Chapter 4 Ghost Cry Village: Sacrifice
It's full of flaws, yet they still dare to try and get away with it?
The two men who shared a room with Lao Xu looked even paler now.
Those who travel as镖师 (bodyguards/couriers) generally don't sleep soundly at night; they remain alert year-round, easily awakened by the slightest noise. How come they didn't even notice Old Xu getting up or leaving the house yesterday?
Everyone immediately realized that they had been drugged!
Tang Yu's gaze shifted to Xiao Er, whose legs were already weak and who could barely stand.
Everyone turned to look at him, their gazes sharp as blades.
Under the watchful eyes of so many people, Xiao Er could no longer hold back. He knelt down with a thud and cried out, "We...we were afraid the guests would wander off at night, that's why we resorted to this! Our village really is haunted! We didn't mean to harm anyone, we really didn't!"
Tang Yu ignored his wailing and instead looked at Wang Shanyue, asking, "Young Master Wang, if it were you, how confident would you be in being able to kill the镖师 (bodyguard/escort) with a single sword strike before he could even draw his sword?"
Wang Shanyue thought carefully for a moment and replied, "If it's a nighttime ambush, he'll be caught off guard, so it might not be difficult. But if Old Xu is on guard... and senses the killing intent, it probably won't work."
"In that inn," Tang Yu asked with a slight smile, "who could have lured Master Xu into this room at night, completely unsuspecting, and killed him in one blow?"
Upon hearing this, Wang Shanyue blinked, then pointed blankly at himself and asked, "Me?"
His bizarre logic left Xiao Fangliang speechless with a "tsk." Even Tang Yu, standing to the side, couldn't help but laugh out loud, but quickly suppressed her laughter, her gaze sweeping over everyone's faces.
He locked onto one person in the crowd and said coldly, "Of course, there is another one, and that is—the innkeeper."
Before the words were even finished, and before anyone could react, the innkeeper, who had just woken up from his unconsciousness and was barely noticeable in the crowd, suddenly changed his demeanor, transforming from weak and timid to menacing.
He pulled out a pair of short swords from somewhere, leaped into the air with a light step, and the deadly weapons, gleaming with a cold light, flew straight towards Tang Yu.
Wang Shanyue reacted extremely quickly, his long sword swaying slightly in his hand.
"when!"
The sound of metal clashing against metal rang out, and a powerful force surged through the innkeeper's wrist, nearly causing him to drop his short sword. To absorb the force, he had no choice but to forcibly withdraw his killing move, taking several steps to the side before he could barely regain his footing.
He gritted his teeth and glared at the person who blocked his way, his eyes filled with malice.
Unexpectedly, the seemingly simple-minded and good-natured young man leading the escort had such skill.
Wang Shanyue looked at the other party with a serious expression and a sharp look. He stepped forward and protected Tang Yu behind him.
"Thank you for saving me, Brother Wang." Tang Yu clasped his hands in thanks, then turned to the innkeeper and said, "Shopkeeper, it's no use killing me now. Everyone here already knows that you are the murderer."
She smiled slightly, but her words were icy cold, sending chills down one's spine: "Unless... you can kill everyone here."
The shopkeeper's expression changed drastically. He raised his hand and threw a short sword out!
With a single sword flourish, Ke Wangyue easily deflected the attack, sending it flying and embedding it directly into the wall.
The shopkeeper shifted slightly, as if he still wanted to put up a last-ditch effort, but then, as if he had figured things out, his expression darkened, and he threw the other short sword in his hand to the ground.
Knowing he was no match for the boy before him, he conceded defeat.
But at this moment, unexpectedly, the waiter burst into tears and stumbled forward. Wang Shanyue drew his sword and blocked his way, stopping him from getting any closer.
The waiter had no choice but to kneel on the ground, wiping away tears and pleading, "Don't kill him! Please don't kill the shopkeeper! He didn't do it on purpose. If... if we don't kill this gentleman, his daughter will be sacrificed to the locust ghost!"
"What do you mean?" Wang Shanyue frowned in confusion.
Why are we talking about ghosts again?
The waiter trembled all over, as if recalling some extremely terrifying past, and his voice was filled with fear: "Our Ghost Cry Village really has ghosts..."
Only then did he reveal the secrets behind Ghost Cry Village.
According to him, there was no such thing as "ghostly wails" in the village; the wind was just a little high-pitched.
