Chapter 1 The Same Thing...

Yao Shunyu on the other end of the phone was clearly stunned for a moment, "What?"

"It's like this, there's no trace of modern industry here, and another thing, my companions are also eight people," Jiang Cheng paused, "Including Wang Fugui and me, that's ten people in total."

Yao Shunyu gasped, "It's the same..."

"That's right, and we also lost someone last night."

Jiang Cheng briefly explained his situation to Yao Shunyu: the strange temple, the mad monk Huicong, the absurd experiences of the night, and most importantly, the life-threatening ghost of Guan Erye.

Yao Shunyu was stunned by what he heard, but when he finally heard about the fixed lottery every day, Yao Shunyu became excited, "That's it, that's it! We have a similar situation here."

"It's just a different form of expression, we have flipping the牌子 (paizi)," Yao Shunyu emphasized.

Hearing the words flipping the paizi, the first thing that popped into Fatty's mind was a popular domestic historical drama from a few years ago, where the emperor would flip the paizi to choose the concubine to spend the night with.

"Flipping the paizi?" Jiang Cheng thought similarly to Fatty, his impression of flipping the paizi was also something exclusive to ancient emperors.

"Yes, how should I explain it to you?" Yao Shunyu lowered his voice, "In short, the customs of this Blackwater Village are particularly strange, they are male inferior and female superior."

"The people in charge here are all women, the men don't go out, don't even step out of the inner courtyard, they don't eat at the table, and even speak in soft voices, each one like a daughter-in-law who has married into the family, afraid of angering the women."

"The scariest thing is that even men have babies here!"

"Can you imagine, I saw a big dark-faced man with a big belly, also with bound feet, then half-hidden behind the door, smiling shyly at Li Bai and me."

From his voice, you could feel Yao Shunyu's despair, and Fatty imagined the scene, and goosebumps covered his entire body.

But Jiang Cheng was obviously more concerned about what they had encountered, "Then what? What happened to you?"

"The customs here are very strange, they force Li Bai to flip the paizi every night, don't get me wrong, it's not to do anything to Li Bai or us, Li Bai is flipping the paizi for something else." Yao Shunyu's voice trembled, "They... they call that thing Zhusheng Niangniang."

"Zhusheng Niangniang..." Jiang Cheng pondered, "It's a deity who presides over childbirth, often worshiped in the Minnan area."

"Yes, they call it Zhusheng Niangniang, we are more used to calling it Songzi Niangniang, or Songzi Guanyin," Yao Shunyu said quickly.

"Li Bai is the only woman among us, and she has the highest status among us, so the villagers of Blackwater Village let her flip the paizi, and the person she flips to will participate in the annual Zhusheng (childbirth) Festival in Blackwater Village, which is also the most important festival in Blackwater Village throughout the year."

"The Zhusheng Festival usually lasts for several days, held at midnight every day, and the villagers will inform the location in advance. The selected person has to participate alone, but the others can choose to accompany him."

"The person who was selected last night claimed to be a painting teacher, his task was to worship at the temple."

"Worship at the temple?" Jiang Cheng suddenly interrupted Yao Shunyu, he immediately thought of the evil temple he was in.

"Not what you think, it's a wild temple, it looks very dilapidated from the outside, we also went with him, and Li Bai and I reminded him to bring paper and pen to record everything he saw in the temple."

"That teacher was timid, and he had no other way, so he trusted Li Bai and me very much. At first, everything was normal, but shortly after he entered the temple, something happened."

"A very large fog suddenly emerged around the temple, the fog was very thick, and in a short time the small temple disappeared into the fog."

"Are you sure the temple disappeared?" Jiang Cheng asked, normally Yao Shunyu's description should be that the small temple was covered by fog.

But Yao Shunyu's tone was very certain, "No, it just disappeared, the teacher went into the temple to offer incense to the statues inside, and also to light the eternal lamps in front of the statues."

"But after the fog came, all the lights in the temple disappeared, it was a very sudden disappearance," Yao Shunyu emphasized, "Not only Li Bai and I, but everyone else saw it."

"Then what?" Jiang Cheng pressed.

Yao Shunyu took a deep breath, "Then after about half an hour, the fog receded very strangely, and the temple reappeared, with lights from the candles inside."

"We waited for a long time, it was as quiet as death inside, we didn't dare to act rashly, until the given task time had passed, we dared to approach, but when we pushed open the door of the dilapidated temple, the teacher inside was gone."

"The temple is not big, there are 7 statues enshrined inside, because the years are too long, the paint on them has fallen off a lot, Li Bai and I have never seen these statues, and no one else knows them either, they should all be wild gods."

"There is incense and candles in front of these statues, and the incense and candles are burning, all of which were brought by the painting teacher."

"But the strange thing is that in a corner of the temple, we found another set of incense and candles, but this set of incense and candles was arranged in a hurry, and the candles were not even lit."

"Say it again, carefully, what was the painting teacher's task?" Jiang Cheng pressed.

"Offer incense to all the statues in the temple, and then light the eternal lamps," Yao Shunyu obviously understood what Jiang Cheng meant, and said it very slowly and in detail.

"Offer incense and light candles for each statue, then why would this teacher put these things in the corner?" Jiang Cheng said, "What's in that corner?"

Yao Shunyu took a deep breath, his tone also turning gloomy, "We looked carefully, there was nothing, that was the darkest place in the entire temple, almost unnoticeable if you didn't look closely."

"Also, we found very fresh scraping marks on the wall in that corner, the location of the marks was relatively high, about two meters above, the painting teacher had no reason to touch that position," Yao Shunyu added.

This time, even Fatty reacted, "So... so there was an extra statue in that position, and that statue can move by itself!"

Jiang Cheng could probably imagine the scene at that time, it shouldn't be a statue, but a ghost.

That ghost was hiding in the dark, but the observant painting teacher found it, then walked up to it, respectfully offered incense, and finally set up candles.

This violated the rule given by the task that incense could only be offered to the statues in the temple, so when the teacher was about to light the candles, the ghost acted.