Chapter 8 The Statue of the Prison God "It digs up dead people in the ground and eats them."
The southwest direction that Zhou Yaren pointed to was the location of the county prison.
According to the system of rites and the feng shui layout of the county government office, the southwest belongs to Kun, which is a pure yin direction. The ghost gate is placed on the west side for death row inmates to pass through, and the southwest side of the ghost gate should be the location of the government office and prison.
Above the prison gate is a carving of a fierce-looking mythical beast—the Bi'an.
Legend has it that the dragon has nine sons, the fourth of whom is Bi'an. It is fond of litigation and has the power of a tiger, so it is placed at the prison gate, hence the common name "Tiger Head Prison".
Those who work in government offices are probably used to seeing the beast heads on prison gates, but in a place like the Ghostly Government Office, it's a different story. The Bixie has glaring eyes and bared fangs, making the dark prison gate below look like a beast's mouth that swallows bones and eats people, both fierce and ferocious.
Therefore, when they stepped into the "beast's mouth", they felt a sudden chill for no reason. They mustered their courage and tensed their nerves. Suddenly, they heard Qin San exclaim in surprise, which made everyone look around alertly, but they did not find anything unusual around them.
Lu Bing turned to Qin San: "What happened?"
Qin San stared ahead in terror: "There...there are people there..."
There was a small pavilion there, in which stood a blue-faced deity statue, standing silently beneath the prison wall. In the darkness, it resembled a motionless figure, giving it a rather eerie feel.
Zhou Yaren tilted her head: "Who is it?"
"It's not a person, it's just a statue of a prison god, what are you making such a fuss about?!" Hei Zi was terrified and couldn't help but yell at Qin San, "Haven't you ever seen one before? Don't give me that jumpy look, or I'll shut you up."
Qin San was disheveled and covered in blood, resembling a female ghost who died with her eyes wide open. When she turned to stare at Hei Zi, her ghostly appearance was even more frightening than the "Blue-Faced Saint" enshrined in the shrine.
Hei Zi swallowed hard.
Qin San said quietly, "I've never been to prison, so how could I have seen the God of Prison?"
Upon hearing this, Zhou Yaren paused, her fingers unconsciously curling at her side. Indeed, the God of Hell was enshrined in the prison, and perhaps only those who had been to the prison had the opportunity to pay homage to his statue.
He listened with his eyes downcast as Hei Zi muttered a few words. He passed two rows of narrow and cramped cells, each a small cubicle carved out of blue bricks, specifically for holding ordinary prisoners with minor offenses.
Lu Bing and his men searched every cell until they reached the end, but the cells were empty. They did not find Sun Xiuniang and did not know where she was hiding.
But around the corner, there's a narrow, sloping path leading down into a dark, sunken depth. This is a dungeon, also known as a death row, a place specifically for serious offenders or those sentenced to death. It's not just dark; it's pitch black.
Lu Bing, carrying a lantern, led the way, walking through the long, narrow passage and illuminating the dark entrance to the death row. Although there was no wind around, Lu Bing suddenly felt a chill on the back of his neck, and the hairs on the back of his ears stood up without warning. A cold feeling instantly spread throughout his body.
Of course, he wasn't the only one who felt a chill down his neck. The others behind him fell silent, their breathing becoming shallower than usual, all acting with extreme caution, barely daring to breathe.
The entrance to the sunken cell was very narrow and low, almost reaching only to Lu Bing's ribs. He had to bend over to enter, and he reminded Zhou Yaren to lower her head and bend over.
A strange, indescribable stench wafted from the death row, mixed with an unusually stale, putrid, and fishy odor. The further one went in, the stronger the smell became.
Several people raised their hands to cover their mouths and noses. Lu Bing frowned and said, "This smell is too suffocating."
Inside were cells enclosed by wooden bars. Some cell doors were open, while others were still chained shut. The cells were covered with a mess of straw, almost mixed with mud.
The ground was damp, and the soil was even somewhat loose underfoot, as if it had been soaked in water. In fact, this was exactly the case. The death row was located in a low-lying area, and rainwater had been accumulating and soaking the ground for many years, causing moss to grow in the soil, the wood to mold, the iron locks to rust, and a foul stench to emanate from the cold and damp environment.
