The sky was like ink.

The yellowed candlelight burned.

dispelled the thick night in the courtyard.

Song Ruyuan and the others were all gathered around the two Black Shadow Levels.

The expressions on their faces were extremely calm, even slightly terrifying.

Su Mo also folded his arms and frowned slightly.

At this moment, his spiritual power had been pushed to the limit.

In this case, even if these two monsters panicked a little, they could not escape his detection.

However, there was nothing unusual about their narration from beginning to end.

It's clear that they're telling the truth.

It's terrifying.

In Liu Hanyan and Liu Huayu's narration, they came into contact with the unknown dark side of the Liu family.

The Liu family is not as skilled as the Han family, and there are many strong people.

is not like the Chen family, which has the inheritance of the high priest, who has mastered many secrets.

It used holy maidens and sacrificial vessels to offer the sacred furnace, and only then did it secure the position of the three major families.

Therefore, the entire Liu family attaches great importance to both of them.

Not to mention the Divine Furnace, there has always been a family secret place on weekdays, which is guarded by special guards.

Even if the head of the family wants to transfer the Divine Offering Furnace, it has to go through as many as three procedures, and it is strictly supervised by the elders of the family.

Only the Holy Maiden, when the festival really begins, can temporarily master the altar.

From this point of view, the status of the saint seems to be higher than that of the head of the family.

However, this is not the case.

The authority of the head of the family is far beyond the reach of the Holy Maiden.

But in addition to the head of the family, the saintess is already a privileged class of the Han family.

Even the alternate saintess who are ranked below the saints can enjoy the power far beyond the ordinary Han family girls.

This includes, but is not limited to, the right to refuse to marry, to enjoy better food, a high amount of money per month, and even some pills.

Therefore, many girls from the Han family, especially those from down-and-out families, are all eager for this.

But becoming a saint is not so simple.

The entire Han family, including the main family and the branch family, has a population of thousands.

Among them, there are three or four hundred school-age girls between the ages of eight and eighteen.

But in the end, only one person was able to become a saint.

Counting the alternate saints below the saints, there are only nine people in total.

It doesn't look like a low probability.

However, the actual selection process is often accumulated over the years.

Many girls begin to be raised in the direction of saints from an early age.

In the process of cultivation and screening, there will be people who are constantly eliminated.

Liu Hanyan and Liu Huayu were able to fight their way out of the encirclement and become alternate saintesses, which can be said to have put in considerable effort.

It is entirely conceivable why they were so attached to the position of saint after their deaths.

And the strangeness and secrets they tell are related to the selection of saints.

According to the two of them, the Han family's selection of saints is extremely strict and demanding.

All girls will be assessed at different levels in order of age.

And according to the assessment results for scoring.

This scoring is not a one-time score, but is balanced into every month, week, or even day.

Finally, it is summarized into annual results, and whether the evaluation is eligible to enter the next round.

Because of this extremely harsh test, all the girls who participated in the selection of saints were nervous.

They rarely have the fun and relaxing time of children in the outside world, fall into depression and even go crazy every year, and many commit suicide.

But the bizarre thing is that whether it is crazy or suicidal, it can always be saved in the end.

But after being rescued, they often have a great change in temperament.

Liu Hanyan once had a little friend who hanged himself because he was reprimanded by the instructor.

She even untied the cold corpse from the rope with her own hands.

But it was obviously a person who had already died, and after being taken away by the instructor, he came back to life the next day.

According to the teachings, they train day and night, and their bodies and souls have been marked by the god of Saturnalia, and even death can be easily saved.

At that time, Liu Hanyan only thought it was incredible, and even thought that the god of agriculture was worthy of being a god, and he could even resurrect the dead.

But afterwards, the little friend's behavior made her panic.

She has always been gentle and demure, but after she came back to life, she seemed to be a different person, with a moody temper, and she often dropped bowls and cups.

And she used to be a vegetarian, but after she came back from the dead, she started eating meat.

If it's just an ordinary meat, Liu Hanyan once saw her eat a chicken raw.

