Chapter Fifty-Two: The Gathering After

  The old three panicked and ran back at the same time, those long glass jars with corpses kept their eyes on the old three all the way to the door.

  Xiao Lao seemed to have also discovered the issue, saying in a low voice: "There's something wrong with these corpses. Their eyes keep following the intruders. Be careful, they might crawl out of their jars, who knows what will happen." Xiao Lao's voice became very hoarse, possibly due to speaking in a lowered tone.

  "I'm afraid it's not that simple. I feel like this place is some kind of laboratory, and someone is using these people to conduct some sort of experiment." Fu Ma said with a furrowed brow.

  "I...I think we should leave, one less thing is better than one more thing, this place seems to have nothing to do with the main hall." Karamay said shakily, his whole body covered in cold sweat, as if he was very resistant to this place.

  I suddenly felt a bit ridiculous, someone who wasn't even afraid of the King of Water Leeches would be afraid of a bunch of corpses soaking in jars. "Let's just go take a look, since we're already here, and besides, didn't the lights used to be on? We pushed open the door and they went out, I bet there's definitely someone inside." I said seriously, walking straight in.

  "Maybe we can find out what happened to Zi Han." Yang Cangcang said as she followed me in.

  Xiao Lao and Karamay followed closely behind us, Old Three hiding behind Karamay's back, occasionally poking his head out to glance at the heart on the table. The heads of hundreds of corpses in this house all turned with our direction, staring at us with wide eyes that didn't blink once, almost as if they were dead-set on staring us down. If my heart hadn't become somewhat stronger along the way, this scene would have been enough to keep me bedridden for half a month.

  The room was quiet, except for the sound of our footsteps and breathing, and the thumping sound of the bloody heart on the table.

  "How...how can this thing keep jumping like this?" Lao San asked in a trembling voice.

  Yang Cangcang said impatiently: "You're a big man, are you scared like this?"

  "My goodness, this is a person's heart......" Lao San trailed off in discontent.

  "What's wrong with your heart? You're not afraid, what are you scared of? Why aren't others afraid?" Yang Cangcang looked at him with disdain.

  Lao San muttered under his breath: "How come they're not afraid, it's just that they pretend to be fearless, the people of the Xuan clan are definitely all cold-blooded animals."

  Fu Ma walked up to my ear and whispered, "Jun Yang, there must be someone in this house, but I don't know where they're hiding. They might even be hiding among these corpses. The heart on the table is definitely freshly removed, let's be careful."

  I nodded, scanning each of the corpses. They were a mix of men and women, all modern people in their twenties or so, judging by their clothing styles which were recently popular. I concluded that these people must have been captured recently. It was clear that they weren't being used to make Blue Demons. Looking at these innocent people, my anger grew. Whatever the purpose, it wasn't right to sacrifice so many lives.

  Xiao Lao looked around and said to us: "These corpses seem to have no hearts, take a closer look."

  At the reminder of Old Xiao, I carefully examined the chest area of each body. Some corpses had their chests covered by clothing and couldn't be seen, while some male corpses were topless, with a circular hole neatly cut open at the center of their chest, empty inside.

  Lao San was pacing back and forth in front of a female corpse, the corpse's head always following his direction. Lao San plucked up the courage to say: "You're always staring at me, aren't you... aren't you tired? I like Cang Cang, not you."

  Yang Cangcang gave him a white eye and didn't speak, while Lao San muttered: "You look again, look again, if you look again, I'll drink you away."

  Yang Cangcang said with a black line all over her face: "You drink one and let me see." Lao San's face turned red, and he quickly hid behind Kelamayi, no longer speaking.

  Fu Ma in the innermost room of the secret chamber beckoned us over and said: "Come quickly, look at this."

  We rushed over, and the secret room was an irregular rectangle. On both sides of the wall were rows of glass jars filled with corpses, a stone table in the middle, and at the end of the wall, there was nothing but some faintly visible words.

  I leaned in closer, and with the faint light of my flashlight, I carefully examined it for a long time. There were many murals carved on this stone wall, the painting was very rough, looking like they were done hastily. I didn't quite understand, but it seemed to be some kind of sacrificial steps.

  Xiao Lao carefully felt the engraving on the painting with his hands, occasionally using his fingers to explore the edges of the painting. He said to us: "This painting has a long history, judging from these engravings, it's at least several thousand years old, or even tens of thousands of years."

  "This painting is quite rough, and it's a big difference from the murals in that palace before. The people on it are all drawn like matchsticks." I said.

  "It might be a simple drawing done by some kid who lived here before, what are you guys still studying?" Lao San said with a tone of disdain.

  "I don't think so," said Fu Ma. "These few paintings are quite coherent, possibly the person who left these paintings was in a hurry when he painted them."

  "What's so important that he must draw it? Old Xiao, did you understand what this means? I don't get it." I asked Old Xiao.

