Chapter 293

Some people died silently at night; some people didn't know what they encountered and were scared crazy; and some people's bodies began to age rapidly. Even though they were in their prime, their bodies became hunched, their hair turned gray, and their teeth fell out...

The further it went, the more serious this situation became, so much so that the entire town gradually turned into a ghost town, and the living all hid in their homes, not daring to step out of the door.

During this period, it was not that no one thought of escaping or inviting someone to solve this disaster. Unfortunately, as soon as they walked out of the town, they became dazed, and eventually, one by one, they all hung themselves in a certain direction to the south of the town.

But to the south of the town, there was only a dilapidated Longevity God Temple, and there was nothing else.

Perhaps sensing that there was a problem with that Longevity God Temple, some bold people in the town began to connect in secret.

They remembered a legend that had been circulating in the town for a long time, which was that when a disaster occurred in the town that could not be solved by human power, they would offer incense candles and living sacrifices to the Longevity God.

This living sacrifice was, of course, best if it were a half-grown child, so that the Longevity God would be satisfied.

So, these townspeople finally picked and picked, and they chose a few families with children, including the family where the incense candle maker was, and he was one of the living sacrifices.

In short, I don't know how others persuaded the Incense Master's parents, but in the end, the Incense Master had the best day in his memory.

That day, he put on new clothes sewn by his mother, ate the pork fat dumplings he had been thinking about, and got the little wooden horse he had dreamed of... That day, he was sent into the sedan chair for offering to the god by his parents in the gray morning mist.

That morning, the town seemed to become lively again. The doors that had been tightly closed one by one were opened, and the townspeople who had been hiding and not coming out also gathered on the street one after another.

The wooden houses on both sides of the street were dark in color and covered with mold spots. The red on the couplets on the door frames had faded, leaving only the pale background and faint ink marks. The bluestone slabs on the street had become pitted due to the raindrops from the eaves and were covered with slippery moss.

Sitting in the sedan chair for offering to the god, the young Incense Master looked at the silent and heavy-faced townspeople in front and behind him. For some reason, he always felt that they were revealing a kind of heavy deathly aura all over their bodies.

Especially those townspeople who looked a bit aged, their occasional glances at him were like evil ghosts, which was creepy.

However, soon they arrived in front of that Longevity God Temple. At this time, it had been simply repaired, and new offering tables and incense burners had been replaced.

It was just that the statue of the old longevity star still looked covered in dust and very mottled, because no one really dared to clean this statue.

Immediately after, the incense candles were lit, smoke curled, and the Incense Master and other children were placed in front of the Longevity God statue amidst the long tune of the elders in the town presiding over the god-worshiping ceremony.

Before coming here, they were repeatedly warned not to run around or talk nonsense. As long as they waited for the ceremony to be completed, they would be able to eat the food they wanted to eat again, wear new clothes...

The short god-worshiping ceremony was quickly completed, and then the townspeople quietly dispersed. It was just that they didn't go far, and they were all paying attention to whether the Longevity God would enjoy the sacrifices.

As the townspeople left, the children who were used as living sacrifices, including the Incense Master, gradually became bolder. One by one, they couldn't help but start whispering, or some gluttonous guys reached out to other offerings on the table.

Only the Incense Master's eyes were fixed on the few incense sticks in the incense burner that had completely gone out, and he remained silent. Because the Incense Master's family was a funeral shop specializing in making incense candles, he still knew some taboos.

People are afraid of three long and two short, incense is afraid of two short and one long.

And now, in the incense burner, it was that most taboo situation. It was just that before he could have any reaction, that gluttonous child began to cover his stomach and cry loudly.

This scared the other children enough. Some curled up and cried along, some began to jump off the platform and run toward the town, and some hid directly under the offering table.

The Incense Master was the one hiding under the offering table, because he seemed to have heard from his elders at home before that under the offering table was the safest place.

Soon, the child who was covering his stomach and crying loudly gradually lost his voice, and his body began to gradually turn into the bruised color of a dead person.

The Incense Master had also helped other families handle funerals with his father before and had seen the unique death spots of dead people.

At the same time, the children who ran out also began to have problems one after another. Some fell to the ground while running, and some seemed to have been grabbed by the ankles by something. No matter how they struggled, they could not move a single bit, and could only leave scratches on the ground.

And this situation was still spreading into the town. The townspeople who were originally watching also found in horror that their skin began to become old and wrinkled. Some people were fine just a moment ago, but suddenly they couldn't breathe, and then they realized that they had become old people about to be buried.

Some people also felt that their bodies were getting heavier and heavier, and there were even some palm prints on their bodies for no reason. Eventually, they were directly crushed to the ground by that huge weight, and then their bones shattered and their bodies turned into meat paste.

Only the young Incense Master, who was hiding under the offering table, saw some blurry images in horror and fear.

On the body of the child who died holding his stomach, there was a dead person wearing burial clothes, with a pale face and turbid eyeballs, lying on top of him, as if gnawing on something.

The child who was grabbed by his feet and had difficulty escaping was the same, also grabbed by a dead person wearing burial clothes, who was now grabbing toward the child's waist and abdomen.

I don't know when, a group of dead corpses wearing burial clothes began to wander throughout the town, and all the living people became their targets.

"Pat, pat, pat"

Just when the young Incense Master was trembling and didn't even dare to breathe, a dead corpse also wearing burial clothes appeared in front of the offering table.

Then, terrifying screams and harsh scratching sounds rang out on the offering table. It was a child who was too timid to escape.

"Child, child, come, eat, eat, eat"

Suddenly, a hoarse voice came to the young Incense Master's ear. He saw an old woman wearing burial clothes holding the extinguished incense sticks and handing them toward him.

Looking at the other party's blue-black palms covered in corpse spots, the young Incense Master was almost scared crazy. It was just that he didn't go crazy in the end, nor did he move. No matter what that old woman did, he remained motionless, like a statue.

In the end, that old woman left, leaving only a few incense sticks on the ground that had not finished burning.

Finally, I don't know how long it had been, no more corpses wearing burial clothes appeared. The young Incense Master, who was hungry and unbearable, crawled out from under the offering table in a trance.

Then he saw that the statue of the Longevity God, which had been covered in dust, had cracked, and rotting, foul-smelling corpse water was seeping out from the cracks.

This corpse water flowed to the ground, flowed to the offering table, and also flowed onto his body, turning into streaks of corpse spot markings that could not be washed away... ===== CHAPTER 294 =====