Mural
At that moment, Lu Congxing thought he had been discovered.
But he quickly realized that Tian Rourou’s face remained deathly pale, her exaggerated smile unchanged—her eyes weren’t even looking at him.
The stench of decay invaded his nostrils, but Lu Congxing didn’t blink.
It was the scent of rotting, dying wood.
Tian Rourou crouched down to deal with the black, rotten mass she had just vomited. She pulled out a spittoon with strange patterns from under the bed and placed it beside her. The disgusting, sticky substance wriggled on its own and crawled inside.
In an instant, the stench vanished completely.
Tian Rourou’s face was no longer pale and unsettling. Her complexion gradually became rosy, making her look no different from an ordinary young girl.
She stood up and stretched her stiff joints, her body emitting a series of cracking sounds—like an old, rusted machine coming to life.
The spittoon sat quietly on the ground, showing no trace of the horrifying thing it had just swallowed.
Lu Congxing wanted to examine it more closely, but before he could, Tian Rourou had already hidden it away.
[Go check the village entrance.]
A deep, mature voice suddenly echoed in his mind. Lu Congxing instinctively turned his head.
The furball on his shoulder was so close to him that his face was buried in its soft fur.
Although he quickly pulled away, just thinking that it was the bad Bai Ze made him feel uncomfortable all over.
With his ears burning red, he headed toward the village entrance—almost forgetting to remove his invisibility talisman.
The moment he arrived, he understood why He Zhouyan had called him there. A man had collapsed at the entrance—it was one of Wang Xing’s followers.
How did he return so quickly? And why was he unconscious here?
Sensing something was wrong, Lu Congxing rushed over, helped the man up, and placed a clarity talisman on him.
The man slowly regained consciousness. The moment he saw Lu Congxing, he nearly burst into tears.
His emotions were so overwhelmed that his words tumbled out incoherently. With no other choice, Lu Congxing brought him to the house where the film crew was gathered.
The presence of so many people finally calmed him down.
The director urged impatiently, “So what happened? Speak up! Where is everyone else? Where’s Wang Xing?”
“They’re… they’re gone,” the man stammered, shivering. “All gone! We were all together when we entered the mountains, but in the blink of an eye, one person disappeared… then another… We tried to stick close, but soon, I was the only one left.”
“What did you see in the mountains?” Lu Congxing asked patiently.
“G-Ghost wall! It was ghost wall!” the man shouted in terror.
An expected answer.
Lu Congxing reassured him, “Don’t be afraid. You’re safe now. You had my talisman with you, so nothing will happen to you.”
The man froze for a moment, then suddenly reached into his pockets. After searching, he pulled out a handful of ashes from his pants pocket.
The remnants of a burned talisman—proof that he had indeed encountered something supernatural.
Seeing this, the surrounding crew members quickly checked their own bodies, feeling around to make sure they still had their talismans. They were all deeply relieved that they hadn’t wandered off. Their gazes toward Lu Congxing were now filled with admiration—this time, their respect was absolute.
The man stared at the ashes that had saved his life, his face twisted between laughter and tears. “B-But Brother Wang and the others… I don’t think they had talismans…”
Lu Congxing hadn’t expected this possibility. He hesitated for a moment.
“What!?” The director’s reaction was intense. “You’ve got to be kidding me!”
He paced around anxiously, sometimes grabbing his own hair, sometimes looking at Lu Congxing with an uneasy, hesitant expression.
Sensing that the director wanted to ask for his help, Lu Congxing calmly took the initiative and said, “I can go look for them.”
“R-Really?” The director’s face didn’t show much relief—if anything, it was filled with guilt.
He had invited this young exorcist to the set only for guidance on supernatural elements in the script and to avoid any taboos during filming.
But now, everything that had happened was due to their own mistake in choosing a filming location, leading them to a place they never should have entered. Lu Congxing had no obligation to go to such lengths to help them—let alone risk his safety to search for the missing person.
Even so, the director couldn’t just stand by and watch another member of his crew get into trouble.
Lu Congxing, however, didn’t feel the same internal conflict. To him, situations like this were like a match-three game—if he didn’t solve them, they would become a knot in his heart.
What he didn’t expect was that the person who opposed him leaving the village the most wasn’t Di Jiang, but Gu Hanyin.
Lu Congxing sighed helplessly. “You still don’t believe I’m an exorcist?”
Even the most steadfast skeptics would have to rethink their beliefs after everything they had witnessed.
