The true face of the Mad Village flashed by in an instant. Before Wen Jingyan could Wen Jingyan a good look, the desolate scene had completely disappeared, and the scene before him returned to its peaceful and tranquil state, with the villagers coming and going being warm and simple.
Turning around again, the strange villager who had been interviewed on the street by an online celebrity team and collapsed to the ground was gone.
It means literally gone. Such a living person, without leaving a trace, vanished into thin air.
An indescribable sense of eeriness and dread was spreading rapidly; beneath the village's tranquil facade lay a deep-seated terror.
The influencer team may have violated some kind of rule. Wen Jingyan didn't know what the consequences would be for them, nor did he know if it would affect him. He could only prepare for the worst.
The streamer Pinshishi, and the others also witnessed the sudden disappearance of the villager who had staged the accident. They were all startled, and their feverish minds finally calmed down a bit, realizing that the real supernatural event was not the script they had been playing around with before, but a real and deadly danger.
Pinshishi took a deep breath to calm his frightened emotions, looked up at the departing figures of Wen Jingyan and the other two, and a thoughtful expression appeared on his face.
His team followed the three men in. He didn't know their identities, but he felt they were acting suspiciously and might reveal some juicy gossip.
Now it seems the team, following the three of them, has arrived at a strange place.
"Boss, this place is a bit eerie. We'd better not linger. Anyway, the live stream signal has already been cut off. We can just take some random photos outside, edit them a bit, and post them online. That should be enough to attract viewers," the cameraman carrying the equipment advised from the side.
They weren't investigators; their purpose in coming here was to ride the wave of popularity, gain traffic, and monetize it. There was no need for them to delve into a strange village to film and explore.
They weren't the brainless protagonists in a moronic horror movie; even though they sensed danger, they still lingered in the same spot.
The village before us is visibly strange; staying here would be a very unwise move.
Pinshishi is not usually one to listen to advice, but he is a person who values his life. This time, he was unusually compliant and did not argue or insist on his own opinion.
The influencer team packed up their things and immediately prepared to turn back the way they came.
Only then did they realize that the path they had come from had vanished.
Not only that, they also encountered Ghost Wall, no matter which direction they went, they would eventually return to the entrance of the Mad Village.
When he saw the black stone at the entrance of Mad Village for the third time, the Pinshishi could no longer suppress the fear and anger surging in his heart, and his face grew increasingly pale.
This isn't Peach Blossom Spring, this is Ghost Village!
He never expected that he would encounter such a strange thing when he only wanted to ride the wave of popularity for supernatural phenomena!
He had never encountered this situation before when he went to film at locations in Shanque City or Jing City where supernatural events had occurred!
"Damn it!" The Pinshishi looked around with a gloomy expression, completely at a loss for what to do. He only knew how to hype things up and make money, not how to exorcise evil spirits.
At this moment, the photographer in the team had a sudden inspiration and suggested, "Boss, those three people we followed earlier are still in the village. They might know something. Why don't we follow them? Maybe we can find a way out."
This was a last resort; they couldn't just stay at the village entrance and wander around doing nothing.
"Alright." The Pinshishi nodded, and the entire group set off, returning to the village.
By this time, Wen Jingyan and his two companions had reached the center of the village, where peace and tranquility still prevailed. Women were cooking over fires, men were working in the fields, and children were laughing and playing.
The village's overall style resembles a northern mountain village from the 1980s, and at first glance, there's nothing unusual about it, which is precisely what makes it so eerie.
It's normal for a haunted village to be a bit eerie; an overly peaceful village would feel unsettling. Those in the know clearly understand that something is wrong with the village, and the stark contrast only adds to the unease and fear.
"Where did you three young men come from?" An old man taking a stroll suddenly shouted at Wen Jingyan and his companions in a loud and energetic voice.
Wen Jingyan, Feng Qian, and Du Yan pretended to be deaf and didn't hear him, giving the old man no response whatsoever, and hurried away.
There's something strange about this village, and they dare not respond to the villagers casually, lest they inadvertently trigger the Fierce Ghost's killing pattern.
"How can there be such a strange village in the world?" Feng Qian complained as he walked. "Mr. Wen, how did this Ghost Village come into being? It doesn't look like it was formed naturally."
"I don't know either," Wen Jingyan said.
