The night became thicker and thicker, and the crows crowed from time to time outside the cave, and the air became more and more cold and damp, and the fire in the cave did not decrease much.

From the account of the man in the robe, Ling Huayin and they had a general understanding of the situation in the village. Two years ago, the people of the village suddenly contracted a strange sleeping disorder, snoozing during the day, coming out at night, and most of them were delirious, incoherent and insane. Zhang Xingwen was the only person in the village who knew a little bit of Taoism, and told the villagers that those people were possessed by ghosts, and they needed to do something to expel the ghosts in their bodies. So the village chief gathered those people together and asked Zhang Xingwen to do something for them. After doing the Dharma for a day and a night, the villagers miraculously got better. Within a few days, however, the villagers began to disappear one by one, and every next morning they found the heads and bloody clothes of the missing people at the entrance of the village. On the seventh day, the village chief had no choice but to gather all the men in the village to discuss countermeasures. Lingyin Village has always believed in the mountain god very much, and this disaster, the village chief decided that the mountain god was angry, and it was necessary to hold a great festival once every ten years again to calm the anger of the mountain god.

"Great sacrifice, what kind of big sacrifice is it?" Ling Huayin felt uncomfortable when she heard these two words, and always felt that the strangeness of this village was on this big sacrifice.

Zhang Xingwen said bitterly: "The big sacrifice is a tradition in this village, held every ten years, from the village to select a girl under the age of 16 to sacrifice, said that it is allowed to be married to the mountain god as a wife, but everyone understands that the girl who sacrificed out did not live the next day." The head was bitten off and thrown at the entrance of the village, and the clothes he was wearing were torn, and there was no body left. ”

Ling Huayin was furious, and scolded loudly: "What kind of great sacrifice are you?! It's just inhumane! You ......" Before she finished speaking, Ling Huayin seemed to be suddenly frozen, and her voice stopped abruptly.

Situ Yan glanced at Ling Huayin, and reassured E Luo very calmly: "She's fine." After speaking, he said to Zhang Xingwen: "Since you know that this will kill a girl, why do you still do this?"

Zhang Xingwen replied: "You don't know, if you don't sacrifice the girl, then it's not just one person who will die." We don't want our relatives to die for us! But the people who have the accident are some strong men, and some of them have only one man in the family who works, and the whole family depends on him to live, and if it is gone, the whole family will collapse. We can only sacrifice one girl in exchange for the safety of more people. ”

Elo snorted coldly and sneered: "What you said is really high-sounding, exchanging the life of an innocent girl for the safety of you big men, and only you can do it." ”

Situ Yan didn't say a word about this, but frowned deeply, and asked, "What are you talking about the mountain god?"

"We have never seen each other, we have heard from our ancestors, and it is said that they live in the mountains northwest of the village, but the villagers are afraid and none of them have gone up to see it. ”

E Luo hurriedly said to Situ Yan: "I just separated from you and saw a road leading to the mountain, but I didn't look up because I saw that no one lived. Shall we take a look later?"

Situ Yan nodded, and then continued to ask Zhang Xingwen: "Since you haven't seen the mountain god, how can you send those girls up? It can't be that the girls walked up by themselves, right?"

Zhang Xingwen replied: "The villagers tied up the girl to be sacrificed and put it by the river, and when there was no one, the mountain god would send a messenger to take it away. ”

Situ Yan frowned, "In addition to the mountain god you said, there is also the messenger, what is the scream we heard just now?"

"Every time the messenger comes, the moon in the sky will be obscured by dark clouds, and the lights up and down the village will be extinguished in an instant, and the people in the village can only vaguely see a black shadow, and no one has really seen its true face. This time, because the sacrificial girl ran away, the mountain god was very angry when he found out, so he sent a messenger to take Bai Sanniang away. After Zhang Xingwen finished speaking, he looked at the boy on the side, that is, the boy who rushed out just now.

"It's not you yet! Bai Sanniang would have been taken away if it hadn't been pushed out by you people who were greedy for life and afraid of death?!" The young man yelled at Zhang Xingwen with righteous indignation.

A man in the crowd immediately retorted viciously: "Bai Sanniang went out by herself, how can you blame us? Could it be that you want other people to die? Whoever the mountain god chooses, who will suffer, Bai Sanniang is his own life is not good, you have come to frame the adult?"

The young man was unconvinced and said, "What adult? Don't you know a little bit of Taoism, just like Bai Yi's guy, they are all in the same group!"

As soon as the young man finished speaking, the two big men subdued him to the ground in a menacing manner, and warned him again: "I think you don't want to live anymore! Dare to say that, adults! If it weren't for the magic of the adults to protect us, we would have been eaten by the mountain gods a long time ago!"

