The truth was, the daughter-in-law was a good person; the truly vicious ones were the mother-in-law and her family. The daughter-in-law had never mistreated them; they were the ones who had been tormenting her. As for the daughter-in-law’s adultery, it was all forced upon her by the family, making her sleep with those men.

The husband seemed honest and simple, but in reality, he was extremely dark inside. He enjoyed watching his wife sleep with other men, and then putting all the blame on her, punishing her in every way imaginable.

This was why, over the years, the daughter-in-law had become increasingly haggard, while the family of three had become more radiant.

In the process of tormenting the daughter-in-law, they gained immense pleasure and a sense of accomplishment. Things they had never dared to say for years, they said to the daughter-in-law. Things they had never dared to do for years, they did to the daughter-in-law.

They even had the daughter-in-law play the role of different people in the village, then used her as a punching bag to vent their anger. This family of three seemed honest and simple in the eyes of the villagers, but that was not honesty, but cowardice. They were not truly kind, but simply lacked the courage to be evil; they couldn't afford to offend anyone.

It was the same as that man who took his anger out on the weasel that I met last time. Many seemingly honest people are not what we think they are; they are just weak but not kind. If given the opportunity, their evil would be far worse than any landlord or tyrant.

The man in the mountains vented his anger by abusing weasels; this family of three did it by bullying their daughter-in-law.

So, why didn't the daughter-in-law ever tell the truth? If she had the courage to scold her mother-in-law in front of the villagers, why didn't she dare to expose their crimes?

Because this family of three had used the daughter-in-law's ignorance to carry out a years-long deception against her.

Just a few days after the daughter-in-law married into the family, her in-laws deliberately showed her a strange statue and often offered incense to it. The daughter-in-law asked them what the deity was supposed to protect and why it looked so strange. They pretended to be mysterious and told the daughter-in-law not to ask or tell anyone, otherwise the deity would take her life, and she couldn't blame anyone else.

Although the daughter-in-law found it strange, she felt that her honest in-laws wouldn't do anything evil, so she didn't think too much about it.

However, a few days later, she discovered that her husband was secretly making a dog out of straw, and he had also stuck a paper knife into the dog's body. Then he placed it on the table where the statue was worshiped. The daughter-in-law was very puzzled and wanted to ask, but her husband glared at her, so she didn't dare to ask.

The next day, the daughter-in-law found a dead dog behind the house, which looked very similar to the straw dog on the altar. Even the position and depth of the knife were the same. The daughter-in-law was shocked and quickly ran home to look at the dog on the altar. She found that the straw dog on the altar had gone from standing to lying down, and red blood was actually flowing from the straw dog's body.

Two days later, the daughter-in-law found that the door of the small room that was usually locked was ajar. Although her mother-in-law had told her not to enter that room casually, for some reason, she went in that day. She was stunned as soon as she entered the room. The small room was neatly filled with a row of straw figures, with straw exposed on their arms and legs, but their faces had been painted.

Although the facial features were painted very roughly on the white paper faces, the woman recognized them at a glance. Those straw figures were of herself and her parents and brothers.

Next to the paper figures, there were paper knives, paper swords, hemp ropes, and everything else. In the corner of the room, there were also several broken straw figures. The daughter-in-law trembled as she picked up the broken straw figures and took a look. She also recognized those faces. They were the children who had secretly gone to the river to swim and drowned a while ago.

The daughter-in-law felt like the sky had fallen. What kind of family had she married into? A straw dog was stabbed, and a real dog was also stabbed. Several children drowned in the river, and those straw figures were also wet. Now there were straw figures of her family in the room, so…

The daughter-in-law collapsed to the ground, afraid to think any further.

At this moment, the husband came in. The woman asked him what was going on with the straw figures here, and what was the use of that statue?

Seeing that the daughter-in-law had already discovered it, the husband didn't hide anything from her. He told her that the statue was a very powerful sorcerer god. As long as the straw figure was killed in front of the statue, the person corresponding to the straw figure would also die, and the way they died would be the same as the way the straw figure died.

The daughter-in-law was just an ordinary rural girl. Because her family favored boys over girls, she hadn't attended school for many days and had very limited knowledge. She was so scared that she knelt down to the man and begged him not to kill her, not to kill her whole family. She would serve the man well, be filial to her parents-in-law, and obey the family in every way, only asking the man to spare her and her family's lives.

The man pretended to be in a difficult position, saying that he needed to consider it and discuss it with his parents. After all, he had already promised the statue that he would offer this family to the sorcerer god. If he suddenly didn't offer them, he was afraid that the sorcerer god would bring disaster.

The woman could only kowtow and beg. Seeing the woman like this, the man found an unprecedented sense of accomplishment. This feeling of being high above was so addictive. At that moment, he even felt that his words could really control the lives and deaths of others.

In the evening, the woman finally received the answer of absolution. The parents-in-law offered incense to the statue in front of the daughter-in-law, praying that they wouldn't use the daughter-in-law's family as offerings and asking the sorcerer god not to be angry. They would withdraw one and replace it with two. These five wouldn't be killed; they would kill ten others to compensate the sorcerer god.

The daughter-in-law was so frightened that she trembled all over and didn't dare to ask anything.

After that, the daughter-in-law never entered that small room again, and she didn't dare to ask her in-laws which ten people they used to replace them. Anyway, during those two years, whenever she heard that someone had died, she would wonder if they had been eaten by the evil god of her in-laws' family.

In order to save her own life and the lives of her family members, the daughter-in-law could only listen to them, and she didn't dare to say anything, no matter how she was bullied or how she was made a scapegoat.

The in-laws enjoyed this feeling very much. They even deliberately had the daughter-in-law bully and scold them in front of outsiders, using the destruction of the daughter-in-law to further consolidate their good reputation.

But did the in-laws really worship some evil god, and did they really know some evil magic? Of course not.

Those useless people didn't even have the qualifications to practice evil magic. If they really knew evil magic, they wouldn't have only bullied their daughter-in-law, and they wouldn't have been so honest in the village that they didn't dare to fart.

The dog was stabbed to death by the man and thrown behind the house. The straw figures of the children who drowned were only made by the man after the children had the accident. The man could only make a few straw figures and draw a few simple human faces on white paper. As for evil magic, he didn't know anything at all. But the poor daughter-in-law was deceived and manipulated by such a family until she committed suicide by jumping into a well and became a ghost, only then did she realize that it was all a scam.