Chapter 457: Close at Hand

Amid the crowd, Lu Shan sat in the Soul Sedan Chair, cradling the Double-Faced Buddha Jade Statue. The curtain dropped, hiding the scene inside.

The suona sounded once more. The boisterous band of musicians walked at the very front of the procession, beating their drums and gongs. Four male villagers lifted the half-red, half-white Soul Sedan Chair and carried it forward along the dirt road.

The god-welcoming procession began to move. Villagers wearing Paper Doll Masks danced with exaggerated movements, crowding behind the Soul Sedan Chair. Dressed in vibrant reds and greens, they waved their long sleeves and casually tossed their ornaments toward the old houses on either side of the street.

We three outsiders were also in the procession. The crowd was too dense to offer any chance of escape, so we blended in with them as they advanced toward their next destination.

"Just how many steps are there in this god-welcoming ritual? We've been stumbling around out here for half the night," Feng Minglong muttered in complaint.

"All we can do now is wait. Didn't the villagers say they would take us away once the god-welcoming ritual ends? Just wait patiently." Having missed the best window to escape and facing an absolute numerical disadvantage, Wang Shi had given up resisting.

I was the only one among us who remained silent. My eyes constantly scanned the villagers, secretly noting everyone's physical traits. Although they all wore Paper Doll Masks that hid their faces, their statures and body language could still give me the information I needed to some extent.

I compared them against my memories of Officer Old Wei. That soon-to-retire policeman was on the skinny side and not very tall. Almost no one here matched his physical description.

'Old Wei went missing. By my guess, he must have crossed into the Yin-Yang Boundary, so it's highly likely he's mixed in somewhere in the village,' I pondered silently. 'Before the livestream began, his voice over the phone only specified that I needed to save him. Clearly, his situation isn't optimistic. He must be imprisoned somewhere.'

If he were just another villager, it wouldn't fit his identity as someone crying out for help. That was the most crucial point.

'Old Wei kept emphasizing that he was in a well. It seems I need to go check that dry well outside the village.' If Old Wei really was locked up somewhere in the village, I would be powerless to save him even if I wanted to. In this hellhole, the villagers held an absolute numerical advantage.

The god-welcoming procession cut across the village, slowly advancing along the north-south dirt road. As we walked, I suddenly shivered. I turned my head and realized an old man wearing a Paper Doll Mask had appeared behind me at some point.

'Was he following me this whole time?'

I had been observing my surroundings very carefully. Being in such a dangerous environment, I naturally wouldn't let my guard down, and I kept a close eye on everything.

'We three outsiders were squeezed into the rear section of the procession. This area was originally full of women and children, so how could an old man suddenly appear? I don't think there were any old people in the procession to begin with.'

I remembered clearly, so filled with doubt, I took a few more glances at the old man.

He also wore a Paper Doll Mask, but his mask was worn, yellowed, and creased, making the painted baby face appear to be smiling in an especially eerie manner.

'Something feels wrong.' I discreetly notified Wang Shi and Feng Minglong, telling them to be careful and speed up to maintain their distance from this old man who had seemingly appeared out of nowhere.

The god-welcoming ritual continued. The noisy band and the four men carrying the Soul Sedan Chair reached the edge of the village and then circled around it. Then, something bizarre happened.

Originally, two rows of white candles had been sparsely lit along the dirt road. Their flames flickered, and although they looked a bit creepy, they at least provided some light.

But now, as the god-welcoming procession passed, the white candles on both sides extinguished on their own, as if someone were specifically controlling them.

"The candles went out. It looks like something is coming out of the houses," Wang Shi whispered. I shook my head and didn't say much. Instead, Feng Minglong, who was walking at the very back, grabbed Wang Shi's and my sleeves. "Do you guys feel like the god-welcoming procession has gotten a bit longer?" he asked, his voice trembling. "Were there always this many people behind us?"

Alerted by Feng Minglong, Wang Shi and I both turned to look. Our position as the three outsiders was originally toward the middle-rear of the procession, but now we were somehow near the front.

