The four of us men had already given up the chance to live.
We... were ordinary people, so we were willing to exchange a chance at life for a chance at honor.
This honor may not be remembered by anyone, but at least, on the road to the underworld, we could walk with a clear conscience!
Now, the chance at life was left to only two people.
Cheng Yan and Huang Xin.
Cheng Yan decisively said, "Xinxin, you stay alive. I won't, because of me, my good friends are going to die. If I continue living, what face will I have? I won't live."
Huang Xin also firmly declared, "Okay, I will stay alive!"
The five of us looked at Huang Xin, smiling.
At this moment, we didn't blame Huang Xin for being afraid of death, because we gave up our chance at life for her. Our only wish was for her to live well.
Unexpectedly, Huang Xin added, "I will stay alive, to collect your bodies. I can't let your bodies be exposed in the wilderness, wait for me on the road to the underworld, I will be there soon."
"Burn them," the village chief started to goad the villagers to burn us.
At this moment, the ascetic monk came to us again, holding a torch, and asked, "Do you want to be burned to death, leaving behind that 'woman'?"
"Yes!"
"Yes!"
"Yes!"
"Yes!"
"Yes!"
All five of us responded in unison, except Cheng Yan's answer was slightly delayed.
"Very well! I apologize." The ascetic monk raised the torch and was about to set us on fire!
Just then, a scream came from the crowd.
It was a truly "miserable" scream!
It seemed like a cry from hell itself.
"Ah! Ah! Ah!"
A man let out this excruciating cry of pain.
Everyone turned to look.
The man in trouble was the "Erzi" who had tried to attack us earlier.
Beneath Erzi's feet, blood was seeping out in clumps.
Looking down, his soles seemed to disappear out of thin air, as if his feet had suddenly been cut off.
Then, his calves also seemed to slowly disappear.
His 'leg' was bleeding profusely.
The blood, mixed with yellowish-gray soil, dyed the earth with a strange color, dazzling the eyes.
"Curse! The curse has appeared."
"The second son is actually the first one to die."
"If the other six were burned to death earlier, the second son wouldn't have died."
The crowd let out different cries of surprise.
The second son's 'leg' kept disappearing until only the part above the knee remained, then suddenly he began to crawl on his knees, using them to walk in a strange manner on the ground.
The blood splattered on the ground.
From my perspective, it seemed as if the second son's 'leg' was like a paintbrush, with the earth as the canvas, blood as the ink, and his severed knee as the brush, painting something.
Of course, I had no idea what he was painting, but I felt that the bloodstains seemed to represent some kind of strange totem.
This totem must represent something meaningful.
The second son crawled all the way to me, reached into my pocket, grabbed my legs, and then collapsed!
When he fell, there was no trace of blood color left on his body, his blood had all formed peculiar patterns.
"What does this pattern represent?"
I was wondering what this pattern really represented.
In the end, the village chief shouted again: "Why are you staring? Haven't you seen that the second son is already dead? He's dead, aren't you going to help burn these people to death? Do you want to see the others die like the second son?"
The villagers carrying torches were anxious to burn us.
However, this time the ascetic monk stopped them, saying, “Don't burn, don’t burn!”
The village chief was stunned and asked the ascetic monk why they shouldn't burn.
Pointing at the bloodstains on the ground, the ascetic monk said, "This is a new instruction from the gods for you. As for the specific instructions, I don't know. We need to make a copy of this pattern and study it. Perhaps the day after tomorrow, I will announce the new instructions from the gods to everyone."
Until these new instructions came out, no one was allowed to die!
No wonder the village chief called the ascetic monk a demigod. It turns out the ascetic monk is the "shaman priest" of this village!
He is responsible for communicating with the gods.
After hearing the words of the ascetic monk, the village chief reluctantly shook his head and asked the ascetic monk, "You really won't burn them?"
"Do you want little monks to repeat it? Fine, little monks will repeat it again. Until the new instructions from the gods come out, no one is allowed to die!" said the ascetic monk.
"Alright then," the village chief looked at me and left without a fuss.
The ascetic monk came to our side and used a torch to burn the ropes on us, saying, "Now you can go. There's no one in Xiaobao's house, you can stay there for now!"
"Is that okay?" I asked.
