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墨書 Inktalez
Human Sacrifice
The Big Red Coffin tumbled down the cliff amidst swirling dust, its surface cracking but remaining intact.
Guo the Blind shouted, "Everyone come down! This cliff isn't vertical; it's not hard to descend."
I grabbed the rope and was about to go down when Huang San'er called out, "Are you just going to leave with an injured person here?"
"Alright, you go first," I replied, stepping back to the cave entrance and gesturing for them to descend.
Huang San'er grumbled under his breath as he tied the hanging rope around himself, then impatiently shouted, "What are you standing there for? Help the injured over here!"
Wang Hai looked embarrassed at being scolded and asked me for help lifting the injured Zhou Cheng.
After Huang San'er and Zhou Cheng made their way down the cliff, Wang Hai followed along the rope. He dared not look into the dark cave, as the temperature inside grew increasingly cold. Despite being a sealed cave, a faint sound of wind seemed to whisper from within.
As I descended from the tree trunk, curiosity got the better of me, and I quickly glanced into the cave. A chill ran down my spine, and I hurriedly grabbed the rope to slide down.
I wasn't sure if I had seen it correctly, but I thought I saw a white Light Shadow flash in the swamp where the Big Black Cat had been lying. I could vaguely hear the sound of mud bubbling.
Once on the ground, Guo the Blind and Huang the Lame had already untied the hemp ropes from the Big Red Coffin, and several yellow flags of unknown purpose were planted around.
"Is everything alright?" Guo the Blind asked.
"All good," I shook my head in response, noticing Zhou Cheng leaning against a moss-covered stone nearby, looking pale and sweating profusely.
At that moment, Huang the Lame cleared his throat and asked, "Brother Guo, the last four characters on this coffin likely mean 'do not open the coffin.' I'm not quite familiar with the first four characters."
Guo the Blind replied, "Underworld Entrance—do not open the coffin."
Huang the Lame chuckled and said, "Who has such a big mouth? Aren't they afraid the wind will blow their tongue away? They dare to say such things about the Underworld Entrance. It seems they want to block Yama from coming out with a coffin."
After laughing for a while, Huang the Lame glanced at his serious-faced companion, Guo the Blind, and asked, "What's wrong, brother?"
Guo the Blind frowned. "This Yinwen was carved by my master."
"Really?" Huang the Lame was startled by Guo the Blind's words. Except for Old Scholar, he thought anyone who carved those eight characters was just trying to show off. But Old Scholar was different; he was Guo the Blind's master. While Huang the Lame did not fear Guo the Blind, he could not afford to disrespect Old Scholar.
It was well-known in Futu Ridge that Guo the Blind's master was Old Scholar. As for Old Scholar himself, very few people in Futu Ridge truly understood him. They only knew he was an outsider who suddenly arrived in Futu Ridge before the founding of the nation, dressed in tattered clothes and carrying a bag of books. Without anyone's permission, he settled down in a dilapidated temple on the west side of Futu Ridge.
At that time, chaos reigned, and crops had failed everywhere. People were fleeing from famine, and everyone assumed Old Scholar had come here to escape hardship and would leave soon. However, he ended up living in that broken temple for decades.
During his decades in Futu Ridge, Old Scholar rarely interacted with others, but everyone knew he was an extraordinary person. No matter what strange events occurred in the mountains, as soon as he appeared, everything would be resolved. Later on, some even claimed to have seen him flying among the trees on the mountain and entering Futu Ridge's forbidden area only to emerge unscathed.
Villagers spread tales about Old Scholar being a deity. Several villages pooled money to renovate the temple for him, treating him like a living god.
As time passed, belief in Old Scholar as a divine being grew stronger because he had lived for so long.
The Qing Dynasty fell in 1911. As a former scholar of the Qing Dynasty, Old Scholar must have been at least twenty years old when it collapsed. Moreover, five years before the fall of the Qing Dynasty, the imperial examination system had already been abolished.
When he first arrived in Futu Ridge, an elderly villager asked Old Scholar how old he was. Old Scholar replied that he was seventy-six at that time, which was during the 1930s. More than thirty years later, during the Calamity, Old Scholar would have been at least one hundred years old but remained healthy and free from illness or disaster.
