"Alright, stop arguing, there seems to be something ahead!"

Just then, Old Chen, who was walking in front, suddenly spoke up.

Li Huai and Luo Tianhe immediately shut up.

As we looked in the direction he pointed, we saw a person sitting under a dead tree not far ahead.

But even a fool could tell that the thing only resembled a person, but was definitely not a person.

She had her back to us, dressed in plain white clothes, with long hair flowing over her shoulders and a slender figure. If we weren't in such a strange place, Luo Tianhe and Li Huai might have gone up to chat her up.

We instinctively wanted to back away, but then we suddenly noticed that her shoulders were trembling slightly, and the mournful sobs were coming from her.

There's no way to avoid this, might as well confront it!

I steeled myself, took a step forward, and prepared to see what kind of trick she was up to.

"Young lady, what are you doing sitting here in the middle of the night?"

Upon hearing my words, the woman stopped crying abruptly and slowly turned her head.

I held my breath, already anticipating what I was about to see—probably a terrifying ghost face.

But the result was quite different. I saw a face that was pale but still pretty.

Her eyes were large, with tears still clinging to the corners, and a poignant smile on her face.

"Can you see me?"

Her voice was soft and ethereal, and even Li Huai and Luo Tianhe could hear it clearly at the very end, as if she were whispering in our ears.

Nonsense, if I can't see you, who am I talking to?!

I pursed my lips and didn't say anything more.

She seemed unconcerned by our silence and continued speaking.

"I can't find my way home. Can you take me home? My home is at the east end of the village, under that big locust tree."

Under that locust tree? We couldn't help but feel a chill.

Who are you? What are you doing here?

The locust tree at the east end of the village has quite a history, so I couldn't help but ask tentatively.

"who I am?"

The female ghost tilted her head, revealing a confused expression.

"Who am I? I've forgotten, but I want to go home. My home is under the locust tree!"

She was talking incoherently, as if she were out of her mind.

Old Chen, who was standing nearby, quietly leaned closer to me and whispered:

"Be careful, try not to talk to her. She might be a possessed ghost. These kinds of ghosts have deep obsessions and unfinished business from their previous life, so they will pester the living to help them complete it. If you accidentally agree to her request, you will be haunted until you die!"

"And as long as you don't agree, there's generally no danger."

I nodded silently. I had heard of ghosts before, but this was the first time I had ever seen one.

Seeing that we didn't answer, the female ghost's sorrowful expression gradually turned into anxiety and lamentation:

"Why won't you help me? Why won't you take me home? Are you like them, disgusted by me?!"

Her voice suddenly became sharp and shrill, and the surrounding temperature dropped accordingly.

As she screamed in agony, her white clothes began to flutter without wind, and her delicate face began to change. Her skin turned pale and bluish-white in an instant, and dark purple lividity appeared around her eyes.

"Oh no, she's about to change her expression!" Old Chen exclaimed!

Didn't we agree that ignoring her would prevent any danger?!

And is she a ghost or a fairy?!

Just because we don't help you, you're going to kill us?

But in this tense moment, I suddenly noticed that although the female ghost looked terrifying and the yin energy emanating from her was even stronger than that of the water ghost, she did not have that sense of aggression or resentment.

A bold idea flashed through my mind. I took a step forward, but instead of taking out talismans, five-emperor coins, or other items for warding off evil, I tried to speak in a calm tone:

"We can help you, but you have to tell us who is waiting for you under the locust tree, and how you got here?"

Upon hearing my words, the female ghost's transformation process abruptly stopped, and a trace of confusion flashed in her empty eyes:

"I...I don't know. All I know is that I have to go back!"

The female ghost suddenly clutched her head in agony, screaming incessantly:

"No, don't bury me! I can't breathe! I'm suffocating! There's so much soil, I can't breathe! I can't breathe..."

Was this ghost buried alive before it was born?

A thought struck me: I remembered the unusual soil in this village, soil with a distinctive smell of blood.

Could this soil be related to her?

"Was the soil where you were buried red? Did it smell of blood?"

I immediately pressed for an answer, my voice betraying my urgency.

"Red? Bloody smell? No, just ordinary soil."

"But then, the soil seemed to turn red, and I was buried in it, watching helplessly as the earth gradually turned red, and it even smelled of blood, as you described. But I was already dead, how could I have seen the soil turn red?!"

The female ghost's voice gradually became more and more frantic, and the face-changing that had just stopped was completed in an instant, and only then did I see her true face!

It was an extremely unnatural face; the skin looked ashen, as if it had been soaked in mud for a long time! And it was taut and completely inelastic!

Her features still vaguely showed her delicate beauty in life, but now they looked as if they had been squeezed hard by something, becoming flat and distorted!

What was most disturbing was her eyes. At this point, there was no distinction between pupils and sclera; they looked like two clumps of murky mud with earthworms crawling around inside!

The earthworms were pinkish-white and dark black, densely packed, scurrying around the corner of my eye!

Sometimes it will suddenly plunge into the eyeball and then emerge from the corner of the eye.

Upon witnessing this gruesome scene, Li Huai couldn't help but take two steps back.

Luo Tianhe's face turned deathly pale instantly. He gagged twice, but there was really nothing left to vomit, so he finally vomited a few mouthfuls of sour water.

Even the experienced and knowledgeable Old Chen gasped in shock, gripping his long stick tightly, ready to strike at any moment.

The female ghost seemed to have been suddenly stimulated.

It suddenly opened its mouth and spat out large mouthfuls of red soil that smelled strongly of blood.

There were also those earthworms from the corner of her eye, burrowing in and out of the scarlet soil.

As she vomited, she made a series of hoarse sounds in her throat, which sounded extremely painful.

"I'm dead! But I'm alive!"

Her face contorted with extreme fear, as if she were muttering in her sleep.

Meanwhile, her hands kept scratching her neck and cheeks, tearing off pieces of scarlet flesh, as if she were unaware of it.

"They're eating me, they're eating me, they haven't stopped, I'm in so much pain!"