[Soul-Shaking Ancient Village] Hunting Them Down Personally

The ponytailed woman examined the shattered doll and bent down slightly to pick it up.

But the moment she reached out and touched it, the corpse of the woman with loose hair, which had been hanging from the ceiling beam, dissolved like sand and stone in water. It turned to ash and drifted away bit by bit.

A bizarre smile formed on the shattered doll's face as it stared fixedly at the ponytailed woman. Then the doll corresponding to the woman with loose hair also turned to ash, little by little.

The scene was so strange. The objects used for sacrifices in the storeroom had begun to flicker with faint red light.

The ponytailed woman looked at the other seven dolls on the table. Each was a different color, matching the clothes one of them wore. Their faces were expressionless, unlike the shattered doll's.

"This place is really strange. These dolls are connected to our lives. If any one of us dies, the doll corresponding to that person breaks too." A chill ran through the burly man's heart. This instance was too strange. So far, the ghost's killing rules weren't complicated, so the difficulty couldn't be considered high. But there were too many mysteries, one layer covering another. Why did these dolls represent their lives?

The Elder Care Tower standing in the village and the three-story building they were in also seemed out of place.

And the ghost should have lain in wait by his bed all night yesterday. If he or that child had actually opened their eyes at any point, they would have met with disaster.

As these thoughts kept surfacing in his mind, cold sweat seeped down the burly man's back. His clothes clung to his body, making him extremely uncomfortable. His muscles bulged, and a patch on the back of his teal shirt was soon soaked.

A gust of cold wind swept through the storeroom.

Everyone was thinking. In a place like this, remaining passive meant nothing but waiting for death.

"There's still one major question: where is the real ghost?" The ponytailed woman folded her arms and raised a particularly pointed question.

"Why don't we leave the storeroom for now? This place is too strange. As for the ghost, let's look around for clues today." The man in the suit composed himself as he spoke.

In a first instance, because the "veterans" were generous with information, newcomers could quickly make themselves useful too, as long as they were receptive enough.

"Okay," the burly man said with a nod.

The six of them left first. Si Yehan had an idea he wanted to put into practice, so he didn't go with them.

Left alone in the storeroom, Si Yehan turned on the light and began rummaging through the sacrificial objects. Sure enough, he found a slender, pointed knife.

He examined the doll corresponding to him. It wore a black trench coat and had a fair, handsome face, with indifference in its eyes and a cold, aloof expression. It was a perfect one-to-one replica.

If a doll shattered and disappeared when its person died, would the person be affected if the doll was injured?

Si Yehan aimed the knife at the doll that looked like him and slashed its left palm. A stream of blood immediately spurted from it.

Si Yehan raised his hand and watched it for a moment, but no cut appeared. He concluded that people weren't affected by their dolls.

The bloody wound on the doll slowly healed. Si Yehan had a vague feeling the thing had another use, so he slipped it into the outer pocket of his trench coat.

Looking at the dolls corresponding to the male student and the burly man, Si Yehan casually stabbed through them, broke them apart and threw them onto the floor. This time, they didn't restore themselves. Although a person wasn't affected when their doll was injured, he couldn't be sure whether a person would die if their doll died, so he had to test it on those two first.

He would kill the burly man and the male student today. The former had taken too much care of the latter, and to prevent complications from delay, Si Yehan had to cut the weeds and pull out the roots, preventing anything inconspicuous from causing him trouble.

Si Yehan turned off the light, pushed open the storeroom door from the darkness and went down the spiral staircase.

When he reached the first-floor living room, he found the male student waiting in front of the sofa, looking somewhat hesitant.

The male student was a little afraid when he saw Si Yehan. The sight of the handsome young man, with his air of aloof elegance, reminded him of the rich kids in his class.

He had earned excellent grades as a child, so naturally he hadn't suffered physical bullying in class, though people had often talked about him behind his back. Later, he entered a prestigious high school, where good grades could no longer protect him from some of the rich kids in the advanced class.

What was more, those people didn't act on their words, and the school had no way to deal with that kind of verbal bullying. But he could feel their malice.

Under that long-term pressure, the male student had learned to be cautious in how he conducted himself, and had developed an almost instinctive sensitivity to malice.

From Si Yehan, he sensed only coldness and arrogance. As for the killing intent beneath that, which Uncle had mentioned, he couldn't sense it, but he still occasionally felt that Si Yehan's malice was even purer than that of the rich kids in his class.

It seemed real, but it also seemed like an illusion.

After thinking it over, the male student greeted him anyway. "Bro, are you going out to investigate too? Uncle, those three ladies and that other guy have all gone out to investigate."

Si Yehan looked at the male student, who was clearly afraid yet still pretending to be calm and polite, and could hardly suppress a laugh.

He walked forward, and the male student backed away, stumbling onto the sofa.

Si Yehan drew the pointed knife he had obtained from the storeroom from his sleeve. It was just the right length to conceal.

At the sight of the knife's cold gleam, the male student realized something and immediately shouted for help. "Uncle, save me!"

Si Yehan pinned the male student's head down and plunged the knife into his throat. He quickly pulled it out and stabbed him three more times in the heart.

Gurgling breaths from his leaking windpipe sounded in the wind. The male student desperately clutched his throat, the sound of his heartbeat gradually fading. His posture looked especially ridiculous.

The world before his eyes rapidly blurred, but the black trench coat remained so clear, as did those dark, indifferent eyes. They weren't unfathomably deep, yet they made the male student even more afraid.

Si Yehan had positioned himself to avoid the gushing blood. Turning the knife in his hand, he watched the male student lie face down on the floor, twisting until he finally died.

Perhaps because the doll had already been destroyed, the male student's body turned to ash and evaporated shortly after his death. The bloodstains on the floor also vanished without a trace.

"So it actually helps dispose of the body and erase the evidence. That saves me from cleaning up the scene," Si Yehan murmured. He left the three-story building and wandered through the village.

Every house had its doors and windows shut tight. Listening closely, he could still hear the voices of young children—living children. But whenever their voices rose, a harsh reprimand would ring out, and the voices would gradually die down.

After walking for a while without seeing the burly man, Si Yehan decided to pick a villager's home and kill the inhabitants first, finding some amusement while he searched for clues.

He chose a villager's home in the most cramped part of the village. Hardly anyone lived in the area, and there was no way to call for help or escape. It couldn't have been a more suitable place to wipe out a household.

It was a brick house with a tiled roof. The green iron gate was peeling, exposing spots of rust, but the couplets pasted beside it were crimson as blood.

Si Yehan knocked on the gate. Before long, a woman's cautious voice sounded from inside. "Who is it? What do you want? The head of our household isn't home. Whatever it is, come back later."