A sudden sound of a baby crying pierced through the dark silence, blending eerily with the woman's sobs. The cries were hauntingly similar to what Mu Fenghua had described before. We exchanged uneasy glances, each face turning pale.
"Maybe we should retreat and wait for Wu Luo," suggested Xie Chen, his voice shaking slightly.
"No," Liu Ying said firmly, her face tense. "We have to find him. Without him in this abandoned village, we're helpless."
Xie Chen forced an awkward smile and gestured at me. "Mr. Wang here is well-versed in Daoist arts. I saw him exorcise that tree spirit with my own eyes. As long as he's with us, we'll be fine."
Liu Ying immediately fixed her gaze on my face, scrutinizing me for what felt like an eternity. "Fine," she finally said, her tone cold. "You two go back then." Without another word, she pushed open the door to the first house at the village's entrance and stepped inside.
The next moment, she let out a sharp scream and stumbled back out.
"What happened?" Xie Chen asked nervously.
"There's a corpse inside!" she exclaimed, her voice trembling.
A surge of realization hit me. The hopping corpses we had seen earlier must have gone straight into this house. Pulling out a sealing talisman, I gestured at them and quickly rushed inside, holding my breath.
As soon as I entered, I realized the mistake. One of the corpses had been standing right behind the door. With the speed at which I had barged in, there was no time to stop. I collided headfirst with the stiff body.
"Damn it!" I cursed as I tumbled backward. The corpse stood firm while I hit the ground hard, clutching my throbbing forehead. Before I could get up, a guttural growl erupted from above me. Looking up, I saw the yellow talisman that had been stuck to the corpse's forehead flutter to the ground. The corpse's lifeless eyes now glowed with a murky gray light as it snarled, baring its teeth.
My blood ran cold. The corpse without the talisman was out of control.
As I scrambled to get up, an icy hand clamped around my neck. "Why do they always go for the neck?" I thought wildly, feeling the iron grip tightening. This wasn't just suffocation—it felt like my life force was being drained away. My limbs weakened, and my vision blurred. I thought, This is it. I'm going to die.
Desperate, I croaked out, "Dead girl… help me!"
Her voice echoed in my mind, cold and unimpressed. "I warned you before. No matter what danger you face, I won't help. And calling yourself my 'master'? That's just disrespectful. Go ahead and die."
I nearly choked on my frustration. "I was wrong! I was being an idiot. Just save me this once. We've been… neighbors for so long!"
"Neighbors? We've known each other for less than a year," she snorted. "And what's this 'master' nonsense?"
"I was joking! You can be the master! The boss! Whatever you want!" I wheezed.
"Hmph. Too late. Unless… I get to be your grandma."
"Yes, yes, Grandma! Anything!" I gasped as the world started going dark.
Finally, a cold sensation rushed through my neck, and the corpse's grip suddenly loosened. I stumbled back, gasping for air, as the corpse froze in place. Without missing a beat, I slapped the talisman onto its forehead. The corpse shuddered before stiffening completely, becoming as still as a statue.
Breathing hard, I scanned the dim room. Apart from the corpse at the door, the room was empty. Dust-covered furniture lay scattered, cobwebs hung from the ceiling, and everything screamed decades of abandonment. On a table in the center of the room was a black-and-white portrait of an elderly woman. Her eyes seemed to stare directly at me, sharp and full of malice. The sight made my skin crawl. I quickly turned and bolted out of the house.
But when I got outside, Liu Ying and Xie Chen were nowhere to be seen.
"What the hell?" I muttered, my heart pounding. They had just been standing here a moment ago. Now it was as if they had vanished into thin air, just like Wu Luo and the others.
I slammed the door shut behind me and climbed onto a nearby stone to survey the village. My headlamp swept over rows of dilapidated houses, but there wasn't a single sign of movement. It was as if the entire village was swallowing people whole.
"You're trapped now," the dead girl's voice said smugly.
I froze. "What do you mean?"
"This is a sealed village. Once you enter, the doors to the outside world are locked. No one gets out until dawn. Now, stop whining and focus on finding the others."
"But I'm all alone!" I protested. The suffocating silence of the village felt like it was pressing in on me. "Why didn't you stop me from coming here in the first place?"
"I told you, it's a sealed village. Once you step inside, you're cut off. If you don't want to die, find the others and figure something out."
Just as she finished speaking, a guttural growl sounded behind me again. I turned to see the corpse I had just sealed twitching and starting to move.
"What's going on?" I yelled. "Didn't I seal it?"
"That was a sealing talisman, not a corpse-binding talisman," she explained lazily. "It only temporarily suppresses its spiritual energy. Once it struggles enough, the seal breaks."
I didn't wait to hear more. Turning on my headlamp, I sprinted down the slope. My beam of light revealed more overgrown grass and crumbling stone houses. I spotted some faint tracks in the dirt and followed them, hoping they belonged to Xie Chen and Liu Ying.
The houses loomed eerily around me. Many of them had no windows or doors, leaving gaping black holes that seemed to watch me. My skin crawled with the feeling of unseen eyes staring from the shadows.
"This isn't the right path," the dead girl said suddenly. "You're heading toward a death gate. Turn back."
Before I could react, a woman's voice called out softly, "Please… save my baby…"
The words echoed in my head, and my thoughts became hazy. I stumbled forward, unable to think clearly, until I found myself stepping into the dark doorway of another house.
The beam from my headlamp revealed the room inside. An old rocking chair sat in the center, creaking back and forth. Sitting on it was a woman in white, her face hidden by her long, disheveled hair. She cradled a baby in her arms, rocking it gently.
"Wake up!" the dead girl's sharp voice jolted me. My daze shattered, and I saw that the chair was empty, though it still rocked back and forth on its own. My blood ran cold.
This was it. The house Mu Fenghua had talked about. The one with the ghostly woman and her cursed baby.
But where were they now? And why couldn't I see them anymore?