smuggler

Chapter 120
The real dragon protects the people and does not ask for rewards but only for merit and virtue. How could it be necessary to sacrifice a living person?
I yelled: "Grandma, are you two old people at home? Why don't you see your children? Are they assured that you are at home?"

When the old lady heard my words, she burst into tears, and her hands trembled slightly.

"I have a daughter, but she has already gone to the Dragon Palace to serve the Dragon King!" The grandmother said something that shocked me.

I'm not a fool, just now the old lady said that the village needs to sacrifice a young girl to the Dragon King every year in order to ask for the Dragon King's forgiveness.

Her daughter was sacrificed to the Dragon King?

The old grandma seemed to see the doubts in my heart, and said with a bitter smile: "She offended the Dragon King, there is nothing I can do about it!"

In the early years, the grandmother had a daughter named Cui Lan. When she was only 16 years old, she went to the river to play with a few friends in the village.

As a result, while playing, Cui Lan found a red rope as thick as a thumb.

The red rope was originally hidden in the mud, but Cui Lan only discovered it after tripping over it.

Cui Lan lifted the red rope and found that one end was connected to the depth of the river and the other end was connected to the shore.

The strange thing is that the red rope is still very strong after soaking in the water for so long.

Cui Lan didn't think much about it, she walked to the shore with the red rope, found a rock, and cut the red rope abruptly.

Strangely, it seemed that someone was pulling the red rope in the river. As soon as the rope broke, it was pulled into the depths of the river and disappeared.

Cui Lan didn't think much about it, but something happened that night.

Cui Lan seemed to be bewitched, sometimes sober, sometimes blurred, rolling her eyes, giggling, or saying nonsensical words for no reason.

At first, the grandmother thought that her daughter was sick, but after taking medicine for several days, Cui Lan's condition did not improve, but became worse.

In the end, she had no choice but to invite the snake woman. When the snake woman saw Cui Lan, she frowned tightly. After counting her fingers, she said, "Cui Lan has offended the Dragon King. Now I have to go to the Dragon King Temple." Kneel three times and kowtow nine times to the Dragon King to ask for his forgiveness!"

After the old lady found out, she immediately took Cui Lan to the Dragon King Temple, knelt down in front of the Dragon King stone statue with a plop, and cried out the tragic experience of the villagers with snot and tears, and begged the Dragon King to let them go. Don't dare to do anything wrong.

At this time, a ray of golden light suddenly radiated from the stone statue of the Dragon King, and he opened and closed his mouth, chanting Cui Lan's name unexpectedly.

She also said that she had offended herself and cut off its connection with the leylines, and she must be dedicated to herself, otherwise the whole village would be punished.

The old lady was extremely unwilling, but that night, three zombies in red wedding clothes appeared inexplicably in the village.

They walked through the streets and alleys of the village, knocking on doors one by one, and even broke through the door to break in, and killed the owner's house inside, killing seven people in the village overnight.

This incident made the villagers panic. After the patriarch knew about it, he felt great, but for the future of the village, everyone decided to hold a sacrificial meeting and sacrifice Cui Lan to the Dragon King.

After all, no one wants to die from that strange disease and be bitten to death alive by monsters.

Chu Yuan on the side frowned slightly after hearing this, but he didn't say anything.

Seeing that I was silent, the old grandma sighed and said, "Although you, a person from outside the village, don't know what your purpose is for coming here, I have to tell you that choosing to come here is the biggest mistake. Coming here I can't get out!"

The old lady said that this village can only be entered but not exited. I thought about this before I came.

Otherwise, why all the people who came here before disappeared without a trace.

But the exact reason for this is unknown.

I asked curiously: "Grandma, can you tell me something about the village? I heard that people who die here wear masks? And they can't be buried outside the village?"

"My surname is Liu. You can call me Granny Liu. People in our village call me that. It sounds kind."

It may be that she has been alone in this village for too long, and it is rare for a foreigner to talk to her now in the village. Granny Liu seemed very happy and smiled when she spoke.

After I finished asking this question, she looked a little confused, as if she was thinking about it. After a while, she put down the scissors in her hand.

In fact, no matter whether the dead in the village hold funerals or bury the dead in the village, these customs, which seem very weird and evil to outsiders, are taken for granted in their eyes.

Regarding wearing masks on dead bodies, this has been handed down from generation to generation. In ancient times, there were some places where people died.

Worried that the corpse will be attacked by wind, rain, birds and beasts, so the corpse will become unrecognizable. In order to maintain the dignity of the dead, masks will be made for the dead to wear.

This custom has been handed down in the village to this day.

I thought about it, and then asked suspiciously: "But why there are three temples in the village, and what about the two earthen temples on the left and right of the entrance of the village? Are they also for respecting the Dragon King?"

Chu Yuan and I have already entered one of the temples at the beginning, but the inside is very strange, definitely not a good place.

I don't understand why such a wicked temple was built in the village.

But the old lady waved her hands and shook her head and said, "Those two temples are dedicated to the two saints, and they are Baijia food officials under the Dragon King!"

"Bai Jia Grain Officer?" I looked suspicious.

"He served the Dragon King." Grandma Liu sighed, "If you want to talk about this, it happened about ten or twenty years ago, and the village has become what it is now."

The Dragon King Temple behind the village has a history of hundreds of years, but the other Shuangsheng Temple at the entrance of the village was built later.

According to Grandma Liu, the Shuangsheng Temple was built to enshrine official figures. According to Grandma Liu, the enshrined officials were two Ming Dynasty parent officials in the village.

The two officials are clean and honest, and they are universal to the people. Therefore, after their deaths, the ancestors built temples.

However, because they are not righteous gods, they cannot erect statues of gods, so they can only be replaced by official puppets, and such immortals belong to Yin immortals.

At the beginning, the ancestors built Hualong Village because it was isolated from the world and to avoid wars. Although the life in this place was poor due to the terrain, there were hundreds of people in the village.

Self-sufficient in this place, it is possible to get by.

However, this peaceful day changed more than ten years ago.

Speaking of this, Granny Liu also had a little fear in her eyes, and that kind of fear cannot be faked.

It was completely the fear engraved in his bones. If he hadn't been really frightened out of his guts, he would never have such an expression when he recalled it.

Although the customs of Hualong Village are different from those of people outside, some festivals are still the same, but the people here changed the July [-]th Ghost Festival to worship the Dragon King.

Every July [-]th, people in Hualong Village gather in the holy temple to worship the Dragon King.

(End of this chapter)