Chapter 452: Lu Shan

The corpse looked incredibly small and shriveled. It seemed to have been treated with a special substance—not only was it free of rot, but there wasn't a single liver spot or the slightest trace of foul odor.

She wore a dark robe with a hand-woven ornament around her neck. It looked like a unique traditional garment, something I had never seen anywhere else.

The middle-aged woman carried the corpse down the stairs on her back. She had an ordinary appearance; if not for that bizarre corpse on her back, she would look no different from a common peasant woman from a distance.

"Here she comes." Reaching the bottom of the stairs, the woman walked straight toward us. She didn't say a word. Keeping her head down, she carried the corpse and began walking in circles around us. It was a deeply bizarre sight.

Aside from me, the others didn't dare look directly at the corpse. They kept their heads down, sneaking glances from the corners of their eyes.

I adjusted the angle of the Underworld Live Show Phone in my hand, capturing this eerie scene. The livestream chat had already exploded.

"It's a dummy, right? A prop? I'm locked in an elevator by myself right now, don't scare me!"

"The production crew really put in the effort. Where did they find this actor? So dedicated."

"I'm a medical student. That old lady has clearly been dead for a long time, so why hasn't her body decomposed? This completely contradicts the absolute signs of death."

"They spared no expense! Is that a real corpse?"

"Nobody move, I'm a cop!"

Comments scrolled across the screen, but I didn't pay them much attention. Just like Wang Shi and the others, I was stealing glances at the corpse on the woman's back.

It was an old woman. She had to be at least eighty years old, and her stature was incredibly short.

Slumped on the middle-aged woman's back, she looked like an unconscious water monkey. The elder's head rested at an angle against the woman's shoulder, her face tilted, eyes tightly shut, and mouth hanging half-open. From start to finish, she remained completely motionless.

The middle-aged woman carried the elder in three circles around us. Then, she walked one extra circle specifically around me before finally turning away and slowly heading back upstairs.

It didn't take long for the middle-aged woman to return, but this time she was alone.

"Aba says you shouldn't wander off. Once the god-welcoming procession has passed, I'll escort you out." Her voice was completely flat, sounding exactly like someone relaying a message without a hint of personal emotion.

"Are you serious? That old lady told you that?" Feng Minglong scratched his head. The idea of a corpse speaking was completely incomprehensible to him.

The middle-aged woman gave Feng Minglong a deep look but didn't bother to explain. She pulled three knotted cords from her clothes and handed them to the three of us men.

"Aba is kindhearted and wants to keep you alive. Don't ask questions. Tie this cord around your wrist, and whatever you do, do not untie it." The knotted cords were a dark green and coated in grease. My nostrils flared; I could smell a faint, sickly stench coming from them.

"Has this been soaked in corpse oil?" I hesitated for a moment before tying the cord around my left wrist anyway.

"When the god-welcoming procession arrives, stay close to Yaomei and don't wander off," the middle-aged woman said, then turned to the Double-Faced Woman. "You brought them in, so it's your job to watch over them. Today is the day of the god-welcoming. We cannot afford any mistakes."

The Double-Faced Woman nodded. "Since Aba didn't chase them away, I'll keep an eye on them for now. But they aren't from the village. Will keeping them here affect the god-welcoming?"

"I don't know. Out of all the times they could have arrived, they had to show up right now. But what is a blessing is not a disaster, what is a disaster cannot be avoided." The middle-aged woman let her gaze linger on me for a long time. She looked like she wanted to say something more, but ultimately kept silent. She turned, pushed the door open, and left.

A heavy silence fell over the stone building. A middle-aged man sat by the main room entrance without uttering a single word. Once the woman left, he simply closed his eyes, seemingly uncaring about the other people in the house.

"You're Yaomei? I have a few questions for you." I walked up to the Double-Faced Woman. Up close, I noticed her complexion was terrible. This sudden shift seemed to have started the moment she heard the phrase "god-welcoming."

"Yaomei is just a local term for the youngest daughter of the household. Stop calling me that," she said, shrinking back a few steps. She clearly despised strangers getting too close.

"Oh? Then what should I call you?"

"My name is Lu Shan."