It all began on a stormy night ten years ago.
That night, the wind was initially just a whistling sound. But gradually, it became sharp and mournful, like the crying of a baby or the wailing of a woman.
The villagers initially felt uneasy and couldn't sleep at night, but unexpectedly, the next morning, they found a woman's corpse under the old locust tree in the village.
The girl was He Hong. She was kneeling on the ground, her face as white as paper, with a bloody gash in her abdomen; her death was gruesome.
From that day on, the crying under the locust tree became increasingly eerie and mournful during the rainy season.
If anyone dares to go out at night, they will die a horrific death under the tree the next day, their death so gruesome that it seems as if their soul has been stolen away.
"Originally, everyone thought that as long as they stayed indoors during thunderstorms, nothing would happen, but eight years ago..."
The waiter's voice lowered, trembling as he continued, "That ghost, unable to eat anyone for a long time, brought a plague, killing many people in the village. The village chief had no choice but to invite a master to perform a ritual. The master said it was the work of a locust tree ghost. To appease it, a person must be sacrificed every rainy season. Otherwise, it will bring plague and disaster, killing everyone in the village."
This is the unspeakable secret of Ghost Cry Village.
The person chosen for this sacrifice was the shopkeeper's only daughter.
As the waiter spoke of this, he and the shopkeeper knelt down side by side, their faces pale, filled with fear and unease, their expressions pleading.
The shopkeeper gritted his teeth and sighed, his face full of regret. "I just... I just couldn't bear to watch my daughter die. That's why I took the risk and killed someone..."
The air still carried the stench of blood and dampness, as if the silent lament of the dead Old Xu.
Even though everyone's expressions showed some emotion, no one uttered a word when looking at the corpse.
Wang Shanyue slowly sheathed his sword, his expression complex.
Even though he couldn't bear it, he still rebuked sharply: "But that shouldn't be your excuse for killing. Old Xu is completely innocent. He also has family, and people are waiting for him to return to Zhongjing."
The waiter kowtowed repeatedly to the shopkeeper, apologizing with a sob in his voice; his appearance was truly heartbreaking.
The atmosphere was so heavy it was almost oppressive.
Suddenly, a snicker broke the silence.
"Stop acting."
Tang Yu stood lazily to the side, speaking casually, "Lies are always more convincing when they're half-truth and half-lies. The first part about the ghostly wailing might be true. But... did you really use people from your own village as sacrifices?"
"Modu is close to the southern border, which is rainy and humid, with at least two or three rainy seasons a year. According to what you said, eight years ago, after the epidemic, the number of villagers should have been more than half. Then there were eight years of sacrifices, resulting in the deaths of a dozen or twenty lives. This Ghost Cry Village should probably be renamed Ghost Village."
Her eyes flashed coldly, and she sneered, "Because... then there won't be any living people left, right?"
Upon hearing this, Wang Shanyue also realized that something was wrong.
When they entered the village yesterday, it was nearly dusk. Judging from the smoke rising from the chimneys, there were at least a dozen households in the village, just like any other ordinary village.
Tang Yu continued to expose her: "Furthermore, if your daughter was originally chosen, why haven't you kept her by your side these past few days? And how can you be so sure that the villagers didn't take your daughter away before the sacrifice was completed during last night's thunderstorm?"
"Could it be... that they knew all along that you would kill someone to take their place?" Tang Yu pressed on relentlessly.
The more she spoke, the paler the shopkeeper and waiter's faces became, and the hatred in their eyes almost solidified.
Tang Yu pretended not to see it, and chuckled as she pointed out the loopholes in their story: "One strike was enough to kill a镖师 (bodyguard/escort) who had been working for many years. The dosage of the drug that she used on everyone was just right. And after seeing the scene of the murder, she even had the leisure to pretend to faint? How can anyone believe that you are innocent?"
In the end, Tang Yu couldn't help but laugh out loud.
It's full of flaws, yet they still dare to try and get away with it?
Just as everyone was feeling angry about being deceived, a strange change suddenly occurred.
First, one of the bodyguards suddenly clutched his stomach and groaned.
Immediately afterwards, more people began to contort their faces, experience excruciating abdominal pain, and bead up with cold sweat. Their vision became blurred, and they lost all strength.
Realizing they might be poisoned, one of the bodyguards took out an antidote pill from his pocket and swallowed it, but it had no effect.
