Chapter 24: Haunted House in the Hill (24)
Yan Shixun left quickly, and everyone left in the living room looked at each other, not knowing what had happened.
The audience in front of the live broadcast screen was also dumbfounded: [What happened? Why did Yan Shixun run away?]
[He didn't even respond to the director's question. Could it be that something scary was coming and he sensed it so he ran away?]
[What stupid words did you say before? Does Brother Yan's expression look like what you said? He ran, didn't you see him rushing to the fourth floor? If he ran, shouldn't he go to the front door?]
[Stop making noise! Look, something seems wrong! Is it an earthquake? I feel the camera is shaking.]
The sky outside the villa darkened rapidly, and the whole world fell into darkness. The crystal chandelier in the living room kept shaking and colliding, making a harsh sound. The strong wind angrily hit the window glass, and a slight "click" sound was heard, as if the glass would soon shatter due to the pressure.
Inside the villa, a strong wind suddenly blew up. Not only did its powerful force make all the fabrics flutter in the wind, it almost blew people away.
The guests screamed and subconsciously grabbed onto objects and other people around them out of their survival instinct to steady themselves and avoid being blown away.
They didn't know why the sky and the earth changed color in an instant, but after experiencing a series of strange events in the villa, they vaguely guessed that Yan Shixun's action of going to the fourth floor might have caused the current situation.
When everyone reacted and looked up, due to the angle they could only vaguely see Yan Shixun standing at the corner of the stairs leading to the fourth floor, and he seemed to be holding some spell in his hand to fight against the strong wind.
Even Bai Shuang, who had been following Yan Shixun to avoid monsters and female ghosts last night, had never seen Yan Shixun look so serious and scary. She vaguely realized the seriousness of the matter, and her face turned pale. She tightened her heart and kept praying that Yan Shixun could solve it smoothly.
——She didn’t know what was on the fourth floor, but she believed that Yan Shixun could lead all of them away from this damn place.
It seemed as long as a century. When the villa finally stopped shaking, everyone's tense nerves slowly relaxed. There was a feeling of relief and exhaustion at the same time for having survived a disaster.
However, another guest started to yell in dissatisfaction: "What is Yan Shixun trying to do? Is he trying to kill us all by doing this?"
Bai Shuang was stunned: "What are you talking about?"
An Nanyuan and others also frowned and looked at the male singer who was going for the mature uncle style with disapproval.
Even Zhang Wubing, who usually has a good temper, couldn't help but say unhappily when he heard the male singer's tone and attitude towards his brother Yan: "If it weren't for him, something would have happened to all of us during dinner yesterday. Also, I understand that there was some shock just now, making everyone nervous, but please note that this is still a live broadcast, so please be careful with your words."
The fear of his life being threatened made the male singer no longer have any worries. The fear and dissatisfaction that had been suppressed since he found out that Liu Yiyi was in trouble this morning suddenly burst out.
The male singer stood up suddenly, pointed in the direction of the fourth floor and cursed: "How dare you say that these terrible phenomena didn't start when Yan Shixun went to the fourth floor without permission? He ran up there without even consulting us, and it was he who caused the current situation! This weird wind is so strong, it must be those things that are angry!"
"If we don't do anything, we won't anger those things. Maybe they will let us here immediately! But Yan Shixun acted on his own and caused those things to vent their anger on us. Now, he ran away and left us here without food or medicine, waiting to die!"
The male singer talked for a long time, but no one agreed with him.
Even the staff who usually called him "Teacher" frowned and looked at him with strange eyes, just like they were looking at monkeys in a zoo.
——They didn't believe what he said and thought he was as ridiculous as a monkey.
This realization made the male singer angry and embarrassed. He lost his temper and even his neck turned red.
"Ha! You guys think you can leave here just by relying on that guy Yan Shixun?"
