Nightmare Shuttle

Crack, Crack.

A cracking sound of charred incense sticks and crushed stone came from under his feet.

Chu Yi stood before the offering table, lowered his head, and saw that he had smashed the remnants of previous offerings and hadn't been swept away. The incense used was obviously of lower quality and the smell was more pungent, it was so fragile that it becomes dust when crushed.

The gloomy and cold wind whistled, bringing about a stale and rotten stench. The view from the table was wide open, and a small, unfenced platform extended out from the end of the hall where two soft pillows for paying respect were placed.

Chu Yi pushed aside the broken bones with his feet and found that gold and silver dust was glittering under the bone fragments, which were gold grains as fine as sand.

[That is, look, YiYi's lens is pointed to the mural. It's so beautiful...Is this folk culture? Suddenly I feel so moved. These murals are so well painted as if they are alive and lifelike. ]

[Ah...then what, why do I feel that this mural seems to be moving? I just saw a kid on the wall winking at me. ]

[Wasn't their eyes just pointing the other way, why do they seem to be following Chu Yi's movement?]

[Is everyone forgetting the dying man in the other room!!!]

Some inexplicable bad comments suddenly appeared on the screen.

[Hey, have you forgotten this is the broadcast of a horror film? Is this marketing the show team is looking for? It's a bit low-level, it's not much to engage in such scary things, let's concentrate on improving the quality of the content of the movie.]

[The crew really knows how to play, what kind of murals are moving haha. As expected of a D- list trash director and actor.]

Although he said that it was an illusion, as more and more viewers posted the same barrage, saying that they really saw the mural moving the truth became more and more obscure. Some people even took out a few seconds of screenshots, which can clearly identify that the positions of several people in a family on the last mural moved in the blink of an eye!

Moreover, the child among them seemed to sense the camera, opened his red mouth at the camera, and laughed.

Chu Yi picked up a slate, brushed away the dust, and looked at it carefully. To his surprise, he discovered that the stone slate is not as smooth as a mirror, but instead, there were thousands of cracks spreading across it densely covered like spider webs and the name could not be made out.

He picked up another slate, it was the same thing. This was abnormal, village's especially closed villages were usually more superstitious and paid more attention to filial piety. 

And yet such a blatant desecration of the ancestral hall and the burying of corpses in the wall was allowed.

"Graveyard? Altar?" A low voice with a hint of playfulness sounded in his ears. Ruan Quixi stood by his side and slowly brushed his eyes over the small platform. "Maybe the entire village is just one big graveyard full of walking corpses. Wouldnt that be interesting."

Chu Yi hummed softly, put down the slate in his hands, and naturally wiped the grey dust onto the man beside him.

"....."

[Haha! Why do I seem to see the question marks flying above his head.]

[No no, my CP can't be so...cute !?]

[Hey, no, no why is no one remembering the dead man just a few steps away?? Is no one gonna call the authorities?]

The merit box was actuated right beside the incense burner. It was very old and there was a small slit for inserting money. An ordinary merit box but what caught his attention was its position. It wasn't placed at the side of the ancestral tablets nor was it placed at the foot where it could be easily accessible after paying merits but it was placed directly below the painting of the fish man.

"That old woman is not easy to deal with." Chu Yi looked at the thin smoke billowing from the thin incense, the butt was lit and the smoke wafted into his nose with the scent of mahogany and cinnabar, his tone was a little strange and his words inexplicable but Ruan Quixi quickly understood and looked back at the broken wall.

He carefully picked up the box, broke the lid, and touched the inside and outside, repeatedly brushing the series of bumps on the lid, and suddenly thought: "Looking at this, doesn't it have the same feeling as the woods in the forest outside?"

Ruan Quixi lifted a hand and touched it, the smooth and velvety touch like human skin was familiar.

Chu Yi bowed and spoke to himself, " The villagers are afraid of the forest, so why would they make their merit box out of the forest trees ."

Chen Yang pointed to the box heavy sense of age under his belly: "Could it be used for something other than being a merit box?"

Ruan Quixi stared at him: "Then why is it in the ancestral hall?"

Chu Yi's finger kept moving, he traced carefully, and memorized the position of a few bumps: "Taboo, curse, protect, shield, there are many reasons for people to do certain things.."

His hands suddenly stopped and his finger pressed hard against a certain bump on the bottom. There was the sound of wood shifting and Chu Yi slowly raised the box to his face.

A hidden compartment. Inside the box was the corpse of a smashed worm. Chu Yi could see that the worm was really weird. It was a bit like a silkworm, but it was densely covered with red and black hair, the exposed patterns are unusually like a human face with fresh blood flowing.

The moment he saw the worm, he was reminded of the red and black meat served at the dinner table at the banquet hall. There seemed to be more than one strange coincidences whappening on the island. 

The moment the worm was revealed, Chu Yi seemed to hear a faint rumbling. He glanced up, red eyes narrowing faintly.

They only had to wait for a few minutes and it wasn't before long that Chen Zi reappeared once again. But they could see that Chen Zi was in a bad state, his lips trembled terribly and his face was as pale as a ghost. He was shaking all over. Traces of dirt and rubble stuck to his clothes with cold sweat, and he appeared extremely dirty and embarrassed.

He climbed out from the wall and directly collapsed to the floor with soft legs, when he realized he was beside Ji Hongcai he shuffled away hastily and stood up again, taking deep gasps of breath. Chen Zi staggered drunkenly, stumbling dozens of steps back before finally stopping, eyes still shrunken in extreme shock.

"What did you see?"

When Chen Zi barely calmed down, Chu Yi asked in a low voice:

"What's in the hole."

"Yes, there are corpses, one, no, many, there are many corpses buried, just bones."

If it was just that he would he wouldn't be so terrified.

Chen Zi's voice trembled, his face pale, and his words were incoherent and stuttered.

"A lot, a lot, they were standing, standing and buried in the hole, in a circle, I didn't count how many."

"Their necks look like they're broken, their faces are looking completely up, and all the corpses are - they're looking up at the ancestral." 

He took a deep breath, and spat out the last sentence with trembling lips"Not only that, there are countless, countless–"

When he said this, the whole world seemed to have fallen into a strange silence, and the wind that had been blowing thinly stopped.

The sound of small insects rang loudly, and a thick black mist rushed out of the air and began to invade their location.

"Boom!–" Deep in the fog, something seemed to be madly slamming against the wall, and the heavy rhythm of anger seemed to want to vent the anger that can't be suppressed in the heart

Chu Yi heard a dense rustling and scattering sound that made goosebumps erupt along his arm. The could come from behind the dark hole, getting closer and closer, gradually engulfing the walls. Listening carefully, the surging sounds of insects coming from all directions, rushed in like a tidal wave formed by thousands of black insects.

The light of incense in his hand briefly shone on the cracks in the dark hole, where he could see countless tiny black shadows flickering behind the cracks, all of which were dense red and black worms! 

They were like a blanket of insects, like a large number of army ants, rushing towards them at a fast speed, the only living person in the ancestral hall, like an evil spirit from hell rushing towards the sacrifice of flesh and blood, rumbling like a tide.

In the live broadcast room, the audience was scared stupid and for a brief second, there was no movement. The red worms quickly engulfed the threshold and rushed towards their feet with unstoppable momentum!