Nightmare Apostle

"Calling the soul?" Everyone was stunned, this was too sudden.

But the black man clasped his hands invisibly and bowed to Yang Xiao and others from a distance, "The patriarch said that as long as your benefactors can bring back the soul of the second uncle, you will be the honored guests of our Dujia Village. You can stay here as long as you want, Dujiacun is the home of our benefactors.”

These words are quite interesting, and the meaning revealed in the words is also very clear. Now that Dujia Village has taken them in, they are still essentially dependent on others. If they refuse to help, it is not impossible to be kicked out of the village. .

Whether it was to continue the mission or to survive, they had no choice but to agree and agree to go to the river outside the village entrance to call for spirits at night.

Seeing that several people agreed, the black man's complexion improved a lot, and he thanked all the benefactors. "Thank you all, then the matter has been settled. Later, someone will come and tell the benefactors." What to do.”

"What do you call this big brother?" Yang Xiao and the others didn't know the black man's name yet.

"I am the third eldest child in the family, you can just call me Du San." The black man replied readily.

Yang Xiao cupped his hands towards Du San and said politely: "Brother Du San, could you please take us around the village? We have been here for so long and we still don't know what the village is like.

D

Hearing this, Du San hesitated for a moment and wanted to shirk it, but Tong Han immediately followed up and said, "Brother Du San, we have to go to the village entrance tonight to call for spirits, but we can't even recognize the road now. If we get lost in the village at night, , If you miss something big, it will be troublesome.”

I have to say that Tong Han's words had an effect. Du San nodded and agreed, "That's good. We still have farm work to finish. Just wait a moment. I'll come find you later."

Du San and others left in a hurry as if something was urgent. After they all left, Cheng Cha picked up the old clothes on the table.

The clothes were wrinkled and a little dirty. As Cheng Cha shook the clothes off, everyone found some blood stains on the left collar and left shoulder of the clothes.

Cheng Cha twisted the blood stains with his hand, then put it under his nose to smell it, and nodded with certainty, "It's fresh." Sui Chengguo took the clothes and looked carefully at several blood stains. Then he turned the clothes over and looked at them, his expression gradually becoming more alert. He got up, "The blood was soaked through the clothes, this is not a small injury. "

"I recognize this dress. It was worn by the middle-aged man who was carried away from the Buddhist hall." Mi Shu reminded, "He just twitched and passed out. He was not injured."

"Did he be attacked by a ghost later?" Hu Yanming was a little surprised.

"It doesn't look like it." In Yang Xiao's impression, ghosts rarely miss when they try to kill someone, let alone an existence of Gui Cha's level.

Regarding the weird things that happened in the Buddhist hall, everyone quickly unanimously agreed that it had nothing to do with paying homage to the dead Miss Du family, but a weird ritual that they were not yet aware of. But judging from the results, the purpose of the ritual was to choose... Out of one person.

To be precise, the next sacrifice.

The reason why Xiao Zui rushed to participate in the ceremony even though he was ill must be related to the rules of the ceremony. For example, villagers who did not attend the ceremony would be given priority.

We were still busy tonight, so everyone took advantage of the break to take a break. The weather today was not very good, it was gloomy, and it looked like it was going to rain.

As long as he didn't think about the script, Yang Xiao's sleep quality was always good. He didn't know how long he slept for. In short, when Du San hurried over with a bundle of firewood on his back, he was woken up and his mind was groggy.

According to Du San's request, they could only send out three people at most, and the remaining people had to stay in the room. The clan leader might want to look for them at any time.

Opportunities are rare, so the candidates are particularly important. The first person to be identified is Hu Yanming. This person has experience living in rural mountain villages. With him here, he may be able to come out if there are any unreasonable weird things in the village.

The remaining two candidates were quickly determined, one was Yang Xiao and the other was Sui Chengguo. Originally, Tong Han and Mi Shu also wanted to compete, but Du San rejected them directly. The reason was very simple. If you don’t fall in love with a woman, you will only choose among men.

There was no nonsense. Under the leadership of Du San, the group of four set off and walked out of the ancestral home of the head of the Du family.

Walking on the road in the village.

All the way to the west, this was the way they entered the village before. They stood at the entrance of the village and looked at the river not far away. The sky was a little gloomy at the moment, and the wide river looked particularly deep. I don't know if it was a psychological effect. Yang Xiao stared at the river. In the deepest place in the middle, I just felt waves of depression in my heart, as if something was going to emerge from the river in the next second.

At Du San's urging, the four turned and left. Yang Xiao suggested going to the east of the village to have a look. Du San only had three people, so he could only take them there.

This village is much larger than Yang Xiao imagined. The houses on both sides are well-proportioned, and each house has a yard.

Moreover, most of the courtyard walls are made of mountain rocks, which is very rare. Judging from the scale, the living conditions of the villagers in Dujia Village are relatively prosperous.

But according to Yang Xiao's observation and their experience during this period, it seems that this is not the case, which can be seen from the poor food.

The further east they went, the clearer their understanding of Dujia Village became. The buildings in the entire village emphasized the west over the east. The buildings and popularity in the west were obviously much better than those in the east. Most of the houses in the east were dilapidated, and some One glance showed that it had not been inhabited for a long time.

In short, Dujia Village is very large. It was once prosperous in the past, but now it has declined. Only twenty-three out of ten villagers remain in the village, and many yards are vacant.

After walking for a while, the group finally arrived at the east gate of the village. Sure enough, just as Tong Han and the others said, a magnificent city wall was built here.

