Judging by how practiced the village chief looked, this wasn’t the first time he had tied up a girl chosen in the shrine.
So this was the true purpose of the ancestral hall’s “selection”?
Jiang Luo clasped his hands behind his back, leaving just enough wiggle room. He pretended to struggle for a bit before letting the village chief bind him.
Because of Jiang Luo’s “female identity,” the village chief didn’t tie him very tightly. After wrapping several loops of rope around him, the village chief said, “Sheng Gong, she’s all tied up.”
The Sheng Gong turned around, sighed, and said, “Village chief, is this really how you tie someone up?”
The village chief rubbed his hands nervously and glanced at Jiang Luo, clearly unsure what he had done wrong. “This is how I’ve always done it.”
Jiang Luo twitched at the forehead.
He could already sense that Chi You was about to make trouble for him again.
Sure enough, the Sheng Gong approached. His once-soaked robe was now inexplicably dry. The enigmatic figure stood before Jiang Luo, looking down at the black-haired youth.
Jiang Luo stared coldly, waiting to see what he would do.
The Sheng Gong raised his hand—wrapped in layers of black cloth—and began to unwind it. The thick band of cloth slowly unraveled, revealing the pale, bluish skin underneath. Holding the long piece of fabric in his hand, he said, “Binding the body isn’t enough.”
He lifted the black cloth, bringing it closer to Jiang Luo’s eyes. Under the young man’s burning, lotus-fire-like gaze, he gently covered Jiang Luo’s dazzling star-like eyes.
“You must also bind the eyes.”
D*mn it.
Jiang Luo could definitely hear the hidden amusement in the Sheng Gong’s voice.
That b*stard Chi You—sure enough, he was stirring up more trouble.
With his eyes covered, darkness returned. Losing his sight in the face of the unknown and his enemies made Jiang Luo uneasy. He pressed his lips tightly together, his mouth drawn into a hard line.
The Sheng Gong tied the blindfold carefully at the back of his head.
Without sight, Jiang Luo’s hearing became sharper. He could hear the soft rustle of clothing near his ears and could almost imagine the Sheng Gong’s robe brushing against his shoulders.
A faint scent drifted to his nose—incense and candle wax.
The Sheng Gong moved slowly and deliberately. From an outsider’s perspective, the wide sleeves of his robe seemed to envelop Jiang Luo in an embrace as he raised his arms. Jiang Luo flinched slightly, his braid slipping out from under the robe for a moment before being swallowed back into the dark folds.
The village chief, watching from the side, felt something odd. The Sheng Gong never did this before…
After blindfolding Jiang Luo, the Sheng Gong stepped back. He glanced at the securely bound, blindfolded young man. A fleeting smile played across his pale lips as he rasped, “Village chief, come with me to get the sacrificial items.”
The village chief quickly agreed, and their footsteps gradually faded into the distance.
Jiang Luo waited patiently for another twenty seconds. Once he was sure no one was around, he slipped a small knife from his sleeve. With a clean flick, he sliced through the ropes binding him.
With his hands freed, he tore off the blindfold. At first, he was about to toss it aside, but then he paused and tucked the black cloth away.
Perhaps he could try pretending to be the Sheng Gong himself.
While the Sheng Gong and the village chief were still away, Jiang Luo took the chance to inspect the shrine. He picked up a candle and approached the murals on the stone walls.
The murals depicted two scenes—
One painting showed the villagers worshipping. They knelt respectfully on the ground, praying for longevity. In front of them stood a black-and-white statue of a smiling deity.
Beside the statue stood two figures resembling guardians—one held a large blade, the other was dressed entirely in red. Behind the statue flowed rushing water and a neat row of trees.
Jiang Luo’s gaze settled on the guardian on the left, the one holding the large blade.
Was that Dead Ghost?
The second painting depicted a scene of maidens being sacrificed. The girls entered the secret passage one by one, and met the statue. They knelt before it, eyes closed peacefully.
At first glance, the scene looked sacred and beautiful, but on closer inspection, deep cuts could be seen on the girls’ wrists. Blood flowed from the wounds and onto the statue, turning it from colorless to painted.
