Yin Shou Shu

Chapter 260 Eyes

The spirit mediums who used to make a living by exorcising evil spirits found their ancestral altars occupied by vengeful ghosts after their deaths, turning them into their ghostly dwellings.

This situation left the three people present with mixed feelings.

Little Cotton followed along, looking around blankly.

She reverted to her foolish and stupid self, her human side completely disappearing.

But Ran Qing and the other two were used to Xiao Mianhua's occasional dazedness and didn't pay much attention to it.

Ran Qing looked at the empty shrine beneath the tablets for Heaven, Earth, Ruler, Parents, and Teacher, and said, "That's just a shelf for displaying the tablets."

Before Auntie Er found the method of refining ghosts in a vat, the memorial tablets of the past masters of the spirit mediums were all enshrined on the altar.

Only Auntie Er and Auntie Liu would place the memorial tablets of past masters in the large vat, because there were too many dead faces in the vat, and the memorial tablets of past masters were needed to suppress them.

Mo Li said with a strange expression, "But the most important question now is... why is it the ghost house of the senior Yin-walker?"

"Don't forget where we came from!"

Mo Li asked seriously, "Why would a senior Yin-walking expert set up a Yin altar in the Cat Temple deep in Old Wang Mountain?"

"Now the area around the Cat Temple is a desolate wilderness, a place where even birds don't bother. Hundreds of years ago, this place would have been even more desolate, an absolute primeval forest rarely visited by humans."

"Why would this senior spirit medium set up an altar in the mountains?"

When a person seeking to circumvent the dead opens an altar in the mortal realm, convenience is naturally their primary consideration.

If Ran Qing places his burial site deep in the mountains and forests, making it difficult to even travel back and forth... then what is his motive?
Long Zongshu asked curiously, "Perhaps the feng shui of this place is so good that they chose to build a tomb here?"

Mo Li shook his head: "The people who perform rituals to clear the underworld don't consider feng shui when they set up altars. Even if the feng shui is good, it won't help to set up an altar there."

"Anyway, after opening the Yin Altar, going down there is the same thing as going deep into the Wujiang Ghost Realm."

"This old master of spirit walking actually runs a tomb deep in the mountains and forests, it's very strange..."

Mo Li's words made Ran Qing frown.

Because this matter is indeed very strange.

The towering tree in the Cat Temple may have existed for hundreds or even thousands of years.

Because it has lived for too long and may even possess demonic energy, it will lure and kill any living creatures that come near it in the mountains.

The scene seen when the Life Master card is cursed is that countless corpses of living people and animals are buried underground. Those are the unfortunate souls who were killed by the demon tree over the long years.

This kind of demonic tree can gather evil energy, making it easier for some animals in the mountains to become spirits and gain power.

Hundreds of years ago, evil spirits roamed Laowang Mountain, and the imperial court needed to build a cat temple to suppress them. The reason for erecting a righteous god here may be this demonic tree.

The Cat Temple suppressed the demon tree, and the demon tree is now dead.

That's why it was possessed by a ghost, and then a group of foxes squeezed in to build their nest.

But before the ghost could infiltrate and possess it, a senior spirit medium was setting up an altar here...

So, was the ancestral altar opened before the Cat Temple was built, or after it was built?
Why choose this particular spot?
Ran Qing looked at Mo Li and Long Zongshu and said, "It seems that the arrest of the corpse-driving Taoist Liu Fang was not an accident..."

The slovenly old Taoist priest talks nonsense and loves to boast and is vain.

From the very beginning, they revealed that there was an ancient Miao king's tomb in the mountains, and even suspected that Ran Qing and the others were also looking for the tomb.

Mo Li looked at the burial site and said, "I agree... This place might really be the entrance to the tomb of the ancient Miao king."

The only reason a seasoned veteran of the spirit world would secretly open a spirit altar in this deep mountain forest is that there must be some hidden treasure here.

Ran Qing looked deeply at the empty shrine in the ancestral home, and then at the empty vat where the spirit medium had been.

There was still some unused incense ash in the jar, but it was cold and lifeless, devoid of any warmth, and there were no crowded, dead faces.

"Let's get out of here first," Ran Qing said. "We'll go find the Ghost Altar."

He suspected that there was also a Ghost Platform inside.

The ghost lurking in the shadows hasn't shown itself to attack them yet, which is incredibly eerie. The female ghost on Longchang Street is already quite unusual, but after discovering that Ran Qing and the others were going to capture her, it quickly prepared a trap, intending to kill the three of them.

But Ran Qing and the others entered the Cat Temple, entered the Fox Den, and now they have passed through the Fox Den and the Ghost House, and rushed directly to the Ghost's residence in the underworld.

So much time has passed, and the ghost still hasn't appeared or shown any malice, as if there's no ghost at all in this house... Is this normal?
Ghosts aren't virtuous men and women who eat vegetarian food and chant Buddhist scriptures; they're not that friendly.

Normally, when the three people enter the haunted house, they may be attacked and harmed by that ghost.

Even if the ghost didn't appear when they entered the haunted house, the strange and unusual aspects of the house should have become apparent as Ran Qing and the others walked around inside.

Things like being trapped in a maze, ghosts building human figures, and ghosts knocking on doors should all appear in turn.

So far, they've been standing in front of the abandoned altar of the old spirit medium for a long time, chatting, but the ghost still hasn't shown up.

This eerie silence, ironically, made the three who had been on high alert even more uneasy.

The more the ghost remained hidden and acted abnormally, the more terrifying it became.

Ran Qing shook the bell for transporting corpses, and two paper figures floated in front while a paper figure followed behind to bring up the rear.

They came out of the hall, retraced their steps, and headed towards the backyard.

One by one, the low, dilapidated, and abandoned courtyards were left behind. The desolate courtyards were overgrown with weeds, but the flowers that had been there before were nowhere to be seen.

Several strange and eerie flowers appeared in that fox den.

But once inside the tomb, not a single flower could be seen.

In the center of each courtyard we passed through was empty, barren earth, bare and looking a bit like... grave mound soil?

Ran Qing's heart stirred, and she suddenly thought of something.

At this moment, the paper figure in front suddenly stopped and remained unmoved by the instructions of the corpse-driving bell.

Ran Qing also suddenly felt a chilling, thorny feeling on her back.

He looked at the dark little house in front of him; the low, dilapidated house was a mess.

Broken furniture was scattered all over the floor, and clumps of weeds stubbornly grew in the cracks between the floor tiles.

Most of the roof tiles were missing, and beams of cold, pale moonlight fell through the gaps in the wooden roof beams.

In the dark little house with no windows and almost no natural light, there is a quiet altar or shrine in a corner against the wall.

Candles were burning on the altar, and offerings were laid out.

Hanging on the wall was a large, dark character for "ghost".

Platform of Ghosts...

Upon seeing this familiar scene, the three instinctively stopped in their tracks.

Ran Qing slowly said, "As expected, there is a platform for all ghosts."

Moreover, this Ghost Platform is something new!

Not only were the candles recently lit and replaced, but even the offerings on the altar contained a fresh, bloody eyeball.

It was clearly only recently dug out.

Mo Li's expression changed slightly: "These are the eyeballs of the corpse-driving Taoist..."

On the altar, the bloodshot eyeball lay quietly in the plate.

In the center of his round eyeballs, his dark pupils stared silently at the crowd at the doorway.

It's just an eyeball, yet it gives off a vibrant feeling, as if the eyeball can still see.

Ran Qing could even clearly sense a chilling gaze emanating from behind those eyes…

(End of this chapter)