See the Law of Deception

Chapter 30 Out of Control (11)

The dim lighting and the manic words sent chills down the spines of everyone present.

"Hey, stop talking nonsense!"

"No, no." The man shook his head, his eyes fixed on the doorway as he backed away.

"It's coming in. It's coming in!"

Her tone grew increasingly louder, almost shrill.

"Shut up!" someone shouted.

She did not forget what Aro had said: no killing, no loud talking, no going out, and no turning on the lights.

But the woman seemed not to hear her words, and kept backing away, as if she were distancing herself from some unseen presence.

Her eyes were fixed on the doorway, as if there truly was a terrifying presence there that no one else could see.

Until a certain point, the critical point is broken.

"It's in!"

The woman's shrill voice pierced my ears, but there was clearly no one at the doorway!
"We'll die! It will kill everyone here!"

She screamed hysterically, and then, as if overwhelmed by fear, she screamed and ran out of the ancestral hall into the darkness.

A deathly silence permeated the ancestral hall, and an invisible fear surrounded everyone. The woman's mad behavior and words made the already uneasy passengers even more restless.

"Has she gone mad?"

Some people questioned the situation, while others approached the door, intending to escape immediately if they sensed something was wrong.

Wei Ling's expression was also mixed with surprise and uncertainty. She looked at Lu Jinzhao, but saw that Lu Jinzhao was still sitting in the same place with a firm expression. For some reason, she felt a little more at ease.

just
"In the end what happened?"

Is it really safe here?

"Hey, say something!" Xu Ruolin questioned Lu Jinzhao.

Lu Jinzhao looked up at her: "It's just an illusion."

"Hallucination?"

"You mean the shadow she saw was an illusion?"

Some people were skeptical, while others felt a little more at ease because of this explanation. After all, Lu Jinzhao herself was sitting here. If she wanted to lie to them, she couldn't possibly implicate herself, right?
"How do you know it's a hallucination?" But Xu Ruolin was clearly not satisfied with this answer.

Lu Jinzhao was too lazy to explain anything further, and only said, "If you want to live, it's best not to leave here."

Upon hearing this, the others' expressions turned serious, unsure whether to believe Lu Jinzhao's words.

After all, Lu Jinzhao was just an unfamiliar companion to them; they didn't know anything about her abilities or strength.

But the way that passenger was almost driven mad with fear just now is a real thing.

Is this place really safe?

No one spoke again. There was still a long time before the mission ended, but right now, they were lost in confusion.

What should we do next?
Most people are completely unaware of this.

In the silence, a rapid breathing sound echoed in the ancestral hall.

This sound wouldn't have been strange half an hour ago, when everyone had just arrived and was exhausted and panting. But now, the five people remaining in the room have long since calmed down and are breathing normally.

At this moment, who else would be breathing so rapidly?

Everyone looked toward the direction from which the breathing sound came, only to see Xu Ruolin frantically scratching her neck with both hands. Her face was flushed, and her legs were kicking wildly on the ground as if an invisible hand was gripping her neck, making it difficult for her to breathe and putting her on the verge of suffocation.

"what happened?!"

The remaining few people looked warily in Xu Ruolin's direction, and even Lu Jinzhao's expression became suspicious.

According to her deduction, the ancestral hall should be safe. Why?

As Xu Ruolin's face grew increasingly pale and her struggles gradually subsided, she seemed to realize that she was doomed.

So she stopped her futile struggles. Her pale face was marred by eyes that bulged as if they were about to burst from suffocation. With her last ounce of strength, she looked at the crowd with those terrifying eyes and hoarsely shouted, "Run!"

"Run! There's a ghost here!"

--boom!

With a dull thud, an unseen hand crushed Xu Ruolin's neck. Her head spun halfway through the air before crashing to the ground, blood gushing from her empty neck, splattering every corner of the ancestral hall. The ancestral tablets were stained crimson with blood, and the blood poured down on the remaining four people like a torrential downpour. Even the eternal flame flickered, seemingly on the verge of going out. This horrific scene completely shattered the others' mental defenses. Under the already immense pressure, they utterly lost the ability to assess the situation.

