“Empty?”

Hearing this, everyone crowded around. The bamboo basket in front of them didn't seem much different from the previous two, but Huang Jun easily lifted it with one hand.

Everyone was full of curiosity about this third bamboo basket, because Elder Sun said it contained the ‘old-age debt.’

As the black cloth was unveiled, several black food boxes were revealed inside the bamboo basket.

Wu Qiang widened his eyes, a hint of bewilderment in his muffled voice, "This... this is the old-age debt? Isn't this just a food box?"

Li Bai explained that this was perfectly normal. In some places, the food sent to the elderly in the jisiyiao (dying-at-home caves) was called old-age debt, meaning that these old people should have died long ago, and now they were still eating the family's food, as if they were there to collect a debt from a previous life.

However, Li Bai's focus was on the food box itself. Even six empty food boxes wouldn't be this light. After a moment, as if she had thought of something, she reached out and grabbed a food box.

"Ah? This... this is made of paper?"

In the next second, Weng Chenglin was completely shocked. It wasn't until he also picked up a food box and examined it that he finally confirmed this.

These food boxes were made of paper, but the workmanship was very delicate, and they were painted with color. You wouldn't notice it unless you picked them up to look.

Holding the food box, Huang Jun's face fell. "We're going to see those old people in the dying-at-home caves with these paper food boxes. Will this work?"

Li Bai, Yao Shunyu, and the others had no solution to this. They focused their attention on the last bamboo basket. Elder Sun said that this contained the xiaozixiansun dai (filial piety sash).

After lifting the black cloth, a strong smell of blood almost knocked Weng Chenglin over. All that was visible inside the bamboo basket were several filial piety sashes tangled together, but now the white filial piety sashes were stained red with blood.

"What's going on?" Weng Chenglin didn't recover for a long time. This sudden scene shocked him. "Where... where did so much blood come from?"

Seeing this, Lü Zhangyuan swallowed and stared nervously at the bloody filial piety sash. "It's taboo for filial piety sashes to see blood. Wearing this bloody filial piety sash to the dying-at-home cave is probably going to cause trouble."

This was just nonsense. Anyone could see that something was wrong, but this was a mission requirement, and more importantly, this bloody filial piety sash was not tied around the waist, but around the neck.

The blood on the bloody filial piety sash was mostly dried, tangled and knotted together, like a large rag, and it was difficult to untie.

Wu Qiang put in a lot of effort to finally untie the knot on his bloody filial piety sash, but as the knot opened, a small thing wrapped inside fell out.

After squatting down and picking it up, Wu Qiang's eyes changed little by little. Finally, his pupils suddenly shrank. That... that was actually a human finger!

It looked like a little finger, and it was incomplete, with only the front half of the finger joint.

The scene before them confirmed a fact: these bloody filial piety sashes had all been used by someone, and all the people who had used them had died, and died tragically.

Knowing this, everyone simply tied the bloody filial piety sash around their necks, just to get the point across.

As one bloody filial piety sash after another hung around their necks, Li Bai couldn't help but gasp.

"Don't move!"

After Li Bai asked everyone to stand still, she quickly walked behind them. The scene before her confirmed her guess.

Weng Chenglin felt uneasy because of Li Bai's actions. The bloody filial piety sash around his neck was like a noose. "Sister Li, what exactly did you find?"

"I know why there's no food in the food boxes. Because you are the sacrifices for tonight!"

As soon as Li Bai said this, the scene exploded. Yao Shunyu looked at Huang Jun's back. He was wearing a brand-new set of clothes, tied with a bloody filial piety sash, and the word 'Huang' was scrawled on the cloth behind him. Indeed, this was clearly the appearance of a sacrifice.

"We... we are the food for those old people?" Weng Chenglin was about to cry for a moment. He instinctively wanted to take off the bloody filial piety sash and throw it as far away as possible, but he didn't dare, and his expression was very tangled.

Li Bai held up the wooden box in her hand. This was also specially given to her by Elder Sun. Something was bound to happen in the dying-at-home cave tonight, and the key to breaking the situation was in this box.

She carefully opened the wooden box. Inside was a red cloth bag. The bag contained a grayish-white powder.

"This can't be bone ash, right?" Luan Lihui was considered to be doing well among these people, and he could still maintain rational thinking.

Li Bai pinched a little with her hand and moved it towards her face. Weng Chenglin's eyes straightened and his stomach felt sick. He thought Li Bai was going to taste it.

Fortunately, Li Bai just put it under her nose and sniffed it lightly, and then breathed a sigh of relief, "It's not bone ash, it's incense ash."

"Incense ash also has the effect of warding off evil spirits. There is a saying that worshiping incense can communicate with ghosts and gods. Using the remaining incense ash after worshiping incense can isolate yin and yang, and draw a line between people and ghosts."

When everyone heard that incense ash was so useful, they didn't care whether they could use it or not, and everyone took some just in case.

At the bottom of the box, Li Bai also found a piece of paper with some obscure and difficult-to-understand writing on it, which seemed to be some kind of scripture.

Obviously, this was the so-called Zhusheng Niangniang (Goddess of Birth) mantra.

"This paper is..." Yao Shunyu's eyes paused. He had just seen similar paper not long ago.

Li Bai put away the paper and carefully put it in her pocket. This paper was a page from a diary, the diary of the drawing teacher who was kidnapped by Zhusheng Niangniang on the first night. She remembered it.

Under Yao Shunyu's reminder, Li Bai also put on her own clothes, a set of all-black clothes, the same clothes as Elder Sun and the others, but fortunately there were no cloth shoes.

The group no longer hesitated and set off towards the back mountain under the cover of night.

On the way, Li Bai once again emphasized the taboos of the dying-at-home cave to everyone.

Originally, they thought that the location of the dying-at-home cave was hidden and it would take some effort to find it, but things were much simpler than they thought. There was a cliff in the back mountain, and dozens of cave entrances were loosely arranged under the cliff. The specifications of the cave entrances were similar. Outside the cave entrances were walls made of bricks, with only a small gap left at the top.

At night, the wind blew through the treetops, making a sound similar to human wailing.

Weng Chenglin looked at the gap with courage. It was dark and he couldn't see anything, but Weng Chenglin felt that there was something inside, a pair of malicious eyes staring at him.

There were words above the cave entrances, all surnames, which seemed to correspond to the affiliation of the old people in the cave.

"Everyone, go find the dying-at-home cave corresponding to your surname. Remember what I said before, be careful, and nothing will happen."

Yao Shunyu and the others no longer hesitated and went to look under the cliff, while Li Bai stayed outside.

After a few people left, she squatted down, took out the diary paper, and after a while, a very soft chanting sound slowly came out.

The chanting sound was intertwined with the sound of the wind, coating the empty night with a layer of unstable tone.