He actually had a guess: this Ghost Village might be the work of a previous generation of Ghost Tamers, a product of the same era as him. Unfortunately, that group of Ghost Tamers encountered a peerless madman and were brutally murdered.
The unusual aspects of Mad Village had not yet been revealed, and the calmer and more peaceful the surface appeared, the more unsettling it felt to Wen Jingyan, like the low pressure before a storm.
The three of them walked around the village but found nothing suspicious; everything was unusually calm.
However, this calm only fueled Wen Jingyan's growing unease. The process of waiting for terror to descend was more unbearable than facing it directly; the unknown always made people feel fearful and panicked.
"What should we do next?" Feng Qian asked, frowning.
A thoughtful look flashed across Wen Jingyan's eyes. The mastermind behind this had instructed him to spread the word about the Supernatural events here. So, what method could he use to spread the word without endangering his own safety?
The village appears peaceful on the surface, which suggests that the Supernatural within the village may be in a state of equilibrium. They are trapped inside and unable to escape, but there is no immediate danger.
But once the balance is broken, no one knows what unknown mutations will occur.
"This stalemate isn't working. Why don't we try taking the initiative?" Wen Jingyan suggested thoughtfully.
"Take the initiative? How do we take the initiative?" Feng Qian asked, puzzled.
Wen Jingyan said, "We can try releasing Supernatural power in the village and see if Supernatural can stimulate changes in the village."
Upon hearing this, Feng Qian was immediately horrified. "This is not a good idea! What if all the villagers here are traumatized and turn into ghosts? What if we can't withstand it and are eaten alive by them?"
Wen Jingyan retorted, "If we don't try to change things and just stay here, although there's no immediate danger, how long will our food and water last? Would you dare eat anything from the village? No matter how peaceful and tranquil the Ghost Village pretends to be, it's all a lie!"
"The Fierce Ghosts in this Ghost Village are definitely extraordinary, perhaps more than one. I don't want to disturb them unless absolutely necessary, but given the current situation, if we delay, lack food and water, and get insufficient rest and become mentally strained, our condition will eventually decline, and if we encounter Fierce Ghosts again then, it will only be worse."
His words were logical and well-founded, leaving Feng Qian with no grounds for rebuttal. He could only ask, "And then? After releasing Supernatural in the village, disrupting the balance, and successfully changing the status quo, what should be done next?"
Wen Jingyan said, "I don't yet know what changes will occur in this village, so I can't make any arrangements in advance. We'll have to analyze the specific situation as it unfolds."
Feng Qian frowned. Every word Wen Jingyan said made sense, but he vaguely felt that something was not quite right. He felt that Wen Jingyan's attitude towards this Supernatural event was a bit strange.
Before he could think it through, Wen Jingyan led them to a place in the village that looked like an ancestral hall.
However, there was nothing enshrined in this ancestral hall, and the dilapidated doors and windows leaked wind and rain.
After gently closing the doors and windows of the ancestral hall, Wen Jingyan observed the entire village through the cracks. He didn't need to release Supernatural in the village; unusual changes had already begun to occur.
Because besides the three outsiders, there was also a group of internet celebrities in the village who knew nothing about the Supernatural. These people wouldn't be as cautious as the investigators, and might unintentionally break the rules.
Before long, the entire village visibly darkened, as if it had suddenly gone from day to night, skipping the process of sunrise and sunset.
The Mad Village pitch black at night; no one lit their lamps, and there were no stars or moon in the sky—it was so dark you couldn't see your hand in front of your face.
Every now and then, the wind would whistle past my ears, like someone quietly sobbing.
"Why did it suddenly get so dark?" Du Yan hugged his shoulders and shrank his neck. His biological instincts were constantly warning him, and he subconsciously sensed danger, as if something extremely terrifying was about to break out of its cage.
"They're here?" Wen Jingyan whispered a reminder.
"What's here?" Feng Qian looked around and immediately noticed Wen Jingyan's extremely serious expression.
Wen Jingyan a finger and placed it to his lips, signaling Feng Qian to be quiet. He then pointed to the crack in the door, indicating that the other person should look outside.
Feng Qian stepped forward and stood where Wen Jingyan been. He looked out through the crack in the door. His eyesight was excellent, and the village road looked to him like a black ribbon that had been carelessly discarded. He could faintly hear the sound of suona horns coming from afar.
