Chapter 1049 Crossing the River
A terrible suspicion formed in everyone's mind. It was the thing that left those footprints... that carried the coffin!
The temple was not big, so Chen Hao quickly walked around it. He was looking for Pang Xiaofeng's body, but unfortunately he couldn't find it, "Chen Hao." Jiang Cheng stretched out his hand to him in a cold voice, "Look at this." "
Chen Hao walked over and took a small thing from Jiang Cheng. It was a rhinoceros horn distributed by the watchman, but the difference was that there were traces of burning on this polished rhinoceros horn.
"I found it on the ground." Jiang Cheng looked at him calmly, "It's right in front of the incense burner."
There is no doubt that the person who burned the rhino horn here last night must be Pang Xiaofeng. He must have encountered something terrible. Holding the rhino horn, Chen Hao looked at the incense burner.
There is only a small half of the incense left in the incense burner, and the incense has long been extinguished.
The candle mentioned by the watchman was also burned out, leaving only an empty candlestick.
At this moment, Jiang Cheng and Chen Hao raised their heads and turned their attention to the statue. The statue was no different from last night, with the same fluttering clothes, but they could see the clues.
Before he could say anything, Yu Chengmu walked over with twirling beard and splayed steps, "You two little brothers also see that there is a problem, right?"
"Although I don't know as much as the old gentleman, this statue is too realistic." Chen Hao replied truthfully.
"Haha, this is not a simple statue of a god, but a specially built ghost altar." Yu Chengmu's voice changed and turned a little sinister. "In other words, this place... is a ghost temple."
"Do you know who the woman above is?" Yu Chengmu looked at Chen Hao and Jiang Cheng with playful eyes, especially Jiang Cheng. He was very interested in this person.
But before he could continue to show off, Jiang Cheng stepped forward. Under the statue was a stone platform, and a curtain made of white cloth surrounded the stone platform.
Jiang Cheng stretched out his hand to lift the white cloth, and Chen Hao's eyes suddenly changed. Countless waves were carved on the stone platform covered by the white cloth. The waves were layered on top of each other, rolling and biting each other. At first glance, they actually looked like people. A boundless feeling, an unstoppable sense of overwhelming power gushed out.
And above the vast expanse of waves, there is a statue of the goddess walking on the waves.
"Empress Dahe." The name immediately appeared in Chen Hao's mind.
Jiang Cheng put down the white cloth and looked up at the statue of the goddess in front of him, "This temple should be called the Dahe Empress Temple. I just don't know what good things the Dahe Empress did for the people in the village, so that the villagers commemorated her with such gratitude. A temple was also built specifically for her.”
Yu Chengmu, who was marginalized, couldn't help it. He was obviously showing off, but no matter how hard he tried, the boy named Jiang pretended, "Haha, little brother Jiang has good eyesight, but it's a pity that you only know one and not the other." Yu Chengmu curled his lips and looked around the temple, "This ghost temple has a strange origin. Judging from the surrounding layout, there must be an expert setting up here to suppress the resentment of this fierce ghost. "
Jiang Cheng really didn't know this, but he looked as usual.
Yu Chengmu looked at him, his eyes narrowed slightly, seemingly seeing through everything, but in fact his heart was pounding. He couldn't see through Jiang Cheng more and more, and he only felt dangerous.
When they learned that the temple was dedicated to ghosts, everyone's expressions suddenly brightened.
Following the strange footprints, everyone left the mansion. The first priority was to find the whereabouts of the coffin, and preferably Pang Xiaofeng's body. But as they walked, everyone found that the village was surprisingly quiet, as if the entire village had disappeared. , this is not a good sign.
And the direction the footprints lead to is actually the direction where the gong sounds.
When they heard the third gong, they climbed over a relatively high mound, and their vision suddenly opened up. A large river appeared in front of them, and hundreds of people gathered densely on the river bank.
Judging by the way he is dressed, he looks like a villager who has disappeared from the village.
Seven coffins were neatly placed on the river bank. The lids of the coffins were lifted aside, and the bodies inside were missing.
