Chapter 135 Eat, Eat, Eat!
A serene atmosphere of a Republican-era village,
Down-to-earth curses and clamor,
Notes carrying the fragrance of earth.
This is its back, the back of this Sanxiang Village, but once you take a few steps and run to the front, you will be scared to death by its face.
Every detail here is like a crack, drops of blood gurgling out of the cracks, then submerging people, suffocating them.
A terrifying dark cloud has been shrouding the village, like a stage play, each character seemingly wearing a meaningful mask.
What hangs in the sky is clearly the moon;
But the light on the ground is an uneven, ghastly white, as if an incompetent lighting technician has adjusted the angle wrongly, making everything very chaotic.
Some people are sleeping,
Some people are cooking,
Some people are drawing water,
Some people are cursing,
Some people are laughing,
And some people are crying.
Zhou Ze walked for a long time, almost wandering through the entire village.
What he can be sure of is that this place is now completely different from when that landlord came last time.
If the landlord, nine years ago, was met with a half-hearted resistance, now, it's really like a giant tiger, having opened its mouth, and, at the same time, its tiger eyes are glaring at you.
It can eat you whenever it wants,
And that feeling of waiting to be eaten at any moment is the most tormenting and agonizing.
If the landlord from nine years ago saw this scene today, he probably wouldn't have had the courage to say that he wanted to come back to find evidence and take pictures.
After walking around, Zhou Ze came to the outside of an ancestral hall.
This ancestral hall is considered the most high-class building in the entire Sanxiang Village.
It's not big,
But it has a plaque hanging outside, and the inside is carved with beams and painted pillars. Although small and a bit cramped, it exudes a sense of exquisiteness and solemnity.
A blind old man wearing a long gown sat at the entrance of the ancestral hall, holding a cane in his hand, tapping the ground incessantly, his lips trembling slightly.
Zhou Ze stopped in front of him because, in Zhou Ze's opinion, this old man was the most normal one in the whole village.
At least, the old man wasn't drooling.
But after getting closer,
Zhou Ze still heard the old man muttering to himself in a low voice:
"Hungry, so hungry, really hungry, I really want to eat white steamed buns, I really want to eat steamed buns."
The little monkey scurried up and grabbed the blind old man's goatee.
The blind old man raised his head. He was blind and didn't have sunglasses, but where his eyes should have been, there was only a blur. However, at this moment, he should have sensed that there was someone in front of him, a stranger.
He licked his lips and then swallowed his saliva,
And said:
"Leave, you should leave, the big guys, they're about to lose control."
The blind old man's words were full of vicissitudes and helplessness.
He was reminding Zhou Ze,
This,
Is a dangerous place, the people here are very hungry.
A horde of hungry ghosts are about to be unleashed!
If you don't leave now, you won't be able to leave later.
Zhou Ze still didn't move. To be honest, he wasn't very afraid of the fierce ghosts here, although he was a bit overwhelmed by their sheer number, but there's a big difference between being unable to beat them and being unable to escape.
Zhou Ze believed that no matter what, he was still confident that he could escape.
"What exactly is going on here?"
Zhou Ze asked.
He hoped to get an answer, how the people in this village had become like this.
In fact,
The darkness above the village and the blood moon had already explained a lot of things. The village was an ill-omened place, a phenomenon often seen at ancient battlefield sites.
"Don't ask, don't ask, just leave, everyone is very hungry, very hungry, if you don't leave, you'll be eaten."
The blind old man kept repeating these few sentences, over and over again.
"Hungry? You were starved to death?"
That's impossible,
How could an entire village starve to death? If there's no food, wouldn't they go out to escape the famine?
Moreover, the grandmother on the internet who used to be from Sanxiang Village had replied that the village was massacred on the day the Japanese devils invaded Tongcheng, so what does that have to do with hunger?
"Leave, get out of here!"
The blind old man got angry,
His cane tapping the ground incessantly.
"Leave! Leave!"
Zhou Ze still didn't move, which made the blind old man very anxious. Of course, while he was anxious, he also started sniffing incessantly, obviously, he was craving!
"If you don't leave, you'll be eaten."
The blind old man's voice began to get lower and lower.
He himself was about to lose control.
Zhou Ze still didn't move. He couldn't leave without figuring out what was going on here.
The affairs of the living are the responsibility of the police, but the affairs of the dead are his responsibility.
This village could previously be called a "modern version" of a Peach Blossom Spring, but now, nine years have passed, and it has gradually begun to degenerate into a nest of fierce ghosts.
That little girl was probably lucky. She wasn't contaminated or greatly affected, and she came to his bookstore.
But at the same time, the fact that the little girl appeared in the bookstore also showed that the ghosts in this Sanxiang Village, the situation here, had begun to change.
Not only can people come in,
But ghosts,
Can also go out!
Once so many fierce ghosts are released at once, how much impact and destruction will they cause?
If Zhou Ze didn't know, it would be fine. He could just deal with it in time. But he was already here.
The little loli had said that the Yin Division has a scale.
Zhou Ze believed that if he left it alone and left, his actions would be judged in the Yin Division to be far worse than him coercing the little loli to be his subordinate.
In the eyes of the Yin Division,
Ghost messengers and constables are the lowest-level civil servants. You can fight internally, compete for favor, and quarrel, but you must do your job well. And the work of maintaining stability is the most important.
Controlling the situation and preventing ghosts from affecting the human world is the most basic bottom line. Everything else is not a problem.
Therefore, Zhou Ze couldn't leave, even though he also smelled that the oppressive feeling in the air was getting stronger and stronger.
