At that moment, Ning Qiushui felt a chill creeping up his back.
He had a vague sense that something horrific might have happened in the village during that great drought all those years ago...
While Ning Qiushui and Bai Xiaoxiao studied the painting, Liu Chengfeng stepped aside to examine its annotation.
"So it really was a drought... Huh? Come look at this!"
Liu Chengfeng seemed to have discovered something. His expression changed as he called to the two beside the painting.
They immediately came over, and both froze when they saw where Liu Chengfeng was pointing.
There... a new name had appeared.
Guang Xiu.
"His surname was Guang too? Could he be related to Guangchuan?"
Ning Qiushui's eyes brightened slightly as he quickly read through the painting's annotation.
The annotation roughly read as follows-
Around a hundred and twenty years ago, Rain-Praying Village suffered a drought that lasted three years. The streams dried up, the crops yielded nothing, and even the plants and trees on the mountains withered completely.
Back then, the entire village depended on an ancient well dug by their predecessors for water.
But famine followed the drought. As more and more people in the village starved to death, some villagers went to the home of Guang Xiu, the village's only wealthy landowner at the time, hoping to borrow some of his surplus grain.
Yet none of those who went ever returned.
The other villagers realized something was wrong. They secretly gathered outside Guang Xiu's home and peered over the wall, only to discover that he had killed the villagers who came to borrow grain, chopped them up, and fed them to his dogs!
When this came to light, the entire village erupted in fury!
Led by a middle-aged man named Ruan Kaihuang, the villagers stormed Guang Xiu's home and hacked him to pieces on the spot, then imprisoned his wife and child in the Misty Rain Temple.
The Misty Rain Temple was a rain-praying temple Guang Xiu had built using wealth collected from the entire village. Every year, the villagers presented offerings to the earth god, praying for favorable weather.
In truth, however, the temple was merely a means for Guang Xiu to line his pockets.
Strangely enough, rain fell on the very night Guang Xiu was hacked to pieces.
Lightning struck the Misty Rain Temple, setting it ablaze.
Some witnessed the fire growing fiercer rather than going out beneath the pouring rain, and Guang Xiu's wife and child burned to death inside the Misty Rain Temple.
The villagers all said that Heaven had finally opened its eyes and punished the wicked.
In the end, under Ruan Kaihuang's leadership, the villagers gradually returned to a peaceful life.
To commemorate Ruan Kaihuang's contributions to Rain-Praying Village, later generations cast a miniature gold statue of him and built an ancestral hall.
That was the full content of the annotation.
"Looks like the man holding the sickle in that painting was Ruan Kaihuang, and the people tied up on the ground were Guang Xiu and his wife and child."
"In that case..."
Ning Qiushui immediately took out the memorial tablet he was holding. Looking at the name Guangchuan inscribed on it, he said with a hint of excitement:
"Could Guangchuan... have been Guang Xiu's son, the one who burned to death?"
Bai Xiaoxiao nodded in agreement.
"Most likely."
As she spoke, she seemed to notice something and gave a small "Huh?" She walked over to the annotation, examined it from top to bottom, then took out a small flashlight and shone it over the surface. Her voice suddenly grew much more serious:
"There's something behind this annotation!"
Hearing that, Ning Qiushui and Liu Chengfeng immediately leaned closer.
"What is it?"
Bai Xiaoxiao's eyes flickered.
"I'm not sure, but there's a large space inside the wall behind the annotation."
"You two... step back."
Knowing what she intended to do, Liu Chengfeng widened his eyes and tried to stop her:
"Bai Xiaoxiao, don't do anything rash! Didn't that old man sweeping the floor tell us not to touch anything here?"
Bai Xiaoxiao replied calmly:
"Don't worry. I know what I'm doing."
Seeing that she was determined, both men took a few steps back. Without hesitation, Bai Xiaoxiao pulled several coins from her pocket, selected one, and worked it against the annotation's frame for a while, loosening a screw!
"Holy shit, you can undo screws like that?"
Liu Chengfeng stared in disbelief.
Once she had removed the screws from the annotation's frame, Bai Xiaoxiao carefully took it down. Sure enough, there was a large recess in the wall behind it!
The horrifying sight inside left all three frozen in place!
Two grotesquely contorted corpses were crammed into that small recess!
The recess was a cube measuring roughly 50 × 50 × 50 cm. It was hard to imagine how such a space could hold the bodies of two adults!
Both corpses wore expressions of utter terror, as though they had witnessed something horrifying before they died. Their bodies were tangled together, their two deathly pale faces staring out of the recess, one above the other...
It's them?!
Ning Qiushui exclaimed inwardly.
The other two looked at him.
"You know them, buddy?"
Ning Qiushui nodded and replied:
"Do you remember what the old man sweeping the floor said earlier? Two tourists came here between eight and nine last night..."
"When we first entered the Blood Gate yesterday and gathered in the clearing, I didn't get a good look at everyone's faces, but I more or less remembered their clothes. These two came from outside the Blood Gate, just like us!"
"This morning, I was wondering why three of us were missing when there was only one body in the clearing outside!"
"Now it looks like... the other two missing people were here!"
After Ning Qiushui finished, Liu Chengfeng swallowed:
"What do you think... could have done this to them?"
Neither of the other two spoke.
In theory, no human could have done something like this.
At the very least, no one could have kneaded two corpses like dough and stuffed them into such a cramped space without spilling any blood!
So... what exactly had done it?
As the three stood in silence, a voice suddenly came from behind them, making their scalps prickle!
"Didn't I already tell you... not to touch things in the ancestral hall?"
"Why..."
"Didn't you listen..."
P.S. One more update coming later.
Before you continue