It was as if the statue was absorbing their life force and gradually coming to life from stone.
Jiang Luo turned to look at the statue.
It sat cross-legged, still wearing the same benevolent smile as in the mural. Jiang Luo brought the candlestick closer to examine it more carefully.
Apart from the stone-colored feet, the statue was nearly fully colored.
What did the colors on the statue mean?
Jiang Luo frowned. Two sets of footsteps came from behind—it was the Sheng Gong and the village chief returning.
Jiang Luo acted quickly, jumping onto the altar and hiding behind the statue.
Fortunately, the statue was large enough to conceal his crouching form completely. Almost the instant Jiang Luo hid, the Sheng Gong and village chief entered the shrine.
The sacrificial offering they had tied up was gone. The village chief cried out in panic, “Where is she? Where did she go?!”
The Sheng Gong said nothing.
The village chief’s voice grew shrill with fear. “Sheng Gong, what should we do?!”
Jiang Luo strained to hear their conversation.
The Sheng Gong remained silent for a while before finally speaking: “The underground is like a maze. She won’t get far.”
“Yes, yes! She couldn’t have gone far,” the village chief said, spotting the rope thrown near the passage. “Sheng Gong, she must have run outside. Let’s go after her!”
Jiang Luo gripped his knife tightly, sweat forming in his palm. He held his breath, waiting for the Sheng Gong’s reply.
“Then let’s go chase her,” the Sheng Gong said.
The two gradually moved away.
But Jiang Luo didn’t come out immediately. He stared at the back of the statue, silently counting to sixty.
Only after making sure they weren’t doubling back did he confirm they had really left.
He put away the small knife and didn’t climb down. Instead, he took this opportunity to closely examine the statue.
Carefully, he summoned the Si Snake to coil around him. Then he wrapped his right hand with the black cloth left by the Sheng Gong before cautiously touching the statue.
To his surprise, the texture was far softer than he had expected.
Jiang Luo’s brow twitched. It almost felt like touching a corpse’s skin—soft, cold, nothing like stone.
His hand slowly moved upward toward the statue’s neck, testing to see if it had any signs of life.
The statue remained still. But just as Jiang Luo’s hand was about to reach its neck, a stone-carved hand suddenly clamped tightly around his wrist.
Jiang Luo’s head shot up, breath catching.
The statue’s head had twisted ninety degrees, looking at him with a kindly, smiling face.
The Si Snake sensed the evil and lunged at the statue. Its smile didn’t change, but its other hand grabbed Jiang Luo’s calf. Its stone fingers pierced his skin and sank into his flesh, leaving five terrifying marks.
Jiang Luo let out a muffled grunt and kicked the hand away forcefully. The Si Snake rammed into the statue again. The altar couldn’t withstand the double impact and completely collapsed, revealing a huge hole in the ground.
Jiang Luo was caught off guard and fell in. The Si Snake lunged after him, and the smiling statue rolled forward and rumbled down into the pit as well.
The hole was deep.
Wind howled past Jiang Luo’s ears. Blood poured from his calf and was swept backward by the air.
Is this the deadly omen Feng Li foretold for me? Jiang Luo thought.
But his expression only grew calmer. Having died eighteen times already, this kind of injury wasn’t enough to make him surrender.
The Si Snake coiled around him, slowing his fall and guiding him to the ground. But as soon as he landed, Jiang Luo withdrew the snake into the Yin-Yang hoop.
The golden runes vanished. The pit was swallowed in pitch-black darkness.
Jiang Luo dragged his injured leg into a corner. Using a talisman to stop the bleeding, he tore fabric from his clothes to wipe off the blood and threw it far to one side. Once all was done, a deafening crash echoed— the statue had fallen into the pit.
Jiang Luo’s expression didn’t change. He turned his head toward the source of the sound and stared into the darkness.
In that brief moment of descent, Jiang Luo had thought of something:
Why were there no lamps lit in the shrine above, nor along the stone steps to the underground, but there were candles burning in the shrine below?
He guessed that the statue couldn’t see in darkness.
Which meant someone had deliberately set this up to keep it trapped underground, unable to ascend.
Of course, it was only a guess—he had no proof. But Jiang Luo was ready to bet on it.
