Cui Jiuyang and Master Tiger already knew the layout here like the backs of their hands. Taking He Feixu with them, they headed straight for the nearby village ancestral hall.
The ancestral hall no longer bore the gruesome scene they remembered, with corpses strewn across the floor and the reek of blood everywhere. Inside, it was spotless, and several sticks of incense were even burning, sending up curls of blue smoke.
Two wronged souls knelt in the center of the main hall, worshipping the densely packed spirit tablets covering the wall, their expressions solemn and their movements stiff.
The longer the three watched, the stranger it seemed-wronged souls worshipping spirit tablets?
What sense did that make?
Unable to hold back, Master Tiger strode forward. With a clatter, he flung out his chain, precisely snaring one of the wronged souls as it bowed, and barked, "Hey! Your constable has a question for you! What are you wandering ghosts doing here in such numbers?!"
However, the wronged soul caught in the chain seemed to possess very little intelligence, as though it had no will of its own. Even though Master Tiger had used his Ghost Constable chain, frightening it into trembling, it only whimpered incoherently, unable to utter a complete sentence. There was no way to find out why they had come here.
Helpless, the three could only search the ancestral hall, but they found nothing unusual. Only Cui Jiuyang discovered a lone golden-yellow feather on the offering table at the front.
His heart stirred. The Five-Colored Sparrow!
Every autumn, the Five-Colored Sparrow's feathers turned this dazzling golden yellow, complementing the season's abundant harvests.
But the Five-Colored Sparrow... had long since died a terrible death during that sacrifice in Dustpan Village. He had personally delivered its remaining soul and sent it into