Chapter 187
Chapter 187
“Aaaah!”
A bloodcurdling scream echoed through the bamboo forest.
The bride who had just been dragging Qin Ying along in her escape let out an ear-piercing shriek.
The sound startled the pale figures with long, slender necks beneath the lanterns, and they swiftly withdrew into the darkness.
All the white lanterns went out at once.
The wild grass rustled on both sides of them. Whether it was the wind or something approaching, no one could tell.
Qin Ying rubbed her ear and said to the bride, “Stop screaming.”
Just then, someone shouted from the stilt houses behind them, “They got away!”
The whole of Qingzhai Village erupted into commotion.
Trembling, the bride clutched Qin Ying’s arm. “Were those ghosts?”
Qin Ying tried to pull her arm free, but the bride held on so tightly that she was rooted to the spot.
She said coldly, “I don’t know, but we might be about to become ghosts ourselves.”
As she spoke, several flashlight beams appeared among the wild grass.
“They’re over here!”
At the shout, a flashlight beam swept across Qin Ying’s eyes.
She turned her head away as the sound of five or six people running toward them drew closer.
“We can’t get away!” the bride cried despairingly beside her.
Qin Ying replied woodenly, “That’s right. We can’t.”
The blond-haired man named Zhang Lao San approached. Years of chewing betel nut had left him unable to open his mouth properly.
When he grinned, his blackened gums showed.
“You two almost got away.”
He stepped forward and raised the woodcutting machete in his hand.
Seeing that he meant them harm, the bride shrieked and buried her face against Qin Ying’s shoulder.
A voice suddenly barked, “Lao San, don’t do anything reckless.”
The middle-aged man from earlier that day, Zhang Yubo, stepped forward. He sighed when he saw Qin Ying. “I told you not to go see the bride.”
His face creased as though weighed down by endless suffering. “If the wedding isn’t completed, everyone in our village will die.”
Qin Ying’s eyes widened slightly.
That was the truth.
After Zhang Yubo intervened, the Able-bodied Adults who had joined the search lowered their machetes and other weapons.
Zhang Yubo said dejectedly, “Come with me.”
He led the way, taking Qin Ying and the bride to a round house in the village built from stacked stone slabs.
Inside were several burial boxes, each a Coffin, while an extremely old, shriveled man sat in the center of the room.
As Qin Ying passed those boxes, each a Coffin, she caught a whiff of a sickly sweet, rotten stench.
When the wizened old man saw them, he snorted coldly. “You bringers of disaster!”
“How many people are you trying to get killed?”
Qin Ying stood there expressionlessly, then turned to look at the bride.
He’s talking about you.
The bride, who had been cowering beside her, stiffened before arguing, “You’re the ones abducting and trafficking people! How can you possibly think you’re in the right?”
The old man sighed bitterly and pulled a water pipe from behind his waist. “If there were any other way, who would willingly do something so utterly unconscionable?”
“We’re only trying to save ourselves.”
The old man waved the others away, then drew deeply from his pipe. “Some people blasted the mountain a while ago and disturbed Lord Mountain God.”
“The Mountain God won’t be appeased without a bride. We had no other choice.”
“What Mountain God?” Qin Ying asked.
The old man took another puff and began telling them the story in a rambling voice.
Qingzhai Village lay deep in the mountains, with trains stopping at Qingzhai Station twice a day.
It had always been peaceful, but some time ago, a contractor leased a quarry and began blasting the mountain. The explosives weren’t handled according to regulations, and too much was used, causing a collapse.
The blast opened up a stone cavern inside the mountain, and numerous stone statues were found within.
Up to that point, none of it had anything to do with Qingzhai Village.
But from the moment the cavern was exposed, Qingzhai Tunnel in Qingzhai Village became haunted.
And that was without even mentioning the countless bizarre encounters suffered by those who passed through Qingzhai Tunnel.
All of Qingzhai Village had fallen into turmoil.
Every now and then, ghostly flames and white lanterns would appear along the roads, along with strange things with unnaturally long necks.
Sometimes, a villager would go to relieve himself in the outhouse, only to turn his head and find a man in a tattered mandarin jacket beside him, a long queue hanging down the back of his head.
Others had run into men who looked like laborers from ancient times, hauling stones and repairing the roads.
These were no isolated incidents. Nearly everyone in the village, young and old alike, had seen something.
Just as panic began to grip the village, people started dying.
“Two are dead already!” The old man frowned deeply and held up two fingers to Qin Ying.
“They were literally scared to death.”
The Coffin Qin Ying had seen during the day belonged to one of the deceased whose funeral was being held.
After these sinister events began plaguing Qingzhai Village, someone suggested bringing in an expert to investigate.
They found a female medium who practiced Wenmi Spirit Divination, but she had barely struck her drum once when she began vomiting blood and convulsing violently.
She nearly died on the spot. After finally catching her breath, the blind Wenmi Spirit Divination medium suddenly sat upright.
Spitting blood all the while, she declared herself to be the Mountain God. The blasting had disturbed her sacred grounds, so a bride had to be sent to her that very day.
Otherwise…
The blind medium never finished saying what would happen otherwise, but the implication was obvious.
That left everyone in Qingzhai Village with just one question: whose daughter would they send?
This was modern society, not a place where a powerful clan or village tyrant could dictate everything. Who would willingly send a perfectly healthy daughter to her death?
Every family sent their daughters and sisters away.
Left with no other choice, the whole village pooled their money. Blond-Haired Zhang Lao San, the village’s supposedly “resourceful” man, found a human trafficker and bought someone from him.
That person was the bride now standing beside Qin Ying.
Once the old man reached this point in his story, Qin Ying asked, “What happened to my colleagues from the Cultural Preservation Bureau?”
The pipe-smoking old man heaved a long sigh. “Once we realized something was wrong, we thought about calling the police too.”
“We were relieved when people from the authorities arrived.”
“But last night, those people went into the mountains, and they never came back.”
“What else could we do?”
With no way to resolve the situation, the people of Qingzhai Village could only grit their teeth and proceed with the wedding.
Then Qin Ying had barged in. What they were doing was illegal, so all they wanted was to keep it hidden.
But Qin Ying had gone and broken the taboo by meeting the bride face-to-face.
The old man tapped out his pipe, then raised his eyes and asked, “What do you expect us to do now?”
“It’s almost time for the Mountain God’s wedding procession to collect the bride.”
The bride beside Qin Ying cried out in alarm. “I won’t marry! I won’t!”
Everyone turned to look at Qin Ying.
After a moment of silence, she asked in return, “Then what do you want?”
The old man snorted coldly. “Whether you want to marry is no longer up to you.”
“You broke the taboo. Now both of you have to become brides.”
With that, he waved a hand. “Where are the clothes?”
Two trays were brought forward, bearing a wedding gown and the silver headdress.
Both were thrust right under Qin Ying’s nose.
Zhang Lao San gave her a vicious grin. “Want me to help you change?”
Everyone fell silent.
The wizened old man from Qingzhai Village pleaded, “Please, save us.”
Qin Ying lowered her eyes to the trays, then slowly raised a hand.
Under everyone’s expectant gaze, she swept the trays aside.
The silver headdress crashed to the ground, bending some of the flowers decorating it.
Everyone’s expression changed drastically.
The vicious grin froze on Zhang Lao San’s face. Fear flooded his features, twisting them into a grotesque mask.
He took a step back, but before he could speak, a piercing horn blast suddenly rang out from outside.
The old man shuddered violently. “The Mountain God is enraged! The wedding procession is here!”