The male singer blushed and sneered, "If he is really that powerful, why haven't I heard of his name in Binhai City? I donate money to Haiyun Temple every year, but I have never heard anyone say that there is a person like Yan Shixun among those masters. I am afraid he is a charlatan who pretends to be a god. Director, don't be fooled."
Zhang Wubing suddenly became angry.
You have to know that when he and his brother Yan were at Binhai University, if it weren't for his brother Yan, he would have died dozens of times! How powerful his brother Yan is, he can guarantee it with his life.
Zhang Wubing was about to refute the male singer, but someone stood up faster than him.
“Shut up!”
It turned out to be Ding Qian who had been hiding nearby.
Ever since she stepped on human bones when she went up the mountain yesterday, she, who originally did not believe in ghosts and gods, has been frightened by the series of strange events and is on the verge of mental breakdown. Just now, she was the most frightened among the guests by the sudden strange vision.
However, now, she also had the most intense reaction.
"Brother Yan will never harm us. I believe him. He must be looking for a way to take us away from here!"
Ding Qian's eyes were firm, she lost her usual smoothness and sophistication, and seemed aggressive: "He saved me twice, what about you? I saw it. When I was scared by the thing in the mirror in the room this morning, you were just hiding behind everyone and busy pointing your split-screen camera at me. You are afraid of death, but you also want to earn subscriptions and traffic by taking advantage of my miserable appearance at that time, right?"
"One has saved us so many times, and the other just hides behind others and coldly takes advantage of companions in danger. As long as we are alive and have eyes, we know who to trust."
Ding Qian's words were so powerful that the whole living room was speechless.
Not to mention An Nanyuan and Bai Shuang who were already convinced by Yan Shixun, the rest of the people also fell into deep thought because of Ding Qian's words, and they felt that what she said made sense more and more.
Although Yan Shixun seemed out of place with the program team when he first arrived at Guishan, and his attitude was reckless and tough, which made the guests who were always sought after frown. In addition, his amateur status also made some of the guests who were used to the seniority-based ranking in the entertainment industry look down on him.
But in less than two days, Yan Shixun has proved with his actions and strength that he does not need to use additional identities to embellish his brilliance.
Yan Shixun has his own vast world in his mind.
In that non-scientific field that no one has ever had the privilege to touch, he possesses a powerful power that is absolutely convincing and reliable.
And it is undeniable that if it weren't for Yan Shixun, the defenseless people would have eaten the abnormal meat prepared by the old butler, and as for the end...
Just looking at Liu Yiyi's appearance is enough to make people imagine.
Even the few people who were misled by the male singer's words because of excessive fear, and who secretly blamed Yan Shixun for his unauthorized actions and causing such a horrific phenomenon, couldn't help feeling a little guilty after hearing Ding Qian's words. Their dissatisfaction just now was immediately transformed into a deeper level of trust in Yan Shixun because of the guilt.
Being in this strange and dangerous villa deep in the mountains, with no contact with the outside world, if they want to leave safely alive, it is far better to trust him than to blame the only person who can protect them.
The male singer noticed the changes in everyone's expressions. He couldn't help but said in shock, "How can you trust someone you don't know so much? Are you crazy?"
An Nanyuan shrugged: "If I don't believe Brother Yan's words, do I believe you? Sister Xixi is right. Compared with a person who just stands by and watches, or even ignores the safety of his companions, a person who has proven himself with actual actions is more trustworthy. Besides..."
His face was full of sarcasm. "You think you are a big shot and look down on Brother Yan, an amateur. But your number of fans is only a fraction of mine, right? As a singer, you are not as famous as Sister Xixi or Bai Shuang, and you have never won any awards. Who gave you the confidence to look down on Brother Yan, whom Sister Xixi and I both trust? Was it Hu who gave you the confidence?"
An Nanyuan, who debuted as a member of an idol boy group, has always attached great importance to image management. However, this is the first time that he has used his fame and status to pressure others so directly and openly.
There is no medicine or food, and danger is lurking everywhere.