He slowed his breathing, listening closely to the sounds nearby.
In the dark, the statue stood up. Made of stone, each step it took boomed loudly. Its smiling face turned slowly, scanning the area—but it didn’t see any sacrifice.
After a moment of silence, the statue began moving again, rumbling in Jiang Luo’s direction.
Jiang Luo leaned against the wall and, as quietly as possible, shifted to a new hiding spot.
The statue stopped where he had earlier thrown the bloodstained cloth.
He could smell blood.
Jiang Luo stayed calm as he assessed the situation.
The statue launched an attack on the clothing. Jiang Luo heard the cracking of the stone wall. It seemed that once the statue realized there was no one near the clothes, it stopped moving.
As expected—it couldn’t see in the dark.
Jiang Luo felt that although he was unlucky, at least things hadn’t gone completely to h*ll. Supporting himself against the wall, he gently moved the Yin-Yang hoop.
A golden talisman transformed into a mouse and shot off in the opposite direction like lightning. The statue was drawn to the golden glow of the mouse and lumbered after it heavily.
After a moment of tremors, the ground gradually returned to silence.
Jiang Luo propped himself against the wall and sank to the ground. His face was drenched in cold sweat, but his mind was clear. He rested for a while, then tore a piece of cloth from his clothing to bandage the wound. Only when the spasms in his left calf began to subside did he stand again.
The wound had only pierced flesh—thankfully, no bones or tendons had been damaged. At this moment, Jiang Luo genuinely envied Dead Ghost’s ability to recover in a second.
He summoned golden talisman light to inspect his surroundings. The underground space was a karst cave. Jiang Luo suspected he was at least fifty meters below ground. This underground had yet another layer beneath it—Shentu Village really lived up to its name.
He shook the Yin-Yang hoop, which pointed him north. Jiang Luo looked toward the unfathomable darkness in the north and let out a slow breath before walking forward step by step.
***
Aboveground, after Jiang Luo entered the ancestral hall, Wenren Lian was using divination to locate him.
The group was drifting farther off course, eventually entering the mountains. But once they reached the mountains, Wenren Lian’s compass became scrambled by the magnetic field, and his divination became even more cautious and slow.
Dead Ghost, however, felt a strange sense of familiarity here.
He didn’t know why, but he was compelled to follow his instincts to a giant tree. He forcefully stabbed his large blade into the ground and pressed down with all his might. The ground suddenly collapsed, revealing a dark, gaping hole.
Startled by the noise, Lu Youyi and Wenren Lian rushed over in shock. “What is this?”
Dead Ghost replied honestly, “I don’t know.”
He paused. “But Jiang Luo should be down there.”
He just felt it.
Wenren Lian did a quick divination. His expression grew grave. “Dead Ghost is right. He’s most likely down there. We have to hurry.”
But Dead Ghost stopped him. “You can’t go down.”
Wenren Lian’s face turned cold. The eyes that were usually gently narrowed opened fully, revealing a rare and striking sharpness. “Why?”
Dead Ghost said, “Your birth characters fall under the Yin category.”
Wenren Lian was momentarily stunned, then immediately understood.
The ancestral hall required sacrificial offerings with Yin-aligned birth charts. If he went down, he could become a liability—or worse, fuel to empower something else.
Wenren Lian cursed under his breath and stepped aside. He gave Lu Youyi and the ghost a deep look. “I’ll leave it to you both.”
Lu Youyi nodded seriously and immediately prepared to descend. Wenren Lian suddenly called out, “Lu Youyi.”
Lu Youyi looked back.
Wenren Lian moved his lips for a moment, then tossed a pack of cigarettes to him and said in a low voice, “Come back with him alive.”
Lu Youyi clutched the cigarettes. “Don’t worry.”
He and Dead Ghost jumped into the hole.
Wenren Lian watched their figures vanish, his left eyelid twitching several times.
It wasn’t that he doubted Lu Youyi’s abilities. He just didn’t trust Dead Ghost’s stability.
They had only known this living corpse for less than a day. Even if he seemed harmless now, whether he was friend or foe—no one could be sure.