Gu Hanyin hesitated for a moment before mumbling, “It’s not that I don’t believe you…”
“Then why won’t you let me go?”
“…” Gu Hanyin tried to make his voice sound harsher. “Since you know how dangerous it is out there, a kid like you should just stay put and wait for rescue!”
Lu Congxing was stunned. Aside from those high-ranking demons, there were actually humans who would call him a kid.
He was visibly displeased, and the little furball on his shoulder immediately sensed the shift in his emotions, baring its teeth at Gu Hanyin in warning.
Gu Hanyin took a step back and relented. “Fine, then I’ll go with you.”
In the end, the stubborn film emperor followed him.
Di Jiang, meanwhile, was left behind to watch over the others.
With him standing guard, the villagers wouldn’t dare make a move so easily.
Lu Congxing thought of Tian Rourou’s deathly pale face and the strange thing she had coughed up. For a moment, he wasn’t even sure if the villagers could still be called “people.”
Pushing aside a low-hanging branch, Gu Hanyin interrupted his thoughts. “Where do we start looking for them?”
“When the villagers went into the mountains for the ritual, they all gathered in one place. Do you remember it?”
Gu Hanyin nodded. “Yes, I remember. They mentioned it was a sacred temple where outsiders weren’t allowed.”
“I think they’re all there right now.”
It was just a gut feeling—an almost animal-like instinct that had helped him many times before.
Gu Hanyin frowned. “How do we find the temple?”
Lu Congxing raised an eyebrow. “I left something behind them back then. Just stick with me.”
That tiny, sneaky little flame he had secretly sent along was meant for moments like this.
A hint of pride flashed across the cub’s face, making him look even more radiant.
Watching him, He Zhouyan suddenly felt an inexplicable itch in his paws. He took a deep breath of the cub’s pure spiritual energy and wagged his tail contentedly.
He looked completely at ease—like he was just on a casual outing. Of course, this outing would have been perfect if it were just him and the cub, without that annoying human tagging along.
Lu Congxing followed the direction of the flame, leading them deeper into the mountains.
The further they walked, the more withered trees surrounded them. Even the ground was barren, as if all life had been drained from the area.
Finally, they saw the so-called Mountain God Temple. It wasn’t what they had imagined—the entrance was surprisingly narrow, allowing only one person to pass through at a time.
From the outside, it looked plain and unremarkable.
But once inside, a massive statue of the mountain god loomed over them, its lifeless eyes staring at each visitor who entered.
He Zhouyan, who had been quietly resting on Lu Congxing’s shoulder, suddenly lifted his head. He gazed at the statue for a few seconds before losing interest and flopping back down, content to continue being the cub’s adorable accessory.
Was there something strange about the statue?
Lu Congxing raised his head in confusion, feeling as if he had been forced into an eerie stare-off with the mountain god.
Suddenly, the statue’s narrow eyes seemed to move. But when he looked again, it was just an ordinary statue—its mouth shut, eyes wide open.
Did he imagine it?
Lu Congxing flexed his fingers, trying to recall the small flame he had sent ahead, only to feel an inexplicable force pulling against it.
He hesitated.
“Something’s off. What they’re actually worshiping is below us.”
But there was no visible passage leading underground.
“Below?” Gu Hanyin echoed, reaching out absentmindedly to rest his hand on a decorative incense burner beneath the statue.
Click—
A mechanism activated, and in the next instant, he was gone—dropped straight down.
Lu Congxing: …
He rushed forward, peering into the pitch-black hole. “Are you okay?”
No response.
With a sigh, he scooped up the little furball lounging contentedly on his shoulder. “We’re going down too. Hold on tight.”
“Woof!” The small Bai Ze nodded.
As they leaped in, there was no expected impact. Just before they hit the ground, He Zhouyan’s demonic power wrapped around them, gently suspending them an inch above the floor.
The gentle demonic power slowly lowered him to the ground.
“Thank you.” Lu Congxing’s emotions were complicated.
After the fall, there was only one path ahead, but Gu Hanyin was nowhere to be seen.
Lu Congxing ran his fingers over the raised patterns on the wall. “There must be a formation here. He must have been teleported to another path.”
He Zhouyan didn’t like it when the cub focused on others. He calmly sent a voice transmission: [Don’t worry, he’s fine.]
Lu Congxing asked, “What about the others?”
He Zhouyan remained silent, pretending once again to be an innocent, clueless furball.
It seemed their fate was grim.
