Chapter 33: SUBSTITUTE DEATH SUMMONING (33/95)
Qin Liu also noticed Liu Haoyu’s heavy expression, so she couldn’t help but ask.
“What is this?”
Liu Haoyu snapped out of his thoughts. He took out his mobile phone and began to search for files from the last century. Soon, he found the answer he was looking for.
“The red patterns you see are forbidden techniques, sealed long ago among us ghost exorcists, called Substitute Death Summoning. As the name suggests, it pulls living people into the underworld, allowing ghosts from the underworld to return to the human world.”
“This is also a form of resurrection, but the principle of resurrection goes against the laws of nature, so it requires a large number of dead people to exchange for the souls of the departed to return to the world. No wonder the fierce ghosts on these buses are going crazy, searching everywhere for substitute ghosts…”
Substitute Death Summoning: the more people are pulled into the underworld, the greater the possibility of their return to the human world.
A similar case occurred in the 1950s and 1960s.
During that era, rumors of Mao Ren Shui (Water Monster), also known as Water Monkey, were rampant throughout the country.
Various rumors made the already difficult-to-find supernatural events even more perplexing.
And among these rumors, which were a mix of truth and falsehood, there indeed occurred a real serial disappearance case.
However, due to the slow speed of information dissemination, many ghost exorcists initially thought it was just an insignificant farce.
Only as the number of missing people increased did the ghost exorcists finally realize it was a real supernatural event.
They went to the scene of the incident.
It was a small village in the mountains. Due to the fear of demons and monsters, and the strangeness of this supernatural event, almost all the people in the village had become mentally unstable.
According to rumors, the first to go missing were two mother and daughter, who often wandered in the mountains for some unknown reason. After a period of time, the villagers found that people were missing from the village.
But no one could say for sure who was missing.
The villagers didn’t even know the names or appearances of the missing people.
They only knew that the number of people in the village was getting smaller and smaller…
The continuous fear day and night led many villagers to claim that they had encountered those missing people, but whether these were illusions or if they had actually encountered the missing people, no one knew.
As the investigation deepened, at the cost of two ghost exorcists disappearing, the source of the sin was finally found.
It was this Substitute Death Summoning talisman.
“Hoo…”
Liu Haoyu slowly exhaled a breath of stale air.
He had only heard of the Substitute Death Summoning talisman.
And the bloody runes he had just drawn were only the tip of the iceberg of the Substitute Death Summoning talisman. As for what the talisman looked like, only the ghost exorcists who sealed it back then knew.
He thought this thing would disappear completely, but it actually reappeared.
What a headache…
Time came to midnight.
The road leading into the village was pitch black.
Because no one had passed by for a long time, the grass on both sides of the road had grown very luxuriantly.
Under the cold moonlight, Liu Haoyu and Qin Liu headed towards the Deep Well Village.
Although it was said that below here was the Stone Turtle Reservoir, and it was not very far from Jiangquan City.
But because the road into the village was extremely remote, it could be considered a deep mountain and old forest.
Along the way, let alone people, they hadn’t seen a single living creature.
In the darkness, the two seemed to have walked for a very, very long time.
The rugged and uneven road, with overgrown shoulders, made the place exceptionally quiet.
There were only some faint insect chirps.
Even more bizarrely, as they continued to go up, these insect chirps became weaker and weaker until they finally disappeared.
It was as if they had entered a lifeless underworld.
But this was indeed the human world. Looking back, they could still faintly see the lights of Jiangquan City in the distance.
However, against this backdrop, it made the place even colder and quieter.
After walking through the rugged road, the village’s appearance was revealed to Liu Haoyu.
However, these rammed earth houses standing in the darkness looked more like haunted houses, giving off an inexplicably grim feeling.
“This is it.”
Qin Liu’s voice rang out.
It was just an ordinary statement, but in the silent village, her voice sounded so loud.
It even echoed.
This made the young girl quickly cover her mouth.
At this moment, Liu Haoyu also put on his gas mask. The moment he gripped the fire axe, he seemed to have become a different person.
The cold, gleaming fire axe made him look like a midnight murderer.
“Qin Liu, do you want to come into Hong Yu?”
As Hong Men had said, that red coffin might be related to Qin Liu’s past grievances.
For safety’s sake, it was better to let this young girl hide in Hong Yu.
There’s a saying, when enemies meet, their eyes burn with hatred. If Qin Liu lost her temper, she might just be able to pin him to the ground and beat him.
Qin Liu thought for a moment, then shook her head and said,
“No, no, I’ll walk with you. And I can guide you.”
“…Alright.”
In fact, the village was not large. With the guidance of the Black Book, Liu Haoyu knew where the red wooden coffin was.
But since Qin Liu was so persistent, Liu Haoyu naturally wouldn’t stop her.
Moreover… if necessary, Liu Haoyu believed he would have to hold onto Qin Liu’s thick thigh to survive.
Following Qin Liu’s guidance, Liu Haoyu soon entered the house where the red wooden coffin was hidden.
The interior of the house was very cold, and the village was exceptionally quiet.
The sound of the wind, the chirping of insects, and even his own footsteps seemed to have disappeared.
At this moment, Liu Haoyu couldn’t help but suspect he had entered the underworld.
This indescribable silence, like the calm before the storm, gave him no sense of security, and he could only maintain a high level of vigilance.
After entering the house, Liu Haoyu also noticed the bloodstains on the ground.
“When you entered here, did you encounter ghosts?”
“Uh… yes.”
Qin Liu nodded.
Looking at the bloodstains and the remaining, un-disappeared corpses, Liu Haoyu couldn’t help but imagine a scene.
This seemingly harmless young girl in front of him, holding an embroidered shoe, like slapping mosquitoes, swatting them one by one, killing them to an outrageous degree.
It was no wonder that Bai Anting kept a respectful distance from Qin Liu when they returned.
“The coffin is down there.”
Qin Liu pointed to the secret passage, and Liu Haoyu carefully pushed it open.
Inside the passage, there was a flight of stairs that went down into unfathomable depths. Because it was extremely dark, the end of the stairs could not be seen, like a passage to hell.
Liu Haoyu turned on his flashlight, but still couldn’t see what was at the end.
There was no other way, so he went down the stairs.
After walking for who knows how long, he reached the end.
The red coffin was quietly placed in the center of the basement.
The atmosphere here was even colder. Liu Haoyu picked up the fire axe and walked towards the coffin with a solemn gaze.
Liu Haoyu gently pushed open the lid of the coffin.
However, there was nothing inside.
It was empty, as if… the thing inside had escaped.
Where did it go?
A bone-chilling feeling gradually crept up Liu Haoyu’s heart.
