It was winter, the leaves had all fallen, and the whole mountain looked bare. Soon, the cave came into Qi Chengshuo and Ye Xianya's view.

"Village head, has anyone from your village been to that cave up ahead?" Ye Xianya asked.

The village head was taken aback upon hearing this!

This princess is truly amazing! The cave was still quite far away from them, and they couldn't even see it, but the princess had already spotted it.

“Your Highness, that cave…that cave is a cursed place. No one in our village has set foot there for decades. We usually farm below the mountainside. No one dares to go above the mountainside because the cave is up there,” the village head hurriedly replied.

Ye Xianya frowned slightly upon hearing this: "I asked you before if there was anything unusual in the village, and you said no. But now you say that this cave is a cursed place. Could it be... that you are deliberately hiding it?"

For some reason, she hasn't been able to get her fortune told as easily as before lately.

For example, regarding today's events, what she had previously deduced was only a vague picture.

Upon arriving at Bailu Village, Ye Xianya performed another calculation, only to discover that the cave was somewhat unusual. The dark figure emerged from the cave, but other than that, there was nothing else.

Logically, the stronger she is, the more accurate and comprehensive her calculations should be.

This cave seemed to be hindering her calculations; Ye Xianya tried to deduce some events that occurred inside the cave, but to no avail.

“Princess, I dare not deliberately conceal the truth. It is true that no one has entered this cave for a long time, so I did not pay much attention to it. However, there are some words passed down from generation to generation about this cave. It is said that this cave is a cursed place. As long as a person enters, he will be eaten by the cave and never come out again. This cave is extremely evil…” The village head told Ye Xianya what he knew.

“No, you haven’t been honest.” Ye Xianya saw his shifty eyes and knew that the matter was not as simple as the village head had said.

"This humble citizen dares not conceal anything," the village head said with a look of fear.

Upon hearing this, Ye Xianya gave him a deep look and continued walking towards the cave.

However, when they were still three zhang away from the cave, the village head stopped them: "Princess, Your Highness, this cave really does eat people. We can't go any further. If we cross the line we painted with red paint, we will be swallowed by the cave."

After the village head finished speaking, he took a fish from a villager and threw it forward. The fish landed on the grass in front of the red line. Suddenly, a suction force came from the cave and sucked the fish in.

The villagers following behind quickly threw the chickens and ducks they were holding over as well.

The village head, along with several villagers, knelt on the ground and kowtowed, chanting, "Immortal, we have come to worship you. We hope that after you have eaten and drunk your fill, you will bless our Bailu Village with favorable weather and abundant harvests..."

Ye Xianya and Qi Chengshuo exchanged a glance, as if all of this was expected.

After a moment, the village headman stood up and said, “Your Excellency, we cannot enter this cave. Every so often, we bring some live chickens, ducks and fish to offer as sacrifices, asking the gods in the cave to bless our Bailu Village. The village has always had good weather and abundant harvests, and everyone has lived a good life in recent years. Naturally, we should be grateful to the immortals in the cave.”

"Didn't you just say that this cave is cursed?" Ye Xianya said with a half-smile.

The village headman's expression stiffened upon hearing this, then he smiled and said, "Whether it's a curse or there are gods, we can't say for sure. According to the rules passed down from our ancestors, we have to come here four times a year to worship, offering live chickens, ducks, fish, and the like. This is good for our village, and the beings in the cave will protect our Egret Village."

“If it really protected your Egret Village, so many people wouldn’t have died in the village this month.” After Ye Xianya finished speaking, she took Qi Chengshuo’s hand.

Qi Chengshuo knew what she wanted to do and nodded slightly.

Ye Xianya tried to step one foot across the red-lacquered line and immediately felt a huge swallowing force coming from the cave.

However, she could still hold on, and with Qi Chengshuo holding her back, it wasn't a big problem.

"How is it?" Qi Chengshuo asked.

"It's alright." Ye Xianya gestured for Qi Chengshuo to let go, but Qi Chengshuo took a step forward and stood beside her, still holding her hand.

The devouring power inside the cave was getting weaker and weaker, posing no threat to them.

The village head and several villagers were dumbfounded.

This was the first time in many years that they had seen a living creature that had crossed the red line not being swallowed by the cave.

"Shall we go in and take a look?" Ye Xianya asked.

Qi Chengshuo nodded.

"Princess, Your Highness, you mustn't! We can't go into this cave!" The village head was terrified, his face turning pale.

If something were to happen to these two in the cave, even the entire population of Bailu Village, numbering several hundred, couldn't afford to compensate them.

“The closer we get to the cave, the more I can deduce,” Ye Xianya said, pulling Qi Chengshuo out of the area marked by the red paint line.

Just as the village head breathed a sigh of relief, Ye Xianya's voice came from beside him: "Village head, in the past hundred years or so, your Bailu Village has been selecting one person every ten years to be sent into the mountain cave for a sacrificial ceremony. The selected person is always a child under the age of ten. Is this true?"

Upon hearing this, the village head turned pale, and the other villagers trembled all over.

The Great Yan Dynasty has a law that forbids the use of living people for sacrifice, and those who violate this order will be executed.

However, in some remote areas where the emperor is far away, the use of private punishment within clans is common and difficult to eradicate.

But Bailu Village is only a few dozen miles from Beijing, so such a thing shouldn't have happened.

The fact that no one reported the human sacrifice to the county government shows how much people feared the existence of the cave.

“Princess, we were forced into this situation!” The village head knelt down in fear, kowtowing as he said, “Every ten years, we have to send a child into the mountain cave to sacrifice to the immortals there. Otherwise… people in our village will die, and many people will die.”

"At the end of this year, the ten-year period will be over again. The Emperor has issued an edict, strictly ordering the village to use private punishment. The population of every household has been re-registered. The county has also issued an order that people must be checked at the end of each year. If anyone in the village disappears without cause or dies a violent death, it must be reported."

The village head's voice trembled even more: "In addition, there are only a few children under the age of ten in the village, and every household is reluctant to part with their children. We...we really had no choice but to...send Granny Shen, who lives at the east end of the village, to the cave for a sacrificial ceremony, and lie to the outside world that...lie that she drowned in the reservoir."

"Aunt Shen is over sixty years old and has been ill for a long time. Her family has no money to treat her. The doctor said she wouldn't live much longer, maybe two or three more months at most. Aunt Shen came to the cave to offer sacrifices voluntarily, and her family agreed and was willing to cooperate with the village to cover it up. But unexpectedly... more than ten people in our village have died one after another. It must be... the immortal living in this cave is unhappy that we offer sacrifices to a dying person and wants children."