Under such special circumstances as life and death in the villa, even those who are used to packaging themselves perfectly in front of the camera will be more inclined to stay close to their true selves out of survival instinct.
What's more, An Nanyuan had witnessed with his own eyes the unscientific things about Yan Shixun. If it weren't for Yan Shixun, he would probably have been killed by the old butler who appeared in the living room or chopped to death by the monster dragging a huge axe in the garden in the villa and garden late at night.
Because of the life-and-death relationship, An Nanyuan was willing to protect Yan Shixun, whom he trusted and admired.
The male singer, who was repeatedly questioned and hit, looked extremely ugly with his face turned red and white.
He glared at the guests angrily and said, "If you are so obedient, then just stay here and wait to die! I will not be stupid with you anymore."
As he said that, the male singer looked at Zhang Wubing fiercely for not speaking up for him, and said, "Don't you just think that my status is not as big as An Nanyuan? You're the kind of guy who puts others down and praises others highly, just wait for the day when I win the God of Songs Award!", then turned around and left angrily.
Zhang Wubing was puzzled, but due to his identity as a director he could not disrupt the show in front of the camera, so he did not curse.
But he still complained in his heart: Although Brother Yan always said that he should change his name to Youbing, in his opinion, this person is the one who is sick.
What does it have to do with status and awards? Wasn't this guy the first to stir up trouble? How did he become the one who put down others and praised others?
Bai Shuang looked at the male singer's back several times in confusion, and muttered quietly, "How weird."
However, Ding Qian, who had just confronted the male singer with a rare tough attitude, became a little hesitant after he really left.
"Why do I feel like something is wrong with him?" Ding Qian frowned and said, "Although I'm not familiar with him, I have met him at several events. At that time, he didn't seem to be so impatient and careless about his image. His state just now seemed a little abnormal? His temper should not be like this normally."
As a singer herself, Bai Shuang was more familiar with the male singer and knew that he had a bad habit of bragging in front of many peers. However, she did not think as much as Ding Qian and did not doubt it.
“You must be scared.”
After all, in life-and-death situations, everyone will more or less reveal their true self.
However, another male guest kept looking in the direction where the male singer left with a strange expression.
After so many years in the entertainment industry, even if the male singer has a bad temper in private, this is a live show after all. How dare he be so arrogant in front of the camera? I always feel that something is wrong?
"Um...he just left like that, will he be okay?"
It felt good to be rude to someone, but when the male singer really left, An Nanyuan became a little hesitant.
An Nanyuan, who was good at association, immediately recalled the fate of those characters in the horror movies he had watched who acted alone without listening to the advice of others. He couldn't help but shudder, frightened by the images that conjured up in his mind.
Another guest nodded: "How about one of you go look for it?"
"I'm also afraid to act alone. It seems safer to stay in the living room with everyone else. Besides, he chose to leave on his own. If we go looking for him, he might scold us."
"…Forget it. He's a grown man and nothing will happen to him."
Just after everyone reached an agreement, a male guest hesitated and said, "His room was originally on the right side of the second floor. This morning, Mr. Yan said that everyone on the right side should move to the left side, so he moved to my room. This won't affect anything, right?"
When everyone heard this, they looked at each other and saw the hesitation and fear in each other's eyes.
Of the four people living on the right, Liu Yiyi and the male actor were already lying in the emergency room, and Ding Qian was also scared to death. In this way, only the male singer who had just left alone was still alive.
this……
It should be okay, right?
Although Zhang Wubing was unhappy that this person questioned Yan Shixun, he was the director after all and had the responsibility to ensure the safety of the program members. So he called a few staff members and prepared to look for the male singer who had left.
"He didn't seem to go back to his room. Maybe he was afraid to go back to his original room on the right, but couldn't bring himself to go back to the room on the left?"
Bai Shuang pointed in the direction of the kitchen: "He went over there, Director, go find him there."
