Chapter 338: Yinshan Village

The head seems to notice Bai Liu's gaze, and snaps around to come face to face with Mu Sicheng, who is right next to it.

Mu Sicheng covered his mouth to keep himself from screaming.

The head is white and the face is strangely connected, like a plaster statue, with only a few general indentations and undulations, but no specific features.

Just as Mu Sicheng thought the creature had no eyes, nose or mouth, the head was slashed across the mouth as if by a knife, and a bloody red gash opened up, which went all the way behind the ear and was filled with sharp fangs and a strong stench of blood.

It sticks out its barbed tongue, as if ready to give Mu Sicheng a lick.

Bai Liu was quick to pull Mu Sicheng backwards and ducked under the bed so the man's head didn't get licked.

The figure's head tilted and it slowly crawled down from under the bed, revealing its body, an extremely crooked, wavy spine with long limbs, and it crept on its back outside the bed, looking at the two men cowering in the corner under the bed with a face that had no features, only a mouth and a crooked head.

Mu Sicheng clutches Bai Liu's hand tightly, already in a cold sweat.

"This thing has no eyes, nose or ears." Mu Sicheng whispered extremely quietly, almost in an airy voice, to Bai Liu, "Is it unable to spot us? We can sneak up on it later. ......"

Bai Liu did not reply to Mu Sicheng's words, but locked eyes with the head of the figure without features, slowly reaching under the bed and picking up a small stone, brushing it and throwing it, hitting the thing in the face.

The thing outside the bed snapped open its eyes, also like an open mouth, and split two blood-red slits in its eyes, eyes dripping inside and finally staring straight at Bai Liu at the bottom of the bed.

Mu Sicheng was almost scared to death, "What are you doing!"

Bai Liu said calmly, "To give you proof that it has eyes, it is unlikely that you will be able to escape quietly in front of it."

"This thing is a kind of villain."

Mu Sicheng looked out in horror at the thing, "A ghost, a ghost?"

Bai Liu explained in an unhurried manner, "You've heard the story of being a helper for a tiger, right? It simply means that the person who is killed by something becomes a ghost and instead helps the thing to find its prey."

"With so many drowned people here in the village of Yinshan, these drowned people will turn into water spirits, and the water spirits will find replacements."

"Normally, water spirits will be reincarnated after finding a replacement, but the water spirits here in Yinshan Village cannot be reincarnated even after finding a replacement, they are still trapped here, in this way, these water spirits cannot become human even if they are looking for someone to kill and eat, those who are devoured by the water spirits will also turn into ghosts, people who live will be afraid of the people who killed them, and ghosts who die will be afraid of the ghosts who killed them in life, so these ghosts will be driven by water ghosts."

"He who eats a man and is not a man is said to be a tiger, and he who is a helper to a tiger is said to be a helper."

"I suspect that this thing is an innocent passer-by who has been caught in as a double by the water spirits that have been transformed into ghosts of helpers after the death of the people here in Yinshan Village."

Bai Liu looked at the thing outside the bed: "When the ghosts die and forget their human form, they will become inhuman, but when they are working for the tiger, these ghosts need to pretend they are human to lure passers-by into the mountain, so these ghosts will become human again, like now."

The twisted humanoid creature outside the bed suddenly craned its neck and moved the moment it opened its eyes and saw the two men at the bottom of the bed, its crooked spine making a creaking sound of interlocking bones and its twisted limbs righting themselves as it slowly, contorting as it did so, stood up.

All Mu Sicheng could see was a pair of bent calves slowly turning from outward to inward to a pair of normal human calves before the toes turned from back to bottom of the bed to front to bottom of the bed and then gently tiptoeing up again, leaving the kind of triangular footprints Mu Sicheng and the others had seen outside the house with just the forefoot.

A pair of pale hands gently held the edge of the bed, and a smiling woman's face bent over to reveal itself from under the bed, and she beckoned gently and affectionately to Mu Sicheng under the bed, a grim smile on her face: "Come out."

"Why are you hiding under the bed when you come to my house as a guest, come out."

The woman had a normal face, with all her features, and spoke in an affable voice, like an ordinary woman who really welcomed her neighbours as guests, the only thing that was out of the ordinary was her eyes, which had only the whites of the eyes.

Mu Sicheng, with goosebumps, "It turned from a ghost to a man in front of me and tricked me! What makes you think I'll fall for it!"

"Probably thought you weren't too smart and were better at fooling people." Bai Liu said.

Mu Sicheng looked at Bai Liu in disbelief, "How do you know she's a ghost?"

Bai Liu replied, "It's written in the Maoshan Evil Handbook."

Mu Sicheng, who was now getting a taste for it, glanced at the ghost who had not come in from outside the bed and asked curiously, "How do you know she won't go under the bed? She crawled out from under the bed."

"Because I saw this." Bai Liu moves his body so that Mu Sicheng can look behind him.

