Chapter 400: Chapter 344: The Punishment of the Five Precepts
Looking up, behind the monk stood hundreds, perhaps thousands, of headless bodies in a vast open space. The bodies were lined up tightly against one another, facing the direction of Yang Xiao. They spread out so densely that it was impossible to see where they ended. At that moment, time seemed to stand still, and there was complete silence all around.
Yang Xiao’s breathing stopped; he stood there rigidly as the headless bodies in front of him were oddly familiar. They seemed to be the wandering villagers he had encountered on the way to the village.
The monk squatting on the ground suddenly moved, and only then did Yang Xiao realize the abnormality of the monk’s body. Although he appeared to be facing away, the tips of his shoes were pointed directly at him. His upper and lower body were twisted in such a way as if an unknown force had turned him 180 degrees.
The monk’s back was extremely swollen, as if his arms were holding something up in front of his body, making a gesture of worshiping Buddha.
Since he was facing away, Yang Xiao couldn’t see the monk’s face. He recognized him only from the ritual scars on his bald head and the tattered kasaya he wore.
As the chanting from the ancestral hall gradually ceased, the many headless bodies, as if given permission, began to shuffle towards Yang Xiao with tiny steps. Surrounding him layer upon layer, they packed in so tightly that not even air could pass through, and Yang Xiao felt an ice-cold sensation. He could sense the pure malice emanating from the bodies, as if they bore an irreconcilable hatred for him.
Yang Xiao desperately wanted to explain that he was just a traveler who had stopped in Du Family Village to rest for a few days, but his tongue was stiff, and he couldn’t utter a word. All he could do was watch as the monk in front of him stood up in an extremely strange posture.
The next second, the monk who had stood up charged at Yang Xiao with an unbelievably fast speed. Before Yang Xiao could react, he felt an ice-cold hand grab his left arm. Then, his body became weightless, and his sense of direction was completely confused.
"Cluck cluck cluck—"
Accompanied by the shrill cry of a chicken, Yang Xiao suddenly woke up. He was covered in a cold sweat and gasping for air as he remained lying in bed, piled with several layers of heavy quilts. His eyes opened to a crowd of people surrounding him.
"How do you feel?" Tong Han, squatting beside him, asked with concern.
A moment later, after gulping down a few mouthfuls of water handed to him by Mi Shu, Yang Xiao slowly came to his senses. "What happened to me?"
"You were having a nightmare, twitching terribly, and your body temperature was dropping. We tried everything to wake you but to no avail, until just now, when a chicken crowed outside." After what had happened before, Sui Chengguo’s attitude towards Yang Xiao had become much more sincere.
"Yeah, you were so cold it was as if you had been thrown into an ice hole. We were worried you wouldn’t make it." Lu Youcheng too sighed in relief.
"Yes, it was a nightmare. I was drawn to the ancestral hall in the village in my dream, where I encountered the ghost monk and hundreds of headless bodies."
Yang Xiao briefly and crisply recounted everything he saw in his dream. To his mild surprise, everyone did not seem particularly shocked. Eventually, Tong Han told him that almost everyone had the same nightmare that night.
Only Yang Xiao’s dream was more profound. Everyone else woke up on their way to the ancestral hall, but what was even more bizarre was that they had seen Yang Xiao, who was walking listlessly at the forefront with a vacant gait, followed by the eerily wandering villagers in their dreams.
Just imagining the scene made Yang Xiao’s skin crawl. "Aside from me and those villagers, did you see anything else?"
"Nothing else, it was dark at that time, and we couldn’t see clearly." Mi Shu explained softly, her expression indicating that the scene must have been terrifying.
"Right, among us, only Sui Chengguo and Wuma Haoming did not have such nightmares. We have analyzed the reason, and it’s probably because of this." Cheng Cha had them take off their shirts, revealing a dark handprint on the left shoulder of each. They both had one, and they were nearly in the same spot, handprints from a left hand, but with only four fingers; the index finger was missing.
The handprint was clearly in the shape of a grasp rather than what would be left by a pat on the shoulder, as if someone had forcibly grabbed and lifted them by the shoulders.
According to the discussion between Cheng Cha Tong Han and the others, what happened that night should have been like this: Sui Chengguo and Wuma Haoming had fallen into the water one after the other. They would have drowned or been claimed by whatever was underneath. However, upon discovering that they were not Du Family Village villagers, the ghost not only abstained from killing them but also rescued them onto the boat before sending them towards the shore.
"The ghost’s targets are only the people of Du Family Village. They do not kill the innocent indiscriminately. The reason we were not drawn into the nightmare at dawn is definitely due to this handprint on our shoulders. It’s a mark to prevent them from grabbing the wrong person again in the future." Sui Chengguo analyzed.
Suddenly remembering his ordeal in the dream, Yang Xiao rolled up his sleeves to find a similar dark handprint on his forearm, also missing the index finger.
"In this mission, ghosts do not kill people; people kill people." Tong Han whispered, "To be precise, it’s these things from Du Family Village that are neither human nor ghost that kill."
"But why do they want to kill us?" Quan Doufeng joined the conversation.
"Nonsense, of course, they want our bodies. Just think about it; their own bodies have rotted to such a ghastly state. How much longer can they last? Du Family Village has endured to this day by playing the game of snatching bodies to bring back souls. Who knows how many innocent lives they have taken." Cheng Cha had witnessed the decaying, pus-oozing bodies of the villagers and Patriarch Du. The scene was extremely disgusting. If it had been her, she too would have desperately sought a new body to replace her own. It was understandable.