If Dead Ghost stabbed them in the back, with Lu Youyi’s unguarded nature, it could be fatal.
Wenren Lian, full of worry, pulled a paper crane folded from a yellow talisman from his robe. He wrote the words “Come quickly” on it and gently tapped the crane. “Go.”
The paper crane staggered into the air and flew down the mountain.
***
Underground, Lu Youyi and Dead Ghost landed in pitch darkness.
Lu Youyi landed hard on his rear. “Oof—where are we?”
Dead Ghost covered his mouth and looked into the darkness with cold eyes. “Don’t make a sound.”
They cautiously moved forward, Dead Ghost taking the lead. In the darkness, they stumbled several times over unknown objects on the ground. After who-knew-how-long, they finally saw a faint light ahead.
Beneath the light was a massive dome.
Countless human-shaped figures stood across the ground. On closer inspection, they were all eerily lifelike paper effigies. The forest of paper people made Lu Youyi’s skin crawl. “What the h*ll is this…”
Suddenly, a hand reached out from the side and yanked them into a hidden hollow in the wall.
Lu Youyi nearly jumped out of his skin and was about to struggle when a familiar voice whispered in his ear, “It’s me.”
It was Jiang Luo.
Lu Youyi let out a long breath of relief, and Dead Ghost put away his blade, obediently crouching with Jiang Luo in the hiding spot.
Jiang Luo looked utterly disheveled, leaning against the wall with smudges of dirt on his face. Sweat glued his hair to his skin, and the braid resting on his left shoulder was nearly undone. His long robe had been torn in two strips, revealing a slender leg marked with a horrifying five-finger bruise.
But his expression was calm. So calm that even in his ragged state, he didn’t appear pitiful—instead, he had an oddly compelling presence.
Lu Youyi nearly teared up at the sight. He lowered his voice. “Jiang Luo, are you okay?”
Jiang Luo shook his head, then looked up at Dead Ghost. “Why are you here too?”
Dead Ghost said, “You’re my friend. It’s only natural for me to come save my friend.”
Hearing this, Jiang Luo inexplicably smiled and asked, “Does this place feel familiar to you?”
Dead Ghost slowly nodded.
He didn’t know why, but he did feel a sense of familiarity.
Jiang Luo murmured to himself, “Then that explains it.”
Dead Ghost was indeed the guardian who had once stood beside the divine statue.
In that case, it also made sense that he and Lu Youyi had been attached by the other party when they went grave-digging in the middle of the night—because the truth about the divine statue needing sacrifices couldn’t be exposed to outsiders.
Jiang Luo felt that the difficulty of this round had far exceeded what the organizers and judges of the competition could have anticipated. A living divine statue—asking a group of metaphysics students who hadn’t even graduated yet to handle it was simply too much.
But now that he was already in the eye of the storm, Jiang Luo didn’t like to waste time on idle thoughts. It wasn’t just with Chi You that he held grudges—whether facing gods, humans, or monsters, he had no intention of retreating.
—He only wanted to return the wound on his leg to the divine statue.
“Do you know where we are?” he asked.
Dead Ghost hesitated, “Underground?”
Jiang Luo: “…”
He nearly forgot—this guy had amnesia.
Jiang Luo withdrew his gaze in exasperation, but then caught sight of the cigarette in Lu Youyi’s hand from the corner of his eye. He couldn’t help but chuckle. “Lu Youyi, you even brought me a pack of cigarettes when you came down?”
He took the pack. There was a lighter inside as well. Jiang Luo smiled again, expertly lit a cigarette, and narrowed his eyes, letting his tense nerves slowly relax.
Lu Youyi asked softly, “Jiang Luo, what are those things outside?”
“Paper effigys,” Jiang Luo replied. “They look dead, but they’re actually alive. Make even a little noise, and they’ll swarm you.”
Lu Youyi shuddered. “Paper effigys… alive?”
Jiang Luo let out a cold laugh. “Even the divine statue’s alive, for f*ck’s sake.”
He finished his cigarette, snuffed it out, and pulled out some talisman papers. “How many fire talismans do you have?”
Lu Youyi quickly counted. “Five.”
