Chapter 20 From the Circular Mound Altar, one could see that she was covered in blood.

However, Master Fang's wishful thinking completely failed. Although this place was not much different from the Ghost Government Office in appearance, upon entering, what came into view was a grand gate that pierced the clouds.

Two of the doors were completely welded shut, leaving only the western door, known as the "Ghost Gate," open.

The wall was too high to climb over as before, leaving only one path in front of them, leaving everyone dumbfounded.

This is the gate to hell, reserved for death row inmates.

Zhou Yaren recalled that inside the ceremonial gate of the Ghost Gate, the other two doors were also welded shut, with a layer of cinnabar talisman superimposed on the seal. Without much hesitation, he took the lead in stepping into the Ghost Gate. The others were about to speak, but immediately fell silent and followed.

Strangely, there was no courtroom behind the door, but a long corridor. They walked for a while, and the more they walked, the more uneasy they became.

At that moment, Zhou Yaren paused, and what came into view from afar was a prison gate with a Bixie (a mythical beast) coiled around it.

The crowd looked on with surprise and uncertainty. Lu Bing asked, puzzled, "How... how did we end up right at the prison gates?"

“Yes, it’s different.” The interior structure was different from that haunted government office in Beiqu. The yamen runner said with a shudder, “This place is too eerie.”

Hei Zi was extremely anxious: "What about that well? Will it still be there? Aren't we still going to jump into it?!"

The constable chimed in, "That's right, how are we supposed to get back if we don't jump into the well?!"

Zhou Yaren suddenly remembered that he had witnessed this scene before...

Qin San rushed towards the entrance of the death row cell, his slender body running frantically in the moonlight, while a group of people chased after him one after another, stepping on the silvery light that fell upon him...

A gust of wind swept in from the small opening, hitting their faces with a damp chill and a mournful murmur: "I am innocent—"

That low murmur was incredibly distant, as if it came from across mountains, across seas, across two different times and spaces, while a cacophony of cries for justice surged in like a tide:

"I've been framed—"

"I'm innocent!"

"I'm innocent!"

The screams were clearly heart-wrenching, but when they reached our ears, only a faint echo remained, neither loud nor shrill.

The damp chill swept into Zhou Yaren's arms, seeping into the musical pipe tucked at his waist, producing a low, short, sharp sound. Zhou Yaren's steps suddenly halted, and then he saw at the end of the long, narrow path, in the silvery moonlight as thin as gauze, a door vaguely revealed that harbored a lurking tiger beast—the Bi'an Gate.

He seemed to hear those mournful sounds again, and the intermittent notes of the musical pipes, somewhat hoarse, almost inaudible in the wind.

south wind.

A death sound.

Go through that door.

He suddenly strode forward toward the prison gate.

Lu Bing didn't react for a moment, wondering why he suddenly walked so fast: "Ya Ren."

"Fellow Daoist!" Master Fang hurriedly chased after him, "Something's not right!"

This place was eerily strange, and the two constables, not wanting to be left behind, rushed forward. The four of them surged forward and followed each other through the prison gates. The moment they stepped through the gates, a terrifying scream erupted. The two constables, unable to bear the sight before them, fainted instantly.

Lu Bing was completely tense, like a block of hard iron, standing rooted to the spot, his hair standing on end. As a result, he was bumped by the panicked Taoist priest Fang and fell straight down. Taoist priest Fang reached out and caught Lu Bing as he was about to fall, crying out, "Help! You're going to kill me!"

Lu Bing was jolted back to his senses by the shout, and was also struggling to breathe from Fang Daozhang's arms. His terrified pupils contracted sharply, and he instinctively wrapped his arms around Fang Daozhang, his teeth chattering—no, his whole body was trembling. The two of them trembled like leaves, clinging to each other: "Die! Die! Die! Die!"

dead.

Zhou Yaren saw that the prison was full of people who had died tragically.

Their deaths varied. Some were beheaded, their necks riddled with gaping holes the size of bowls, blood flowing down their chests, heads rolling to the ground, piled up like mountains, their eyes wide open in death, indistinguishable from one another. Others had their skin torn open, their bodies covered in whip marks from torture. Some had their eyes gouged out, noses cut off, or tongues pulled out. Some had their hands and feet severed. Some had branding marks on their chests...

At a glance, the number of the tragically dead was countless.

All of these people who died tragically were wearing shackles and chains.

Zhou Yaren walked past them step by step, witnessing all the cruel deaths, her eyes stinging with tears.

The pungent, foul smell of blood filled his mouth and nose, making it difficult for him to breathe. The phrase kept echoing in his mind: "The Black Book of the Yin - Imprisoning Ghosts."

Zhou Yaren felt as if he were walking through a mass grave, a mass burial site, where all he saw were corpses torn apart by extreme torture. They were covered in holes and blood, and the blood reflected in their pupils, turning his normally lighter pupils crimson.

Zhou Yaren's legs felt like they were weighed down by a thousand-pound stone, and he stepped heavily into the depths. Beside him, a person who had been executed by slow slicing was tied to a pillar. There was no flesh left on his body, only a skeleton exposed after being cut into a thousand pieces.

Zhou Yaren only glanced at it briefly before her brows furrowed tightly as she passed a person hanged from a beam...

He looked inside one by one, following the long iron chains that bound them, and slowly made his way deeper into the depths.

"Ya, Ya-ren, please..."