Old Scholar lived in Futu Ridge's temple and received offerings from ten nearby villages to ensure peace until 1967, which was the second year of the Ten-Year Catastrophe when he was forced to leave.
During that era, all supernatural beings were to be overthrown. Old Scholar became a prime target and was surrounded by a large group of youths from the county on the mountain. Although people from Futu Ridge also responded to this call, they knew Old Scholar possessed real abilities. They wanted to intervene but felt powerless and could only watch as the elderly Old Scholar was tied up and paraded around town.
That year, it was none other than Li Fugui's father, Li Wuye, who led the procession escorting Old Scholar through the streets.
A strange incident occurred: wherever the Old Scholar's cart traveled, people would kneel by the roadside. Among them were fortune-tellers from the county, esteemed wealthy individuals, and many unfamiliar faces, all older men dressed in fine and appropriate clothing, kneeling without daring to lift their heads.
People believed that Li Wuye was unparalleled in martial arts and possessed an imposing presence. At this moment, he was responding to the call of the times by capturing the false immortal whom everyone in the county revered and parading him through the streets. The multitude knelt out of fear.
Proudly, Li Wuye first paraded the Old Scholar and then demanded that this old scoundrel confess all his deceitful methods used against the villagers. He also wanted him to explain how he had once caused the death of a woman from another town under some pretext.
Li Wuye ordered everyone to throw stones at the Old Scholar, but no one dared to do so except for a mischievous child who tossed a single stone at him.
Then, on the way to the Taoist temple, Li Wuye was shot dead, his body hung from a large tree.
Rumor had it that the child who threw the stone at the Old Scholar also fell into the water and drowned shortly after.
The Old Scholar vanished from that day onward and never returned.
The incident Li Wuye spoke of regarding the Old Scholar causing the death of a woman from another town was likely connected to what we now face with the Big Red Coffin.
Guo the Blind stared blankly at the Big Red Coffin before him, recalling a widely discussed event from years ago.
At that time, New China had not yet been established. He had fled Henan with his father to Futu Ridge and often heard villagers from Bright Moon Village speak of miraculous tales about the Old Scholar at Back Mountain Taoist Temple, filling him with immense admiration.
Later, a plague swept through Futu Ridge, infecting thousands and claiming many lives.
Some went up the mountain seeking help, begging the Old Scholar to stop the plague. However, he claimed he could not intervene; if he did, not only would he shorten his own life but it could also lead to a great calamity in the future.
Villagers from ten miles around gathered around the temple, pleading for relief. Eventually, under pressure, the Old Scholar agreed to act by nightfall but insisted on leaving behind several people to assist him.
What transpired that night remains unknown. Those villagers who stayed with the Old Scholar returned home by noon the next day, silent as if they had been deeply traumatized.
The Old Scholar warned them never to reveal what had happened that night, or their lives would be in danger. This event remained concealed for many years.
More than a decade later, one of the villagers who participated in that night’s actions fell gravely ill. On his deathbed, he told his children about the events of that night—the Old Scholar had led them to drown a woman from the Outer Village.
The woman had been submerged for over ten minutes, and by the time she was pulled out, she was already lifeless.
Then, the Old Scholar instructed them to nail the woman into a large coffin. Terrifyingly, halfway through the process, faint cries could be heard coming from inside the coffin.
The woman cried out and clawed at the coffin. In her panic, she seemed to be banging her head against it, causing it to thud ominously. Everyone realized that this woman was no ordinary person; she had survived being underwater for so long without drowning.
However, in the villagers' minds, the Old Scholar was even more extraordinary. He was a living deity who acted this way to save them.
The villagers had heard of human sacrifice methods; in many places suffering from drought, people would offer human sacrifices to pray for rain. During floods, child sacrifices were made to appease river gods, and in mountainous regions, infants were fed to mountain demons. They simply never expected that a learned man like the Old Scholar would resort to such methods of human sacrifice.
What happened afterward remains unknown—whether no one knew or no one dared to speak of it. The coffin's final resting place was lost to time.
Huang the Lame understood this matter better than Guo the Blind because Huang was a few years older and his father had been one of those involved in the human sacrifice that year.
Regardless of how cruel that event was, the villagers praised the Old Scholar because the plague truly vanished.
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