Zhang Wubing nodded: "Okay, let's go see if there is any food and water over there."
In front of the live camera, many viewers who did not understand the full picture of the matter and were led by the male singer to blame Yan Shixun, and fans who originally supported the male singer, began to hesitate because of the guests' repeated defense of Yan Shixun and the fact that the male singer got angry and walked away when he could not argue with others. Many people reacted directly.
[That seems to be true. Last night, I watched the whole process from finding Bai Shuang to hiding in the woodshed in my brother's split screen. Yan Shixun is indeed not as reckless as this person said. He has always protected my brother and Bai Shuang.]
[I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Does my brother regard Brother Yan as his idol? It seems that this is the first time I have seen my brother speak so directly and sharply. But indeed, if it were me, I would also choose Brother Yan. Brother Yan is much more handsome than this guy, okay! Hiss, hiss, beauty has misled me.]
[This guy...is really not a very good person. When Sissi was scared that morning and everyone was concerned about her, he was the only one who adjusted the angle of his split screen to focus on Sissi. Because everyone else's split screen angle couldn't see what happened to Sissi, we all rushed to his split screen to see.]
[Poor Qian, she cried so much that her makeup was ruined. As a public figure, she shouldn’t show this side of her. After all, she is still an actress. As a result, not only did all the audience see her in her most embarrassing state, but she was also used by this person to increase her followers. I am speechless.]
[But what on earth was Yan Shixun doing on the fourth floor? His split screen showed nothing, it was completely dark. From the main live screen, he was just standing at the stairs, so the split screen should have shown the stairs. Weird.]
[I noticed it too. I just crawled over here from Brother Yan's split screen to see what was going on. Brother Yan was really handsome just now! But it seemed that after he finished reciting a long string of things, he turned on the lights? I saw a few flashes of light. Then the whole screen suddenly went black and I couldn't see anything.]
[On the main screen, I can only see Brother Yan standing still on the stairs. What happened to him? I am so worried. I hope nothing happens to Brother Yan!]
[If even Brother Yan gets into trouble, this show will really be ruined...]
[Shut up! Ugh, you jinx. Nothing will happen to them, and everyone will leave safely.]
[Yes, everything is getting better. Look, the director and his friends are going to look for food.]
…
Not only were the audience of the show paying attention to Yan Shixun's movements, but the Taoist priests of Haiyun Temple also stood in front of the electronic screens for the first time, staring closely at Yan Shixun's split screen.
Although Haiyun Temple is famous for its effective prayers, many people don't know that exorcising evil spirits and catching ghosts are actually the real specialties of the Taoist priests at Haiyun Temple.
Haiyun Temple not only cooperates with the authorities and is responsible for handling some incidents related to evil spirits, but also regularly inspects Binhai City and nearby places where ghosts and resentments are likely to breed. If any abnormalities are found, they will be dealt with immediately.
As for Guishan Mountain in the suburbs of Binhai City, Haiyun Temple knows its original origin even better.
Like the stories about Guishan passed down by the older generation, such as the tragic deaths of bandits and the disappearance of passers-by, Haiyun Temple is very clear that those are not hearsay.
It's a real event.
According to the written records of successive Taoist priests at Haiyun Temple, we know that a hundred years ago, a group of bandits did die tragically on Guishan, which was an unknown hill at the time.
The nearby villagers were frightened by the sight of flesh, broken bones and blood all over the mountain, so they invited the Taoist priest of Haiyun Temple to perform a ritual to help the souls of the bandits to be reborn, so as to prevent them from becoming evil spirits and disturbing the lives of the nearby villages.
However, when the Taoist priest arrived as promised, no villagers came to pick him up, and he went straight up the mountain without seeing the corpse.
Only the empty and deserted villa stood silently on the mountain, covered with thick dust and large amounts of dried blood, proving that the villagers were not lying.
But from that day on, there were frequent reports of passers-by who temporarily stopped at the villa and never appeared again. Several villagers who went up the mountain to chop firewood also disappeared from the nearby villages.