Behind Bai Liu there was a collapsed earth pit hole at the bottom of the bed that would have allowed an adult to enter and exit, next to which was placed a folded plastic coordinate with [7] written on it and [Reserved for the xxx University Archaeology Team] below.

Mu Sicheng looked at the crater in dismay: "What is this?"

Bai Liu held up the coordinates and gazed into the dark, grey pit, "This should be one of the coordinates where the archaeological team unearthed the tomb that leads down to it."

The woman outside the bottom of the bed was still walking around on tiptoe, bending her body now and then to look at them with those eyeless eyes, but never came in.

Bai Liu looked out of the bed, "This ghost should also have crawled out of this pit, which means that the [tiger] it breeds lives in this pit, and the ghost generally fears the [tiger], it does not dare to come in."

"And we're in [the tiger's mouth] too!" Mu Sicheng wanted to cry, "It's been delivered to the tiger's mouth, so she doesn't have to catch us!"

Bai Liu withdrew his gaze and plopped down, ready to head for the pit.

Mu Sicheng held Bai Liu's shoulders down as he looked into the dark pit, the stale smell coming from inside making him shiver: "...... really going down there?"

Bai Liu turned around and saw Mu Sicheng cowering in fear, so he gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder: "If you're really scared, you can go that way too."

Bai Liu pointed out of the bed, and the woman looked down at them with an eerie smile on her face and a soft voice: "Come and be my guest, little brother."

Mu Sicheng: "......"

Mu Sicheng, with tears in his eyes, followed Bai Liu into the pit.

The hole was so narrow that a slightly slimmer person like Bai Liu could get through slowly with his elbows up, but a larger person like Mu Sicheng could only roll around and squirm in.

The further in you squirm, the more dead and desolate Mu Sicheng becomes.

This passage is too small, if something happens inside the tomb later, he won't be able to run away and will be stuck here in the passage!

Bai Liu shines his torch inwards, the tunnel that runs into the pit is like a never-ending stream, and Mu Sicheng feels that they have been climbing in for a while, but there is no significant change in the surroundings except that it is getting wetter and slightly more spacious.

" Mu Sicheng ." Bai Liu, who was walking ahead, turned his head, "You go ahead, I'm running low on battery on my phone and I'll need light to get out later, now use your camera's night mode to scout the way."

The passage is now wide enough for Bai Liu and Mu Sicheng to cross back and forth between them.

Mu Sicheng winced as he turned on his night mode to point deeper into the canal.

The camera's night mode is a fluorescent green screen, and for some reason Mu Sicheng feels even more netherworldly when the dark unknown around him is photographed on a small green screen.

Mu Sicheng asked in a trembling voice, " Bai Liu, how long have we been climbing?"

Bai Liu glanced at his phone, "It's been almost an hour, it's past ten now, we'll have to get out quicker or it'll be more dangerous when it gets dark."

Mu Sicheng fumed as he muttered in a whisper, "Normal archaeological canals, are they this long ......"

Mu Sicheng, who had no desire to face the ghost outside the bed, held up his camera and ran inside, suddenly paused as he stared at the image on the camera.

" Bai Liu ......" Mu Sicheng turned his head stiffly, "This passage has just moved."

In the green screen of the camera, Mu Sicheng clearly sees the passage shifting from side to side, as if something had crawled past on either side.

Bai Liu was unmoved: "Well, I saw it before."

Mu Sicheng, having realised that Bai Liu was not taking the change seriously at all, was heartbroken and continued to climb in.

The passage in the camera was shaking more and more, and Mu Sicheng could feel things creeping closer and closer to them, and he could even hear them.

Knock, knock, knock...knock, knock...

The sound was familiar to Mu Sicheng, he had heard it just last night, the sound of someone banging on the lid inside the coffin.

The passage is now wide enough for Bai Liu and Mu Sicheng to crawl side by side. Bai Liu glances at the camera Mu Sicheng is holding up and suddenly covers Mu Sicheng's mouth and nose and flips to the side of the passage.

Bai Liu warned coldly, "Wait and don't move, something's crawling out."

Mu Sicheng looks like an ice sculpture, holding his camera motionless.

In the distance, the sound of someone digging with their hands and feet in the dirt came, pattering, and Mu Sicheng held the screen with bated breath as he watched the green screen and, out of the darkness, the sudden appearance of an arm with the palm and back of the hand completely backwards reaching into the camera frame.

A face with unreadable features appears within the camera, head lopsided at a bizarre angle, spine growing out of his belly, back instead of soft flesh, wobbling as he crawls, knees completely folded inwards, crawling past him in a position that Mu Sicheng has absolutely no way of describing in words.

When the ghost was completely in front of Mu Sicheng, he was about to breathe a sigh of relief when his pupils snapped open.

This ghost is dragging a coffin behind him!

The coffin was being dragged outwards by the ghosts, and there was a constant thump, thump, thump from the interior.

The moment they passed Bai Liu, the thumping sound suddenly stopped.