[Rain-Praying Village] Searching for the Body

"Holy shit, man, what the fuck is going on?"

Beside him, the heavily bearded Liu Chengfeng was scared into swearing yet again!

First, he pinched his leg hard, then lifted his foot and carefully sniffed the sole of his shoe.

"Urgh!"

The thick, bloody stench that hit his nostrils nearly made him throw up on the spot!

"Goddamn it, is this an illusion?"

Ning Qiushui stared at the blood streaming down the stone steps and shook his head, his expression grave.

"I'm afraid this is what the Back Mountain really looks like!"

"What we saw before might have been an illusion created by a ghost's power to hide all this!"

The bearded man cautiously followed Ning Qiushui upward, step by step, undisguised fear in his eyes.

"Be careful. Don't step on these bodies, and stay as far away from them as you can!"

Every corpse scattered across the stone steps was missing its head.

As Ning Qiushui searched among them, he gave them only a quick glance before moving on.

These were all male bodies.

"Fuck... just how many people has that bastard Spirit Medium killed?"

As the two climbed from the foot of the mountain, they had already seen dozens of corpses by the time they reached roughly halfway up!

"These people weren't killed by ghosts."

Ning Qiushui suddenly spoke.

Liu Chengfeng asked from beside him:

"How can you tell, man?"

Ning Qiushui pointed at the severed neck of a corpse beside the path.

"Look closely. See that black slime on it?"

Liu Chengfeng took a look. Sure enough, it was there.

Although these bodies had all been decapitated, the cuts across their necks were very smooth. Little blood had seeped from them; instead, they were covered with a fine, dense layer of black fluid.

In fact, the wounds on these corpses had already healed!

"Isn't this just like...!"

The moment Liu Chengfeng saw this, he thought of the human heads sealed in glass jars inside the dilapidated little room at the Spirit Medium's Residence!

Their necks had been the same, covered with a thick layer of black substance.

Most terrifying of all was that these decapitated people... were still alive.

"What exactly is she trying to do...?"

Liu Chengfeng's legs were already shaking. Fortunately, he had brought a stick to use as a cane on the way up, and it was just barely keeping him steady on the wet, sticky, slippery stone steps.

Ning Qiushui thought carefully for a moment and seemed to figure something out-

"Remember what Sister Bai told us? The backlash from the vengeful souls has already damaged the Spirit Medium's body..."

"The first time we met the Spirit Medium, I smelled rot on her. There was also a large patch of densely packed red bumps on her neck, as if that part of her body had already started rotting!"

"I'm wondering if the Spirit Medium is trying to use some strange dark art... to give herself a new body?"

Although the Ancient Book they had found in the Spirit Medium's room contained no record of anything like that, Ning Qiushui's guess made Liu Chengfeng draw in a sharp breath.

He had seen that ring of red bumps around the Spirit Medium's neck, too.

At first glance, it looked like a bloody mark left by someone cutting through her neck.

Ning Qiushui's guess... might well have been the truth.

"...Keep going. Once we find Sister Bai's body, we should be able to get to the bottom of all this!"

Suppressing their fear and nausea, the two finally reached the mountaintop.

Fortunately, the headless corpses along the way neither reanimated nor gave them any trouble. They simply lay quietly in the bloody water, completely motionless. Though the sight was deeply unnerving, at least they posed no tangible threat to the two men.

At the end of the stone steps was a vast Forest Platform. Amid the dense trees stood a Temple overgrown with vines and weeds.

The blood constantly streaming down the stone steps flowed from the Temple's walls, bricks, and tiles...

There were many headless corpses inside the Temple as well, but these had been strung up and hung from the ceiling like cured meat, swaying as though they were being air-dried!

These corpses were far fresher than the ones lying on the steps.

Clearly, the Spirit Medium had made them not long ago.

Ning Qiushui soon identified Bai Xiaoxiao's body by her clothing.

Things had gone unexpectedly smoothly, yet he kept feeling that something was wrong.

After taking her body down from the ceiling, Ning Qiushui asked Liu Chengfeng to step outside so he could verify it, then slowly tugged down her trousers a little.

Sure enough, there was a dagger-shaped birthmark on her pale left buttock!

Ning Qiushui pulled Bai Xiaoxiao's trousers back up, then worked with Liu Chengfeng to bind her body with rope.

They did this not because they had some strange fetish, but because they were worried that Bai Xiaoxiao's body might suddenly move for some unknown reason on the way down, hindering them or even threatening them!

Once they were done, Ning Qiushui had Liu Chengfeng hoist Bai Xiaoxiao's corpse onto his shoulder while he looked around the Temple.

The unease within him... grew stronger and stronger.

"No... something's wrong!"

Ning Qiushui forced himself to calm down, his eyes constantly searching his surroundings.

He kept feeling that something was off, but even when he thought it through carefully, he couldn't pinpoint it.

That feeling had suddenly appeared while he was searching for Bai Xiaoxiao's body.

What exactly... was wrong?

Just then, Ning Qiushui caught sight of a corpse in the corner out of the corner of his eye.

That single glimpse terrified him to his core.

He finally knew what was wrong!

That corpse... had a head!

Not only did it have a head, but its entire body looked as though it had been smashed to pieces, its mangled flesh stuck together in a grotesquely horrifying mess!

And now, lying in the corner of the Temple, that corpse was staring at the two of them with an outrageously exaggerated, bizarre grin!

"Run!!!"

Ning Qiushui wasted no breath on anything else and shouted straight at Liu Chengfeng behind him.

But just as they turned around, the Temple's doors slammed shut with a bang!

None of the sunlight outside could get in. The entire Temple plunged into darkness so complete they couldn't see their hands in front of their faces...

Standing in the darkness, the two men felt their bodies turn as rigid as blocks of ice. They couldn't move at all!

Behind them, terrifying footsteps rang out...

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P.S. Four updates again today.

This Instance is almost over.