They might be found many days later, dumped on a mountain in a miserable state of death, or their bodies might never be found again.
During this period, there were Taoist priests and witches who heard about this and tried to solve the problem, but they all failed. Some of them were not well-trained and even lost themselves.
The mountain's evil reputation gradually spread, and the nearby villagers feared it, so they called it "Ghost Mountain".
Since then, Ghost Mountain has become a famous place of great danger. Later, when peace came to the world and the country regained its prosperity, the cruelty of this mountain was suppressed by the new country's prosperity, and no more deaths were reported.
Later, it was renamed Guishan, and its ominous reputation became history and was gradually no longer mentioned. Instead, it became a tourist attraction in the coastal suburbs because of its beautiful scenery and was loved by many people.
But since the beginning of this year, when several college students who had agreed to go hiking during the winter break disappeared in Guishan, something started to go wrong in Guishan.
The rescue team thought that as was common in the past, these students had come hiking without any wilderness survival experience and ended up getting trapped.
When they found those college students, they were shaking like sieves, scared to the point of insanity, and covered in blood.
The students described incoherently what they had seen in the past few days, staring with horror and shouting that they had seen bloody humanoid monsters that wanted to pour flesh and blood into their mouths and leave Guishan in their place.
The rescue team was totally confused and wanted to wait until the students calmed down before asking them any more questions. However, the students developed a high fever on the way to the hospital, and kept shouting about ghosts and talking nonsense.
The Taoist priest of Haiyun Temple rushed to the hospital upon hearing the news, only to find that those students were almost all frightened out of their wits, and their luck as living beings was as low as that of dying people.
After the students' frightened souls were restored, they were temporarily calmed down, but as soon as someone mentioned Guishan, they would scream in fear again, and several strong men could not stop them.
There was no other way, so Haiyun Temple had to give up asking the students what exactly happened in Guishan and let them recuperate in the hospital.
——Also, a student was missing and could not be found despite searching all over Guishan.
Soon after, children from the villages near Guishan who went up to the mountain to play saw people covered in blood staggering in the mountain. There were also skeletons with only half of their bodies half out of the soil, desperately trying to crawl out with their dry fingertips, as if trying to break free from the shackles of the earth.
The child came home crying, but the parents didn't take it seriously at first, thinking it was just a prank.
However, soon, not only the playing children, but also the villagers who went up the mountain to chop firewood, women who picked wild fruits, people who passed through the mountains on their way to neighboring villages... more and more people saw the bloody monsters in the mountains.
They were like people with their skin peeled off, dragging their intestines and rotten organs on the ground. At dusk, they walked in a daze in the shadows cast by the woods, opening their mouths with only their jaws left, making vague meaningless calls, searching for the direction in confusion.
However, every time it got close to the edge of Guishan Mountain, it could not move forward even a single step and had to turn back, then let out a whimpering sound like crying.
The dead weep, not knowing the way home.
The villagers were so frightened that they quickly called the police.
However, Haiyun Temple, which came with the officials, conducted a carpet search of the entire Guishan Mountain, but did not find a single human bone.
It was not until the "Heart-Stirring Journey Around 99 Days" program crew entered Guishan, where dangers were rife, that the audience who knew the Taoist priest of Haiyun Temple saw that what Yan Shixun had drawn were Taoist talismans, and out of curiosity, they told his Taoist priest friend about it.
This program, along with the monster that appeared on camera, entered the field of vision of Haiyun Temple.
They realized that the monster the crew encountered was the one they had been looking for in vain. And the villa the crew stayed in was probably the source of all the anomalies in Ghost Mountain over the past century.
Therefore, the Haiyun audience, who did not want to alert the enemy, watched the live broadcast of the program, analyzing every shot seriously and nervously.
Especially Yan Shixun’s split screen.
