hesitant about handing the boy over to Situ Yan, but when they saw Zhang Xingwen waving his hands, indicating to the two men to let the boy go, they relaxed their hands.

Zhang Xingwen said to Situ Yan: "If this child can be of help to you, that would be the best. Just ask whatever you want."

"Thank you very much." Situ Yan said with a smile.

The young man came to Situ Yan, patted the dust on his hands, and said: "I don't know much, but this village is like this because of the Bai Yi you are looking for. As soon as he returns to the village, the village will become like this."

Something happened, and I saw Bai Yi with a monster!"

"What monster?"

"There are some black monsters with wings and four legs. Their eyes are very strange. Oh yes, they are the same color as this beautiful sister's eyes." The young man pointed at Eluo beside him and said.

When E Luo heard Bai Ning call herself a beauty, she felt very proud. "You have a good sense."

However, the young man then said: "Bo Yi is just like them. Why do you think a normal person's eyes suddenly turn blue? What is it if it's not a monster?"

The smile on E Luo's face froze immediately. In order to prevent an unnecessary verbal dispute, Situ Yan quickly asked the young man: "So you conclude that Bai Yi is related to the mountain god?"

Bai Ning said resolutely: "That's right! Two years ago, Bai Yi returned to the village, and then the people in the village suffered from narcolepsy. After that, the villagers disappeared one after another, and the people who died were all the people Bai Yi hated. This is not enough.

Does that mean it was Bai Yi who did it?" After Bai Ning finished speaking, she pointed at Zhang Xingwen and said, "And him! He clearly saw Bai Yi getting involved with those monsters, but even if he didn't tell everyone, he was also a conspirator!"

Faced with the young man's accusation, Zhang Xingwen did not offer a word of defense. Instead, he shook his head helplessly. The villagers seemed to be accustomed to this, and no one took the young man's words to heart.

At this time, the village chief woke up slowly, sighed, and said with a sigh: "It's not Xingwen's fault, I asked Xingwen not to reveal it. The child Bai Yi has a miserable life, and we are responsible for it."

Because we couldn't stop him, he became what he is now. It's our fault!" As soon as the village chief said this, all the villagers in the cave lowered their heads and remained silent.

Listening to everyone's different opinions, Situ Yan felt that the village was not as simple as it seemed on the surface, and maybe the whole village was involved. He became even more suspicious, so he asked: "What did the village chief say?

"

"Well, this can start from five years ago. At that time, there was a drought in the village, the crops were not harvested, and many people were on the verge of starving to death. It happened to be the mountain god festival that year, and after repeated discussions, the villagers decided to offer sacrifices to the mountain god.

A girl was born." The village chief slowly told the truth about that year. No one spoke in the cave, only the burning branches were beeping.

Under the jumping firelight, a young man's long-lost tragic life story was slowly revealed.

"Although there has always been a tradition in the village of dedicating girls to the mountain god, who is willing to let their daughter die? So we secretly set our sights on Bai Yi's family. Bai Yi's parents had been

He passed away due to illness, leaving him and his sister Bai Qiaoer to live together. Bai Yi had leg problems and could not walk. Qiaoer also suffered from severe dementia since birth. Although he was a few years older than Bai Yi, his behavior was similar to that of Bai Yi.

A 6-year-old baby, the two siblings lived a very hard life. At first, the villagers took care of the two siblings out of sympathy, and often sent some food to them. However, as time went by, the lives of the villagers became increasingly difficult.

We were having a hard time, so we gradually stopped helping them. When there was a severe drought, we really couldn't choose a girl from a normal family to sacrifice to the mountain god, so everyone wanted Qiaoer to sacrifice, but Qiaoer was already 17 years old at that time.

, has long passed the age of sacrifice. But in order to survive, the villagers had to trick her into the mountain, hoping to fool the mountain god. The second day after Qiaoer went up the mountain, we saw her head and clothes at the entrance of the village.

I thought the disaster in the village had been resolved, but the rain that I prayed for never came, until a disciple who claimed to be Donglingshan passed by and resolved the crisis in the village." When the village chief said this, he sighed helplessly.

While listening, Situ Yan habitually rubbed the two fingers of his right hand with a solemn expression.

"The disciple from Dongling Mountain gave us an ice jar, saying that this jar can attract water from the sky and alleviate the drought in the village. Sure enough, after using the treasure he said, the village has a water source again. We originally thought

I left him to entertain him well as a token of my gratitude, but he seemed to have something urgent and left in a hurry, and took the helpless Bai Yi with him. I thought, it would be better for Bai Yi to leave, otherwise he would stay in this village.

I'm afraid they will hate us to death. No one expected that three years later, Bai Yi would come back. With his return, the nightmare of Lingyin Village has also come."

Situ Yan looked around and saw that the villagers were gradually showing scared expressions. People of all ages were huddled together, and some women had begun to cry softly. The crying made the already weird village look even more eerie.
Chapter completed!