Xiao Tangqiu was stunned for a moment. At this moment, Ruyue suddenly spoke coldly, "It's not that the mountain god has brought punishment upon Hundred Ghosts Village. It's that you sacrificed living people. The resentment of the dead is too deep to be resolved. It has lingered for a long time. Over time, the mountain god has been affected by this resentment... The mountain god today is no longer the same mountain god as before!"

"You're talking nonsense!" the villager immediately retorted angrily.

Ruyue asked coldly: "Then let me ask you, where did the other villagers go?"

The villager suddenly began to stutter, hesitating and refusing to say anything.

Ruyue sneered, "It doesn't matter if you don't tell me. I already know it anyway—those villagers have probably already turned into monsters under the influence of the mountain god!"

"You're talking nonsense! How could they be transformed...into monsters under the influence of the mountain god?!"

"Really?" Xiao Tangqiu raised an eyebrow, "But your expression doesn't say that."

"Nonsense! You're all talking nonsense! It's complete nonsense!" the villager was filled with anger. "We in Baigui Village have worshipped the mountain god for generations, and the mountain god has always protected us. How could the mountain god turn the villagers into monsters?"

Xue Junli asked, "What about the other villagers?"

The villager was suddenly choked and couldn't speak for a long time.

The elder woman sighed deeply, "Never mind. It can't be concealed after all! The other villagers in our Baigui Village have indeed turned into monsters..."

Her already staggering and hunched figure looked even more haggard and old. With the support of several villagers around her, she looked at the statue enshrined in the center of the main hall with her dim eyes. Under the dim candlelight in the shrine, the statue looked even more obscure and mysterious.

"In fact, this matter had already started several months ago..."

At the beginning, someone discovered that there was suddenly one less villager in Baigui Village.

Baigui Village is not big, and there are even fewer villagers. Including the babies in swaddling clothes, there are only about a hundred villagers in total. Everyone knows each other and the relationship is quite harmonious. One day, suddenly someone discovered that a villager in the village was missing.

At first, the village sent several people to look for him, but they searched all over the mountains and couldn't find him. They guessed that the man might have fallen off a cliff and died, and then the case was left unresolved.

Although the disappearance of that villager cast a shadow over Baigui Village, birth, aging, sickness and death are common things. They did not take it too seriously and continued to live their lives as usual until the second villager also disappeared mysteriously.

The village sent people to look for it again, but still couldn't find it. The people in the village began to panic, and at this time, unusual "beasts" began to appear near the village.

Some lone villagers were unfortunately taken away by the "beasts" and then disappeared. Once more villagers disappeared, the number of "beasts" would increase.

Some villagers who witnessed the "beast" going crazy shouted: "That's not a beast! It's a monster! They have all become monsters! Those missing villagers have all become monsters!"

The other villagers naturally didn't believe it and thought that this guy was just crazy because of excessive fright. As a result, not long after, the crazy guy disappeared... and there seemed to be more "beasts" roaming around.

The villagers disappeared one after another, and there were unknown "beasts" roaming nearby. The people of Baigui Village became more and more panicked, and could only worship the mountain god more devoutly. Then one day, someone discovered that after they "offered sacrifices" to the mountain god according to the ancient sacrificial ritual, no villagers would go missing for a long time.