The next instant, two eerie, cold laughs rang out.
The waiter and the shopkeeper, who had initially looked terrified, now wore expressions of smugness, their eyes gleaming and their lips twisted in a smirk.
Tang Yu immediately sensed something was wrong and took several steps back, showing some panic.
The waiter leaped up, unleashing a soft sword from who-knows-where. The shopkeeper also rolled away, taking the opportunity to pick up a short blade from the ground.
The two attacked Tang Yu from two different directions, determined to take the life of this person who had ruined their plans.
But Tang Yu put aside her panic and instead took a step back with a grin.
The two sensed something was wrong, but they couldn't stop their sword strikes.
Wang Shanyue, standing to the side, drew his sword to meet him, fighting two against one, yet he held his own against the odds.
The longsword's attack was fierce; the cold blade sliced through the air, creating a chilling wind, almost grazing the throats of the two men. They hastily parried, but Wang Shanyue deftly countered, striking the innkeeper's wrist with the hilt of his sword.
The shopkeeper cried out in pain, and the short sword in his hand clattered to the ground.
Immediately afterwards, Wang Shanyue turned around and leaped behind Xiao Er, slashing the back of his neck with a chop. Xiao Er's legs went weak, and before he could even groan, he collapsed to the ground unconscious.
Finally, he turned around unhurriedly, placed the long sword on the shopkeeper's shoulder, and gave Tang Yu and the other person a smug smile.
The shopkeeper stared wide-eyed, exclaiming incredulously, "You, how are you alright?!"
Clearly, Wang Shanyue hadn't thought much about it before, and then he realized, "Right, how come I'm alright?"
Xiao Fangliang, who was standing to the side, pondered for a moment, then suddenly smiled, looked up at Tang Yu, and his eyes revealed a hint of interest.
He said with certainty, "It must be that pot of Hu wine."
Everyone else was poisoned, but only the three of them remained unharmed. Upon reflection, the common thread among the three was the concoction that the itinerant doctor Su had given them the previous night.
"Although Hu Niang tastes rather sour and is not popular among the people of Daxia, it is a specialty of the Southern Frontier and will surely pique people's curiosity to try it." Xiao Fangliang looked at the shopkeeper, his tone turning colder: "Yesterday, the shopkeeper was so enthusiastic that he gave every table a cup of Hu Niang. I suppose there must be something wrong with that wine."
The shopkeeper's face turned deathly pale, and a hint of panic crept onto his brow, clearly indicating that he had been right.
Wang Shanyue's anger surged, and he pressed his longsword closer, demanding, "Tell me, where is the antidote?"
"No need to ask," Tang Yu said softly, her gaze indifferent. "What they've been afflicted with isn't poison, it's Gu."
"Gu?!" Wang Shanyue was shocked, his expression changed drastically, and he hurriedly asked, "Brother Su, do you have a way to cure Gu?"
“Young Master, there’s no need to worry,” Tang Yu said with a smile, her tone unhurried. “This is a common ‘abdominal Gu’ in the Southern Frontier. Apart from causing severe abdominal pain and difficulty walking, it is not life-threatening. It can be cured simply by drinking a bowl of aged vinegar.”
Upon hearing about the method to dispel the Gu poison, the crowd outside the house rushed downstairs to the kitchen.
The first镖师 (bodyguard/escort) to arrive found the vinegar, picked it up, and gulped down a large mouthful. It was so sour that he grimaced, but immediately felt that his stomach pain was not so bad.
Upon seeing this, everyone rushed forward to grab the vinegar jar, creating a chaotic and absurd scene that was quite amusing.
Inside the room, Wang Shanyue casually pressed the pressure points on the two men, then found some hemp rope and tied the innkeeper and waiter up tightly.
Xiao Fangliang had been standing for a long time and was getting tired. He put away his folding fan, went downstairs, found a clean spot, and laid out a handkerchief before sitting down.
His gaze passed over the threshold and landed seemingly casually on the old locust tree in the distance.
Seeing that the situation had temporarily stabilized and there was nothing else to do, Tang Yu went over and sat down beside him. "This matter is not over yet, Young Master Xiao, are you just sitting here like this?"
The words clearly implied something.
Xiao Fangliang naturally understood, but at this moment he only chuckled lightly: "No rush."
Their eyes met in the air, and without a word, cooperation was achieved.
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