The voice initially seemed to come from several mountains away, but after rounding a bend, it suddenly became very close. Feng Qian was startled, and then he saw a scene that made his blood freeze instantly—
A wedding procession was turning out from the left side of the road. The procession appeared abruptly. The large red sedan chair carried by eight people swayed as if it were drunk. The sedan chair bearers were all dressed in faded red jackets, with exaggerated blush on their faces, and their mouths stretched to their ears, revealing gleaming white teeth. They walked with their knees straight, as if they were being pulled by invisible strings, and every step was to the eerie rhythm of the suona horn.
What fell from the sky were not flower petals, but red paper scraps cut into the shape of human heads.
In the pitch-black night, accompanied by gusts of eerie wind and strange suona music, this wedding procession was a classic example of Chinese horror, filled with a sinister and eerie atmosphere.
A gentle breeze blew by, causing the curtain of the bridal sedan chair to sway slightly, revealing a corner of it. Feng Qian peered into the sedan chair through that corner, and his pupils suddenly contracted. He trembled uncontrollably and covered his mouth tightly with his hand, afraid that he would make the slightest sound.
It was a bride, her wedding dress collar was covered in mold, her knuckles were distinct like the limbs of a stick insect, her bluish-gray skin clung to her bones, and each fingernail had an eerie, ghostly blue hue. A pair of bracelets hung emptily on her withered wrists.
When the red veil was slightly lifted by the wind, Feng Qian saw that the skin on the bride's chin was cracked like old tree bark, and the white jawbone was exposed between the cracks, with fibrous rotting flesh hanging from it. Where the nose should have been, there were only two dark holes, with amber-colored amber congealed around the edges.
The most terrifying thing was the eyes; two intact eyeballs were embedded under the rotting eyelids, moist as if they had just been dug out of the eye sockets of a living person.
The words "ghost bride" instantly filled Feng Qian's mind. He realized that the mummified corpse in the bridal sedan chair was definitely an incredibly terrifying Fierce Ghost!
This seemingly peaceful village finally revealed its ferocious fangs at night.
Feng Qian stared intently at the bridal sedan chair, unable to look away. However, in Wen Jingyan and Du Yan's eyes, he seemed to have frozen in place. Wen Jingyan pushed him several times, but he did not react at all.
"Ah!"
Feng Qian suddenly let out a low scream. A certain unspeakable part of his body had been severely injured, and the intense pain brought him back to his senses.
He turned and glared angrily at Wen Jingyan, who breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing this, "I called you a few times but you didn't respond. I was afraid you'd fallen for something, so... I resorted to this tactic."
The worst course of action was to give men a severe beating on their sensitive lychee.
Feng Qian rolled his eyes in annoyance and quietly recounted what he had just seen and heard.
Wen Jingyan silent, as if he wanted to say something but hesitated.
"What's wrong with you?" Feng Qian felt uneasy at his silence.
Du Yan, standing to the side, cautiously asked, "Brother Feng, I didn't hear any suona music outside at all. Besides, the door was so narrow and it was so dark. How did you manage to see what was inside the bridal sedan chair? Did your eyes evolve to have X-ray vision?"
Feng Qian was taken aback. Only after being reminded did he realize something was wrong. Du Yan was right. The wind had only blown open a corner of the bridal sedan curtain. How could he have seen the mummified bride inside so clearly?!
It's absolutely terrifying to think about!
"Did I accidentally break some taboo?" Feng Qian asked, his voice trembling.
Wen Jingyan said frankly, "I'm not sure either."
Feng Qian subconsciously peeked through the crack in the door again. He didn't hear the sound of suona horns, nor the strange sedan chair bearers, nor the red paper scraps falling everywhere. There was only that one bridal sedan chair, quietly parked in the middle of the road.
"Was what I just saw all an illusion?" Feng Qian muttered in surprise and fear.
Just then, a sudden, loud sound pierced the night sky, sharp and shrill, as if Fierce Ghost was howling at the heavens.
Feng Qian shuddered and saw another procession appear on the right side of the road. Just like the wedding procession from before, it was a group of people carrying something, with paper scraps flying everywhere. However, the paper scraps were white, and the people were dressed in white.
Upon closer inspection, what the group was carrying was... a coffin!