This seemingly simple middle-aged man actually has an old outline from his back.

"How about it? The residents here are all quite kind, simple and well-educated, right?"

"The plot of land you want to see is not far ahead. Please follow me."

Tetsuo Saejima strode ahead and motioned the three to follow him.

"The information team is retrieving the background information of all residents in this community..."

"Our emergency team will arrive in half an hour."

Inspector Higurashi hung up the phone and reported in a low voice.

"Keep looking inside, there may be new discoveries."

Xia Fan and Jinguji Aoi hesitated for a moment and continued to follow Saejima's footsteps.

They didn't know how many more people in this community were possessed, so until the Section 9 task force arrived, they could only focus on investigating.

Walking along the main road of the community, the retro buildings scattered on both sides of the road had become as hideous as those residents possessed by evil spirits in the eyes of the two men.

"All the Japanese and Western-style single-family houses have been changed to retro styles. Is it possible that the residents' aesthetic tastes are so weird?"

"Could it be that……"

The figures of the possessed people lingered before their eyes, and a vague and terrifying thought throbbed uncontrollably in the bottom of their hearts...

Judging from the behavior and dress of those residents, most of them are affected by the earthbound spirits in their bodies.

If the style of the house renovation is due to the same reason, all residents in the entire community may be possessed.

"We're here. Yes, this is the plot of land!"

Standing in front of an open space, Saejima repeatedly checked the topographic map and finally confirmed the place.

"This piece of land is very large, with an area of ​​300 square meters. Although the surrounding green belt cannot be used to build a house, it can be used as an extension of the yard. The actual usable area is even more exaggerated..."

“Although the sales category is ‘single-family building’, if it is well planned, it can be built to be just as good as a large villa.”

The open space in front of the three people was overgrown with weeds and had many small, uneven mounds of earth. Even the markings on the surrounding areas used to identify the boundaries were almost buried.

"This piece of wasteland really doesn't have much to see. As for its location, it seems to be at the innermost part of the community..."

Xia Fan looked back in the direction he came from and found that the seemingly straight main road seemed to bend along some kind of arc, and the gate of the community was no longer visible.

"What is that thing?"

At the same time, on the grass in the center of the community, a tall stone pile made up of countless stones stacked layer by layer came into Xia Fan's sight.

"This should be art landscaping, sculptures, or something like that. After all, this is a high-end residential area, so it has to be a little more artistic."

Saejima strode to the stone pestle and casually tapped it...

The stone pestle looked high and dangerous, but it was surprisingly solid and did not move at all.

"This pile of stones is at least a hundred years old. It doesn't look like it was newly built..."

Looking at the traces of natural weathering and the moss covering the pile of stones, Inspector Higurashi touched his chin and sighed.

"It's five o'clock in the afternoon, it's time for exercise, all residents, come out and exercise..."

"What is this, a community sports broadcast?"

A hoarse man's voice suddenly rang out from a hidden loudspeaker next to the stone tower, startling Saejima.

Then, a Japanese tune played by folk instruments such as shamisen, taiko, cymbals and flute sounded melodiously in the community.

Figures, as if attracted by the music, walked out from the six houses around...

"It's only five o'clock in the afternoon, and it's not time to get off work yet. How can there be so many people in the community? Should we say it's worthy of being a wealthy community?"

There were about twenty people, including men, women, young and old. They approached the pile of stones with comfortable smiles on their faces and dazed eyes.

The mother and two sons that Xia Fan had met before, as well as the man chopping wood, were all among them.

"According to preliminary investigation data, the permanent population in the community is close to 30 people. Some are newlyweds, and some have three generations living together. It seems that most of them are here?"

Higurashi instinctively smelled an unusual scent, and one of his hands seemed to be casually placed on his waist, but in fact it was on the handle of the gun.

"No, we can't disturb them easily..."

"These people...are all possessed!"

In the eyes of Jinguji Aoi and Xia Fan, these "residents" approaching the stone tower all had completely different faces overlapping each other.

"Possession usually happens at night. It's rare to see a ghost in the daytime. It's even more unheard of for multiple people to be possessed at the same time. There must be something special about this community..."

These people stood around the pile of stones.

"Our community often organizes some traditional group activities. If a few of you happen to meet, you can also exercise together."

The young man in a suit and leather shoes who was closest to them said this to the three of them, then slowly bowed towards the stone tower...

"It's about to begin..."

To the slow and low music, the residents bent their waists, straightened their upper bodies, and stretched out their right hands and left hands forward at the same time, starting a dance with simple movements and brisk rhythm.

"Pah...pah..."

"Pah...pah..."

Dancing around the stone tower, they clapped their hands or stomped their feet, creating uniform clapping sounds.

"It's a bit too early to dance square dance in the afternoon..."

The scene before his eyes, where the earthbound spirits were possessing living people and singing and dancing, exuded an eerie and creepy atmosphere. Even Saejima, an ordinary person, instinctively sensed something strange and his smile froze on his lips.

"The dance they performed was a bit like a certain dance that I remember..."

Jinguji Aoi groaned for a moment, then whispered, covering her mouth: "Soul-calling dance..."

"Yes, they are dancing the Soul-Calling Dance!"

Chapter 243 Soul Calling

2024-07-13

The soul-calling dance, also known as the Bon Odori, is a common ritual dance performed at festivals commemorating the dead.

