Cruel Offering Platters

"All right. We need to find out where the Old Almanac is anyway, so let's go together."

Ye Qianfan beckoned to Shen Lang and Rich Merchant.

Everyone soon arrived outside the house where the cultivator couple had stayed last night. For one thing, their house was closest to Ye Qianfan and the others; for another, everyone had heard their screams last night. Needless to say, they must both be dead!

So...

Everyone was curious to see what had become of their bodies.

But when Ye Qianfan reached the entrance and looked into the house, whose door had been smashed to pieces by the Evil God, even he could not help drawing in a sharp breath!

In the middle of the empty house sat two golden Offering Plates.

But now, two bloody offerings lay on those Offering Plates. One held a tiny skullcap, its snowy-white hollow filled with red human blood.

The strange thing was that the skullcap was smaller than a palm and very thin, rather like a baby's skullcap.

The other held an intact human skin, folded into a little square the size of a handkerchief. Since the very top happened to show the face—the nose, eyebrows, and mouth—everyone recognized it almost at once as the male cultivator's skin!

"Hiss!"

This time, everyone truly sucked in a sharp breath.

The two things on those platters had clearly come from the two people killed by the Evil God last night.

The male cultivator's skin made sense, but the skullcap on the other Offering Plate did not look as though it could have belonged to the female cultivator. Surely her head could not have been so small?

"Isn't that skullcap too small?"

Ye Qianfan asked with a frown.

The Roving Exorcist Disciple did not answer. Instead, he stepped forward, shook the Soul-Summoning Banner in his hand, and chanted, "O soul, return; I shall be your guide!"

"O soul, return; journey by my side!"

"O soul, return..."

Others might not have been able to see it, but Ye Qianfan could clearly see that, as the Roving Exorcist Disciple shook the Soul Banner...

A wisp of pale black mist rose from the skullcap!

That faint black mist took the shape of a little baby, a long umbilical cord still attached to its belly. As it crawled toward the Soul-Summoning Banner, the long cord kept swaying beneath it. It was utterly eerie!

"A... baby?"

Ye Qianfan spoke in disbelief.

At the same time, a horrifying thought arose in his mind. Could this have been what was inside the female cultivator's womb...

"It seems this young fellow is quite an expert too."

Only after collecting the baby's soul did the Roving Exorcist Disciple speak. "Yes, this skullcap must have belonged to the baby in that female cultivator's womb. If I'm not mistaken, the offerings we find next will probably all be different too."

"Gulp..."

Rich Merchant swallowed quietly. "The offerings this Evil God demands are far too cruel."

"This is nothing yet." The Roving Exorcist Disciple shook his head. "What I'm afraid of now is finding Blood Bread, Five-Meat Cake, Human-Fat Lamps, and Great Dough Balls next."

"Why?"

Ye Qianfan was puzzled. "Wouldn't those offerings be better than human skin, skullcaps, and the like?"

"It's not that simple!" The Roving Exorcist Disciple's expression turned grim. "Blood Bread is a cake made from human blood. Five-Meat Cake is made from human flesh and four other kinds of meat. I hardly need to explain Human-Fat Lamps. As for Great Dough Balls, they're a mixture kneaded from gall, blood, and internal organs."