"You... know everything?"
Lu Bingyan looked at Bai Yanliang in disbelief.
Bai Yanliang neither confirmed nor denied, saying, "I know a little more than you might think."
Lu Bingyan gave Bai Yanliang a deep look and said, "I can’t give her to you. If you want to stay alive, don’t stop me."
"And then? Stab her in the heart and complete the sacrifice?"
A man’s voice sounded from behind her.
Lu Bingyan’s expression changed abruptly. She turned around and saw an ordinary-looking man watching her.
"Mr. Bai, Lu Rendong isn’t dead. The ghost that killed more than a dozen people wasn’t Lu Rendong," Li Mu stated concisely.
Bai Yanliang nodded and said, "I know."
Li Mu followed his gaze downward and finally noticed the grave that had already been dug up and the now-empty coffin.
Li Mu’s expression turned somewhat strange, but in the end, he said nothing.
He looked at Lu Bingyan again.
"You know too, right? Your mother, including all the women of this village, were trafficked from outside the mountains."
Lu Bingyan suddenly raised her head, her eyes red as she glared at him, shouting, "So what? It wasn’t my doing!"
However, Bai Yanliang wasn’t aware of this matter, and he looked at Li Mu with a questioning gaze, waiting for an explanation.
Li Mu took a letter from his jacket pocket and tossed it to Bai Yanliang.
Bai Yanliang caught the letter, unfolded it, and read it.
This... turned out to be a price negotiation agreement.
The Old Village Chief offered valuable antique artifacts, while the other side provided young, healthy women...
So that’s how it was.
Bai Yanliang finally understood the whole story.
Xiao Bin wasn’t lying.
Sacrificial Blood Village has the Homecoming Festival, with a small festival every year and a grand festival every ten years.
And the offerings... seem to have to be women.
During the small festival, women are stripped of their humanity by something, turning them into beast-like creatures.
During the grand festival, their heart’s blood is taken, and they lose their lives.
Bai Yanliang looked at Li Mu and said, "Last year was Sacrificial Blood Village’s grand festival, but Lu Rendong didn’t die, so the ritual wasn’t completed. Over the past year, people have continued to die. It’s not Lu Rendong’s revenge but the fury of the beast that didn’t receive its sacrifice. It’s the one that killed those people."
"Yeah, so today, there’s no need for the sacrifice at all. It’s no longer on the sacrificial ground; it’s already in the village," Li Mu nodded to Bai Yanliang, then said to Lu Bingyan.
Two voices rang out simultaneously, the first from Lu Bingyan, the latter from Bai Yanliang.
Lu Bingyan hadn’t expected Bai Yanliang to deny Li Mu’s view, and her angry, unwilling expression froze on her face.
Li Mu looked at Bai Yanliang in surprise, waiting to hear his explanation.
He believed Bai Yanliang was not someone who would speak without basis.
Bai Yanliang looked at Lu Bingyan and said, "This time, you need to carry on with the ritual."
Li Mu looked at Bai Yanliang and asked.
"Because Lu Rendong escaped death last year and left Sacrificial Blood Village."
Bai Yanliang replied.
Li Mu frowned slightly, not quite understanding Bai Yanliang’s meaning.
"If she could leave on an ordinary day, she’d surely have the opportunity to escape, but she’s always been trapped here. The time and space here are distorted, and the inability to leave is for that reason too. They’re trapped in overlapping time points, equivalent to standing in place. Only today, after the ritual, will the time and space of this village temporarily return to normal." Bai Yanliang explained.
"You mean... complete the sacrifice, restore the time around Sacrificial Blood Village to normal, and then we escape?"
"More or less." Bai Yanliang didn’t deny it, but his answer was ambiguous.
At first glance, his explanation seemed reasonable to Li Mu, but... he still felt Bai Yanliang was hiding something from him.
Yet he couldn’t find any flaw in Bai Yanliang’s words.
This intuition was something Li Mu was willing to trust, but Bai Yanliang’s method was also worth trying.
But... the sacrifice required a woman’s heart blood. Did it mean harming Lin Yan?
Li Mu frowned deeply; he couldn’t do it.
"It’s worth a try, but..."
Before Li Mu could finish his sentence, Bai Yanliang interrupted him.
"I’ll trade him for her with you."
Bai Yanliang said as he dragged out a person from the roadside bushes, an unconscious man.
His skin was dark, his appearance peculiar; it was obvious he was a villager from Sacrificial Blood Village.
"Niu Ping? He... you?" Lu Bingyan’s gaze flitted between Bai Yanliang and Niu Ping.
"So his name is Niu Ping? I asked him to guide me to the back mountain, and he wasn’t very cooperative." Bai Yanliang kicked the unconscious villager.
"You kidnapped him? How could that be! His strength..." Lu Bingyan still found it hard to believe that Bai Yanliang, who looked somewhat weak, could do such a thing.
Bai Yanliang didn’t offer much explanation, simply pointing to his waist and back, saying, "I found a cleaver at your grandfather’s house."
Are you sure it was ’found’...
Li Mu’s eyelids twitched slightly.
Lu Bingyan was speechless too but shook her head and said, "No... he’s a man. A man’s blood is useless."
Bai Yanliang suddenly asked.
Lu Bingyan raised her head to look at him and found Bai Yanliang was also watching her.
"Who told you that the sacrifice can’t be a man?"
His gaze was serious, making Lu Bingyan instinctively respond, "The... grandfather."
Bai Yanliang nodded, looked at the man at his feet, and said, "What if I tell you that this notion was a lie from the very beginning?"
"That’s impossible!" Lu Bingyan instinctively refuted.
Bai Yanliang asked in return.
"Because... because..." Lu Bingyan’s eyes wandered, yet she found she couldn’t come up with any reason.
"Because the men of Sacrificial Blood Village feared death, they made up a lie from the start, which was passed down through generations until... all the women died. For physiological needs, for posterity, for survival, they turned to outside women. One day, a stranger happened upon the village during a ritual, walked in, and they struck a deal with him. Thus... there were women in the village again." Bai Yanliang spoke calmly, but both Lu Bingyan and Li Mu showed obvious changes in their emotions.
One with a pale face, a mix of hatred and fear, the other enraged, gritting his teeth.
"So, are you willing to try? With this person." Bai Yanliang kicked the village man he’d knocked unconscious and asked again.
Lu Bingyan lowered her head, hiding her expression, but Lin Yan, who was on her back, was let down to the ground.
After a moment, Lu Bingyan lifted her head, staring at Bai Yanliang, and said:
Bai Yanliang nodded in satisfaction. Li Mu had already helped Lin Yan up, his expression somewhat complicated.
Although the men of this village deserved to die ten thousand times over, he believed... only the law could punish them.
Bai Yanliang’s approach wasn’t quite in line with his values.
At this moment, Bai Yanliang suddenly called out.
Li Mu looked up at him and saw Bai Yanliang staring outside the mountain, his gaze calm. ᴛʜɪs ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ɪs ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ʙʏ n0velfire.net
"Do you think... there are corners of this world beyond the reach of justice?"