Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
‘Wei Xiao knew that some poor and remote places still held onto some bad habits. Even though he now knew that there might be supernatural things in this world, he scoffed at these acts and couldn’t stand it. At least that girl was still alive.
The old village chief was so scared by Wei Xiao’s words that he didn’t even dare touch the tobacco pipe on the table, and his face turned deathly pale. At that moment, the wrinkled, hunched wife of the old village chief suddenly staggered in and said angrily, “Sir, you make it sound so easy. You make us
stop giving sacrifices, so we’ll stop? If our village doesn’t make offerings to the River Goddess for protection, that will be cutting off our Li Village’s means to live.”
Without waiting for Wei Xiao and the others to speak, the old village chief’s wife suddenly sat on the ground and slapped her thighs as she wailed. Wei Xiao frowned tightly. In the end, Wei Xiao had his subordinates forcibly take her away.
Seeing the old village chief’s silent and mournful face, Wei Xiao said patiently, “Village Chief, it’s the 21st century in China now, not the backward times of the past. If your village has any difficulties, you can directly let me know. As public servants who serve the people, we’ll naturally help you resolve
your problems!”
Seeing that the old village chief didn’t speak for a long time, Wei Xiao changed the subject and continued, “But we absolutely won’t allow this kind of sacrifice.”
The old village chief’s face changed, but he still didn’t speak. Wei Xiao could only bring up the matter of missing people in recent years and he asked the old village chief if he knew anything.
Unexpectedly, the old village chief’s face changed drastically. Wei Xiao said, “Village Chief, I didn’t mean to make things difficult for you. I did come this time to investigate the fact that your village hasn’t reported your missing people. If you won’t talk, I can only take you back to the military district first!”
This time, Wei Xiao didn’t mince his words. The old village chief, who had been silent the whole time, immediately turned pale with fright and hurriedly said, “Til talk, I’ll talk, don’t arrest me! Don’t arrest me!”
The old village chief suddenly thought of something, and he choked up for a while before he said, “Sir, we really won’t be able to live if we don’t offer sacrifices! The River Goddess will blame us for not giving her any offerings. Not to mention sacrificing Li Xiangiang’s daughter, I couldn’t even keep my
own granddaughter. She was chosen by the village a few years ago and sacrificed to the River Goddess!”
At that point, the old village chief’s face was filled with grief. Wei Xiao, on the other hand, hated this Zhaosan Village deeply for using people as living sacrifices, and his face was very unsightly.
The old village chief immediately continued. “Sir!”
“My surname is Wei!”
“Chief Wei, we don’t want to do this either. If there’s a glimmer of hope or a way out, who would be willing to sacrifice their own daughter?” The old village chief choked with sobs. Without waiting for Wei Xiao to speak, the old village chief continued, “However, if we don’t give offerings to the River
Goddess, more people in our Li Village will die!”
When Wei Xiao heard this, he had a vague feeling that this matter was probably related to the missing people. He then heard the old village chief mention that people had disappeared from Zhaoshan Village in the past 20 years.
This ritual for sacrificing living people started 15 years ago. At that time, a few of their people had disappeared for no reason. At first, no one thought much of it. Everyone went to search together, but couldn’t find them.
While everyone back then was dismayed, they weren’t as terrified as now, at the mere mention of missing people.
15 years ago, many people suddenly went missing at one go from their Li Village.. How could they not be terrified?
