"Dong, dong, dong."
During the second watch, the great temple before him blazed with light. Countless believers knelt devoutly on the floor, and the great Niu-head candles beside them illuminated the temple so thoroughly that not a trace of shadow remained.
The Great Song court imposed no curfew, but that did not mean it permitted large gatherings.
Without orders or a valid reason, gathering in a crowd could be treated as a grave crime tantamount to rebellion. The consequences were very Zhong.
But this was Hongzhou.
The petty officials who could have arrested them were kneeling among them. Everyone kept their heads lowered, afraid to look at the deity statue in the shadows, trembling. Their fear outweighed their reverence. They all knelt motionless, while the three slaughtered sacrificial animals lay before the offering table.
From within the deity statue, chewing sounds occasionally emerged.
Blood even dripped from its palm, and the bloody smell lingering around their noses left them shaking with terror.
A strange incense scent drifted from the great temple. Someone cautiously came out carrying an infant. The infant wailed, but no one paid any attention to its cries.
Hearing that sound only made them more afraid.
The infant was covered in blood. The person carrying it had brought no swaddling cloth; instead, the infant was wrapped in a black dog hide, dripping with blood. It had clearly just been flayed and was still warm.
As the infant cried, the deity statue seemed to stir.
But the deity was not interested in the infant or the dog blood. An enormous hand emerged from the darkness, grabbed the raw pig's head on the table, and withdrew into the dark.
As the deity statue chewed, the previously bright tallow candles began to flicker. A low, hoarse voice sounded within the great