"The god-welcoming procession hasn't changed its speed, and the three of us haven't sped up either, so this shouldn't be happening, right?" Feng Minglong stared at the procession behind us. No one knew what kind of faces were hidden beneath those Paper Doll Masks.

"The length of the procession in front of us hasn't changed. It seems many more people have joined in during the ritual." Wang Shi secretly glanced back at the swaying figures. These people inexplicably following from behind were growing in number.

The white candles behind us continued to go out. The darkness impaired their vision, so those two didn't see the truth.

But as someone with the Judging Eye, cold sweat had already drenched my back. My gaze pierced the darkness, and I clearly saw that these extra people were all walking out of the houses on both sides—stepping right out of those dilapidated buildings that housed coffins, lacked thresholds, and held only a few pieces of furniture.

I had looked into many of those houses when I first entered the village. The interior spaces weren't large, and other than the coffins, I hadn't found any trace of the living. Yet now, "people" wearing Paper Doll Masks were stepping out of those houses one by one. The answer as to where they had been hiding earlier was self-evident.

They were very likely the deceased members of the Lu Clan who had been lying in those coffins!

This question was definitively answered when the god-welcoming procession passed by the stone building where Lu Shan lived for the second time. I specifically noticed a hunchbacked old woman shakily walking out from the door. She was short in stature and wore a dilapidated Paper Doll Mask that looked like it had been pressed at the bottom of a chest for years.

Although I couldn't see this old woman's face, judging from her build, I was ninety percent sure she was the great-grandmother Lu Shan had mentioned.

'The dead returning to life...' Even though I was already mentally prepared, I still felt a tremendous amount of fear at this moment. The god-welcoming procession had grown several times longer. The number of dead in this village far exceeded the living.

'Just now in the Lu Clan Ancestral Hall, I clearly saw that the moment the White Jade Buddha Statue was placed onto the altar, all the memorial tablets trembled to varying degrees. Could this ability to let the dead move freely for a short time be the effect of the Good and Evil Sarira?' I somewhat understood why the Lu Clan worshipped the Two-Faced Buddha; such heaven-defying means were truly astonishing.

However, on second thought, this wasn't the Yang Realm, but rather the eerie Yin-Yang Boundary. It inherently belonged to the dark side of the Yang Realm, so it wasn't surprising for various supernatural phenomena unseen in the Yang Realm to appear here.

At the front of the procession, they beat gongs and drums while singing and dancing. The Soul Sedan Chair jolted and swayed, and the long white silk on top of the bright red palanquin fluttered in the air. The middle of the procession seemed much more desolate, with only a few village women and children occasionally twisting their bodies in time with the raucous music. Further back, there was only dead silence. The white candles by the roadside had already been extinguished, and countless figures shuffled their feet in the darkness.

It was too gloomy, too suffocating. We three outsiders didn't dare say another word. Things were developing in an entirely unpredictable direction, and the fate of the three of us was no longer in our own hands.

When the god-welcoming procession appeared at the village entrance for the second time, not a single trace of lamplight could be seen in this dilapidated village.

But just as the god-welcoming procession was about to leave the village, the suona abruptly stopped. Following that, the beating of gongs and drums gradually faded. The noisy crowd suddenly went quiet, as if an invisible hand had gripped their throats.

'Is the god-welcoming about to end?' I was still some distance away from the head of the procession and couldn't see anything through the crowd.

"I'm not sure. Some accident must have happened," Wang Shi replied.

Not long after, several screams and angry curses rang out from the very front of the god-welcoming procession. The previously high-raised sedan chair was lowered; the roof of the palanquin was no longer visible, leaving only a fluttering strip of white silk in sight.

'What's going on?' I was just worrying about how to find a way to slip away, so when a commotion broke out in the god-welcoming procession, I was overjoyed. After confirming the location of the well, I quietly moved through the ranks.

"Mr. Lu, where are you going?"

"Shut up, don't speak." None of the villagers noticed my unusual movements. Seeing myself getting closer and closer to that Deep Well, I couldn't hold back the joy in my heart and quickened my pace.

"Thud!"

Just as I was about to slip out of the god-welcoming procession, a local covered in blood stumbled back a few steps and fell right in front of me.