Bai Shuo noticed Ah Li's reaction of feeling cold and stepped back a little.
Ah Li sat up at this moment. Without looking at Bai Shuo, she said, "Let's go up the mountain and take a look."
Bai Shuo nodded and said, "Okay."
Ahri was the first to go out.
Bai Shuo watched Ah Li's retreating figure, then raised his hand and waved it, causing the small Western-style building to dissipate into a cloud of ghostly energy.
Ahri didn't look back; she headed towards the mountain path.
At this moment, there was no sign of any monsters appearing in the vicinity last night. Everything around was just like it had been during the day yesterday, with some houses still having faint lights on.
At this time, the villagers were still asleep and it was very quiet.
There was still thick fog and some damp, cold air in the mountains.
Ahri held a wooden stick in her hand and occasionally hit the surrounding bushes.
Soon, Ah Li discovered the large bridal sedan chair that had been carried up the mountain the day before.
Du Nan and Ming Yu were lying nearby, their fate unknown. The other sedan bearers were not there.
The bride inside the bridal sedan chair was nowhere to be found, and there were signs of a struggle inside.
Ahri walked towards Du Nan and nudged him, trying to wake him up.
Mingyu was the first to wake up. He shook his head and said, "We were ambushed, and the brides and the other sedan chair bearers are all gone."
Ahri looked at Mingyu, "Did they all run away on their own?"
Mingyu sat up at this moment, leaning against the sedan chair, rubbing the back of his head, and said, "I don't know, Du Nan and I were hit on the head with a club and passed out."
Bai Shuo then looked in another direction, where a monkey that was entirely white appeared. It was holding a cane that was wider at the top and narrower at the bottom, with a red ribbon tied to it. It picked up the cane and pointed it into the distance.
Ah Li looked at the white monkey with great confusion, and Bai Shuo said, "This is the mountain god of this mountain."
Mingyu looked at the white monkey in shock, "Is this the mountain god?"
Du Nan then slowly woke up and said, "So, it wasn't the mountain god taking a bride at all; it was the villagers who kidnapped the twelve brides and took them to another place."
Before Du Nan was knocked unconscious last night, he saw that besides the sedan chair bearers, there were other villagers who dragged the brides out of the sedan chairs and took them away.
Mingyu stood up and shouted, "Let's go find them!"
At this moment, Bai Shuo walked to Ah Li's side and said, "There really is a mountain god in this world, just like this white monkey in front of us. It doesn't need the villagers to marry it off, but the villagers found an excuse to sell the chosen girls for money."
Mingyu looked at Bai Shuo in shock, and Du Nan followed suit.
Du Nan added, "Hey, is it really okay for you to just blurt out the answer without even trying to hide it from us?"
Bai Shuo just looked at Ah Li and said, "Anyway, you can guess what happened. I'm just doing a favor."
Last night, Bai Shuo deliberately revealed his true form in front of Ah Li.
He wanted to see if Ahri would be afraid of him.
However, when Ah Li went up the mountain by herself today, Bai Shuo thought: She must be scared too, so she didn't want his help.
Should he continue to follow her and appear in front of her?
From the very first moment he appeared before her, was she truly never afraid?
The two men in front of me were normal people; they had warm bodies and beating hearts. But he had nothing—just a skeleton.
Perhaps she doesn't like having a cold, aloof version of herself by her side.
Thinking of this, Bai Shuo wanted to tell Ah Li the answer as soon as possible so that they could leave this world sooner.
He will remember for the rest of his life that someone once led him out of the darkest place and buried him with their own hands.
Unfortunately, they were from different worlds.
Soon, Du Nan, Ming Yu, and Ali found the brides who were tied up in a cave. Their hands and feet were bound, and their mouths were gagged.
At this point, all the villagers had gone home, and no one was left to watch over them.
Du Nan and Ming Yu quickly went up to untie them, and the brides all knelt down. They said, "Thank you so much, otherwise those people said that the buyer would come up the mountain today and take us all away."
Mingyu and Du Nan took two steps back, avoiding the direction in which the women were kneeling.
Du Nan then asked, "So, are you going back to the village?"
The twelve brides shook their heads in unison, “We won’t go back. Even if we go back and tell the truth, no one will believe us. They might even think that we made it up because we didn’t want to marry the mountain god.”
Because they discovered last night that the village chief was among those people.
Although the village chief did not appear at the beginning.
However, when they were outside negotiating with others about when to pay the money and when they would hand over the person, they saw the village chief.
In their village, the village chief's word is worth more than a thousand words from others. To put it bluntly, the village chief is like a local tyrant in their village.
At that moment, a torrential downpour suddenly began outside the cave, as if a careless god had opened the floodgates of the sky, and the rain poured down.
There was also thunder rumbling, like the beating of war drums, which was awe-inspiring.
The white monkey stood outside the cave, holding a cane, with other birds and beasts behind it.
Mingyu didn't quite understand what the white monkey meant, so he asked, "Where are they going with this heavy rain?"
Bai Shuo then spoke up: "The mountain god is very angry and disappointed with what those people have done. It will lead the creatures of the mountain away from here. This rainstorm will last for a long time, and there will be landslides and mudslides."
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