Blood surged straight up through his veins to his head, leaving Liu Dashao momentarily dazed. Oh my god, the old folks in the village were actually right! Why had such a thought suddenly popped into his mind? It turned out that since the beginning of the year, their village had been unusually restless. Strange occurrences had become common, and the most widely spread ghost story was closely tied to the small temple they were now in.
It was said that as soon as night fell, many small lights would float around the Five Manifestations Temple. A beggar once tried to spend the night there out of curiosity, but the next day, he had vanished without a trace. At that time, Liu Dashao naturally hadn’t taken such stories seriously.
But the elders spoke about it with such solemnity that it didn’t seem like mere fabrication. Therefore, no one dared to stay alone here for long, especially after dark. Thinking of this, Liu Dashao finally felt a twinge of regret for his earlier recklessness.
Gradually, the large calligraphic characters on the temple’s plaque, written in a thin, elegant style and coated with cinnabar, began to peel off from above Liu Dashao’s head. The red pigment transformed into streams of winding tears, dripping down wherever his eyes could see, like scattered crimson lotuses of hell. The surrounding scenery was dyed a vivid red, as if the entire temple had just been soaked in blood. The two boys instinctively looked up and saw that the moon in the sky had turned blood-red, radiating a dazzling crimson glow.
At this sight, Liu Dashao’s heart leapt into his throat. His earlier boldness had gradually faded, and now sweat began trickling down his face again.
Just as he stood there, unsure of what to do, a foul smell reached his nose—Dog Egg, the timid one, had wet himself in fear, soaking his trousers completely, looking utterly pathetic. Tian Guoqiang, upon noticing, said nothing but gripped the kerosene lamp in his hands tightly, his knuckles turning white from the force.
Perhaps the stench from Dog Egg had snapped Liu Dashao back to his senses a little. He glanced nervously around and weakly muttered, “Let’s get out of here. I feel like something’s really wrong.”
Tian Guoqiang edged closer and persuaded him, “Those impure spirits are wandering outside! If we go out now and get surrounded by ghosts, we won’t even have a chance to escape. At least inside the temple, we’re under the protection of Lord Lingguan. If we really must leave, there’s no rush.”
“This… this…” Liu Dashao was usually the leader, but right now, how could he come up with any plan? He had already lost his composure. After a moment, he stammered, “Alright then… I’ll follow your suggestion for now.”
“I told you not to eat the apples from Lord Lingguan! But you wouldn’t listen—you ate one and still weren’t satisfied, so you stole another. You thought it was a buy-one-get-one-free deal! Now look what’s happened—the evil ghosts have come knocking, and they’ll skin you alive!” Tian Guoqiang’s face turned pale with fear as he scolded Liu Dashao incessantly, then knelt before the shrine, muttering prayers: “Honored Lords of the Five Manifestations above, your humble descendants are merely here tonight to pay their respects. We beg you, protect us and ensure our safe return. We promise to repay you with double offerings, no—triple! And we’ll burn the finest incense for you.”
At some unknown moment, the flames from the red candles beside the statue had turned an eerie blue, rising several feet high. The flames seemed to emit no heat at all, and the surrounding temperature dropped sharply. Liu Dashao, watching from a distance, was so shocked that his mouth gaped open.
Tian Guoqiang’s face, illuminated by the blue fire, looked particularly terrifying, his dull eyes reflecting a strange glow. Unaware of this, he continued praying softly while bowing repeatedly. But Liu Dashao’s mouth opened wider and wider, eventually forming an exaggerated ‘O’. Beside him, Dog Egg and Xiao Maz clung together, shivering and crying silently.
In their line of sight, the faces of the five Lingguan statues—made of clay—began to show expressions, just like humans.
They were clearly… smiling!
“Kokko… kokkokko…”
After a moment of stifled laughter, a piercing, heart-wrenching scream tore through the roof of the temple, as if even the gods in the heavens had been startled. The hazy scent of sandalwood, as if possessed by some unknown force, suddenly seemed to gain a human awareness, rapidly dispersing and regrouping, as though fleeing from something.
Next, Liu Dashao frantically grabbed the motionless Tian Guoqiang and dragged him toward the exit. His facial muscles twitched grotesquely as he shrieked in broken tones, “Buddha, the Lingguan laughed! Demons! Demons!”
Dog Egg and Xiao Maz finally snapped out of it too, rushing out in a panic, fearing that if they hesitated even a second, they would be devoured alive by the monsters inside.
“Kokko… kokkokko…” Terrifying laughter echoed through the temple, seemingly laced with mockery. Looking from a corner of the room, one could faintly see the shoulders of the five Lingguan statues trembling continuously.
Could it really be them laughing? What were they laughing at?
Birds resting on the old tree were startled, flapping their wings and flying off with shrieks.
The deathly silence of the night enveloped the valley, and suddenly, a wave of nauseating bloodstained stench surged forth.
“Dog Egg, you little bastard, why are you dragging me like this? You’re almost tearing my arm off!” At the temple gate, Tian Guoqiang, who had stumbled on the threshold and seemed possessed moments ago, finally regained a bit of awareness, rubbing his sore spot as he cursed.
Liu Dashao’s face remained grim as he merely gestured for Tian Guoqiang to look back into the temple. As Tian instinctively turned his head, his eyes rolled back and his legs buckled—he nearly fainted again.
“Ghosts!”
A chilling wind blew, and the laughter seemed to penetrate the walls, circling in their ears no matter how hard they tried to block it.
Greenish ghost lights floated back and forth, appearing both infinitely distant and disturbingly close. The four of them let out a collective cry, abandoning everything, and fled down the stone path in panic. The sight was more chaotic than an army of hundreds of thousands fleeing in defeat, armor and weapons discarded.
“Ah, I’m so scared, so scared!” Finally descending the mountain, Liu Dashao gasped for breath after a long pant. He was about to call out to Tian Guoqiang and the others, but found that the three of them had mysteriously disappeared.
Damn it! Had these little bastards actually had a moment of conscience, staying behind to distract the evil spirits so he could escape? Liu Dashao, who had read too many war comics, couldn’t help but feel a little emotional. But he also knew the chances of that happening were even slimmer than an old maid finding a husband. So, under the moonlight, he lowered his head and scanned the ground.
There, in a patch of sandy soil, three clear footprints were visible. Judging from the direction of the shoe tips, they obviously headed toward the village. And judging by the depth of the prints—two shallow and one deep—it was easy to tell the deep one belonged to Dog Egg, that heavenly marshal of filth.
Although he didn’t know whether the five old monsters from the temple had followed them, Liu Dashao couldn’t help but curse, “Damn it! When it really matters, they all run faster than me!”
Cursing aside, he still had to return home. Liu Dashao, now thoroughly deflated, gritted his teeth and vowed to expose every misdeed of these three once he got back. Thus, while walking in the dark, he began listing the crimes of the leading culprit, Comrade Tian Guoqiang.
After counting all the fingers on his left hand, he moved to the right. After finishing his fingers, he even started counting his toes, but still couldn’t cover everything.
“Peeping at widows bathing…”
“Tricking blind people into walking into walls…”
“Wearing foreign watches, encouraging the moral decay of cadres’ children…”
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