034. Big Viper

Qing Ling was just thinking that no matter if it was a person or a thing, he should let Shang Changheng hit him first, but Shang Changheng raised his eyebrows in surprise and said, "A living person?"

A fair white hand stretched out from the pile of bones with difficulty, a pearl necklace was still hanging on the wrist, and at the same time a voice rang out: "A living person, a living person, of course he is a living person, thank you brother, no, please help me!"

Shang Changheng looked uninterested, showing that he had no interest in living people, let alone any desire to lend a helping hand.

Qingling reached out and tugged at the corner of his clothes, signaling with his eyes: Take it out and let me see.

He wasn't a very kind person, but he thought it was a convenient thing to do, so he fished her out and saw who could drown her in the bone pit.

Shang Changheng then reached out in the air behind him, and the inky mist turned into a strand that was tied around the wrist, and he pulled the person out of the pit of human bones.

The purple-dressed girl had her hair loose. As soon as she stood firm, she opened her eyes slightly wide, looked at Shang Changheng in surprise, and blurted out: "It's you?"

Shang Changheng ignored him and continued to fiddle with the skull floating in his palm. With a touch of his fingertips, the skull turned a circle.

"Do you know each other?" Qing Ling looked at Shang Changheng who looked listless, and then looked at the girl he had never seen before. She looked to be only fifteen or sixteen years old, but her dress did not seem like that of a lady from a distant past.

This time Shang Changheng actually spoke: "We met once outside Qing's house."

"This must be Young Master Qingling, my name is Zhu Lezhi." Zhu Lezhi took out a wooden hairpin from the small bag she was carrying, and quickly tied her shoulder-length hair into a neat bun. She leaned forward quite solemnly and saluted Shang Changheng as a junior, "Thank you for saving me, senior."

"No need." Shang Changheng stretched out his hand again, and another piece of broken bone floated over.

Qing Ling took a closer look and saw words engraved on the broken bones that were indistinguishable from where in the human body. From reading the Qing family's bamboo slips, he was now able to recognize many of these ancient texts.

"On Yimao, divination, the guest of Dahu, the enthronement of the 15th, at Si."

There is another character at the back of the book, which looks like a person, but not quite. The character shape is very scattered, and there are a few water-like carvings in the front. There are also a few similar characters on the other skull.

"Dingyou, divination, Bin Dahu, Mao... ten, year... five, at Si."

Qingling still didn't quite recognize the word. Ancient Chinese characters are often quite casual. For example, there are several "chen" characters, including "chen sheep, chen cow, and chen people", but they are all "chen", with different meanings.

"Is this... a sacrifice?" Qing Ling felt a little frightened when he thought that the messy human corpses here were all sacrifices. People are born with a fear of the corpses of their own kind, because if someone died here, it means that this place is very dangerous, not to mention so many corpses with miserable deaths.

"It's a sacrifice, a human sacrifice." Shang Changheng's memory was messy before his death, but he could recognize some things naturally. When he returned to the human world, he learned to speak very quickly. He looked at the carved words and translated them: "On the Yimao day, divination was performed to sacrifice the Great Snake. Fifteen human sacrifices were sacrificed with their limbs and heads cut off. In Si, the Great Snake was asked if it was okay. Mao meant splitting the human sacrifice in half, and Sui meant cutting the human sacrifice into pieces."

Qing Ling felt a little disgusted. Was this a sacrifice or a capital punishment? Chopping off limbs and head, and splitting in half? And it was obvious that the answer of the big snake being sacrificed was: OK, sure, no problem.

So there was this deep pit full of corpses.

Qingling sorted out the situation.

Anyone who is near Shanghe Village, even if they are just passing by, will be dragged into this place and then become a sacrifice. The files that were burned in the government office but are still intact, or Qing Wen Ze who had correspondence with his parents, these are probably the work of the thing that is causing trouble here, in order to continuously attract living people, but this method is really... too weird and powerful.

"The one being sacrificed is the big snake, and the sacrifices are these people." Qingling asked, "Then who is the one performing the sacrifice?"

Shang Changheng's gaze fell on the only living person here.

Zhu Lezhi was stunned for a moment, then quickly shook his head, pointed at himself and said, "I am more like the sacrifice, right? I can't get out of this damn place after entering it. The villagers got angry after a few words and insisted on asking me if I was from their village. In the end, I was too hungry to eat a few bites of food, and in the blink of an eye, I am here. If I didn't have some means to save my life, I would have let them sacrifice me now."

At this point, Zhu Lezhi suddenly paused, her expression changed, and she whispered, "No, why must it be someone from the village? He gets angry if the answer is no, and is caught after eating. How can this be so sneaky?"

After saying this, she turned around and looked at the mass grave filled with corpses. She was so calm that it was terrifying, and there was no sign that she had just crawled out of it.

"It's just a formality." Shang Changheng threw the two bones back.

Qing Ling also agreed, "They started divination only after the person died. It shows that no matter whether this big snake agrees or not, the person has already been sacrificed. The living people in Xiahe Village are all sacrifices, and the one doing the sacrifice is oneself. As long as you admit that you are a villager and have eaten, you will be dragged here to be sacrificed, and then your bones will be cut open for divination."

