The temple, which had lost its incense and worship, was now only eeriely silent, broken only by the crackling of a peat moss lamp. Black shadows span the marble-walled morgue, casting fluted columns onto ominous reliefs.

The ebony-carved raven statue gazes down from the perch above the entrance connecting the chamber and the sanctuary, its beak open and its silent cry. The dark alcoves cracked in the walls, and incense burned in the alcoves on either side, fighting a doomed battle against the stench of death emitted by the dead bodies within.

The morgue was full. Even all the priests who sent out the temple could not keep up with the large number of deaths caused by the Black Death, not to mention that only Yuan Rong was left without a word and was willing to stay under the high ground now. If it weren't for the bodies thrown into the swamp, the bodies would have been piled up not only in niches, but everywhere in morgues and sanctuaries. For a person, no matter how much he forces himself, there is simply too much work.

However, at this moment the Silent One does not care about the dead strangers who lie in the alcoves, who are waiting to be sent to the sacred tradition. In the same way, he didn't care about the dozens or hundreds of new corpses that the corpse collector would bring him in the morning, but for him now, he only cared about the poor figure lying on the stone table in the center of the morgue, her long beautiful hair fanning out around her still beautiful face.

According to customs and rules, he shouldn't have brought Wen Qiuxi here. In the eyes of the Holy Cultists, suicide is regarded as the greatest disrespect for life and the gods, and the soul of the suicide will not be able to return to the embrace of the Holy Spirit, but will only be worthy of staying in the underworld, which has endless darkness.

And most of the people of the Southland believe that the meat of suicides will attract ghouls from their forest lairs. The right thing to do is to bury such a contemptible man in the middle of the crossroads, put a large stone in his mouth, and smash his leg bones with a shovel.

The Silent Don't want to care about the so-called customs or the bullshit rules right now. It was his family, and if he and she hadn't left there, he might have been willing to do something blasphemous for her, just to keep her agony soul from being insulted by the nameless grave. He is willing to give more for her.

The Silent Man looked at the black candles around the corpse. It took him most of the day to make the candles, a labor that still sickens his intestines to this day. He glanced at the dark alcove and imagined the mutilated bodies hidden in the darkness. It is blasphemous for a believer of the Holy Religion to do such a thing, but the books of the Prophets are firm on the necessity of corpse candles and rituals.

The speechless man left the table, clapping his hands nervously. He had already studied most of the books in the secret library, when he should have burned them. Before that, he had never thought to take advantage of that mysterious knowledge. He studied the profound secrets with the detached eye of a scholar. He never intended to put these obscene words into practice.

The slightest thought of a follower of the Holy Religion would be regarded as heresy. If they hadn't been killed by the plague, the Blackguards would have executed him for having such thoughts. Servants of the Holy Spirit do have a connection to the world beyond death and mortal planes, but it's another matter entirely if you want to use your own means to connect the two.

This is not a part of death, but a desecration of death. This is not a connection to the outside world, but a violent invasion of the passage between the two planes.

The Silent One sighed in despair, turned and lay down on the table. He raised his arm, swept the candle to the ground, and turned away from this heresy before he committed the ultimate blasphemy. But when his eyes focused on Wen Qiuxi's beautiful appearance, his faith wavered.

Instead of dropping the candle to the ground, he picked up a rush lamp and lit the hemp wick. One by one, the corpse candles crackled into lifeless lives, their eerie blue flames that seemed to increase rather than decrease the darkness of the morgue.

The speechless man walked around to the foot of the table and looked up at Wen Qiuxi's wrapped body. He placed the blade of a stone knife in the palm of his hand, cut deep into the flesh, gritted his teeth and endured the pain. He drew a symbol on the floor with his own blood, drawing the ancient Great Wilderness hieroglyphs from memory.

He takes out a red-breasted wren from its wicker cage, and killing it is a blasphemous act for the speechless. After only a moment's pause, the Speechless Man wrung the bird's neck and threw the poor carcass to the rat crawling among the carcass.

The speechless could feel that the morgue was getting colder and colder, and the chill was stronger than the winter chill. It was a chill that penetrated the depths of the soul, the wet breath of Hades and the "eternal night". He could almost see the dark fingers, drawn to his blasphemous and horrific rituals, sticking out of the shadows little by little.

He looked down at the last thing that the ancient clan's spell had asked for, and hesitated. The speechless one wants to vomit at the thought of what he must do. It's just that I've gone too far and can't turn back. He quickly grabbed the hard piece of meat, trying not to wonder where it came from, and shoved it into his mouth. He covered his mouth with his bleeding palm to prevent himself from spitting it out from regurgitation.

Suddenly, a dark shadow crawled out of the mouth of the speechless man. The Silent could feel it clutching at his robes, gliding over his skin. The hairs on the back of his neck were tingling, and his face felt like it had fallen into the stomach of the Ice Demon.

The Silent Man awoke from the sensation crawling over his body, from the cold clutches that clung to his soul. He stared at Wen Qiuxi again, and spat out the harsh tone of an ancient language, which was the language of the conquered Changnan people, whose city had been reduced to dust ten thousand years before Emperor Liyang was born.