The cold, damp air enveloped them, quickly consuming their body heat. The further they walked, the colder it became, giving them the illusion of being in an ice cellar.
Just then, they heard a faint sound—a clicking sound, almost imperceptible.
Everyone pricked up their ears and held their breath.
That sound—click, click.
In the darkness where no light could reach—click, click.
The two constables, who were escorting the bound Qin San, suddenly froze, unable to move, because the cracking sound they heard was increasingly like the sound of bones being chewed.
Lu Bing also paused.
"I'll go over there." Zhou Yaren's voice was very soft as she walked straight past Lu Bing, her steps barely making a sound.
Lu Bing didn't have time to stop the person who passed by. He took a few big steps to catch up, and his last step landed on something with a creaking sound. The clattering sounds in front of him stopped abruptly.
Lu Bing thought to himself, "Oh no, I've alerted them!" Without thinking twice, he decided to strike first: "Sun Xiuniang!"
Suddenly, two tiny, greenish-green will-o'-the-wisps appeared in the depths of the darkness. Lu Bing was startled and immediately realized that they were cat's eyes.
The cat's eyes emitted a chilling green light, exuding a sinister and menacing aura. When they met, it felt like the eyes of a dead man staring at him, sending shivers down Lu Bing's spine. Even more terrifying, as Lu Bing took a few large steps forward, the lantern in his hand illuminated the black cat. It was carrying half a human hand in its mouth, its body lying in the damp, black mud it had dug up, and its paws were resting on a skull…
Lu Bing's eyes widened in horror, as if he had seen a ghost.
"It it it it..." Hei Zi stammered in fright.
"Eat, eat, eat, eat..." The other person also stammered.
The two stutterers actually meant to say, "It digs people up from the ground and eats them."
Qin San was so frightened by the scene that he dared not move.
The wildcat glared angrily at the group, its fur standing on end. It opened its mouth wide, letting out a terrifying meow, and the bone it was carrying fell to the ground with a "thud."
Lu Bing couldn't help but ask, "Could this little beast be the legendary cat demon?!"
"A cat demon?" Zhou Yaren commented, staring at the pair of glowing green cat eyes. "That's quite fitting."
Zhou Yaren took a step forward. What he could see, even if it wasn't a ghost, was almost indistinguishable from one. When he saw those green eyes earlier, he had some guesses: "This cat must have stayed here all the time, scavenging corpses year after year, so it's covered in a heavy corpse aura, which is why its eyes have a sinister green color."
"Really..." Lu Bing sighed inwardly, then gasped, gleaning a few key words from the other person's words: "Always? All year round? You mean..." Lu Bing swallowed hard, "But this is a government office, not a graveyard. Where would they find dead people to feed them?!"
But isn't that cat eating right now?
Lu Bing was speechless. Under normal circumstances, how could there be corpses in the government office? Where did the corpses come from? Even if it was abandoned, there shouldn't be any dead people there, right? Even if we take a step back and assume there might be one or two corpses in the death row that weren't cleared out back then, if this stray cat was to eat them year after year, it couldn't just be one or two corpses.
Lu Bing felt a tightness in his heart and turned to look at the unusually sinister wild cat. As Zhou Yaren stepped closer to it, the wild cat suddenly revealed its sharp claws and raised its back like a bow stretched to its limit.
Zhou Yaren took another step closer, a distance that seemed to infringe upon its safe territory. The wildcat suddenly leaped up, its sharp claws drawing a sharp arc in the air, and pounced on Zhou Yaren.
With a "sizzle," sharp claws scratched viciously at the raised white cane, producing a teeth-grinding screech, and the bamboo cane was torn in several places.
The wildcat missed its attack, let out a meow, and lunged at his throat with lightning speed, its fangs snapping. Zhou Yaren neither retreated nor dodged; in a split second, he raised his hand, his long fingers precisely gripping the wildcat's slender throat. With just a little force, the cat would be suffocated in his grasp. But Zhou Yaren hesitated for a moment, for he had just met the wildcat's ferocious eyes, burning like will-o'-the-wisps. Even as a blind man, he found them piercing. Zhou Yaren averted his gaze.
