Flames licked at the offerings, and the dim light shone on Baldy Third's face, exuding an indescribable chill.

The figure appeared particularly eerie under the firelight.

He was squatting in front of the offerings, busy with something, his hands moving rapidly in the light and shadow.

However, we were too far away to see clearly; we could only vaguely see his hands moving in the light and shadow.

Yuan Ying and I exchanged a glance, then crouched down and slowly walked towards Baldy Third.

When we were about five meters away from Baldy, we stopped and hid behind a thick bush.

Through the gaps in the branches and leaves, one could clearly see Bald Old Man's every move.

In front of Bald Old Man San, the offerings were arranged in a strange circle.

Paper-mache children, LCD TVs, money trees, yachts, and Rolls-Royces are arranged in a pleasing yet incongruous manner.

He held a thin wooden stick in his hand, occasionally poking at the burning offerings.

While plucking the strings, he chanted aloud.

"Please bless me with great wealth and prosperity. If you can bring me good fortune, I will make many offerings to you and burn more and better things for you. I will never break my promise!"

With each recitation, he would take out a pinch of dark red powder from his side and sprinkle it on the offerings.

As soon as the powder came into contact with the flame, the flame shot up instantly and turned from the normal orange-yellow to an eerie ghostly green.

"Do you see that pink?"

Yuan Ying lowered her voice and whispered in my ear, "Before, I was just suspicious, but now I'm 100% sure that the reason Baldy Third is rich is definitely related to the ghost baby."

"That rouge is made by grinding the placenta of women who died in childbirth into the ashes of stillborn fetuses. In evil magic, it's called 'blood wealth attractor,' which is specifically used to attract wealth from the underworld. He's treating the ghost baby in Ji Yunfei's belly like a living god of wealth, using the blood of living people to nourish the evil fetus and making money by absorbing the luck of the underworld."

Just then, a gust of wind blew by.

The previously calm flames suddenly leaped up, scattering sparks everywhere.

Baldy San seemed startled by this sudden turn of events, and instinctively shrank back.

But he quickly regained his composure and pulled a palm-sized wooden plaque from his pocket.

By the light of the campfire, I saw that the edges of the wooden plaque were worn shiny, and the words "Remembering the Spirit Tablet of Yunfei" were written crookedly in cinnabar on it.

I was taken aback, my throat tightened, and I asked in a low voice, "Yingniang, didn't you say that Bald Third Brother used the power of the ghost baby to change his luck? Why is he enshrining Ji Yunfei's memorial tablet?"

Yuan Ying stared at the wooden plaque and said softly, "The fetal soul is inseparable from the birth mother. The unborn child has never seen the light of day, and its soul is still connected to the mother's essence and blood. He stole the ghost infant, but he can't raise it directly—he has to use the birth mother's spirit tablet as a 'placenta' to trap the fetal soul inside, nourish the fetus with the blood of living people, and rely on the fetal soul to absorb yin luck."

She unconsciously rubbed the glutinous rice in the cloth bag with her fingertips and continued, "Look at those bloodstains on the wooden plaque. They are the blood of the people he dripped on it before. The fetal soul takes shape by borrowing the spirit tablet, so it has to be fed with fresh blood. Otherwise, the soul will dissipate, and his 'path to wealth' will be cut off."

Then Yuan Ying explained to me that in the past, there were opium addicts who sealed stillborn fetuses in earthenware jars and kept them in blood to gamble. The money they won was all "yin wealth," and once it was spent, they had to pay off with their lifespan in the mortal world.

I shuddered.

Yunfei's unborn child was trapped at the boundary between Yin and Yang by Bald Old Third using evil magic, and was kept alive by sucking the blood of living people.

What he was offering was not a memorial tablet, but clearly a "living money pot" nourished by the mother's blood.

As they were talking, Baldy San suddenly cut his fingertip with a knife, and a drop of blood dripped onto the three characters "Ji Yunfei".

As the dark red blood beads seeped into the wood grain, tiny baby fingerprints suddenly appeared on the surface of the wooden plaque, one after another, as if invisible little hands were crawling on it.

Baldy the Third seemed not to see it, and kowtowed three times to the wooden sign, the head hitting the ground with a "bang" sound. When he lifted his head, blood was seeping from his forehead.

He straightened up, then suddenly brought his face close to the wooden sign, sticking out his tongue to slowly lick the bloodstains, letting out a muffled laugh.

"Good boy, eat and drink well, and there's plenty of money..."

What kind of operation is this?!

I slammed my elbow into Yuan Ying's shoulder: "Yingniang, he, he's licking that sign, what's he doing?"

Before he could finish speaking, the flames around the wooden sign suddenly turned a ghostly green with a "poof," and the heads of the paper-mache boys and girls all turned towards the wooden sign, their empty eye sockets facing Baldy Third's back.

I nudged Yuan Ying gently with my elbow and asked in a low voice, "Yingniang, what is he doing?"

Yuan Ying frowned, her eyes fixed on Bald Lao San, and whispered, "I don't know. It seems like they're performing an evil ritual, trying to appease the ghost baby with these offerings and borrow its power to continue changing their luck."

As they were talking, Baldy Third took a small box out of his pocket.

In the firelight, I could vaguely see some strange symbols engraved on the box.

Baldy carefully opened the box and took out something that looked like a doll.

Upon closer inspection, I noticed that the doll resembled Ji Yunfei somewhat, except that its belly had been hollowed out, and something seemed to be stuffed inside.

Baldy placed the doll among a pile of offerings, then picked up a yellow talisman and lit it with fire.

The moment the yellow talisman burned, a pungent odor filled the air.

I couldn't help but cough a few times, then quickly covered my mouth, afraid that Baldy the Third would find out.

As the yellow talisman turned to ashes, the offerings that had been burning quietly on the ground suddenly turned green, and instead of leaping upwards, they seemed to come alive, wrapping around the doll.

Seeing this, Baldy the Third revealed a smug smile. He clasped his hands together and kept kowtowing to the puppet.

“What… what’s going on?” I looked at Yuan Ying.

Yuan Ying's face also turned extremely ugly, and her teeth were grinding together: "He used an even more evil method to completely control the power of that ghost infant. He probably wants to completely refine this ghost fetus into his 'lucky charm'."

While we were talking, the flames had completely engulfed the doll.

Through the layer of green flames, I seemed to see the doll's belly twitching slightly, as if there really was a baby struggling inside.