The peat lamps crackled and went out, leaving only the blue flame of the corpse's candle and the faint light of the evil moon shining through the only window in the morgue, illuminating the room. The Wordless Man's flesh turned to ice as the evil energy summoned by his spell poured in. The rustling and squeaking sound foreshadowed the fear of the rats as they fled the depraved energy summoned by the Wordless.

A cold light glowed on Wen Qiuxi's corpse. A wisp of smoke rose from her pursed lips, and a glowing mist seeped into the air like an open snake, forming rough shapes of shoulders and head, and phantoms of limbs and torso appeared in midair. Only the most fanatical and demagogic imagination would say that this ghost bears a slight resemblance to the woman she once had. It's a shadow and an image, a memory, that's all.

The speechless man looked at Wen Qiuxi's face and smiled. What has been forgotten is horror and blasphemy. What matters is her appearance and the last chance to speak to her.

"Qiuxi," Yuan Rong whispered tentatively. When the name was pronounced, the light shifted slightly.

A thin, shrill voice, like the sound of a paw rubbing glass, hissed through the room. "Some doors can't be opened," the phantom words took shape in Yuan Rong's mind. "Unwieldy power. Beware, don't summon things you can't refuse. ”

Yuan Rong stared at the ghostly face, a trace of doubt passing through his heart. This great blasphemy oppressed him, strangled him tightly like a python, and the feeling of suffocation welled up in his heart. It was already a crime for anyone to use such an evil ritual, but it was even worse for a believer in the Holy Religion like him, a person who devoted himself to the Holy Sepulchre.

The ghost warns: "Spiritual and psychological empathy can never be achieved." Do you dominate that power, or does it dominate you?"

Yuan Rong closed his eyes and refused to accept the ghost's warning. He knows what he's doing, it's evil, it's hateful, but only this once. He'll never use this spell again, he won't need it anymore. He just wanted to say one last thing to Wen Qiuxi, just this time. So that when his end is near, his soul can be at peace.

Yuan Rong opened his eyes again, staring at Wen Qiuxi's cold and sparse figure. He coldly exerted his will on the ghost, forcing its sad news to subside.

"Why did you call me?" The ghost asked.

Yuan Rong leaned on the table and said in an excited tone, "I have to see you, I have to talk to you." I have to let you know. ”

"There is nothing to say about the dead," the ghost admonished.

"I have to let you know how I feel," Yuan Rong insisted. "I have to tell you that my love for you has never stopped. I know you have to marry him, and I know it's right for you. I've never been jealous of his decisions, and I've always been grateful for everything he does. It's for you and it's for me. ”

Yuan Rong turned his face to the sanctuary. "I have placed your child in the mausoleum of the temple, which is the holiest place in the garden. There he will be at peace, and there your body will rest. I'm not going to let them take you away. ”

The wisp moved a little more, seemed to get bigger, seemed to get smaller again. "We shouldn't be wasting time here, they're still waiting, they're waving to me, you should let me go to them."

Yuan Rong shook his head, tears in his eyes. "Every time I see you, every time I see that child, I think how nice it would be if I were his father, I wish I could make you happy, I think I would be a good father."

"He belongs to your brother." The ghost said. "He's waiting with his father, you have to let me go."

Yuan Rong slumped in his chair, the weight of the ghost's words like a knife stabbing him in the stomach. All these years, he had believed that the child was his own. He never dared to talk about it with his brother, and he never asked Wen Qiuxi about it.

He always thought that it would be best if that kid never knew about it. Watching silently is a deprivation of the soul, but his calm pain gives Yuan Rong the strength to continue living. Now that his pain has been proven to be a lie, all that remains is a terrible emptiness.

In his melancholy mind, an alarm began to flash. Yuan Rong stared intently at the ghost's blurred face, this was the second time she had said that Yuan Kou was waiting for her. But his brother is still alive and he can't wait any longer......

"Why did you call him a dead man?" Yuan Rong asked loudly, his face twisted with frightened anger. "My brother is alive! He's alive!"

"No, they're waiting for me, they're waving to me."

Yuan Rong's heart was filled with fear, he had only left Yuan Kou the night before, when his brother had helped him carry the body to the temple. It was impossible for the plague to knock him down in such a short period of time, and Yuan Kou was his only relative.

"Why is my brother waiting on the other side?" Yuan Rong asked.

The wisp of ghost kept swinging, and in an instant, Wen Qiuxi's eyes flashed from the flickering figure, begging for Yuan Rong's forgiveness. Yuan Rong clenched his hand into a fist, and more blood dripped onto the floor, reinforcing the ritual he evoked.

"Yuan Kou has gone to seek justice for our son." The ghost replied. "The doctor is going to be ready to be approached."

When the ghost's words pressed on Yuan Rong's body, his body collapsed. The candles crackled, and as one candle after another went out, the ghost returned to the corpse lying on the table.

"There has been," the ghost's voice whispered. "A door has appeared that will never close again."

The speechless did not even notice the retreat of the ghost. He was thinking about his brother.

And the man who killed him.