The dancers form a circle, clapping their hands while dancing simple steps and singing impromptu songs. Some dancers also dance with fans and use musical instruments for accompaniment.

"So, this stone tower and the location of these houses, could it be that..."

As if she had figured something out, Aoi Jinguji took out her mobile phone and called up the satellite bird's-eye view of the "Happy Community".

"Sure enough, the Big Dipper gathers the foul air, and then seals it with stones to prevent it from leaking out..."

"The roads, houses, and stone tower in this community form some kind of formation!"

In the bird's-eye view, the seven housing plots connected by the community roads form a "spoon" shape...

The pile of stones in front of the people just happened to "block" the opening of the "spoon".

"I see."

"From five to six in the afternoon, it is dusk, the time when demons meet in the wild, and the most suitable time to sacrifice non-human beings."

"These earthbound spirits possess the residents here. Every day, they are forced to perform soul-calling dances during the most foul demonic times. They use living sacrifices to strengthen the dead souls and consolidate the effects of possession..."

"No, the most important thing is the formation... This place was set up by a skilled Yin-Yang master to gather the foul energy of the earth veins and protect these resentful souls from dispersing during the day..."

"Mr. Xia Fan, who do you think made such a vicious arrangement?"

Putting together everything that had happened since she entered the community, Jinguji Aoi's face turned paler and paler, and she looked at Xia Fan for help...

"Mr. Xia Fan?"

"Is this... a spiritual connection?"

But Xia Fan beside him did not answer him. He just stared blankly at the towering pile of stones in front of him with lifeless eyes.

……

"I am, psychic?"

At some point, the green neighborhood with ancient buildings and the Jinguji Temple next to it had disappeared from Xia Fan's sight.

Instead, there is a sky covered with dark clouds, dilapidated buildings covered with smoke and fire, and land full of potholes.

Thick smoke and flames gathered into tornadoes, rising into the sky from all directions, extending to the end of the horizon, swallowing up the evening clouds and the setting sun.

From time to time, huge planes would roar past overhead at a very close distance, dropping large amounts of napalm bombs that turned into a raging firestorm that devoured everything.

The suffocatingly hot air filled my nose with a strong burnt smell.

The howling wind brought the wailing of countless creatures in the flames and the crackling sound of burnt flesh.

In the center of this scene that looked like the Eight Hot Hells, the only thing that was familiar to Xia Fan was the huge pile of stones that seemed to have remained unchanged since time immemorial.

"The disaster of extermination is approaching. My Matsudaira clan has nowhere to go. We can only gather under the 'Human Soul Tower' and ask for the blessing of our ancestors!"

"Think again and again, and call upon the spirits of our ancestors..."

"Pray to the Matsudaira clan, the land god from generation to generation..."

Men, women, old and young, with charred clothes, dusty faces and burns all over their bodies, are now surrounding the stone tower, dancing and muttering to themselves.

"Boom...boom...boom..."

Several huge napalm bombs were thrown, creating large flames in the surroundings and causing the pile of stones to shake violently.

"Ancestor, the spirit has appeared..."

The people around them danced even more devoutly and vigorously, regardless of the approaching flames of death.

"We know that life is like a mayfly, and we know that death is always with us..."

"But at this moment, even if it's just one more year, one more day, or one more hour, we still want our lives to continue."

"Please, ancestors, give us an ancestral decree to ensure that the bloodline of the Songping clan can continue!"

The man leading the dance had his eyes rolled back, drooling, and muttering the sacrificial words in a crazy manner.

"That's it...that's it..."

"I have been blessed by this mountain and this river for a long time, and I am deeply grateful."

"I am deeply terrified, deeply terrified..."

"I will obey the order of my ancestors and return it!"

After a while, an ecstatic expression appeared on his face, and he prostrated himself on the ground, kowtowed madly to the stone tower.

"Ancestors, the oracle has been sent down, showing us the way to continue our lives..."

"There are only seven branches of the Matsudaira clan left. They dug fifteen feet into the ground according to the location I described and buried themselves there."

"When the time comes, our ancestors will awaken our 'human souls' and give us a new life!"

Not until the blood dyed the ground red and the flames engulfed the forest did the man stand up with a determined look on his face and speak to the crowd around him.

[God has given me faith: destroy the 'Human Soul Tower', remove the 'Corpse Guarding Wild Soul', and rectify the yin and yang of the universe. After completion, I will receive God's blessing.]

At the same time, an oracle emerged in Xia Fan's mind.

……

Happy community.

Just as Xia Fan was standing there in a daze, the "residents" in front of the pile of rocks became more and more powerful in their dancing moves, and the rhythm became so fast that it was as if they were watching a 2.5 times accelerated video, surpassing the level of ghost animals.

The pile of stones surrounded in the middle shook violently as if it sensed something.

A sticky black foul air gushed out from the cracks between the piled stones, spreading like a flood, drowning the people around.

Suddenly finding themselves in such a thick foul air, Saejima and Higurashi, as ordinary people, had no time to react. They simply fell to the ground with their eyes rolled back.

"not good……"

The shrine maiden costume on Aoi Jinguji's body, the black umbrella and the longbow on her back, lit up with bright blue light one after another, protecting her.

"Good... a strong foul smell..."

Even so, in this unprecedented foul air, her whole body was trembling, and it took her all to even stand.

"Mr. Xia Fan!"

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