Later, even the other party's gaze at her had an undisguised appetite.

Just when Liu Hanyan was terrified and wanted to denounce it, the little friend was selected by the saint and eliminated.

Later, the contact gradually decreased, and I heard that he was married to a street vendor, and he seemed to be living a stable life.

It wasn't until two days before the festival that she ran to inquire on a whim.

As a result, the people around her had never heard of the vendor, and even her little friend seemed to have disappeared from the world.

If the evidence given by Liu Hanyan only shows the abnormality of the Han family.

Then Liu Huayu's next statement is even more terrifying.

Her narrative is likewise related to the selection of saints.

The difference was that she highlighted an institution called the Correctional Facility.

The people who participate in the selection of saints are all young girls, and there will always be some stubborn people.

And the Han family has also prepared a corresponding management agency for this purpose.

That's the correctional facility.

Some girls who misbehaved were often sent to correctional centers for punishment.

Liu Huayu was also lively and active by nature when he was young, and one day he accidentally touched the guidelines and was sent to the punishment center for reprimand.

There, she stumbled upon a faint corner of the dark side of the Han family.

There are three floors in the correctional facility.

The basement floor is generally used to punish young girls who have committed minor crimes.

The second basement floor is a felony.

As for the third basement floor, almost no one has ever come out.

Liu Huayu entered the basement floor, where she was subjected to unimaginable tortures, including waterboarding.

But that wasn't enough to scare her.

What really sent chills down her spine was that she overheard the conversation of the punishers on the third basement floor.

In the dialogue, very special punishments such as the punishment of spiritual fat, the punishment of mermaids, etc., were mentioned.

Among them, the punishment of spiritual fertilizer is to turn people into fertilizer and use them to plant trees.

The punishment of the mermaid is to turn a person into a fat fish for stewing.

At one point, she thought it was her own trance, and she had auditory hallucinations.

It wasn't until later that she ate a piece of unusually delicious fish fillet at the family feast.

Then she remembered that a certain mark on the fish's body was very similar to the birthmark on her sister's body.

But before that, including herself, and even the people around her, she didn't remember that she had a sister.

Liu Huayu reflexively wanted to run home and ask her parents.

She finally suppressed her panic and waited until the feast was over.

But when the feast was over, she forgot what she was going to do.

I even forgot that I had a sister.

Listening to Liu Huayu's expressionless face, he finished talking about these things.

Yao Wenkai and the others around only felt a chill in their backs.

They thought the world was dangerous enough.

But ancient societies don't look much better.

Such a horrific thing can happen in a single remote village or town.

It's hard to imagine any other anomalous state of affairs elsewhere.

But that's a thing of the past.

And now, they are going to solve the mystery of this place and put an end to the countless undead who wander here.

There was a slight silence for a moment, and after everyone digested the information provided by the two alternate saintesses, Su Mo opened his mouth and said:

"That's it, anyway, it's still early in the day, let's go check the underground punishment center first, see if we can get any other useful information, maybe we can have a deeper understanding of the festival, there must be other deep meanings behind the Han family's cultivation of saints."

When the people heard this, they had nothing to say.

Before leaving, Su Mo chose Liu Huayu as the saint on the spot.

Facing Liu Hanyan, who was strongly dissatisfied, he used his spiritual power to directly knock him out and seal it.

Of course, Liu Huayu was not chosen because she provided more and more effective information.

It's all because her looks are more acceptable.

At least there won't be any more flies crawling around.

After the matter was over, the group walked directly to the location of the punishment center.

When I came to the neighborhood, I saw a ruined pavilion.

Su Mo was too lazy to clean up slowly, and directly condensed into a giant hand with his talent for manipulating air.

Grab the ruins including the entire ground on the spot, and open the basement on the spot.

The vast underground space was immediately presented to everyone.

Although they have different strengths, their night vision is different.

But even Zhuo Ningning, who has the worst night vision, can clearly see the cruel scene in the underground space.

I saw that the huge underground space was divided into small compartments.