“Five? That’s enough.” Jiang Luo unbuttoned his outer robe and tossed it aside, leaving only a short-sleeved vest underneath. “Plenty to burn those paper effigys.”
Lu Youyi and the ghost followed suit, removing their cumbersome outer garments. Once their arms were free, Jiang Luo asked, “Did either of you get a good look at those paper effigys?”
Lu Youyi paused, then carefully crept to the edge of the cave and peeked outside.
The nearest paper effigy wore bright red and green, with two big splotches of blush on its face. The garish colors didn’t make it any more friendly—if anything, the figure looked downright creepy, sending chills down his spine.
Lu Youyi didn’t notice anything unusual at first glance, but when he looked again, his face turned pale and he staggered back into the cave.
Jiang Luo lifted his eyes lazily. “You noticed?”
“One of those paper effigys…” Lu Youyi’s teeth were chattering. “It—it looks like He Zhi.”
That He Zhi, from Wenxing University—the one who’d first gone to Shentu Village alone.
They hadn’t seen He Zhi at all since arriving.
Why was there a paper effigy down here that looked exactly like He Zhi?
Jiang Luo said, “It’s not just He Zhi. Most people from the village—you’ll find paper effigys down here that look just like them.”
Lu Youyi swallowed hard. “What does that mean?”
“It means,” Jiang Luo said calmly, dropping a bomb, “that most of the people above ground might have already been replaced by paper effigys. These underground ones represent their true condition. The villagers here are obsessed with immortality, so they turned to gods. The gods told them that if they hanged or drowned themselves, they would achieve eternal life—and they believed it. Sure enough, the hanged and drowned returned young and healthy. They came back to life.”
“No one realized that the ones who came back were merely paper effigys with the same face. But that girl in red realized something was wrong.” Jiang Luo chuckled. “Those who die by hanging or drowning can’t reincarnate. Their souls were likely harvested as food for the gods—used to make the gods stronger, make them alive. Does that sound possible?”
Lu Youyi was stunned.
Jiang Luo went on, “Back when I first arrived in Shentu Village, I thought it was odd. The staff said, ‘For every person who dies, a new life is born in the village.’ They didn’t say, ‘For every new life, one person dies.’ It’s easy to make someone die, but it’s much harder to ensure a new life is born exactly on schedule. That sentence was strange.”
“I even suspect the police investigating the case never figured out what ‘new life’ truly meant. The villagers certainly wouldn’t have told them. Maybe the police just counted the total number of people after each death and concluded there were 311.”
Jiang Luo abruptly stopped. “That’s just my theory. We’ll talk more once we’re out of here. For now, we have to burn the paper effigys before we can go any farther. Otherwise, even if we sneak past them, they’ll chase us down at the slightest sound.”
Lu Youyi’s mind was spinning. He gave up thinking altogether. “So how do we burn them? I checked—they’re not grouped together.”
“We’ll lure them together,” Jiang Luo said, pulling out a fire talisman. “Once we cross over, we make a sound to attract them—then burn them all at once.”
Dead Ghost and Lu Youyi both nodded without hesitation. Jiang Luo even suspected they hadn’t thought about whether this plan would actually work—they just nodded cleanly.
Jiang Luo sighed and led them out of the cave.
Once all three were ready, they stepped into the paper effigy den.
The paper effigies were scattered in small groups. It was difficult to pass through them without causing a disturbance. Fortunately, the three were very careful and managed to cross the great dome and reach the other side.
Jiang Luo picked up a stone from the ground and dropped it from a high point.
With a crisp clatter, the seemingly lifeless paper people instantly sprang to life and rushed toward the source of the sound.
Jiang Luo threw three fire talismans onto them. Flames erupted, engulfing the paper effigys and feeding the blaze.
The three of them left in time, just as the fire reached the entrance of the cave.
At that moment, Jiang Luo suddenly remembered a question.
Why did Chi You pretend to be the Sheng Gong?
Jiang Luo didn’t believe Chi You would waste time like that. Possessing a contestant to win first place and obtain the Yuan Tian Bead made sense. But becoming a Sheng Gong? What was he planning?
Author’s Note:
Gong: Came to play with you.
Shou: Play… as in fight?