A suppressed and chilling voice came from behind, filled with fear.

Lu Bing didn't even dare to shout at him. As soon as he opened his mouth, he dared not make another sound, as if he was afraid of disturbing these people who had died tragically.

He worked in the government office and had seen these kinds of things before. He could get used to seeing one or two corpses on a daily basis, but when hundreds or thousands of gruesome victims were gathered together, the horror was beyond imagination.

Lu Bing was almost scared to death just now, and he was still holding tightly to Master Fang and wouldn't let go.

Master Fang had cultivated himself on Renzu Mountain since childhood, and at most he would go down the mountain to help the villagers with divination, consecration, and funerals. This was the first time he had encountered such a scene, and he couldn't bear such a shock: "Fellow Daoist..."

Master Fang watched helplessly as Ting Fengzhi walked further and further away. Holding Constable Lu, he suddenly felt unsafe, but he lacked the courage to follow, yet dared not stay where he was. He was truly torn between fear and trepidation. After weighing his options, Master Fang considered turning back, but when he turned around, he found that the prison gate had turned into a dark, endless abyss. At the entrance of the abyss was a ferocious-looking Bi'an, its blood-red mouth wide open, waiting to devour someone. The sight made Master Fang shudder involuntarily, and he immediately dared not turn back.

Master Fang gritted his teeth: "We have to follow him."

Lu Bing knew, of course, who was the most reliable person among them. He swallowed hard, trying to calm himself down. Then he raised a leg that was so stiff it was almost unresponsive to his commands, and carefully kicked the two subordinates who were slumped on the ground.

The two constables slowly awoke, only to be met with such a horrifying scene that they nearly lost consciousness once more.

"Ahhh, Mother! Help! How come there are so many dead people here..."

Ignoring the commotion behind her, Zhou Yaren walked through countless gruesome corpses. Under her feet were crisscrossing iron chains, like a woven net, or a shackle that would forever bind their bodies, because one end of each chain was firmly tied to a condemned prisoner.

The other end of the iron lock extends out in a tangled and chaotic manner, stretching all the way out...

Zhou Yaren's gaze followed the direction of the iron lock, and she suddenly froze in place, staring blankly at the center of the death row cell.

In the center of the death row cell stood a circular altar, and on the altar, one could see a person, a woman, in the distance.

The woman was dressed in a plain white gauze dress, her head bowed low, her loose black hair obscuring her face.

The other end of these iron chains was bound to the woman's body, with countless shackles binding her hands, feet, and body, imprisoning her in the Circular Mound Altar.

Only at this moment could Zhou Ya see clearly that the iron locks were engraved with dense ancient inscriptions, like layers of superimposed confinement, covering the Circular Mound Altar.

She looked as if she were wearing a garment covered in inscriptions.

Zhou Ya's heart tightened, and she felt her hands and feet turn ice cold.

Someone swallowed hard beside him. It was the other four people who had moved up. They were terrified and were now staring dumbfounded at the altar.

Master Fang was so shocked his jaw almost dropped: "This... altar..."

What he really wanted to say was, "Why is there an altar here? And why is there a woman tied up on the altar?"

The constable had been stuttering ever since the day before yesterday: "Who...who is she?"

Hei Zi was terrified: "Is she...is she even human?"

Lu Bing was terrified: "Did she die too?"

Besides the five of them, there probably wasn't any other living creature breathing in this godforsaken place, especially since the woman was bound hand and foot and tied to the center of the altar.

Kuroko's gaze shifted, his dark eyes nearly popping out of their sockets: "Prison God of Prisons..."

Lu Bing looked over and saw seven statues of the God of Hell standing around the round mound. His throat tightened immediately: "There are Gods of Hell here too."

This reminded them of the seven prison god statues they had previously discovered in the death row of the Ghost Office. However, the prison gods standing here were not stone statues, but seven Dharma bodies, like projected phantoms.

Zhou Yaren suddenly realized that this meant "Gao Yao created prisons".

Master Fang turned his head in shock: "What?!"

Legend has it that Gao Yao was a prison official during the reign of Emperor Shun. He formulated the first "Prison Code" in China, created punishments and prisons, and designated areas as jails, which became the earliest prisons for confining criminals. Gao Yao is the progenitor of law and was therefore revered as the god of prisons by later generations.

Zhou Yaren muttered to himself, "So the formation in the death row of the Ghost Yamen was created by someone using the methods of Gao Yao to 'build a prison' here."

Master Fang stared blankly at the altar: "Did this person commit some unforgivable crime in life, and then become some kind of vengeful and malevolent ghost after death, so that others would use Gao Yao to build a prison and use inscriptions as shackles to imprison her?"

“Something’s not right,” Zhou Yaren frowned, her gaze sweeping around the altar. “It seems that what truly trapped her were these people who died unjustly.”

Master Fang was shocked to realize that the shackles of those who died unjustly were all tied to her alone: ​​"The so-called grievances have their perpetrators and debts have their debtors. Could it be that these people who died tragically are all related to her?"

At first glance, her body was covered in blood.

Master Fang's words hit the nail on the head, sending a chill down Zhou Ya's spine: "So, this Taiyin/Dao Body, the Daoist Prison is truly imprisoning her?"

If that's true, how heinous must this person be!

A note from the author:

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She's here, she's here, she's finally here! Zhou Yaren has finally found her.