The old man they had seen last night was holding a black gong in his hand and standing in front of the coffin. Because he was far away, his expression could not be seen clearly.
There were people in the crowd wearing white mourning clothes kneeling down not far from the coffin. A cold and damp wind blew, and a woman's low and hoarse cry could be heard faintly, as if she was crying in mourning.
The group of people approached and were discovered. The old man was holding a gong and walked over with the help of a young man. His steps were trembling. After seeing Jiang Cheng and the others, his emotions could no longer be restrained. "Dear masters, Our village is sorry for you, one of your masters lost his life for nothing!”
Zhang Junyu frowned when he heard this. He looked around for a week and didn't see Pang Xiaofeng's body. He couldn't help asking, "How did you know that one of us was dead?"
Was there anyone else in the house besides them last night?
The night watchman?
The old man's eyes were red and his voice was hoarse: "Masters, see for yourselves." The old man turned sideways and pointed to the river with his fingers, which were trembling.
The river surface is very wide, and the entire river surface has a vague black color, and the visibility is very poor. The position of the old man's finger is close to the middle of the river, where there is an inconspicuous vortex.
And inside the whirlpool, something was floating and sinking.
Holding his breath and looking intently, Du Moyu, who had good eyesight, suddenly frowned. He saw a pale and bloodless face, "It's Xiaofeng!"
"Yes, he is one of you masters." The old man looked very guilty and couldn't help but sigh, "I only heard about it this morning, and I hurried over after that."
"Who discovered the body first?" Yu Chengmu looked at the old man.
The old man waved to a shirtless man with a dark complexion and introduced him to everyone, "That's him. You can call him... just call him Su Da."
"Su Da." Yu Chengmu said, "When did you find the body."
"When it was dawn, I saw something floating in the whirlpool. Then I took a closer look and saw that it was a person." Su Da looked very honest and his voice was muffled.
Zhou Qing sneered, "It's just dawn, what are you doing here at the river? Also, now that it's broad daylight, we can barely see the body clearly. Tell me, how did you see clearly at dawn?"
Seeing this, the old man explained: "Masters, don't be angry. It's like this. Su Da is arranged by the village. Every day at dawn, we have to arrange for people to come to the river to patrol. Today it happens to be his turn."
Having said this, a hint of bitterness appeared on the old man's face, and he sighed deeply, "You masters are the benefactors of our village. I dare not hide it from you. During this time, people have disappeared from time to time in the village at night, but as long as they are missing, Soon the bodies would surface in the river, and every time they were there."
The old man glanced at the river with some fear, and whispered: "It's...it's the whirlpool you saw."
"Is the corpse in the coffin too?" Du Moyu asked.
The old man nodded, "Yes, both."
Chen Hao looked around, looked away and said to the old man: "Are these villagers still okay here? If they are okay, let them go back. We still have some things to ask you about."
The old man looked at Su Da, "You have heard what the masters said, go and ask them all to go back." Before Su Da could leave, the old man stopped him again, "Wait, tell them, don't worry. As long as the masters are here, nothing will happen to the village!"
Su Da nodded his head and agreed angrily.
But this last sentence made Jiang Cheng and others frown. What do you mean that everything will be fine as long as we are in the village? If you don't want to kill the people in your village, why don't you kill us instead?
Everyone knows in their hearts that most of them will be scapegoated again this time.
The top priority now is to find out what happened in the village, and what the relationship between the evil ghost and the village is.
When everyone was almost gone, Yu Chengmu smiled and took the old man's hand and asked in a long voice: "Village chief, the temple where we went to watch the night last night...who is it worshiping?"
Yu Chengmu clearly felt that the old man's hand shook.
Yu Chengmu's hand clenched tighter, not giving him a chance to escape at all. The face like withered tree bark came close to him with a smile on his face, but his two eyes were fixed on the old man's face. After a second, he suddenly said: "It's Empress Dahe, right?"
"Ah!" When the old man heard these words, he was so frightened that he dropped the gong in his hand and the blood drained from his face.