Zhang Xingwen hurriedly raised his hand to signal them not to mess around, and then said to Situ Yan with an embarrassed face: "Bai Ning's mother was taken away by the mountain god, she is alone, and he has never come out of that incident, so he is extremely distrustful of anyone, please don't mind." ”

Situ Yan shook his head with interest, indicating that he didn't care, but smiled: "If you can, I want to ask this kid some questions." ”

Originally, the two big men were still hesitating to hand over the young man to Situ Yan, but when they saw Zhang Xingwen waving his hand and signaling the two to let the young man go, they let go.

Zhang Xingwen said to Situ Yan: "If this kid can be helpful to you, then it's the best, just ask whatever you want." ”

"Thank you very much. Situ Yan said with a smile.

The young man came to Situ Yan, patted the dust on his hands, and said: "I don't know much, but this village is like this, it is all caused by the Bai Yi you are looking for, as soon as he returns to the village, something will happen to this village, and I also saw Bai Yi with the monster!"

"What youkai?"

"Some black, winged and four-legged yokai with strange eyes, oh yes, the color of this beautiful sister's eyes. The young man pointed to Eluo on the side and said.

Elo heard Bai Ning call herself a beauty, not to mention how proud she was. "You have vision. ”

However, the young man then said, "Bai Yi is the same as them, how can you say that normal people's eyes suddenly turn blue?

Seeing that the smile on Eluo's face immediately froze, Situ Yan hurriedly asked the young man in order to prevent an unnecessary verbal battle: "So you conclude that Bai Yi is related to the mountain god?"

Bai Ning said categorically: "That's right! Two years ago, Bai Yi returned to the village, and then the people in this village suffered from sleep disorder, and then the villagers disappeared one after another, and the dead were all people that Bai Yi hated to the bone, isn't this enough to show that Bai Yi did it?" After Bai Ning finished speaking, he pointed to Zhang Xingwen and said, "And him! He obviously saw Bai Yi and those monsters getting together, but he just didn't tell everyone, he was also an accomplice!"

Zhang Xingwen did not make a statement in the face of the boy's accusation, but shook his head helplessly, and the villagers seemed to be accustomed to this, and no one took the boy's words to heart.

At this time, the village chief woke up slowly, sighed, and said with a sigh: "Xingwen is not to blame for this, I asked Xingwen not to reveal it." Bai Yi's kid had a hard life, and it was because we couldn't stop him that he became what he is now. We have created the iniquity!" As soon as the village chief said this, the entire villagers in the cave lowered their heads and remained silent.

Situ Yan listened to everyone's inconsistent words, and felt that this village was not as simple as it seemed on the surface, and maybe the whole village might be involved, so he was even more suspicious in his heart, so he asked, "What did the village chief say?"

"Alas, it all started five years ago, when there was a drought in the village, crops were not harvested, and many people were dying of starvation. It happened that year was the festival of the mountain god, and the villagers decided to sacrifice a girl to the mountain god after much deliberation. The village chief slowly spat out the truth of the year, and no one spoke in the cave, only the burning branches beeping.

Under the jumping firelight, the tragic life story of a teenager who has been sealed for a long time is slowly revealed.

"Although there has always been a tradition in the village of sacrificing girls to the mountain gods, who would want their daughters to die! Bai Yi's parents died of illness very early, leaving him to live with his sister Bai Qiaoer, Bai Yi has a leg disease, unable to walk, Qiao'er was born with severe dementia, although a few years older than Bai Yi, but behaved like a 6-year-old baby, the two siblings had a very difficult life. At first, the villagers had been taking care of their two siblings out of sympathy, and often sent some food to them. But as the days went by, the villagers' lives became more and more difficult, and they gradually stopped helping them. During the great drought, we really couldn't choose girls from normal families to sacrifice to the mountain god, so everyone wanted Qiao'er to sacrifice, but Qiao'er was already 17 years old at that time, long past the age of sacrifice. But in order to survive, the villagers had to trick her into the mountain, hoping to fool the mountain god. On the second day of Qiao'er's ascent to the mountain, we saw her head and clothes at the entrance of the village, and we thought that the disaster in the village would be lifted, but the rain of prayer did not come until a disciple who claimed to be Dongling Mountain passed by and resolved the crisis in the village. When the village chief said this, he let out a helpless sigh.

While listening, Situ Yan habitually rubbed the two fingers of his right hand, and his expression was a little solemn.

"The disciple of Dongling Mountain gave us an ice jar, saying that this jar can attract water from the heavens and alleviate the drought in this village. We wanted to leave him for a good reception as a token of gratitude, but he seemed to be in a hurry and took the lonely Bai Yi with us. I thought, it's better for Bai Yi to leave, otherwise if he stays in this village, I'm afraid he will hate us to death. No one expected that after three years, Bai Yi would come back. As soon as he returned, the nightmare of Lingyin Village also came. ”

Situ Yan looked around and saw that the villagers were gradually showing frightened expressions, old and young were all snuggled together, and some women had begun to cry in low voices, which made this already strange village even more gloomy.

You continue. ”