Each cubicle had many old torture instruments, or it was simply built into a special torture chamber.

Just looking at this scene, many people only feel cold in their hearts, and goosebumps welling up on their skin, as if they can feel the pain of being punished.

"It seems that this punishment center is a little different from what Liu Huayu said, and the people who are punished in it are not only the saintess reserves, but also other people, and it may even be people outside the Han family."

Su Mo looked at the thin skeleton left in one of the torture rooms and said.

It was obviously the skeleton of an old man, covered with a layer of patched coarse cloth, which didn't look like the Han family, and I didn't know what kind of mistake I had committed and fell here to be punished.

However, according to Liu Huayu, the punishment at this level is quite simple.

Although in an explicit sense, whether it is waterboarding or other punishments of the same level, it can be said that torture is applicable to serious crimes.

But if a punishment like mermaid punishment really exists, torture like waterboarding may be acceptable.

Su Mo jumped into the clamshell basement and walked straight towards the passage on the side.

Seeing this, the people behind also jumped down.

As soon as they entered the basement, everyone clearly felt a chill.

In addition to being underground, this is obviously related to the countless resentments that have gathered here.

Ordinary people stay here for a long time, and they are afraid that they will be alienated.

This shows the weight of the resentment that once remained here.

Song Ruyuan frowned and looked around.

He looked around, didn't say anything, raised his hand and took out a few Zhengqing talisman seals, and hit them in all directions.

The talisman seal burned, emitting a mighty and large invisible fluctuation, like the scorching sun scorching the snow, and the resentment condensed underground was instantly dispersed.

Su Mo didn't care about the movements of others, and walked straight towards the staircase below, and bumped into a white-haired Sen Ran monster head-on.

He beheaded them with his hand.

Seeing that there were several strange creatures rushing forward in front of him, Yao Wenkai and the others behind him were all eager to go forward and kill.

Instead, it made him idle.

Taking this opportunity, Su Mo began to look around.

The second basement floor is not the same as the previous floor, and there is no punishment prison equipment unexpectedly.

Although they are still small cubicles, they look more like purpose-built cells.

"Doesn't it mean that the punishment for a felony is more severe? What's going on here? Are felons just kept underground? ”

Soon, Su Mo knew that this idea was outrageously wrong.

Because he saw an alienated skeleton left in his cell.

The man's bones were covered with many bone spurs, and at first glance they looked like a large tree with countless branches.

The further back you go, the more common such alienated bones become.

Some have another skull on their necks.

Some foot bones are alienated into hoofed feet.

Some have wings on their shoulder blades.

……

The entire second basement level is designed to look like a large biological laboratory.

The cubicles are clearly separate labs.

Su Mo could even imagine the tragic scene of prisoners who had committed serious crimes being used for experiments.

And the so-called felony is actually only relative to the Han family.

Maybe it's nothing at all in the outside world.

Su Mo's gaze slowly left a skeleton with two horns growing on the top of his head.

He stood there and couldn't help but fall into thought:

"There are so many alienated bones here, so are those girls who have come back from the dead have anything to do with it?"

"What is the purpose of the Han family doing such an experiment?"

"What kind of means did they use to induce alienation into human beings?"

The answers to all these questions are hidden in a fog that is incomprehensible.

However, what can be known is that the third basement level must be hiding some of the answers related to it.

Thinking in his heart, Su Mo continued to walk forward.

And at this moment, there was a sudden exclamation from the front.

Immediately afterwards, he saw Song Ruyuan raise his hand and behead a half-human-sized rotten bat.

"How can there be such a thing on the second basement floor?"

Looking at the grimaceous bat that exuded a strong stench and was extremely powerful, Yao Wenkai's whole person was furious.

"This bat is not a product of the second underground floor, it ran up from a deeper depth!"

Song Ruyuan looked at the deep passage in the distance, and his brows were extremely tight.

"Bats? This is no ordinary bat. ”

Su Mo said and stepped forward.

He looked at the crazy and obedient rotting bat, sighed, and said:

"This bat was a human when he was alive!"

(End of chapter)