But the most crucial thing now is that if he doesn't know the secrets of this village and the reasons for its formation, Zhou Ze simply won't be able to solve it.
Just like the old man and the little girl he encountered when he first came in, they instantly returned to their previous state after Zhou Ze killed them.
In this place, Zhou Ze simply couldn't kill them, let alone catch them to earn performance points.
"Leave!"
The blind old man suddenly stood up, his cane pointing at Zhou Ze.
Zhou Ze reached out and grabbed the cane, two fingernails directly embedding themselves into the cane.
"Ahhhhhhhh!!!"
The blind old man let out a low roar, then opened his mouth and bit at Zhou Ze.
Zhou Ze took a step back, sidestepped, and entered the ancestral hall. The blind old man was knocked back and fell down, rolling down the steps of the ancestral hall.
But then, the blind old man directly lay on the ground, supporting himself with his hands and feet, his stomach bulging.
"Bang!"
The blind old man jumped over again,
Zhou Ze spread his hands, black mist swirling around, directly trapping the blind old man. But Zhou Ze didn't use his fingernails to stab him to death. Instead, he reached out and patted his face,
And asked:
"Tell me, what exactly happened to this village!"
"Ahhhhhhhh!!!"
However, the blind old man seemed to have completely lost his mind, constantly struggling, trying to break free from Zhou Ze's restraints and bite Zhou Ze.
There was no other way. Zhou Ze could only kick him away again.
Just like last time, the blind old man bounced up again after landing. Black juice was constantly oozing from the corners of his mouth, along with fragments of tree bark and grass roots.
Obviously, for a long time, he had been so hungry that he had been using these things to fill his stomach.
And at this moment,
Without knowing when it started, one villager after another slowly gathered outside the ancestral hall. They were all expressionless and staggered as they gathered.
There was the old man carrying a hoe,
There was the little girl holding a sugar figurine,
There was the widow eating her own hair,
There was the old woman holding cloth shoes in her hand,
There was the young couple eating their own flesh,
There were many, many people,
They gathered at the entrance of the ancestral hall,
Their eyes fixed on Zhou Ze. They were hungry, they were very, very hungry.
The little monkey shivered in fright and jumped directly onto the offering table in the ancestral hall, trembling.
So many fierce ghosts,
Too scary,
The baleful aura emanating from them was enough to suffocate people. They stood there, and it seemed as if a dark cloud was being swept up in the sky.
Zhou Ze gritted his teeth and asked:
"I know you are very hungry, but I really want someone who can still think clearly to come out and say something. Tell me, what exactly is wrong with you?
I am here to help you, to help you get rid of your pain, and even though you have become like this, it is not completely impossible to be reincarnated!"
Zhou Ze said very seriously and sincerely,
Moreover,
The place that hadn't been hurting for a long time started to hurt at this moment,
Zhou Ze subconsciously reached out and grabbed his chest.
He had almost forgotten its existence,
It hadn't hurt for a long time,
Tang Shi had told him before she left that it was because he had become used to living heartlessly. So now, was he starting to be conscientious again?
Yes,
He was being conscientious,
Because Zhou Ze couldn't bear to completely destroy the last hope of the people in this entire village. Eighty years ago, they had already been very miserable, just like the 300,000 souls who died in Nanjing.
Therefore, as long as there was a glimmer of hope, Zhou Ze still hoped that they could have the opportunity to be reincarnated.
And because of this, Zhou Ze held onto a fluke mentality, attempting to find another sane person in this village and obtain some clues.
Now, he was surrounded by the entire village, losing the freedom to advance or retreat that he had previously possessed.
He could rush out, but he estimated that he would have to enter that state again amidst the tearing and biting of the fierce ghosts,
And then he would be paralyzed and seriously injured for a long time again.
This was very uneconomical,
And very stupid,
A foolish act and choice,
So his conscience hurt again.
"Roar!"
"Hungry!"
"Eat him!"
"Eat!"
No one seriously responded to Zhou Ze's words,
They all swarmed up together and rushed over.
Zhou Ze's fingernails flew non-stop, and one fierce ghost after another was overturned by him, but they seemed to be endless. Even if they were scattered, they would soon appear in some corner of the village and continue to rush over to join the battle.
Zhou Ze was facing an undead army that could constantly revive!
"Bang!"
"Bang!"
The ancestral hall was constantly withstanding the attacks,
The floor tiles on the ground also began to crack,
Finally, after Zhou Ze slammed a fierce ghost heavily on the ground,
A string of floor tiles under his feet completely broke,
But under the tiles,
A large patch of white, glittering rice appeared,
Zhou Ze was stunned,
All the fierce ghosts present were also stunned,
The rice must be fake,
The village had long been razed to the ground, and even a school had been built on top of it,
But the scene here was real.
This meant that,
When everyone in the village was starving back then,
Under the ancestral hall of this village,
There really was so much grain hidden!
Zhou Ze squatted down, reached out and grabbed a handful of rice, and raised it towards the fierce ghosts in front of him,
And said:
"Eat it, eat it and you won't be hungry anymore, and then... you can have a good journey to the afterlife."
However,
The fierce ghosts of the entire village in the ancestral hall didn't move. They seemed to have no feeling for the rice,
Their gazes only lingered on the rice for a moment,
And then they all fell on Zhou Ze at the same time.
They didn't eat rice,
But they were hungry,
So,
They could only eat Zhou Ze!
Zhou Ze really had a feeling of being so angry that he laughed,
What the hell,
Am I that delicious?