Some people took a few steps back in fear and ran towards the gate of the ancestral hall without looking back. Others looked at Lu Jinzhao and roared, "Liar!"

"You're a liar! You're trying to kill us all!"

After saying that, she followed in the footsteps of those who had gone before her and rushed out of the ancestral hall.

What do you mean, "If you want to live, don't leave. If you don't leave now, you'll be the next one to die!"

Wei Ling also hesitated for a moment before getting up. Before this, although she was half-believing and half-doubting, she intended to temporarily trust Lu Jinzhao's judgment, but now it seems that...
This person's judgment is probably flawed.

But just as she was about to walk out of the ancestral hall, Lu Jinzhao, who had been ignoring everyone else rushing out of the ancestral hall, suddenly reached out and grabbed her wrist.

The cold, sticky hands stained with blood made Wei Ling's scalp tingle. She looked down and saw Lu Jinzhao's face, which remained resolute even though it was stained with blood.

“Don’t go, you’ll die,” she said.

Wei Ling gritted her teeth: "But staying here will also lead to death!"

Upon hearing this, Lu Jinzhao pursed his lips, released her wrist, and looked at her seriously, saying, "I only have one question for you."

“What?” Wei Ling had a premonition that this question was quite important.

"Since you entered the village, have you heard any sounds that belong to the village?"

"What do you mean?" Wei Ling was puzzled and filled with anxiety. She felt that Lu Jinzhao was wasting his time and all she wanted to do now was leave.

"Besides the sounds we made and the sounds the villagers made, have you heard any other sounds? Not at all, have you?"

Lu Jinzhao's words struck Wei Ling like a hammer blow. She instantly understood what she meant, and when she recalled whether she had heard any other sounds in the village, she felt a chill run down her spine.

No.

There was never any sound of roosters crowing, dogs barking, insects chirping, birds singing, or even the wind blowing through the leaves.

The village was unusually quiet, but she hadn't realized it before!
She probably had all her thoughts on the sacrificial ceremony.

Only then did she realize that there wasn't a single living creature in this village!
"Those villagers?"

“They were never alive,” Lu Jinzhao affirmed.

There wasn't a single living creature in this village from the very beginning!
"Why is this happening?" Wei Ling felt a chill creeping up from the bottom of her heart. Something was strange about the village. She couldn't go to the altar, and someone had just died in the ancestral hall. Just half an hour ago, this instance wasn't so dangerous!

"Hallucination."

"I guess Li Haoyang at the beginning, and Ye Jingyun later, both of them saw some kind of hallucination, which is why they ran away like crazy."

"Even now, I still can't completely distinguish which situations were hallucinations and which things actually happened," Lu Jinzhao said, her voice sounding somewhat weak.

"All I know is that if there's any place in this village that's safe right now, it's this place."

"But..." Wei Ling still hesitated, but she wasn't as eager to leave as she used to be: "Where is the problem?"

She was puzzled as to why things had come to this point.
What did they do wrong at this station?

Lu Jinzhao sighed and gave his answer: "Time."

The timing was the problem.

When he first arrived, the fact that the ancestral hall had been neglected for a long time was one of the clues. Secondly, and most importantly, it was the key moment that made Lu Jinzhao realize the problem.

"Do you remember the zodiac animal of the offering?" she asked.

Wei Ling nodded: "I remember, rat."

"But this year is the Year of the Ox."

The rat should have been last year's offering.

She then asked, "What's the name of this platform?"

Wei Ling realized something and uttered two words incredulously: "Out of control."

“Yes.” Lu Jinzhao’s voice was deep, her dark eyes gleaming in the torchlight: “Out of control, the sacrifice failed, that’s why it went out of control. Why is the platform called this?”

"Because, Qu Township has long been out of control."

The sacrificial ceremony failed last year, and Qu Township had long been deserted due to the loss of control.

"We're a whole year too late!"

Therefore, the taboos of Qu Township are no longer those mentioned by A Luo, but...
—Anyone who sets foot in Qu Township shall die!
(End of this chapter)