"This young man named Yan Shixun, looking at his familiarity with the seals and spells in the live broadcast, if I hadn't confirmed that I had never heard of his name, I would have thought he was the direct disciple of some great master or uncle or forefather."
One of the Taoist priests pointed at the scene in the live broadcast where Yan Shixun used his hand instead of a pen to draw talismans directly in the air, and said in amazement: "This level of accuracy and fluency, the talisman was completed in one go without any mistakes, and the power was exerted so completely. Even though we know that there are innate talismans, talent to this extent is really rare."
Another older Taoist priest laughed and said, "If you had come to Haiyun Temple 20 years earlier, you would have known that some people are indeed like this. There was a wandering lay Buddhist in Haiyun Temple back then who was like this."
A little bit of spiritual light is the talisman, while the world's ink and vermilion are wasted.
In this circle, one can occasionally see rare and gifted people who are really chased by the ancestors to feed them, and they do not need the cumbersome rituals and regulations of the acquired talismans at all.
In the Taoist priest's opinion, Yan Shixun and the lay Buddhist from twenty years ago were obviously on this list.
But soon, the Taoist priests had no time to chat.
Their attention was drawn to Yan Shixun's strange behavior.
In the camera, Yan Shixun stood at the corner of the stairs leading to the fourth floor in the villa, motionless, with only his brows frowning and relaxing, and the expression on his face changing slightly.
The comments on the screen were flashing rapidly, and the program team's comment section was also discussing what Yan Shixun was doing.
But the Taoist priests guessed that there must be something on the fourth floor that made Yan Shixun see scenes that others could not see, and Yan Shixun stood still, which meant that he was fighting with that thing, or he might be stuck in a tug-of-war.
"Although this young friend is extremely talented, he is still young after all. The creatures in Ghost Mountain have not been successfully subdued by anyone in the past hundred years. If he fights them like this, he will probably be defeated."
The Taoist priest looked worried: "If he falls into hallucination and can't get out, it will be bad."
"Look at the Buddhist shrine next to it..." Another person pointed to the side of Yan Shixun and said, "Isn't this Guanyin statue wrong?"
A line of blood and tears flowed slowly from the tightly closed eyes of the shabby Guanyin statue whose golden body had peeled off.
The blood flowed more and more, as if there was no end, and it actually gathered into a pool of blood under Yan Shixun's feet. However, Yan Shixun, standing in the pool of blood, was still immersed in another world that no one could see, and seemed unaware of anything.
The originally clear camera flickered as if the power supply had a bad connection, and blood-red snowflakes gradually spread across the screen. Like an old TV screen from the last century, all images were not clear.
The Taoist priest's expression turned stern, and he chanted a spell to open the Yin Eye.
Then, his vision changed.
Under the camera, wherever Yan Shixun was, whether it was the ceiling, walls, or the ground, blood was flowing everywhere. Long black hair was winding around, and white finger bones stretched out from under the black hair, reaching towards Yan Shixun from all directions.
The entire space was like a closed glass tank. The gathered blood gradually floated up until it submerged Yan Shixun's head and swallowed him completely in the sea of blood.
Blood is as deep as the sea, hatred is deeper than the sea.
Evil ghost, taking your life.
The camera that had been flashing all the time finally seemed to be unplugged and fell into complete darkness.
After a few seconds, when the camera lights up again, everything returns to normal.
There was no trace of blood, and the long black hair that was all over the ground disappeared without a trace. The white bones looked more like an illusion.
However, Yan Shixun also disappeared at the same time.
The split-screen shot is clearly still here, but Yan Shixun is nowhere to be seen.
Only the Guanyin statue made a slight cracking sound, and spider-like cracks gradually covered the broken golden body.
The Guanyin statue’s eyes are tightly closed, without any blood or tears, only the corners of her lips are slightly raised into a smile towards the camera.
Have compassion on the world.
Taoist Priest: “!!!”
"We can't wait any longer, we have to go to Guishan immediately!"
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