The ascetic monk said, "Life and death are like the extinguishing of a lamp. What can't happen to a house?"
After that, he pointed us in a direction.
All of us followed his direction.
This village is really strange. Those villagers who were just shouting to kill us were extremely polite when they saw me. Even the village chief warmly brought us inside Xiaobao's house.
He felt really sorry for today's events and asked us not to blame him.
Not only did he apologize to us, but he also said that if there's any issue, just come to him. He'll do his best to solve it for us.
I said, "Of course," then chatted with the village chief for a while and sent him off.
Da Jinya sneered and said, "Hey, what kind of people are in this village? Just now, they were about to burn us alive, but now they're completely treating us like honored guests. Could it be the divine power looming over us, making these people dare not provoke us at all?"
Fengying said, "Maybe the words of the ascetic monk really worked! It's really strange that in a village like this, there's an ascetic monk. But that ascetic monk is really something!"
I smiled and said, "The villagers' change of face from before to now is not what you think. They are not afraid of the ascetic monk or the gods. In fact, the reason for their sudden change of attitude is something else."
"Oh, you have a point of view? Come on, share it with us, Xiaoli!" Da Jinya asked me to share my thoughts.
I told them, "It's actually very simple. You think about it, for some people with no life security, would they consider the consequences of their actions?"
"Definitely not," Da Jinya said, "If they did, would they have grabbed us and burned us alive?"
I nodded and said, "Yes, people without life security won't consider the consequences, so the people in this village, including us, act without considering the consequences."
Under normal circumstances, everyone has to worry about curses coming down on them at any time. At the moment, people's spirits are quite tense, so when something goes wrong, killing others is not an impossible thing for them.
If they want to kill someone, who would be the first target? It would be someone they have a grudge against or have quarreled with in the past.
So, the people in the village treat each other quite kindly, pretending to get along in order to avoid potential harm.
Now that the village chief and villagers have not killed us, naturally they dare not go against us, fearing our retaliation!
This is the hypocrisy bred under the environment of "no life security"!
"Hey, Xiaoli's analysis is quite reliable," Da Jinya said, then continued, "Shouldn't we also be a bit hypocritical towards the other villagers in the future? Be nicer to them, just in case we end up getting killed by them someday!"
I slapped Big Teeth in the back of his head: Are you stupid? What are we even talking about the future for? Tonight, we go directly into Fengmen Mountain! What are we doing staying here? Getting burnt alive?
Big Teeth slapped his legs and said to me: Young Master Li, oh Young Master Li, you are truly an expert at being unscrupulous, these ideas just keep coming!
"Get out of here," I cursed at Big Teeth, then turned to everyone and said, "This is Xiaobao's house, let's search carefully and see if we can find any clues to the coffins."
As soon as I finished speaking, Huang Xin screamed, "Look at this, hurry, look at this."
We didn't know what was going on, we all gathered around Huang Xin only to find her holding a notebook.
As soon as I saw the notebook, I excitedly slapped my thighs again. This notebook was not just any notebook, it was Xiaobao's route map, the route inside Fengmen Mountain, and the map also highlighted some red dots, all of which were the places where Xiaobao had dug up coffins.
One of the most recent red dots was likely the place where the Fox Ghost Coffin was unearthed.
I really wanted to hug Huang Xin and say, "Hey, Xinxin, how did you find this notebook all by yourself?"
Huang Xin proudly said, "Actually, I've always been curious about the chaotic locations in Fengmen Mountain, how these coffin diggers could distinguish between places that had coffins buried and those that didn't, so I thought, they must have used some method to record the locations where they dug up the coffins, so when I came here, I checked Xiaobao's cabinets and tables and so I easily found this notebook."
After finishing, she gave herself a thumbs up: This is just logical science.
I also gave her a thumbs up and said, "Xinxin, from now on, I need to adjust my mindset, we are recruiting yin people... let's talk scientifically."
Haha!
The people in the room, even in such a tense situation, burst into laughter.
After the laughter of the crowd, we began to gather our things, preparing to sneak into Fengmen Mountain at night.
Because our tools were in the car, we could only use Xiaobao's family tools, looking for climbing ropes, shovels, hammers, and so on. Suddenly, there was a heavy knocking sound at the door.
All our attention turned to the door.