It must be glaringly menacing, right?
The wildcat let out a pitiful cry in his ear, and took advantage of the loosening of the grip to scratch the back of his hand hard. Then it broke free of the restraints, darted out of his grasp like lightning, kicked the wooden door of the cell, and used the head of the black man standing a few steps away as a stepping stone.
Hei Zi yelled and swung his arms wildly to shoo the cat away, but the wild cat had already darted into the shadows like a whirlwind, and he didn't manage to catch a single hair.
"You little beast." The lingering pain in his neck reminded Lu Bing of the grudge he had with that cat. He drew his knife to chase after it, but Zhou Yaren stopped him. "Don't chase it. That's not an ordinary wild cat."
The wildcat was small in size, but very cunning and agile. Lu Bing might not be able to catch it and could even be led into danger by it.
Lu Bing felt his blood run cold. That beast chewing on dead bones said, "Could it really have become a spirit?"
Zhou Yaren didn't respond, but instead changed the subject and asked, "What did you step on just now?"
Lu Bing lowered his head as he spoke, and upon seeing a human bone at his feet, he jolted awake, leaping back with a swift motion, his back slamming against the cell door with a dull thud. Before he could even cry out, his two attentive subordinates began shouting for him, their voices rising and falling in unison:
"Mom..."
“Father…”
"Third maternal uncle..."
“Oh, my God of Hell grandpa…”
Upon hearing the words "Grandpa Prison God," Kuroko suddenly felt a sliver of divine comfort. Wasn't this the Prison God's jurisdiction? He immediately echoed the other's words, "Grandpa Prison God, please protect us..."
He turned around halfway through his reading and saw his friend hugging a statue of the God of Hell: "Grandpa...Grandpa God of Hell...what are you doing here?"
The person in question probably hadn't realized what he'd just done yet, and turned to ask, "Where...where...where?"
Hei Zi pointed tremblingly to his chest: "You...you...you're holding me."
"I...I...Am I holding it?" He turned around blankly, looked into his arms, and trembled as he met the ashen-faced statue. He almost cried.
It really is Grandpa Prison God! He said he just blurted it out without thinking, but it turns out he saw it with his own eyes.
Kuroko said, "No...no...that's not right."
"Where...where...what's wrong?"
These two stutterers probably won't get better.
"How...how could Grandpa Prison God be here?"
"Yes...yes?" The constable was also somewhat puzzled. "Shouldn't the God of Hell be...enshrined in the Temple of the God of Hell outside?"
"Yes...yes...it was being worshipped outside just now, wasn't it?"
"Could it be... that the God of Hell has appeared to us?"
Listening to their trembling conversation, Lu Bing forced himself to calm his wildly beating heartbeat and stop it from pounding wildly.
Logically speaking, Lu Bing had worked in the yamen for so many years and had handled several minor murder cases. He had seen corpses before, so he shouldn't be so timid. His heart pounded wildly at the sight of human bones, and he jumped three feet high—not manly at all. But perhaps it was because of the special nature of this place that this haunted yamen seemed to amplify people's fear and panic to an infinite degree.
While the others were filled with terror, Zhou Yaren moved to the wall and felt around on the blue bricks for a while. Her fingertips slowly touched the shrine on the wall. Just as she was about to touch the statue, the yamen runner who had been holding the statue suddenly realized what was happening and let go. Then, she put her hands together in prayer and murmured, "Grandpa Prison God, please don't be offended..."
However, the yamen runner's lunge had knocked the statue of the prison god off course by half an inch, and Zhou Yaren then saw some faint silver-gray scattered at her feet.
He squatted down, rubbed a little soil between his fingers, then held it to his nose and sniffed: "There's talisman ash mixed in with the soil."
Lu Bing quickly squatted down: "What do you mean?"
“Lu Bing,” Zhou Yaren looked up, “I would like to trouble you to turn over the soil here.”
The other two constables were taken aback: "What?" "Turning over the soil?"
“Hmm,” Zhou Yaren said, “It is obvious that there are remains hidden in the soil, but we don’t know how many.”
A note from the author:
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