Las bellezas del Palacio Frío Una mujer sutil y seductora

Capítulo 21

After a while, no one rose from the ground. All the dark figures stood motionless beneath the altar, a dense mass of black shadows, like stiff statues. Most were naked, some still wearing clothes that hadn't yet rotted away. They hadn't been resurrected; it was just unknown what method the chieftain had used to make them rise from the ground.

My journalistic instincts suddenly made me forget my fear; I had to know what had happened! I quickly walked up the barren hill, skirting around the crowd to a spot a few dozen meters in front of them. The crowd was standing with their backs to the moon, so I couldn't see their faces clearly. About ten meters in front of me stood a tall, thin student, seemingly possessed by some kind of deity.

The chieftain glared at me fiercely, then turned and made a gesture to his people. Moisture quickly gathered above the crowd, soon forming several dark clouds.

Mr. Bian and the others quietly walked up behind me.

The clan chief lowered his head and closed his eyes. The student next to me, who seemed to be possessed by a spirit, also lowered his head and muttered something under his breath. A gust of wind blew by, and a heavy rain began to fall above the crowd. The rain washed over their bodies, but none of them moved, as if they were nailed to the ground.

The mud on people was washed off in no time, the rain stopped, and the clouds quickly dispersed.

Their bodies were intact, and their skin reflected a faint white light in the moonlight, but we still couldn't see their faces clearly.

Bian Jizhong, carrying the ceramic bowl, once again darted through the crowd, smearing blood on people's foreheads and lips.

His movements were so fast that I was dazzled, and in no time at all, he was back on the altar.

A miracle has occurred! People who have been dead for over eighty years are actually coming back to life one after another!

Suddenly, some people in the crowd started to move, and soon, as if the wind was blowing across a sorghum field, everyone was active and began to talk.

"We're out? I can feel the wind!"

"Where are we?"

"Ah Gui, is that you?"

"Mom, where are you?"

......

Everyone seemed invisible, touching each other with their hands.

I saw a horrific scene that I will never forget in my life: all the people had no faces, the muscles on their faces were all rotting, they had no eyes, only white skulls and two black eye holes, and yet they still had hair, and their chins were moving as if they were speaking.

I was so terrified that my blood seemed to freeze, and every hair on my body stood on end.

Those people seemed oblivious to each other's terrifying faces, still shouting excitedly.

The chieftain slowly raised his head. I couldn't see his face clearly, but I believe his shock was no less than mine, because his body was trembling violently!

I don’t know if he was completely despondent at that moment. The crowd below the altar was in chaos, and people were unaware of his existence.

"Quiet!" he roared, his voice filled with despair and anger.

"How could this be?" He turned around, his eyes blazing with fury!

He glared at Jiang Ping, his hands clenched into fists, and roared, "Was this your doing? I'll kill you all!"

The crowd fell silent at first, startled by his roar, but then they immediately shouted with joy, "Chieftain, is that you?"

"Am I dreaming?!"

"dad!"

"Chieftain, did you come to save us?"

"I can't see anything at all. Where are you?"

"Chief, I missed you so much! I knew you would come to save us!"

"Waaaaah..."

......

People recognized the sound coming from the altar and rushed up to it.

"I am your chieftain, I have come to save you! Please be quiet for a moment, I will speak to you soon!" the chieftain shouted to the crowd with tears in his eyes.

The crowd quieted down. A long-haired woman staggered toward the altar. Her body was well-proportioned and white, as beautiful as a statue of Venus, but her face was a stark white skull. Behind her were two boys, one of whom had fallen and was still struggling to climb up.

"Dad, where are you?"

"Is it really you?" the woman cried.

The clan chief took a step forward, intending to greet him, but quickly retreated a few meters, suppressing his grief as he loudly rebuked, "Get down! Didn't you hear me?"

The woman stopped in disbelief, raised her face, and said softly and gently, "Is it really you? You've never spoken to me so loudly before. Is it really you?"

The chieftain's throat tightened, and he said softly, "Xiuxiu, it's me! You've suffered so much! I've come to save you!"

The woman began to sob, "You've finally come! I knew you would come! I've been waiting so long! I can't see anything, can I touch you?"

The clan chief did not respond.

The woman covered her face with her hands, then suddenly screamed, "My face! What happened to my face?"

People below the altar touched their faces, and everyone cried out in horror, "How could this be?"

The clan leader shouted, "Quiet! Quiet! Don't make a sound!"

Everyone fell silent, staring blankly at the altar.

"Do you know? You were already dead. Before that, you were ghosts, buried underground, and you suffered!"

I just saved you, but there's been a small problem. Don't panic, I can definitely restore you to your former state!

I know you have many questions, but don't ask them yet, I'll tell you later! Please be quiet and trust me!

Jiang Ping walked onto the altar, his face calm.

The clan chief turned around, his face filled with murderous intent. He glared at Jiang Ping and said, word by word, "Was it you who did this, you bastard?"

Jiang Ping calmly replied, "No, absolutely not, I swear to God!"

The chieftain roared, "Impossible! I saw their faces last night, and they were perfectly intact!"

“I don’t have that ability, nor would I do it! Doing so would do me no good. I have no way to subdue you, do I? If I did that, wouldn’t it just let you kill my whole family?”

"Impossible! I don't believe it! It must be you!" The clan chief shook his head frantically.

"Please calm down, okay? Think about it, will doing this save those students? Why would I do this?"

The clan chief, panting heavily, finally calmed down a bit. His eyes darted around, and he suddenly asked, "Did you know I would be using these students as sacrifices today?"

