Thriller Zone: From the Mental Hospital to the Ghostly World

"belch!"

As night fell, a loud burp from Wusu broke the silence.

His eyes slowly opened, and they looked bright and clear, completely different from before.

"All right?"

Chen Yuetan picked him up.

Wusu nodded, his face flushed red in the firelight, full of energy.

"Now we can go find the tomb entrance!"

Now?

Chen Ji caught the word and seemed to be deep in thought.

After leaving Ghost Forest, Chen Yuetan remained silent. As darkness fell, he set up a campfire in an open area.

It was indeed because of Wusu.

He never mentioned the hair "key" to his uncle... Could it be that Wusu could also open the tomb door?

After digesting the source corpse's head, Wusu's mood improved significantly, and he became more talkative.

"The 'scene' I saw became clearer; following the monkeys was the right thing to do."

It turns out there are actually four areas in the primeval forest that have been corrupted by ghosts...

They are respectively the Ghost Forest.

A wooden cabin that shouldn't be in the woods.

A valley to the west.

Even Wusu felt uneasy about the valley, saying that there was only one "forest ranger" there.

as well as.....

cave.

"cave?"

Chen Ji was taken aback. "What's inside?"

He saw many images flash through Wusu's eyes... but finally, they suddenly froze.

The image reflected inside is very strange.

It looks like it was taken with a fisheye lens; it's mostly black with gray-white edges and a faint hint of orange-yellow.

Wu Su's eyelids suddenly closed.

When it opened again, there was nothing in its pupil.

"There's someone there. Wearing orange."

“I saw him, and they saw me too.”

Chen Ji took two seconds to react... then suddenly his heart pounded!

He immediately exchanged a glance with his uncle, only to see that Chen Yuetan's face suddenly turned very ugly.

What Wusu just saw in his eyes...

In fact, it's eyes and half a human face.

A distorted human face.

It's like someone sticking their eyeball to a camera and being filmed.

However, Wusu did not encounter a similar situation when he "saw" the other three areas.

After listening to Wusu's description, Chen Ji guessed that it was a team of mountaineers.

But it's clear he's become a ghost.

It's still a vengeful ghost.

The recent anomaly has demonstrated that the "cave" is the most dangerous area, bar none.

The reason why Wusu led people to the "Ghost Forest" is undoubtedly because the threat there is relatively minimal.

"The tomb entrance is inside the temple."

Usu added, “Normally, you have to go through the Ranger’s Valley and the wooden hut to reach the Ghost Forest, and then enter the temple from there.”

The wrong path taken by the golden monkey was actually the safest route.

No more words.

Chen Ji gazed at the temple in front of him.

Under the bright moonlight, the temple was extremely dilapidated.

Many of the roof tiles are missing, and the remaining ones are covered with a thick layer of moss.

However, the remaining carvings on the walls still show that the temple was once carefully decorated.

Moreover, the area is not small.

It wasn't the small temple in the mountains that Chen Ji had imagined.

"This temple... is very strange."

Chen Yuetan seemed to be deep in thought.

He pointed to the temple: "The eaves are too high."

"Also, look closely, there should have been a plaque in that empty space above the temple gate."

"It should be a temple for the living, but..."

Chen Yuetan slowly walked forward, staring intently at the temple's window lattice.

“The window has been repaired and part of it has been covered with bricks, and a stone-carved window on the left side is missing.”

Chen Ji looked closely and finally realized why he always felt something was wrong.

Because it's asymmetrical!

Moreover, the fact that half of the window was sealed off was also strange, as if it was deliberately designed to prevent sunlight from getting in.

The group continued walking forward, but Chen Yuetan stopped a few meters from the steps.

He squinted at it and said softly:

"Level 4."

Chen Ji suddenly remembered the stone steps he had seen in the Ghost Forest and immediately looked over.

really.....

The bottom step is abruptly higher than the ground, almost twice the height of the two steps above it.

Or rather, there should have been another layer of stone steps below!

It was simply dug up by someone...

"Uncle, there should have been five steps here, right?"

Chen Yuetan nodded.

"Correct."

"I guess it's not just the steps, but also the number of windows here, which are all even."

"In a normal temple, the number of these things... should always be odd."

He then explained that this is not absolute; for example, Baiyun Temple has 18 steps, and there are five temples on Mount Wutai with 108 steps.

However, the number of these steps is related to religion and has special meaning, and cannot be applied to this ordinary wild temple.

Moreover, the temple in front of us has clearly been altered by human hands.

“The yang hexagram is odd, and the yin hexagram is even. This place must have been an ordinary temple before, but it was later converted into a yin temple.”

Chen Yuetan gazed at the tightly closed temple gate and pondered:

"I don't know what was originally enshrined inside."

Squeak——

As they pushed open the door, a strong smell of dust assaulted their nostrils.

It was pitch black inside.

Chen Yuetan turned on his flashlight and quickly scanned the surroundings.

The ground was covered with a thick layer of dust, indicating that no one had set foot there for countless years.

A sacrificial table is placed in the very center.

Near the offering table, there was an incense burner, which was filled with thick layers of incense ash.

and.....

There was indeed an altar built against the wall, and prayer flags were hanging behind the altar, but when they looked around, they couldn't see any statues!

Apart from the altar and offering table, there was nothing else around.

"Is this an empty temple?"

Chen Ji's heart stirred slightly.

The four walls were painted red, but the color has darkened over time.

Chen Yuetan looked up again and saw two paper lanterns hanging on the beam directly opposite the incense burner.

Strangely, the lanterns were black, as if they had been coated with ink.

Bang!

Just then, the temple door they had deliberately left open suddenly slammed shut without any wind!

The dark lantern swayed precariously.

Chen Ji immediately pushed the door, but the temple door was as if it were welded shut and did not budge.

They were trapped inside the temple.

Chen Ji wasn't too surprised; he had expected this to happen.

"Let's look around, there might be a hidden door," Chen Yuetan said.

soon.

They discovered that some of the stone bricks under the offering table were loose.

With a gentle dig, a tunnel appeared, extremely narrow, only wide enough for one person to squeeze in.

A dozen seconds later, the group crawled out of the tunnel, revealing a hidden world below!

The ground was uneven and piled with more than a dozen paintings, most of which were damaged, and the few remaining ones were oddly shaped and it was unclear what they were trying to express.

One of the paintings was even somewhat eerie.

Within a crimson crescent moon, two dark, hollow eyeballs are painted.

Beside it lay many offering utensils lying on the ground, as well as a scratched plaque...

This was originally an object of worship in the temple.

Whoever did all this, it's clear it was done with malice towards the temple's original owner...

Or rather, it's hatred.

There's another small room inside.

Chen Yuetan examined the murals for a while, then turned to look at the deepest part of the cellar.

Push open the earthen gate and shine a flashlight inside—

Their gazes froze instantly.

What came into their view was a dense array of statues.

The room was packed.