The night when the downpour returned.
The paper-mache figures of boys and girls on the shelf all face the shrine.
In the stroller on the top shelf, there was a paper baby folded from my birth date and time.
Yuan Ying looked at the baby's handprint on the back of her neck in the mirror and suddenly sneered.
"It turns out that the Half-Immortal was the real mastermind, and Bald Old Third was just a pawn. What he really wanted was to use the Reincarnation Soul to open the Yin Gate and let the lonely souls in the mass grave use our bodies to return to life."
At this moment, Xiuxiu suddenly woke up from her coma and pointed to the old locust tree outside the window.
"Grandpa, Master Yuan, the locust tree is bleeding!"
When we rushed out, we saw that the blood droplets seeping from the tree trunk had drawn the outline of the Fetal Soul Jar on the bark.
"Get out of the way!"
Yuan Ying pushed me aside and stuck the peach wood sword into the locust tree.
The sword vibrated violently, emitting a buzzing sound similar to a baby crying.
A yellowed notebook fell out of the tree hole.
Turning to the last page, it read in blood: "The fortune teller said that on the forty-ninth day, Chen Yan will become a paper effigy of a child boy, Xiu Xiu will become a vessel for a fetal soul, and I..."
The writing was smeared here, leaving only a blurry outline of a baby.
There were countless paper figures drawn on the side, each with a different birth date and time pasted on its chest.
Amidst the thunder, the eternal lamps in front of the shrine suddenly went out.
In the darkness, I heard the sound of paper stroller wheels approaching from afar and stopping at the shop entrance.
The moment Yuan Ying struck the match, I saw three figures reflected in the bowl of water on the threshold.
A man pushing a stroller, a woman holding a paper baby, and a child standing in the middle.
"Yingniang, the water in the bowl..."
Before I could finish speaking, the match went out.
When the fire was lit again, Yuan Ying had already collapsed in front of the shrine.
The tortoise shell broke into three pieces, each engraved with the names "Chen Yan," "Xiu Xiu," and "Ban Xian."
The baby's handprint on the back of her neck has now transformed into a complete image of a fetal soul jar.
Xiuxiu slowly walked towards the paper offering shelf, her fingertips tracing the eye sockets of each child, the blood lines gradually connecting to form a sentence.
"On the night of the seventh day after death, the gates of the underworld open wide, the wheel of reincarnation returns to its place, and ten thousand souls emerge from their coffins."
Outside the window, the branches and leaves of the old locust tree swayed wildly in the downpour, as if trying to drive away something unseen.
I looked at the Soul-Guiding Jade in my hand, on which my name and Xiuxiu's birth date had completely merged.
A tiny shadow of a pottery jar appeared in the center of the jade face, and the red rope around the jar's mouth was slowly untying itself.
This fateful scheme, which began with greed, has finally revealed its most hideous face.
The fortune teller exploited the desires of Bald Old Man San to set up a sinister scheme involving ten lifetimes of reincarnation.
Xiuxiu and I are merely two pieces on the chessboard, keys used to open the gates of darkness.
The jar containing the fetal soul, hidden at the bottom of the well, was now trembling slightly beside the shrine.
Within the black mist overflowing from the jar, countless paper effigy figures could be vaguely seen lining up.
Each little figure has a different birth date and time pasted on its chest.
I looked at the hexagrams that had spontaneously rearranged on the fragments of the tortoise shell.
“Gen represents mountain, Kun represents earth, Yin and Yang clash,” a blatant omen of great misfortune is laid bare before us.
My heart pounded with fear: "Yingniang, this divination looks so ominous, are we really going? What if..."
Before I could finish speaking, Yuan Ying interrupted me.
Yuan Ying gritted her teeth, her expression resolute to the point of being almost resolute.
"We have to go. This situation has come to this point. If we want to break it, we can't be afraid. The Immortal's grave is the key. Our lives, and Xiuxiu's life, are all hanging on this."
I sighed helplessly. At this point, there was truly no turning back.
Judging from Yuan Ying's attitude, not going is definitely not an option.
All I could do was silently pray that nothing went wrong.
The weeds in the mass grave were bending wildly in the wind.
Holding the bone-revealing mirror, Yuan Ying solemnly scanned each bone one by one.
I followed closely behind her, taking each step carefully, afraid of disturbing the "thing" sleeping in this wasteland.
Suddenly, Yuan Ying stopped in front of a deserted grave.
A blank tombstone stood in front of the grave, with the same Li trigram as the one carved on the bottom of the tombstone.
Scattered around were seven paper-mache babies, each with a different year's birth date and time pasted on its chest.
"The half-immortal is not a half-immortal at all; he is a lonely soul trapped in the cycle of reincarnation!"
Yuan Ying suddenly pointed at the tombstone, her voice filled with shock and anger: "Back then, he was cursed with a life-swapping spell. Before his soul was scattered, he sealed his remaining soul in a paper effigy, and every ten years, he would use the greed of the living to restart the cycle of reincarnation."
I crouched down and picked up a paper baby. Upon closer inspection, I discovered that the words "Chen Yan" were carved on its abdomen.
My name stands out starkly against this pale white paper.
Yuan Ying frowned, didn't say anything, and told me to continue digging at the bottom of the grave.
Ten minutes later, I dug out another metal box.
The lid was covered in rust, and Yuan Ying had to use a lot of effort to pry it open.
Inside are fragments of the fortune teller's diary.
I don't know if it's been buried for too long, but it's completely corroded, and it looks like it would crumble into powder at the slightest touch.
Yuan Ying and I leaned closer and, using the dim light of the day, tried to decipher the writing on it.
"In the twentieth year of the Guangxu Emperor's reign, I was tricked by my employer into taking his life. My soul was possessed by a paper effigy, and I obtained a fragment of the 'Forbidden Book of Lu Ban,' from which I comprehended the 'Ten Reincarnations'..."
"We need a person with a deceased destiny to open the gates of the underworld and guide the eight hundred lonely souls from the mass grave back to the living world..."
Upon seeing this, my heart sank. The conspiracy behind this was far more terrifying than we imagined.
So that means that many of Baldy's previous actions were just an act?
Previously, we thought that the reason Baldy Third stole Yunfei's body was because he was being chased by debt collectors and had no other choice.
That's why he harbored evil thoughts and stole the ghost baby to refine it into a 'lucky charm'.
This chapter is not finished yet. Please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