After reacting, the old man's legs softened and he knelt on the ground. He said in a crying voice: "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Masters, I didn't mean to hide it from you. I really... I really didn't dare. Let me tell you, in the past, the masters we hired would stay away as soon as they heard this name, and they wouldn’t come even if we paid them.”
Lei Mingyu was so angry that he raised his leg and was kicked to the ground by the old man, "If others don't want to come, you just trick us into coming. You old man, your life is life, but our life is not life, right?" !”
Worried that Lei Mingyu would do more things, Du Moyu stepped forward and pulled him behind. Lei Mingning stared at the old man with eyes wide open, with a strong aura that if you don't tell the truth today, I will throw you into the river.
Jiang Cheng was done with his calculations, and stepped forward to help the old man up and dust him off, "We don't need to pursue the previous matters, but now you have to explain to us clearly what happened to this Dahe Empress, and What does the weird thing in the village have to do with it?"
The old man was kicked so hard by Lei Mingyu that he couldn't breathe. He sat on a big stone and calmed down for a long time before finally speaking: "You are right, that temple is called... it is called Dahe Empress Temple. It is what we built for the Wu family." Built by the eldest lady.”
"That house, the one you lived in last night, was the former Wu family mansion."
"It's a long story." The old man shook his head slightly, his eyes slowly becoming blank, "You may not believe it, but 10 years ago, our village was the richest village nearby. The village is backed by mountains, and most importantly, it is... Next to this crossing river, which is called the lifeblood.”
"But suddenly late one night, the Dushui River swelled wildly. The water broke down the river embankment and poured into the village. Many people drowned, and many others were swept away by the river. Even their bodies could not be found."
"Originally, we thought it was because the river embankment was in disrepair, so we started to strengthen the river embankment. This kind of thing has never happened since the village was founded. We just thought it was due to bad age."
"I didn't expect that this was just the beginning." The old man's voice rose and fell, and his expression became frightened. "As the flood passed, more and more strange things happened in the village. The Dushui River, which originally had a lot of fish, suddenly , Can’t even catch a fish.”
"Some people didn't believe in evil, so they contacted more than a dozen fishing boats and jointly set up a giant net to see what was going on in the water."
"But after waiting for a long time, there was no movement at all."
"Seeing that the sun was about to set, everyone was about to pull the net up, but when they pulled it, they found something was wrong. The net was very heavy, very heavy, as if it had hooked something under the water."
"We often catch fish in the river, and everyone has experience. No matter how hard you pull on something under the water, it won't budge. It must be a dead thing, and it's very big."
"Experienced old people analyzed that it may be that after the flood, the river bed was washed away, exposing a strange-looking large stone, which caught the fishing net."
"With that said, no one dared to pull the fishing net forcefully. After all, the fishing net is used for food, and it would be serious if it was broken. So someone suggested that while it was still dark, we could go down alone and feel the situation underwater."
"A man with good water skills volunteered, took off his clothes, and plunged in with his spear."
"He went down for a long time, so long that everyone was worried that he was in danger, but with a series of blisters, the man finally emerged from the water."
"According to the man, the net got tangled up in a large rock underwater and he couldn't handle it alone."
"After figuring out the situation, two more men took off their clothes and went into the water without saying a word. But after a while, three people surfaced one after another, urging a few more people to come in. The situation under the water was worse than imagined. Be complicated.”
"It was already half dark at this time. The old man in charge on the boat looked at the sun with only its last rays left, and had an ominous premonition in his heart. Even though the people in the village grew up by the river, as long as the sun sets, there will be no There will be people going into the river, that’s the rule.”
"But some people were reluctant to part with their own fishing nets. They planned to seize the opportunity to take back the nets while it was still dark. All they had to do was move quickly. So they didn't listen to the old man's stop and jumped in with four more people."
"This time, seven people came up, and then others went down to help, right?" Hearing this, Du Moyu had already roughly guessed the next direction of the matter.
The old man nodded with a painful expression, "Yes, that's the case, but this time, it's completely dark, and the people who stayed on the boat also realized that something was wrong."
"They refused to go into the water. Those who still want to be in the water should hurry up and get on the boat. We will wait until dawn tomorrow to get fishing nets and other things."