  Xiao Lao studied it carefully for half a day, and slowly said: "This should be some kind of sacrificial ritual, these few...". Xiao Lao pointed to the paintings below, "should be expressing the tribesmen selecting offerings, presenting them to their leader, the one sitting on the right is the leader, the one in front should be the high priest, personally offering the sacrifices to their gods."

  "Are you saying their god has three persons?" Lao San looked at the mural in front of him, where three matchstick men were holding something in their hands, with a crowd of matchstick men kneeling on the ground and worshiping them. "I saw this painting and couldn't help but laugh, it looks just like the characters from a comic book, and they're all twisted and turned, look at this guy, he even forgot to draw his legs." Lao San said with a chuckle.

  "Three gods? Didn't ancient tribes usually worship just one god?" Fu Ma interjected.

  "What if it's just a god, and this god has three heads and six arms?" Karamay's face was extremely serious.

  As soon as he said that, my heart skipped a beat. Could it be the three-headed and six-armed goddess statue that appeared in my dream? This simple drawing is too rough to express it, so I only drew three people standing side by side.

  "You look ridiculous, but the person being sacrificed probably has nowhere to cry. This person is not unfinished, but rather made as an offering to the gods." Old Master Xiao said with a serious face, "This sacrifice is very complicated, human limbs are just for show, the most important thing is the heart."

  "Heart?" Old Three was shocked, and immediately glanced at the table. The bloody heart on it had stopped beating, changing from bright red to dark red. Old Three's whole body trembled.

  "Could it be that..." Fan Ma said halfway, and started sweating coldly.

  Xiao nodded: "This should be where the sacrificial ritual was used to take out the heart, someone wants to retry this ancient ritual."

  "Is this the ritual of the ancient country of Daiyuan? Or was it like this when Shang Huang was in power? No wonder the country would perish." Yang Cangcang gave me a sideways glance, making me extremely embarrassed, as if I were not Shang Huang.

  "I'm afraid not. I remember an old book mentioning that this kind of ritual to offer sacrifices to the gods is a dark and sinister art. A monarch like Shang Huang would not do such a thing. This must be the doing of some evil organization, their totem is the human heart, and the purpose of the sacrifice is to summon something, but I don't know any more than that."

  "I think we've gotten ourselves into a big conspiracy." Lao San said woodenly, "These can't be the remains of people from ten thousand years ago, this conspiracy must not be small."

  Suddenly, a sly laugh came from the corner of the secret room, startling us. In the corner of the secret room, there was a stone vat that looked similar to the one used by the Blue Demon, except this one was made of stone and blended in with the color of the stone wall, so we didn't notice it at first.

  "Who's laughing over there? It sounds so ugly." Lao San said disdainfully beside me. The room was quiet, except for the urgent sound of our breathing, there was no other sound.

  Lao San looked at Fu Ma, and Fu Ma shook his head, indicating that there was no heartbeat, and he shouldn't be a normal living person.

  Karamay made a hushing gesture towards us, and quietly walked towards the jar. We followed behind him, and only when we reached the jar did we discover that it had a stone lid on top. Karamay exchanged a glance with Old Three, who immediately understood what to do. He slowly raised his chopper, while Karamay placed both hands on the lid and pulled upwards with all his might. Just as Old Three was about to swing his chopper down, Karamay surprisingly couldn't budge the lid.

  Fu Ma also ran over to help, he and Kelamayi pulled the lid with all their might, their faces flushed red, but the lid seemed to be stuck on the jar, no matter how hard they pulled, it didn't budge. Seeing this, I, Ceng Ceng and Xiao Lao went over to help together, but the result was still the same.

  Suddenly, the sound of shattering glass came from inside the house. I shone my flashlight and saw that one of the glass jars near us had shattered, spilling water all over the floor. The male corpse inside came into contact with the air and rapidly turned black all over its body. Several inches of black fur quickly grew out, and its fingernails and teeth were also changing. Its eyes stared at us lifelessly, letting out a low growl like a wolf's.

  "Hei... hei jiang!" Xiao Lao Da exclaimed in surprise.

  "He's just a black goon, I've seen him before. Watch me take him down." Lao San was much calmer now.

  The dark corpse slowly walked towards us, Old Three swiftly rushed to its front, the dark corpse's movements were somewhat slow, Old Three seized the opportunity, swung his sword and chopped off the dark corpse's head, and proudly winked at us.

  That black stiff just fell to the ground, and a row of glass on our left side shattered one after another, at least hundreds of them. The corpses inside all turned into zombies like that male corpse just now.

  "Can you get rid of all these dark creatures in this house?" Yang Cangcang's voice was laced with a hint of fear.

  A sly laugh came from the stone vat, "Zhou Junyang, I advise you not to fight in vain, leave this secret room early, we will meet again." A hollow voice echoed above the house, "We'll meet again someday."