"It should be him," I said in a deep voice.
This temple must be a small, unknown temple, and it wouldn't have many worshippers.
After all, most villagers are still sober and would avoid such things at all costs.
"Look ahead, there's a temple!" Zhao Jianguo suddenly shouted in a low voice.
Looking in the direction he pointed, we could see through the last sparse grove of trees that a faint, ominous red light emanated from a relatively flat depression on the mountainside.
There should be red lanterns.
We exchanged a glance, turned off our flashlights, and, using the faint daylight, cautiously approached the edge of the woods.
The low-lying temple had walls made of mottled, gray-black earthen blocks, many of which had collapsed.
The roof tiles were incomplete and even overgrown with withered grass, but the two double wooden doors were conspicuously painted a dark red.
It's like a demon with its mouth wide open.
On the small open space in front of the temple, a huge pattern was drawn with a dark white powder, along with a severely distorted Big Dipper constellation.
At the position of the Seven Stars, seven small earthenware oil lamps were lit. The flames were a dark green, burning silently without flickering, as if they were dead, and emitting a strong, nauseating smell of grease.
This is a corpse oil lamp!
In the center of the array was a thin-skinned coffin, its lid tightly sealed with cinnabar thread and yellow talismans, as if to prevent the contents from escaping.
Instantly, Zheng Jianguo's eyes widened in horror. He had a strong premonition that the person lying in that coffin was his father.
We reached further ahead and saw a very simple altar placed directly in front of the array diagram.
There were two pale white candles on the altar, which were also lit. In the middle was an incense burner with five incense sticks inserted, just like the ones in his home, three long and two short.
This bizarre scene sent chills down my spine.
Before the altar, a hunched figure in old dark blue overalls stood with his back to us, gesturing wildly and chanting incantations.
"The Big Dipper, guiding the path to the underworld; calamity, a tether, binding blood relatives; the Seven Stars lend their way, fate hangs in the balance; with corpses as the medium, with blood as the pact, we respectfully invite the Empress to descend, to enjoy this blood offering, to receive this life force, to grant us immortality, and to ascend together to ultimate bliss."
Found him, Lao Liu!
As his incantation grew more rapid, the flames of the seven green oil lamps began to rise abnormally upwards, stretching into ghastly green tongues of fire.
What made us even more uneasy was that a clear creaking sound came from the thin-skinned coffin in the middle, like fingernails scratching the inner wall of the coffin!
"Father, Father!" Zhao Jianguo roared, about to rush out without regard for anything, but Luo Tianhe and I held him down firmly.
"No, are you stupid? If you go out now, aren't you playing right into his hands?! You can die if you want, but don't drag us down with you!" Luo Tianhe sneered, his words extremely harsh, but I knew he was doing it for Zhao Jianguo's own good.
"Don't rush, observe for a while. To put it bluntly, we've already wasted so much time, a few more minutes won't make a difference."
I also tried to dissuade them.
We're in the dark right now, while he's in the light. We need to figure out what he's up to before we make a move. If we rush out like this, we'll lose all our advantage.
Fortunately, Lao Liu didn't notice our commotion at all. He was still muttering to himself when he suddenly grabbed a small bottle from the altar and forcefully splashed the viscous red liquid inside onto the coffin in the center of the array.
At the same time, his face hardened, and he actually chopped off his left index finger.
Now I know whether the finger I found in his room was a human finger or not!
"Pfft!"
Blood gushed out, flowing down his withered palms and dripping onto the edge of the white array at his feet. The blood quickly stained the white powder red upon contact with it.
"Ha ha!"
It is said that the ten fingers are connected to the heart. Old Liu cut off his own finger, but he seemed to feel no pain at all. Instead, he laughed heartily.
"This guy has gone mad," Li Huai exclaimed in astonishment.
The sounds from inside the coffin grew louder, transforming from the scratching of fingernails into a series of loud thuds.
The entire thin-skinned coffin was shaking violently, the coffin lids were being knocked up and down repeatedly, as if the things inside were about to rush out at any moment.
I turned around and glanced at Zheng Jianguo; his eyes were bloodshot.
To be honest, if my grandfather were in the coffin, I would probably be even worse off than him, and I wouldn't be able to suppress my emotions at all.
Fortunately, Zheng Jianguo was in his thirties or forties and wasn't as impulsive as us. After calming down for a while, he finally calmed down.
I had just breathed a sigh of relief when a sudden, fierce gust of wind swept across the ground, whipping up dust and dead leaves that spun wildly in the air.
"Squeak---"
My eyes widened suddenly. The two dark red wooden doors of the dilapidated temple seemed to be blown open by the wind, making a teeth-grinding scraping sound, and then slowly opened a crack big enough for one person to pass through.
With my excellent eyesight, I could vaguely see a strikingly bright red figure standing silently in the darkness inside the temple gate!
It looked like an enlarged version of the sculpture that Lao Liu had previously worshipped, or perhaps like a living thing.
"Welcome the divine presence of the goddess! Please enjoy the blood offerings prepared for you!" Old Liu, as if possessed, ignored the blood gushing from his palms, raised his hands high, and knelt and kowtowed frantically towards the open temple door!
His forehead slammed against the gravel, making a loud thud, and blood flowed freely.
"Bang--- Crash!"
In the center of the array, the lid of the thin-skinned coffin was finally blown off from the inside by a tremendous force, crashing into the rocks next to it and shattering into several pieces!
A figure, standing upright in a bizarre posture that we could never imagine, rose from the coffin.
Zhao Jianguo immediately became extremely excited, "It's my dad, it really is my dad!"
I grabbed his arm tightly. "Your father has turned into a zombie. Don't go near him!"
Zhao Laoshuan's dark blue burial clothes were covered with wet, dark red mud, and his exposed skin was bluish-black, covered with dark lividity and cracks!
His eyes were wide open, but there were no pupils in his eye sockets, only a pale white.
Most horrifyingly, seven thin, jet-black wooden nails were deeply embedded in his vital areas and joints, including his forehead, chest, abdomen, shoulders, and knees.
I was suddenly terrified; I never imagined it would develop to this point.
I've seen plenty of ghosts, but I've hardly ever seen zombies!
This thing is not to be trifled with; if we're not careful, we could all die here.
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