After saying that, he changed the subject and asked, "So it's this big snake?"

The beneficiary is the murderer. Since the one being sacrificed and the offering are the same person, there is a high possibility that the one being sacrificed is the mastermind. Qing Ling thought again of Qing Wen Ze and the girl who disappeared because of him. He was afraid that they might have become part of this pit of dry bones.

"That..." Zhu Lezhi's expression was complicated. "Human sacrifice has long disappeared. It was common before the Zhou Dynasty, but that was more than a thousand years ago. This person named Da Kui dared to use the word "big", so he must be a small character. And... cough, I seem to have seen a little bit in the ancient scrolls in my family. Kui means monster. The ancestor witch was sealed in Si. It seems... that, it matches. This person named Da Kui was sealed here by my ancestors. Logically, he should have died all these years ago, but... how come he came out alive and kicking to sacrifice himself?"

Now, no matter how capable Shang Changheng was, Qingling couldn't feel at ease.

He pulled Shang Changheng's sleeve again and whispered, "Let's go first."

"What are you afraid of?" Shang Changheng grasped the warm, slender hand and gently stroked his palm. "If it really had the ability, how could it escape?"

Qing Ling was really anxious, and whispered: "It sounds like this big snake is not easy to deal with. If you insist on competing with him, it's uncertain who will be served on the table!"

Anyway, if Shang Changheng is really no match for him, the first person to be served on the platter by Lian Mao and Sui will definitely be Qingling!

"Oh, not really, really not really." Zhu Lezhi said quickly, "Senior is right, if it was really powerful, I would have been beaten to a pulp long ago, but it didn't even kill me. I guess it has only been unsealed for a short time, and I suspect this thing is not alive at all!"

Qing Ling looked over and asked, "What do you mean?"

Zhu Lezhi blinked, "A viper is a big snake that eats people. When the ancients saw snakes eating people, they worshipped them as gods and offered human sacrifices to them. This was the only way to protect themselves. It's just a snake demon. What kind of snake can survive for so long after being sealed? Although... uh, the seal was broken. It's possible that it was his demon soul that broke the seal."

"That's right." Shang Changheng rarely replied, "Just now I sensed the presence of a ghost, it must be hiding in the place connecting this place to the living world."

"Yes, yes." Zhu Lezhi nodded repeatedly and looked at Qingling again, "And... Master Qingling, have you ever admitted that you are from this village, or have you eaten their food?"

Qingling paused and nodded.

Zhu Lezhi clapped his hands, "That's it, admitting that you are from this village is like admitting that you are a sacrifice. Eating the food represents sacrificing yourself. You have already admitted that you are its sacrifice. As long as this thing survives, it will stare at you until it tricks you into sacrificing itself."

When Qing Ling thought that there was an evil spirit waiting to serve him on the table at any moment, he felt like a thorn in his back and a fishbone stuck in his throat. He immediately said in a deep voice: "It is better to strike first!"

Shang Changheng squeezed Qing Ling's hand jokingly and asked in a low voice: "Oh, how do you want to start?"

Qingling didn't say anything, just looked at him straight.

Shang Changheng laughed, "Depend on me? Haven't you learned some skills?"

Qing Ling's ears turned red, and he pretended to be calm and said, "Yes, I did. Didn't I invite you here? Hurry up and work."

“…Okay.” Shang Changheng’s smile deepened, as if to say “Just wait for me.” He then said, “Wait until dawn, when the yin and yang change, catch this snake and try it.”

Qing Ling nodded, and suddenly found that Zhu Lezhi was looking at them with an ambiguous look, and smiled and said, "You two are so loving."

Qing Ling felt that this Miss Zhu might have some misunderstanding about them, so he expressionlessly pulled his hand out of Shang Changheng's grasp and said, "Master Miao Yuan wanted to kill the evil spirit without saying a word before, but Miss Zhu is different."

Unexpectedly, Zhu Lezhi's eyes widened and he exclaimed, "He really dares to do it? Is he still alive?"

Qing Ling: “…alive.”

"That's good." Zhu Lezhi patted his chest and sat down on a rock. "I reminded him not to interfere with other people's karma, but he still dared to do it. How could the monks of Wunian Temple be so stubborn? Master Qingling, don't worry. I know myself best and won't make things difficult for you. Besides, it's a matter of heaven that this senior has settled the karma. The world has its own laws, and the sky naturally has its own rules. The world is not just for humans, so how can human laws settle cases in the underworld? It's natural to pay off debts and kill people and pay for them. If you insist on stopping it, it's not justifiable."

Qingling was silent.

He was very confused. If Shang Changheng died, he should be happy. After all, he was the knife hanging behind his neck, heartless, indifferent, and cruel. Qing Ling knew himself, just like these corpses placed here. Qing Ling was not very angry, just afraid. But when he heard Zhu Lezhi's words, he breathed a sigh of relief for some reason, but at the same time, he felt mixed emotions in his heart.

Is it natural?

Miao Yuan said that evil spirits should be killed, but Zhu Lezhi said that cause and effect is also recognized by the laws of nature. If someone protects the people in the world of the living, where can we seek justice for the dead?

So what did Shang Changheng’s death have to do with the Qing family a thousand years ago?