What do you mean by saying that the corpses I sew are all ominous creatures?

"The locust tree is considered yin, and is naturally a place where ghosts gather. But this tree..."

Li Qing reached out and wiped his hand on the tree trunk, smelled it, and then shook his hand away in disgust.

"This tree has been doused with some kind of unknown corpse oil. Someone severed the earth's veins in the mountains, drawing all the yin energy into this forest. This tree can't withstand such heavy yin energy and is 'bleeding'."

He raised his head, his gaze piercing through the layers of mist, looking towards Huilongzhai below the mountain.

"If I'm not mistaken, the feng shui of your village has been completely altered."

Li Qing's voice turned cold. "This place used to be an auspicious site where 'Azure Dragon Embraces Water,' but now... someone has cut off the waterway, beheaded the 'Azure Dragon,' and turned it into a 'trapped dragon nailed to death trap.'"

This village is now like a giant coffin; you can get in, but you can't get out.

I stepped forward, reached out and wiped my hand on the tree trunk, then held it to my nose and smelled it.

A strong, fishy stench wafted over, accompanied by a strange, sweet-smelling fishy smell.

It's corpse oil, mixed with some unknown poison powder.

My second uncle's methods...

"Walk!"

I took a deep breath, forcibly suppressing the anger in my heart, and said, "Let's go to the village entrance and take a look."

We quickened our pace.

After passing through the last dense forest, the view ahead suddenly opened up.

We lay down behind a grassy slope, overlooking the entire Huilongzhai village.

The sky was already beginning to lighten, but the village was still shrouded in a layer of gray mist.

At this time of day, the village would have been filled with the smoke of cooking fires, and the hardworking families would have already gone to the fields with their hoes.

But now, the whole village is like a dead city.

There was no smoke from cooking fires, no lights, and not a sound of human voices.

Something's not right.

I squinted, focusing intently, trying to catch the sounds in the air.

The sound of wind... the sound of water...

and also……

Suddenly, a very faint friction sound entered my ears.

rustling... rustling...

The sound was like countless silkworms munching on mulberry leaves.

"Li Qing".

I gently nudged him and pointed to the big willow tree at the village entrance, "Look there."

Li Qing took a deep breath and then looked in the direction I was pointing.

The next second, he gasped.

"Holy crap..."

The big willow tree at the village entrance was now covered with a dense array of things.

Upon closer inspection, they turned out to be colorful butterflies, each about the size of a palm!

They perched silently on the willow branches, their patterns resembling eerie human eyes, coldly gazing towards the village entrance.

Under the willow tree, several stray dogs were lying down.

They were motionless and stiff, clearly having been dead for some time.

But strangely, their bellies were swollen like balls and were rising and falling slightly, as if something was being conceived inside.

"That's a 'Ghost Face Butterfly,' an evil creature from the southern border."

Li Qing's voice was a little hoarse. "These things grow by eating carrion and are extremely sensitive to death energy. The fact that so many ghost-faced butterflies are gathered here means that the situation in the village... is not very optimistic."

He turned his head and looked at me with an unprecedentedly serious expression.

"Chen Yang, this is definitely not an ordinary feng shui arrangement. Someone has set up a formation to use the lives of the entire village to raise a Gu King!"

The lives of the entire village!

Upon hearing this, my heart sank, but I didn't lose my composure.

"Whoever orchestrated this, we must stop them!" I said in a deep voice, turning to look at Li Qing. "Do you have any way of finding the core of the formation?"

Li Qing was completely focused on the compass in his hand, not even glancing at me. "Looking for it!"

Less than fifteen minutes later, Li Qing suddenly put down the compass and exclaimed in a low voice, "Found it!"

After saying that, he pointed to the center of the village.

As I looked in that direction, a name gradually came to mind: ancestral hall.

We looked at each other, then both stood up.

Now that the goal has been set, there's no need to hesitate any longer.

"Wait a minute."

After I stood up, Li Qing called out to me.

He first glanced in the direction of the willow tree at the village entrance, and then took out two crumpled yellow paper talismans from his pocket.

He casually dabbed some saliva on the tip of his tongue, then slapped a card onto my back, and stuck one on himself as well.

"This is a 'Concealing Breath Talisman,' which can lock in our yang energy and heat. To those insects, we're no different from two stones now. Let's sneak into the village!"

The moment the talisman was applied, I felt my body temperature drop a few degrees, and the evil energy flowing through my body gradually slowed down.

"Walk."

I didn't say anything unnecessary, I just gave him a thumbs up.

Li Qing chuckled, raised an eyebrow, and then followed in my footsteps.

We crouched low and, taking advantage of the thick morning fog, stealthily infiltrated Huilong Village.

As we passed the village entrance, the group of ghost-faced butterflies seemed oblivious to our presence, remaining motionless on the tree.

Once we entered the village, the sense of deathly stillness became even stronger.

I stood at an intersection, glanced around, and noticed something very strange.

There wasn't a single person in the village!

The huge Huilongzhai village, with its hundreds of people, seemed to have vanished into thin air.

Where are they?

Li Qing lowered his voice, his gaze warily sweeping over the empty houses. "This isn't right. Even if they were killed, there should be a body; even if they turned into zombies, there should be some movement. How could this be..."

"They were taken away."

I stopped in front of a house, looking at the messy drag marks on the ground that all pointed in the same direction. "Look at these marks, they were dragged away. The direction... is towards the ancestral hall."

After we finished speaking, we exchanged a glance and quickened our pace, following the drag marks.

The closer you get to the ancestral hall, the stronger the fishy stench in the air becomes, mixed with a strange sweet aroma that makes you feel dizzy.

thump...

thump...

When we were less than fifty meters away from the ancestral hall, a muffled drumbeat suddenly came from ahead.

The drumbeats were slow and rhythmic, each beat like a blow to the heart, causing the heart to contract in waves.

As we got closer to the ancestral hall, the sound of the drums became clearer and clearer.

Before long, we followed the wall and circled around to a low wall outside the ancestral hall.

I cautiously peeked out halfway and looked towards the square in front of the ancestral hall.

The next second, the scene before my eyes was breathtaking.

The square in front of the ancestral hall was densely packed with kneeling people.

Those are villagers from Huilongzhai!

Several hundred people, men, women, and children, all knelt neatly on the ground, facing the main gate of the ancestral hall.

Their expressions were blank, their eyes rolled back, like walking corpses.

On the back of their necks, there was a black beetle about the size of a thumb.

Looking up again, a high platform had been erected in the very center of the square.

On the high platform, there was a grand master's chair.