"Your surname is Lu too?" I asked, my tone full of surprise. This only cemented my suspicion that she had some connection to Lu Xing.

"Is that strange?" The Double-Faced Woman, Lu Shan, kept her distance from me. In her eyes, I was probably a difficult person to deal with.

I rubbed the tip of my nose. "What a coincidence. My surname is Lu as well. I'm Lu Xing. Have you ever heard my name before?"

"No. What's so strange about the surname Lu? Every man, woman, and child in this village shares it. Whether they married in from the outside or wandered here by mistake, anyone who wants to settle down in this village must change their surname to Lu."

Hearing this sparked my curiosity. "Why do they have to change their surname? Is that another one of your customs?"

"'Lu' means blessing and fortune. It's a surname of great luck and wealth. Only by taking on this name can a person suppress the disasters in their destiny and pass on their bloodline here." Lu Shan clearly disliked conversing with outsiders. Before I could say anything else, she waved me off. "You three just stay inside and behave. Ride out this block of time first. Once the god-welcoming is finished, I'll escort you out."

With that, she headed up to the second floor. I felt a twinge of disappointment; I still had a mountain of questions to ask, like what the deal was with that train, or how this village had even formed in the first place.

"Just stay put. It doesn't look like this family means us any harm," Wang Shi said, though his eyes constantly darted around the room. He was more on edge than anyone.

"I hope so." Still feeling a lingering sense of unease, I began pacing back and forth across the room.

Ten minutes later, the middle-aged woman returned. She called for Lu Shan and the middle-aged man, and the three of them left together, leaving only us three outsiders in the stone building.

"Mr. Lu, do you think they really plan on letting us go? This village is completely isolated from the rest of the world, and everything about it is so secretive. Do you think they might silence us?" Feng Minglong asked, stretching out as he took the chair the middle-aged man had just vacated.

I was standing at the foot of the wooden stairs leading to the second floor. Hearing his question, I wasn't sure how to respond. I knew that some ethnic minority groups had unusual traditions, but pacing in circles with a corpse right after walking through the door, and then handing out cords soaked in corpse oil? That went far beyond my understanding of customs.

"They probably won't silence us. This village doesn't seem to have a large population; they might just force us to stay and join them," Wang Shi said, walking up beside me. He pointed up to the second floor and lowered his voice. "I've never liked leaving my life in someone else's hands. Care to go up and take a look?"

"I don't know about that. They told us to stay put. Just wandering around would be incredibly rude, not to mention we might disturb the dead."

Feng Minglong stood up to voice his disagreement, but Wang Shi completely ignored him. His dark, brooding eyes remained fixed on me. "That old woman has clearly been dead for a long time, yet her corpse still looks like she just died. This village is hiding a massive secret. We can't afford to be caught off guard."

He had a point. I gave a slight nod. "Feng Minglong, you keep watch down here. Wang Shi and I will check upstairs."

In truth, I had already been fighting the urge to go upstairs and look around. The ground floor was extremely sparse, filled with nothing but crude, handmade furniture. There was nothing unusual down here. The answers I was looking for had to be on the second floor.

Treading lightly, Wang Shi and I crept up the wooden stairs and quickly reached the second floor.

This seemed to be the Lu family's sleeping quarters. Aside from three wooden beds, there was also an altar table.

The beds were damp, and the blankets gave off a faint musty smell. I scanned the room before my eyes suddenly widened; I had spotted something rather unique.

Two white candles burned on the altar. Resting exactly between them was a Double-Faced Buddha Statue—one side was kind, the other fierce.

"The people here worship the Two-Faced Buddha as well?!" I involuntarily stepped closer to the altar, recalling the second optional task from the Underworld Live Show—every destroyed Double-Faced Buddha Statue rewarded one point.

Since the statue was made of clay, all I needed to do was smash it lightly to destroy it. Earning this point seemed incredibly easy.

'No, it's better to wait.' Previous optional tasks had only rewarded a single point for killing a person. Compared to that, destroying a clay statue was simply far too easy. The Underworld Live Show would never design such an easy task. I suppressed my urge and carefully observed my surroundings instead.

But when my gaze landed on the bed directly facing the altar, I suddenly noticed something—the shriveled old woman seemed to have shifted her body.