Standing under the city wall and looking up, several people were sure that the city wall was not a flower stand. The materials used were very solid. They were all large pieces of mountain stones. It was 10 meters high. There were even specially built lookouts and battlements on it. There were also arrow holes for archery on the battlements.

There was also a very wide trench outside the city wall. Judging from these professional defense facilities alone, this Dujia Village did not look like a village, but more like a military fortress.

What made Yang Xiao even more surprised was that although this Dujia Village was a large village, it was estimated that there were thousands of people in its heyday. However, to build a city wall of this scale, it would definitely require the efforts of the entire village, and the time and money spent would be incalculable. Is it necessary for an ordinary village to build such defense facilities?

But since the city wall was right in front of him, it proved that it must be necessary, at least the people of Dujia Village thought it was necessary.

The city walls are naturally for defense, and the walls are connected to each other, almost wrapping up the entire village. However, the east wall is the strongest and tallest, so the east is the defense focus of Dujia Village, which means that the enemies of Dujia Village come from the east.

Naturally, Yang Xiao thought of Bujia Village, which is said to be located in the east, that is, the Bujia Village where Tong Han and others got lost and did not find.

Of course, everything now is just speculation, and there is no evidence.

Suddenly, a hand was placed on Yang Xiao's shoulder, interrupting his thoughts. It was Sui Chengguo. He pointed to a large stone under the city wall with a relaxed look and smiled: "Brother Chu, look, the city wall they built is solid. Chief Du is really thoughtful."

Looking in the direction of Sui Chengguo's finger, Yang Xiao couldn't help but raise his eyebrows. He saw that there was a strange pattern carved on this stone.

It was a circle, and the circle was not completely closed, leaving a gap of about a quarter.

Yang Xiao had seen this pattern before. The same mark was also found on the gold bar that Tong Han brought back. What was even more coincidental was that there was also a pattern inside the stone circle, but just like the gold bar, it was smashed and worn away.

Sui Chengguo naturally wanted to hint this to him.

Originally, Yang Xiao and the others wanted to continue observing for a while, but Du San's performance became more and more impatient, so they had to leave. Du San might have been in a hurry, so he took a shortcut. This time they came to a street paved with stone slabs, and Hu Yanming couldn't help but stop on the road and looked to the left. A few yards apart,

Not far away stood a rather imposing wooden building. From their position, the building only showed the top painted in vermilion, which seemed to be a temple, and there was faint blue-gray smoke floating from nearby.

"Brother Du San, what is that?" Hu Yanming asked curiously.

"It's the ancestral hall of our Dujia Village." Du San didn't even look back and continued to lead the way in front, as if he just wanted to send the three of them back as soon as possible.

Du San seemed to have something else to do, and he kept urging along the way. It was strange that they had hardly seen other villagers for so long, and the people in the whole village seemed to have disappeared.

Hu Yanming turned his head and winked at Yang Xiao and Sui Chengguo, and at the same time looked at the building not far away with only the top exposed. The meaning was obvious, this so-called ancestral hall was not quite right.

Yang Xiao and Sui Chengguo looked at each other and soon reached an agreement. Yang Xiao and Hu Yanming stayed to hold Du San, and Sui Chengguo, who had the best skills, went to take a look near the ancestral hall.

"Ouch! Ouch!" Not long after walking out, Sui Chengguo suddenly held his stomach tightly and squatted on the side of the road, with a very uncomfortable expression.

Yang Xiao naturally stepped forward and cooperated with him in acting, and asked Du San where he could go to the toilet nearby. Du San said that country people didn't have so many rules, and pointed impatiently to a place covered with weeds not far away, indicating Sui Chengguo to go and come back quickly.

As luck would have it, the wasteland was just in the direction of the ancestral hall. Sui Chengguo ran over there, holding his stomach, and got into the half-man-high weeds, and disappeared in an instant.

Sui Chengguo moved quickly, running all the way, and slipped out from behind the wasteland. Fortunately, there were not many people on the road in the village, and he found the ancestral hall easily.

The ancestral hall was larger than expected, but the vermilion door was closed, and there was no one guarding outside. If you get a little closer, you can hear bursts of chanting coming from inside.

There are men, women, young and old, and the voices are noisy and harsh. There is no grand and righteous aura that Buddhist scriptures should have. It even feels a bit weird after listening for a long time.

At this moment, Sui Chengguo realized that it was no wonder that there was no one in the village. It turned out that everyone came here to chant.

He looked around and made sure there was no one around before he slowly approached. Only then did he notice that not far behind the ancestral hall, there was another building. The building was very dilapidated, and several windows were sealed from the outside with wooden boards. It didn't look like a shed for people to live in. At first glance, it looked like a shed for large livestock such as cows, horses, and pigs.

Sui Chengguo's first reaction was that there was something wrong here, so he approached carefully. Before he got close, he smelled a foul odor.

He squatted outside the sealed window and wanted to look inside through the gap, but the window was sealed very tightly. He couldn't see anything and could only smell the foul odor coming from inside. Suddenly, he heard someone talking inside, and... And the voice was a little familiar.

He put his ear close to the wooden board. The next second, Sui Chengguo paused abruptly. He heard... This was the voice of the head of the Du family!

"Ning'er, you...you have suffered..." The head of the Du family spoke in a broken voice, with a sobbing tone, and Sui Chengguo could not hear clearly.

Then, Sui Chengguo heard a strange laugh, which seemed to be squeezed out from the gap between teeth, which made him shudder.

It was a strange, young woman's laugh, like crazy.