No one had expected to hear that aged voice.
Even though it was their first time hearing it, Ning Qiushui and his two companions were almost certain it belonged to Spirit Medium Ruan from the village!
She had yet to enter the room, but a terrifying sense of pressure had already swept through the battered wooden door and hit them head-on!
Soon, the door was pushed open.
An aged face appeared before them.
The moment he saw that face, the middle-aged man in the room collapsed to the floor, as though all his strength had drained away. Even the light left his eyes.
He knew he was finished.
He had no idea when the Spirit Medium had arrived outside or how long she had been listening. If she had heard what they had just said...
Fear and despair filled the middle-aged man's heart.
He knew what the Spirit Medium was capable of.
He did not dare imagine what horrors would follow...
"The village should have a guesthouse set aside for visitors. What brings the three of you into the village so suddenly?"
The Spirit Medium was stout and leaned on a dragon-headed cane. A distinctive wooden token hung at her barrel-thick waist.
The three had seen this token many times before. It was the Ruan Clan's identity token.
"Nothing much... we just noticed that someone else was serving meals in the cafeteria, so we asked about it. We heard the woman wasn't feeling well. I happen to have studied medicine, so we came to check on her."
Without blushing or missing a beat, Ning Qiushui answered the Spirit Medium calmly.
He had not lied.
Every word of that statement was true.
The Spirit Medium glanced at Ning Qiushui.
Her gaze was terrifying, like a hungry wolf in the mountains sizing up its prey.
Ning Qiushui also keenly noticed... a patch of red marks on her neck, close to her shoulder.
Although the Spirit Medium was covered up well, he could just make out that those red marks were sores circling her entire neck.
At first glance, they even gave the illusion that a ring of bloody wounds encircled her neck.
"There are no doctors in the village, but we have our own ways of treating illnesses. You needn't trouble yourself."
As she spoke, the Spirit Medium slowly approached the woman lying in bed. Her gaze held nothing but indifference. Rather than looking at a person, she seemed to be looking at a corpse.
The Spirit Medium slowly extended her right hand toward the woman on the bed. Just then, the man in the room suddenly lunged at her like a madman, clung to her legs, and pleaded in a pained voice:
"Please, Spirit Medium... please have mercy and let her live!"
"Lan just has a fever. It's addled her brain. She-she didn't say anything!"
"I said it! It was me! Please spare her life!"
The man begged as he knocked his forehead against the floor.
Yet the Spirit Medium remained utterly cold in the face of it all.
"I heard from the other villagers that outsiders had entered the village, so I came to take a look. Doesn't your wife have a fever? An evil spirit may have possessed her. I'll examine her... what, don't you want your wife to get better soon?"
There was a faint trace of concern in the Spirit Medium's aged voice.
The man looked hesitantly at the woman trembling on the bed. After a long silence, he finally let go.
The Spirit Medium reached out with her aged fingers and grabbed a handful of empty air, muttering something under her breath, then scattered it over the woman's face.
She looked exactly like an old charlatan. Yet everyone could clearly see that once the Spirit Medium finished, the woman who had been trembling on the bed suddenly went still.
The terror on her face vanished, replaced by an eerie smile, while her eyes inexplicably grew hollow.
"There. Your wife is cured."
After finishing, the Spirit Medium seemed somewhat tired. A faint note of provocation colored her voice as she looked at Ning Qiushui, as though asking, Can your medical skills work that quickly?
Ning Qiushui smiled faintly.
"Your skills are truly remarkable, Spirit Medium. You've certainly opened our ignorant eyes today... since Auntie Mi Lan is all right now, we won't trouble you any further."
The Spirit Medium said nothing more, watching the three leave the room and walk toward the outskirts of the village, step by step.
Under her gaze, all three felt a chill down their spines, an intensely uncomfortable sensation.
Once they were far away, the wooden door before the Spirit Medium slowly closed...
In the corner of the room, the middle-aged man's terrified, despairing gaze was cut off completely by that battered wooden door...
"Freaking hell... that old woman was terrifying!"
As they walked, Liu Chengfeng swore and shook off the chill clinging to him.
Back in the room, when the Spirit Medium's gaze swept over him, he had felt as though needles were digging into his back.
"Xiaoxiao, you're such a good fighter. Why didn't you just take her down and tie her up? We could've brought her straight to Fangcun Pond and been done with it."
"That female ghost must be looking for this Spirit Medium, right? Once she gets her revenge, maybe she'll tell us the truth-and how to survive."
Bai Xiaoxiao put away her knife and resumed her earlier languid expression.
"As the saying goes, martial artists don't pick fights with immortal cultivators."
"I have a few tricks, but they're only useful in a fight. I can't afford to mess with someone who practices sinister arts like that..."
Ning Qiushui said:
"That Spirit Medium really is uncanny, but something also seems wrong with her condition. Not only does she have blood-red bumps on her skin, she also gives off a rotten stench."
Bai Xiaoxiao frowned.
"You smelled it too?"
"I thought I was imagining it."
Ning Qiushui nodded firmly.
"I smelled it."
"In this village... the villagers who know what's going on all seem terrified of Guangchuan, even though he's already dead."
"But with the Spirit Medium here, there shouldn't have been any hauntings... at least not often."
"If we look at it that way, there's only one possibility..."
The other two turned to look at Ning Qiushui.
"What possibility?"
Ning Qiushui said slowly:
"The villagers of Rain-Praying Village must have done a lot of things that wronged Guangchuan's family. They have guilty consciences, and that's why they're afraid!"
"But Guangchuan's family lived a hundred years ago, so these villagers couldn't have taken part when Ruan Kaihuang led the killing of the family."
"They most likely know the truth about what happened back then, but covered it up and even twisted the facts... remember the tourist spots we visited earlier?"
"Almost every place with an explanatory sign mentioned the famine, praised Ruan Kaihuang's achievements, and condemned the Guang family's heinous deeds."
"But what really happened may well have been... the exact opposite of what those signs described!"
After Ning Qiushui finished speaking, all three fell silent for a while.
Just then, Liu Chengfeng, who was walking on the far left, abruptly asked a question:
"But if the Guang family hadn't done anything evil... why did the villagers storm their home and kill them?"
After he asked that question, all three stopped walking.
A moment later, they jerked their heads up, an indescribable flash of... horror in their eyes!
"Could it have been... food?!"
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