The cold well water flooded over his head, and the water rushed into his nose and ears. Jiang Ji opened his eyes desperately and saw many hairs floating like seaweed at the bottom of the well. Some of these hairs were coarse and hard, some were fine and soft, some were black, and some were lighter in color.

The hair grew out from the wall of the well and spread far away.

In the deep and silent well, the feeling of being watched follows me everywhere.

The water in the well was very deep and very cold. Jiang Ji sank to the bottom very quickly. The water rushed to drown her. Just before she lost consciousness, the human skin that was clinging to her body swelled up again and quickly wrapped around her entire body until it became a cocoon and flowed along the channel under the well towards one place.

When Jiang Ji was awakened by the sound of dripping rain, he was already in the wilderness.

There are rotten beams above his head and damp and moldy grass beneath him. On the incense table are rotten fruits that are unrecognizable, a few incense sticks covered with animal teeth marks, and a few residual incense sticks can be seen in the tripod-shaped incense burner. One can vaguely see the grand scene of the villagers vying for worship at that time.

Although it is called a ghost temple, it is actually not that big, with only a simple house.

All the windows were sealed with wood, and the door was closed, but one could still feel the cold wind blowing from nowhere. Jiang Ji forced herself to sit up. The human skin wedding dress had been stripped from her body and hung on the beam to dry, dripping with water.

The air was filled with a faint stench of corpse.

Jiang Ji pressed her temple and sat up, her head still a little groggy. She was a little confused, so she sorted out her thoughts first.

Fang He was escorted out of the ghost realm by A Jin. She was unable to complete the ghost marriage ceremony and the red rope on her hand naturally fell off.

When she was controlled by the human skin, Ying Huai quietly connected with her mental power.

Jiang Ji endured the pain and told him how to tie the red rope, but he didn't know how much Ying Huai could remember.

She had the groom's rope on her hand. If Ying Huai also wrapped himself in the red rope, she would be able to sense Ying Huai's location, and Ying Huai would also be able to find her through the mental mark he left behind.

This wedding dress did not directly harm her, and it was obvious that she had other uses in it.

She asked Ying Huai to throw her into a well that was connected to all directions, to see where the human skin would take her.

Now it seems that he brought her directly to the old nest.

Jiang Ji looked inside the ghost temple and finally saw the appearance of the clay statue clearly. He was surprised for a moment.

The clay statue is covered in red and green, the colors are very bright, revealing an evil spirit.

Unlike those roadside shrines, the statues in the ghost temple are not covered with red silk. The clay statues appear to be hanging on the beams of the house. The hanging ropes are made of braided hair. The toes are struggling hard, and they are gasping for breath and touching the ground, but the feet are always only one centimeter away from the platform below.

When alive, one can only struggle to survive by tilting one's neck, and only after death can the head hang down.

The expression of pain was vividly portrayed on the clay statue's face; even the hands beneath its robe were twisted like chicken claws.

There is no unified aesthetic standard for these folk statues. Even if they believe in the same goddess, the statues sculpted in temples in different places are different, and the level of folk craftsmanship varies.

How could the remnants of bandits roaming around the counties and towns actually find such a skilled craftsman?

After regaining some strength, Jiang Ji got up and looked for clues.

She walked behind the clay statue and found that the pair of eyes were looking at her sideways, with a faint smile at the corners of the mouth.

Jiang Ji didn't feel scared, because the evil spirit was not here anyway.

There are still three brides missing for the sacrifice. Fang He has already left, so it’s time to go find the other two.

She turned around a few times, but the ghost temple was completely empty, with nothing in it.

Jiang Ji's gaze was fixed on the bottom of the platform.

The platform and the clay statue were too heavy for her to move.

I decisively exchanged two decoration cards, threw the clay statue and the platform aside, and reflected on my mistakes facing the wall.

What was exposed underground was a deep pit of corpses, with entangled bodies of both men and women inside.

Jiang Ji saw Fang Mi among them. Her two eyeballs were missing and her pretty face had shrunk and turned black.

This ghost temple enshrines Fang Zhi, a bandit leader from many years ago.

His remnants built this temple in this deserted mountain where few people have ever set foot. They said it was out of loyalty, but Jiang Ji didn't believe it. She believed that they were hiding something in this temple. It was probably the property that was hastily transferred when they were being chased by soldiers.

Or maybe, Fang Zhi was the only one who knew the whereabouts of the wealth they had burned, killed and looted over the years, but Fang Zhi was dead, and the accomplices who escaped could only use this kind of evil magic to try to summon Fang Zhi's ghost to tell them the whereabouts of the treasure.

They may have invited it, but they were killed by Fang Zhi's ghost.

Perhaps the summoning of the soul failed, so it hid in the deep mountains and forests, or moved far away.

But no one expected that many years later, this ghost temple would be worshipped as a place of evil by the villagers' fanatical belief.

In this way, her previous doubts were basically explained.

Where do the bodies in mass graves go?

Shangshan County was cursed by a ghost temple. Over the years, anyone who accidentally touched the taboo died.

The final destination of those who died suddenly and were unmarried was a mass grave. The villagers of Shangshan County who found that the bodies had mysteriously disappeared also thought that the disappearance of the bodies was also caused by the local records.

Therefore, families whose sons died and could not be buried in the ancestral tomb would try their best to find unmarried women of appropriate age to hold ghost marriages.

But the power of the ghost temple penetrated into the county town, and it was only after Fang Mi went there to worship and make a wish that Pandora's box was opened again.

The mass grave is in a forest of locust trees.

Jiang Ji also noticed that the common feature of those shrines was that there was an old locust tree next to them.

If the disappearance of the corpses was not caused by the ghost temple, then it could only be the locust trees that were nourished day by day by these carelessly discarded corpses.

The locust tree absorbed nutrients and transferred these women, who might have been nothing more than a piece of broken nail, a piece of scalp, or a finger, to the bottom of the shrine.

People often say that locust trees are evil and attract ghosts, but if trees were to develop consciousness, they would be more divine than humans.

What’s even more ironic is that the people that the villagers worshipped day and night had turned into the wronged souls of these women without knowing when.

Therefore, covering the clay statue with a red veil will work, because it is these brides who are causing trouble.