Lu Congxing sighed and reached out to summon the small flame that had been trapped earlier.
A moment ago, he couldn’t summon it back, but now, the little flame scurried over from the other side of the path, rubbing against him in grievance, acting spoiled—even brushing against the small Bai Ze.
It was clearly blaming them for taking so long. After rubbing against them enough, it finally burrowed into Lu Congxing’s body and disappeared.
These ghostly blue flames were his essence, though he had no idea why they were so fond of acting spoiled.
Silently, Lu Congxing smoothed down He Zhouyan’s fur, which had been ruffled from all the rubbing, pretending nothing had happened.
At the end of the path lay darkness. He had only seen the wall clearly when the small flame passed by earlier.
Every inch of it was densely covered in carvings.
With a small flame flickering at his fingertip, he moved closer to examine them. It seemed the carvings depicted this very village.
At first, they showed ordinary villagers going about their daily work.
People diligently sowed seeds, waiting for a bountiful harvest.
Lu Congxing noticed that although there were no dogs in the village now, the carvings from this time still showed people raising them.
This suggested that the villagers had been normal back then.
As he continued forward, the next scene depicted a great flood. Torrential rain submerged the crops, and the tiny figures on the wall were painted in utter despair.
Their faces bore expressions of “grief.”
Moving further along, the villagers were shown arguing.
Some of the younger ones left, taking children with them, leaving behind mostly bent-backed figures—elders.
This was the complete opposite of the village’s current state, where only young and able-bodied people remained.
Lu Congxing murmured, “No wonder there are so many abandoned houses in the village.”
The strange details that had once puzzled him were now laid bare in the story told by the murals.
The elderly and the remaining adults turned to the Mountain God Temple, asking the Mountain God for food.
The temple had existed for ages, nearly forgotten—until disaster struck, forcing them to remember.
But when they returned, they still had no food.
Desperation led them to take drastic measures—they decided to use the most ancient method to seek the Mountain God’s protection.
They slaughtered the last few sheep in the village, offering up their internal organs as a sacrifice, and buried a live sheep whole.
Up to this point, it all seemed like mere superstition and ignorance.
But from here, the carvings took a drastic turn.
The villagers’ methods actually managed to attract the attention of the Mountain God. The internal organs they had offered quickly disappeared from the temple, and in their place, the crops that had drowned miraculously came back to life.
With just a few sheep, the villagers earned the Mountain God’s protection and celebrated with joyous singing and dancing.
But the sacrifices did not stop there.
The little figures on the murals were shown performing another ritual.
This time, they prayed—for eternal youth.
The village was now mostly populated by the elderly. Unwilling to accept their aging bodies, their greed grew, and they held another sacrificial ritual.
The Mountain God made a pact with them: each year, they had to lure outsiders into the village. In exchange for youth, the villagers agreed, even though they knew the outsiders would meet a terrible fate.
During each ritual, the Mountain God would give them a bowl of water. Shortly after drinking it, the little figures on the mural would vomit something out.
Lu Congxing leaned in for a closer look. The lines of the mural were simple, but he immediately recognized what they were spitting out—it was the same thing Tian Rourou had vomited.
The expressions on the faces of the mural figures gradually turned blank and lifeless.
Dogs are perceptive creatures. After the villagers regurgitated whatever they had inside them and regained their youthful appearance, the village dogs began barking frantically, as if they no longer recognized their owners.
Or perhaps, these small creatures had long since realized that the villagers were no longer truly “human.”
The villagers slaughtered the dogs. They lived within a grand illusion, deceiving themselves every day.
He Zhouyan: [There’s no such thing as a mountain god that grants eternal youth. They’ve only gained a beautiful outer shell, but inside, they’ve already rotted away.]
Lu Congxing’s face twisted in discomfort. He thought of the foul, decayed mass that Tian Rourou had vomited. Looking back now, their bodies were probably already filled with that rotten thing.
No new life had been born in the village since then. It was always the same group of people.
The murals were at least fifty years old.
Lu Congxing murmured in realization, “So even the youngest-looking one, Tian Rourou, must be over fifty.”
Let alone the others—like her father, the village chief.
No wonder he had always felt something disturbingly off about these villagers. They looked human, yet their bodies carried the heavy aura of death. Not the sinister energy of ghosts, but something even more unnatural.
No wonder their food was always overly salty. The elderly tend to lose their sense of taste over time, and even with their youthful appearances, they couldn’t escape the reality of their decayed existence.
This entire village—had already become the living dead.