"I didn't know until those students came in, then I realized your intention!" Jiang Ping said calmly.

"You're an extremely intelligent person. You may not know who I'll bring here, but you should have already guessed that I'd bring a group of people here as sacrifices, right?"

"I can't be sure you'll bring people, because you're not confident you can force me to submit to your will. If you kill someone in front of me, I might not help you!"

"I thought you would commit the crime elsewhere and then bring the blood here!" Jiang Ping retorted.

"Nonsense! You must think I'll bring my people out of the ground before killing these students. You think I'll stop and let them go if I see their faces are already destroyed into skeletons, right?"

“I don’t have any magical abilities. What I find strange is why you killed those two hundred-plus innocent students before digging your clansmen out of the ground.”

"I did it on purpose! Only by killing these students, leaving no room for redemption, will you wholeheartedly help me, won't you?"

"I never imagined that the devil could outwit the saint! I truly underestimated you!" The clan leader was enraged by his own reasoning.

Jiang Ping's reaction was also surprisingly surprising: "If that's really the case, I wouldn't have let everyone's faces be covered in mud. I would have made sure you could see it at a glance! Otherwise, I would have reminded you as well."

Instead of letting you kill everyone and then having your people resurrected before you discover them!

You even washed their bodies with rainwater, and you still didn't notice?"

The clan chief was speechless for a moment, but quickly retorted:

"That's because you can't possibly calculate every single detail with such precision!"

“I know nothing about this! If I really did what you said, I would be the first to be suspected. Given your personality, you would rather kill the innocent than let the guilty go free, wouldn’t you? This is all fate, do you believe it? It is the gods in the dark who are preventing you from succeeding!” Jiang Ping said excitedly.

"Nonsense! If there were truly gods, they wouldn't have ordered me to kill those students. This is clearly a lie! Restore their faces, or I'll kill them!" the clan chief roared.

Jiang Ping said with a bitter smile, "How can I explain it to you so that you'll believe me? It wasn't me who did it at all, and I have no way to undo it. Killing them all won't help; it will only increase your sins! They had the chance to live for over eighty years, but you destroyed them. You've already defied the will of Heaven once!"

Your people died and should have entered the cycle of reincarnation, but you forcibly suppressed them underground. You have once again defied the will of Heaven!

Now you have cruelly killed more than two hundred innocent lives and resurrected people who died many years ago. This is yet another act against the will of Heaven!

"Heaven's sins may be forgiven, but self-inflicted sins are inescapable!"

"You dog slave, kill those people for me!" the clan chief ordered furiously.

No one answered. He looked around, but Bian Jizhong's ghostly figure had disappeared for some unknown reason.

The clan chief snorted and began chanting some kind of incantation, trying to summon Bian Jizhong's ghost, but to no avail. In a fit of rage, he flew into the air to get a better look. He cursed at the top of his lungs, "You bastard, get out here, or I'll make you wish you were dead!" Still, there was silence.

At this moment, his wife, Xiuxiu, groped her way forward and asked, "Is what you just said true, Asheng? We're already dead, aren't we? You really killed more than two hundred innocent students to save us?"

The clan chief landed on the platform, calming down from his rage and remaining silent.

Xiuxiu continued forward, but accidentally fell into a pit and struggled to get up. The clan chief ran over and tried to help her up, but he couldn't manage it.

Xiuxiu sat in the pit, crying, and asked, "Are you dead? Are you a ghost now?"

The clan chief remained silent, tears streaming down his face.

Please, tell me!

"Yes, I died a long time ago. Not long after Da Niu went back to report the news, I was killed!"

"Where have you been all these years? I've been waiting for you underground for so long, why haven't you come to see me? I've been thinking about you so much I'm going crazy. Do you know what kind of life I've been living? I can't live, I can't die, just like you said."

The clan chief sobbed, “Every year on your birthday, I would secretly go to see you, but I didn’t dare to speak to you! I know you are suffering in the underworld, but I’m afraid I won’t be able to bear making you suffer and will release you to be reborn as a human. Then maybe I will never find you again. I can’t bear to part with you!”

"You're so stupid! Life is short, like grass in autumn, what's there to miss? You shouldn't have killed so many people, they were people too, not livestock!"

Even if we all came back to life, could we have peace of mind? Xiuxiu scolded softly, her voice unusually pleasant, and I really couldn't connect her voice with that skeletal face.

The clan chief suddenly burst into laughter, which puzzled everyone, who thought he had gone mad.

He walked out of the pit and said to Jiang Ping, "Alright! Whether you did it to their faces or not, I don't think there's any way to restore them, so I won't pursue it! I have a suggestion to remedy the situation."

"What suggestion?" Jiang Ping took a step back, a look of horror appearing on his face for the first time.

“I’ll transfer the souls of my people into those students. The body is just a shell, isn’t it? It won’t cost you anything. No one will be added or removed from the world. I’ll make them all commit suicide.”

Jiang Ping's expression changed drastically, as if he had suddenly lost his composure.

What's going on? I'm also very confused.

Seeing Jiang Ping's actions causing chaos, I rushed onto the altar and shouted, "You want them all to commit suicide? What right do you have to make them commit suicide! You selfish bastard!"

"You call me selfish? I'd love to hear it!" The clan chief said to me mockingly, ignoring Jiang Ping.

I ran to the altar and shouted to his people, "Do you know? More than eighty years ago, you still had a chance to survive, but your chieftain unleashed a mudslide that killed you all!"