After leaving Old Li’s house, Wang Liang returned to the dried-up well where they had encountered the hunchbacked old man during the day.
This place was some distance from the nearest homes, so Zhou Kun felt safe enough to speak.
“So it was here. That faint stench of rot in this village is stronger here. When I got close earlier, I already felt something was wrong. There must be something down in this well.”
Wang Liang nodded without speaking. He simply tossed two one-inch photos into the well.
Seeing Wang Liang’s actions, the corner of Zhou Kun’s mouth twitched.
“You’re going to use the supernatural again? We’re only investigating the situation. Since this afternoon, how many times have you used the power of a ghost already? Are you really not going to have problems? I brought rope in my bag. I can actually go down and take a look.”
“No need. Too much trouble.”
“Uh.”
After the photos fell to the bottom of the well, Wang Liang did as before, extending Sadako’s supernatural curse to the photo medium at the bottom of the well and summoning a derivative Sadako to inspect the situation below.
But when he saw what was at the bottom of the well through the derivative Sadako’s perspective, Wang Liang’s pupils contracted.
Noticing the change in Wang Liang’s eyes, Zhou Kun asked,
“What did you see?”
“Corpses. Broken, rotting corpses. More than one. They’re using the cold bottom of this abandoned well to dispose of bodies.”
Wang Liang’s expression was ugly. He was both disgusted and shocked by what this village had done.
At the bottom of the well, beneath the derivative Sadako’s feet, at least four or five rotting, foul-smelling corpses were piled together, the flesh on their bodies decaying.
And on the parts that had not completely rotted away, especially the faces, clear bite marks could be seen, as if something had gnawed a few mouthfuls from them.
Moreover, judging from the clothes on these corpses, they did not look like villagers.
Although the clothes were dirty, their style could still be seen as rather fashionable. There were also some filthy, bloodstained travel backpacks at the bottom of the well. The identities of these corpses were most likely people who had come to this area to travel.
“They’re using people to feed something. Using those tourists who pass through here. The corpses at the bottom of the well were all food for something—or rather, sacrifices. That’s why the villagers looked at us strangely during the day. They were looking at prey,” Wang Liang murmured.
“What?! The people in this village are simply lawless.”
Zhou Kun flew into a rage when he heard this and wanted to immediately call people over to seal off the village. But thinking of what Wang Liang had said during the day, he calmed down again.
“Hmph. Once this incident is over, not a single criminal in this village should even think of running away!”
“Let’s go. There’s one last place left.”
“Where?”
“Up the mountain.”
In the middle of the night, Wang Liang and Zhou Kun climbed the barren mountain near the village. This mountain was also the origin of the village’s name.
The mountain path was full of uneven steps, and in some places there were not even steps, only a slanted dirt slope.
But after the two reached the summit of this barren mountain, they discovered that a fairly well-renovated ancestral hall had actually been built here.
There was no one in the ancestral hall. After Wang Liang and Zhou Kun walked inside, they could see seven memorial tablets placed on the platform ahead, with names carved on them.
But strangely, when Wang Liang drew closer, he discovered that the names carved on the tablets did not share the same surname. There were Wangs, there were Zhangs, and on the newest memorial tablet at the very bottom was carved: Li.
Li Lengmei.
It was the name of Old Li’s daughter.
“An ancestral shrine?” Zhou Kun followed a step behind and said after seeing the memorial tablets.
“Doesn’t look like it. Too few, and the surnames are too scattered.”
After Wang Liang examined these memorial tablets, he walked around the platform and headed toward the rear. Zhou Kun followed closely behind.
At the back, after passing through a door and walking down a corridor, there was a staircase leading downward.
Seeing this staircase leading underground, the corner of Wang Liang’s mouth twitched. As expected, every household really did like building basements.
Wang Liang and Zhou Kun followed the steps down into the basement. The scene here left both of them frozen in place.
The space of several dozen square meters was filled with a foul stench. The ground was covered in food scraps, as well as… rotting flesh and yellowed bones. Human bones. Perhaps these had also been food before.
At the end was a chain connected to the wall. The shackle on the chain was open, but it had definitely once restrained someone.
Beneath the chain was a filthy, foul-smelling blanket. Beside it was a tattered quilt, used for someone to live here.
Thinking of the room in Old Li’s house that had not been lived in for a long time, and the fact that his daughter had died six days ago, this place had probably been her residence before that.
“These people, these people…”
Zhou Kun’s eyes turned bloodshot as he looked on. He had never expected that such a vile village existed within his jurisdiction.
His finger trembled as he pointed at this basement. His mouth was open, yet he could not say a single complete sentence.
Zhou Kun was a ghost controller who kept company with malevolent ghosts and had seen many scenes of utter horror. But those had been caused by ghosts. What was now displayed before him was the darkness of human nature.
Before transmigrating, Wang Liang had only been an ordinary office worker. He had not been in this world long after crossing over, and in a short period of time his psychological threshold had risen again and again, but this was still the first time he had seen such a disgusting and cruel scene.
After tossing a photo here, Wang Liang frowned and turned to walk back up, unwilling to stay any longer.
Arriving outside the ancestral hall, Wang Liang looked up at the night sky and felt the cool wind of late night. Yet there was always a faint stench in the wind that could not be blown away. After seeing these scenes, that faint stench seemed to become even more obvious.
After waiting for a while.
Zhou Kun also walked out of the ancestral hall. Only after taking several deep breaths did he look at Wang Liang and say with an ugly expression,
“It’s truly satisfying that a supernatural incident happened in this place!”
Wang Liang glanced at Zhou Kun in surprise. He had not expected him to say something like that. It seemed his impression of Zhou Kun had been somewhat mistaken; this man was not too rigid after all.
“Let’s go. We’ve more or less figured out the suspicious locations. Now we just wait for the moment it erupts.”
Wang Liang had left photo mediums near the suspicious locations: Old Li’s house, the dried-up well, and the ancestral hall on the mountain.
Once any other supernatural presence appeared near the photos, Wang Liang would be able to detect it through the changes in the supernatural gray lines within his vision, allowing him to immediately release Sadako’s curse over there and confront and contain the film ghost that descended.
The next day,
Aside from a few elderly people who could not move around and stayed at home, most of the other villagers once again ran to the cemetery in the north to busy themselves.
Even when there was nothing to do, they idly chatted nearby, as if staying at home would bring misfortune upon them. They chose to gather together to resist some kind of ill omen. To them, this was also a kind of ritual.
Wang Liang and Zhou Kun did not go out today. They remained in the hunchbacked old man’s house the whole time, waiting for the last dozen or so hours to pass.
But just after noon, Wang Liang suddenly sensed an unusual reaction from a photo medium at the village entrance. A malevolent ghost, or something related to the supernatural, had approached that place.
This change made Wang Liang send part of his consciousness over to see what had happened at the village entrance.
Under Zhou Kun’s numb, accustomed gaze, Wang Liang closed his eyes once again. A cold aura rose from his body, and the supernatural was released into the distance.
Ahem, there are some problems with these chapters. I subconsciously leaned toward the rhythm of traditional supernatural horror—exploration, deciphering mysteries, uncovering the truth, and ghosts—but that actually isn’t the rhythm of Mysterious Revival. The rhythm of Mysterious Revival mainly comes from unknown ghosts and thrilling confrontations with them. It went a bit off track. I’ll speed up the pace tomorrow.