Chapter 1 Simple Sacrifice

Everyone naturally knew what to do. After a simple sacrifice to the tomb of Old Wei's daughter-in-law, Luo Tianhe took out several silver dollars and tossed them into the air. After the silver dollars landed, an astonishing scene appeared: several of them stood upright.

Luo Tianhe tossed the tools he brought to everyone, and warned, "Be careful to avoid the positions of these standing silver dollars. Dig slowly from the outside in. When you reach the coffin, don't move it. I'll open it."

As soon as he finished speaking, he raised a firewood knife and with one stroke, chopped the wooden plaque standing in front of the tomb in half.

Jiang Cheng had heard of this move. It was said that when opening some particularly strange tombs, in order to prevent accidents, they first had to find someone to suppress the tomb owner. The usual practice was to smash the other party's tombstone with a hammer, or chop it in half with a knife. This process was also called "breaking the grave," breaking the tomb owner's baleful aura.

If they managed to suppress it, everything that followed would naturally go smoothly. Conversely, if they failed to suppress it, not only could they forget about taking anything from the tomb, but the person who came to break the grave would also suffer greatly, usually ending up in a very unsightly state.

Therefore, those who dared to take on this kind of job were either grandmasters in the feng shui profession or butchers who claimed to have strong birth charts. It was also easy to tell whether the grave had been broken successfully or not. If the stone tablet was smashed with a hammer, or the wooden plaque was chopped in half, that meant it was successful and the tomb owner's baleful aura had been suppressed. But if the stone tablet or wooden plaque remained intact, then it was best to go home and prepare for the worst, because disaster would naturally come knocking within three to five days.

Luo Tianhe's skill was on full display at this moment. With a raise of his hand and a swing of the knife, he chopped the wooden plaque in half cleanly and decisively. Seeing this scene, everyone felt more confident.

Under Luo Tianhe's command, everyone began to dig with the tools they had brought. The coffin was buried much deeper than they had imagined, and the soil in the mountains was damp, so everyone was covered in mud and in a sorry state.

As Fatty raised his hoe and dug down, the tip of the hoe struck something hard, making a loud "thud" sound that sounded somewhat hollow.

"We've found it!" Li Bai cleared away the soil on top as quickly as possible, and a dark coffin appeared before everyone's eyes. In the very center of the coffin lid, a hoe was stuck firmly.

Fatty panicked and wanted to pull the hoe out, but it was stuck too tightly, and he failed after two attempts. He didn't dare to use too much force, fearing that he would pry open the coffin lid.

Feeling the complex gazes of the others, Fatty swallowed hard. He took two steps back, then cautiously pointed at the hoe. "This... this isn't a big deal, is it? I didn't mean to."

Luo Tianhe took a deep breath and waved his hand. "Don't worry about it. Everyone, please step back first. Mr. Yuan and Bai Yu, please stay."

After everyone retreated from the deep pit and cleared the surrounding space, Luo Tianhe and Yuan Shanyuan used tools to find the right spots and pulled out the coffin nails, one by one, that were deeply embedded.

Now everyone could see that something was wrong. Each of these coffin nails was several inches long, and they seemed to have been soaked in blood before being hammered into the coffin. An eye-catching crimson color that was definitely not rust appeared on them.

After pulling out the coffin nails, all that was left was to open the coffin. Luo Tianhe, Bai Yu, and Yuan Shanyuan each stood in a position, and the three of them grabbed the coffin lid with their hands and exerted force almost simultaneously. The coffin lid flipped to one side.

The moment the scene inside the coffin was exposed, everyone's faces changed, and Lin Qianqian gasped.

Inside the coffin was a twisted corpse. The corpse had already decayed, and a thick stench drilled into everyone's nostrils like crazy.

Even more terrifying was the corpse's hand, which was hooked into a claw shape. All ten fingers were broken and bent backward in an indescribable way. Only the remaining skin and flesh could barely wrap the palm, and the fingertips revealed pale white bones.

The corpse's face had rotted away, revealing pale white bones. The mouth was wide open, as if in a silent scream. Long hair was scattered haphazardly over the face and head, mixed with rotten flesh. There were many scratch marks inside the coffin, which were shocking.

"She was buried alive," Jiang Cheng said, looking down at the twisted corpse. Based on the horrifying scene inside the coffin, this was easy to determine.

Staring at the corpse's wide-open mouth, Fatty felt an extreme sense of horror. He actually detected a familiar scent from this corpse, as if... they had met not long ago.

It was... it was the female ghosts who had blocked their path!

"The Wu family used the excuse of seeing a doctor to administer some kind of drug to induce a false death, to those pregnant women. Then, knowing that the deceased's family members would find the pregnant corpse unlucky and would be unwilling to take it, they took the opportunity to help these poor families bury the pregnant women."

"So, when these pregnant women woke up, they were already in the coffin, buried deep underground, in this remote mountain area."

"In a panic, they shouted for help, frantically scratching the coffin, but none of this was useful. It only accelerated the depletion of oxygen. As the oxygen ran out, they were suffocated to death in the coffin. Of course, some people may not have even lasted that long and died of fright."

Jiang Cheng's words were logical and well-founded. Combined with the horrifying scene before them, it was not difficult to imagine how helpless these poor women must have been at the time.

"But what is Mr. Wu's purpose?" Lin Qianqian asked.

Luo Tianhe inserted a wooden stick deep into the coffin, into the corpse's abdomen. Then, without much effort, he pried open the abdomen. At this time, everyone clearly saw that the corpse's abdomen was empty, and there was a huge wound on the remaining skin and flesh.

The wound ran straight down, from top to bottom, dissecting the corpse's entire abdomen.

"Sure enough, it's a zhong ying..." Yuan Shanyuan's face turned gloomy. He had only heard of this evil thing, but he had never seen it with his own eyes. The cruelty and strangeness of it were simply intolerable.

"What the Wu family wants is the fetus inside the pregnant woman's corpse." Luo Tianhe pulled out the wooden stick, his voice tinged with caution. "After suffocating the pregnant women to death, they send people over to open the coffin, dissect the corpse, and dig out the formed fetal corpse."

"The fetal corpse shares the same fate as the mother. The pregnant woman's resentment before death will be concentrated on the fetal corpse. In addition, the fetus is innocent in the first place, which adds a touch of resentment. It's no wonder that this resentment upon resentment will eventually breed a yuan ying (resentful infant)."

Yuan Shanyuan interrupted Luo Tianhe. He looked around and lowered his voice, "Also, the feng shui around here, although they call it a trapped dragon formation (kun long ju), it is actually a yin-nurturing land. This place is low-lying, with a cliff in front and a large river in the back. The yin energy absorbed is blocked here and cannot leave. Over time, anomalies will naturally arise. The resentment of a yuan ying nurtured in this kind of terrain is far greater than that of an ordinary yuan ying. To dare to use a yuan ying of this level to prolong his life, this Mr. Wu can be considered quite a character."