Chapter 16

Chapter 16

That old village chief didn’t even blink as he had someone bring over liquor and forced Jiang Shuang down to her knees in front of the ancestral hall.

People in the yard lit torches, illuminating the inside of the hall.

At a glance, I saw the idol enshrined in the center of the ancestral hall.

It was a woman sitting cross-legged, her hands forming the Lotus Mudra. Five children were gathered around her belly.

Even more chilling was the fact that beneath that idol, there were rows upon rows of ancestral tablets.

Then someone approached Jiang Shuang with a piece of white cloth in hand and wrapped it straight over her face!

I couldn’t wait any longer-

I grabbed the wooden door bar standing nearby and charged into the yard!

Before the people in the yard could even react, I swung the bar and knocked down the man who was wrapping the white cloth around Jiang Shuang.

Then I looped one arm around the village chief’s neck and hauled him straight up off the ground. “Don’t move! We’ve already called the police!”

Fan Qian probably hadn’t expected me to show up out of nowhere either. He stood frozen in the corner, staring wide-eyed.

At that moment, the innkeeper was the first to jump out. “If we’re going to do this, we go all the way! Forget the village chief for now-get that woman into the coffin first!”

“Don’t move!”

I hadn’t expected the people in this village to be so utterly heartless. Several of them didn’t even care whether the village chief lived or died; they simply lunged at Jiang Shuang.

All I could do was let go of the village chief, kick one of them down, and drag Jiang Shuang up from the ground first.

The ropes binding Jiang Shuang weren’t tied very tightly. After I yanked at them twice, they were basically loose.

But there were too many people on the other side, and I took a vicious hit to the back!

Jiang Shuang was dragged away too. The girl struggled with all her strength, but two fists couldn’t beat four hands. Before long, her arms were twisted behind her back, and a layer of white cloth was pressed directly over her face-

Right then, a bitter wind suddenly rose.

The stench of blood, accompanied by a woman’s screams, seemed to travel straight here from the distant mountains.

The lanterns and torches in the yard started flickering nonstop.

In a daze, I saw that woman in labor again, lying on the bed and struggling with all her might.

Twenty years ago, what kind of medical resources could a remote village like this possibly have had? Delivering quintuplets was a death sentence for the mother!

At that moment, the five coffins standing in the corner all suddenly rose upright, and from inside four of them came the cries of babies.

The woman’s wails grew even more miserable. Her five children came out of her body one by one, but every single one of them was already dead.

This time, the villagers could no longer hold on.

They knew exactly what they had done. In fact, aside from those quintuplets, they had no idea how many children and women they had sacrificed in order to reap benefits without doing any work.

A burst of firelight flashed through the yard, and the last trace of light was gone.

The villagers fled in all directions. They crowded at the entrance to the ancestral hall, and anyone who fell to the ground was trampled underfoot like a human stepping-stone. Not a single person was willing to stop.