Among the villagers, the middle-aged man named Guan Ming took a knife and went up the mountain.
Song Yushan and the other four people who were watching the excitement did not expect to encounter a mountain monster that would cause harm to the crops.
But why do these villagers think that the mountain monster is a human being?
Didn’t Old Lady Guan die a normal death?
I always feel like there's something fishy about this.
Looking at the fields that were damaged by mountain monsters, it really doesn’t look like they were man-made.
In order to find out, the four of them followed Guan Ming into the mountain.
Guan Ming climbed over three mountains and arrived at the shade of the mountain, outside a natural cave.
He was still very calm, but when he arrived outside the cave, he suddenly felt a little scared, and his heart was pounding: "Mother! Mother!"
Suddenly, a green shadow with a foul smell rushed out of the hole and hit Guan Ming's face.
"Ah!" Guan Ming was in a hurry and hurriedly waved his knife to resist.
The green shadow was struck and fled into the cave.
Guan Ming escaped, but his courage was frightened and he ran away.
This time, Song Yushan and the others did not follow.
After following him all the way, for several hours, the invisibility charm had expired.
But now, compared to Guan Ming, this cave and the green shadow just now are more concerning.
"What was that green shadow just now? Did you see it clearly? Is it a zombie?" Ning Danxia asked.
She did smell corpse stench just now.
"It's not zombies. Although this is a place where the mountains are shaded by the sun, it's still daytime and zombies won't come out," Mo Yuming said.
"No matter what, he is no longer alive!" Qin Yuan pulled out the Seven-Star Sword: "Let's go in and take a look!"
"The yin energy here is a bit heavy, please be careful." Song Yushan took out a Fierce Sun Talisman and offered it after entering the cave.
The dark cave suddenly became as bright as day, and the heavy Yin Qi was dissipated.
The cave was very large, and there were more than a dozen human bones within sight. There was a stench of decay and despair in the cave.
"Could this be some kind of abandoned corpse cave? It's popular in this village to bury people in caves?" Qin Yuan asked doubtfully.
Mo Yuming pointed to a corpse leaning against the wall and said, "It doesn't look like that. The corpse looks more like it died after lying there."
"This is too strange!" Ning Danxia said: "Did these people all come here specifically to die?"
"I wonder if you have heard of the custom of abandoning the elderly?" Song Yushan sighed: "Look, the ages of these bones are all elderly. It should not be a coincidence."
"What is abandoning the old?"
Qin Yuan and the others asked.
The three of them have become accustomed to Song Yushan's extensive knowledge.
This is all based on the life experiences of Gan Ning Guan’s predecessors.
"In some places where food is not sufficient, there is a custom of sending old people who have lost the ability to work into the mountains to discard them in order to save food rations..."
Song Yushan said while inspecting the bones near the entrance of the cave.
"careful!"
A gust of fishy wind came.
The silver bracelet on Song Yushan's wrist instantly turned into a pair of axes.
Before the green shadow could get close, the sword energy from the two axes was cut into four pieces.
This time they finally saw it clearly.
He is a short old man with disheveled hair and wearing green clothes.
At this time, he was head down, but he could see the old man's skin on his neck.
"No, it's a mandrill!" Qin Yuan used his sword to turn the corpse's head to the front, revealing a monkey face.
Mo Yuming opened his clothes and found a big hole in the abdomen of the human skin: "The mandrill probably got in from the abdomen and ate the human, and carried the leftover corpse and the clothes on the corpse on its back, so it looked like a human. "
"It's so miserable!" Ning Danxia couldn't bear it: "The people in this village are too cruel. They abandoned the old man in the mountains and let him be eaten by mandrills. Aren't they afraid of nightmares? Those are the parents who gave birth to them. ah!"
"Alas! They are all poor. They can't fill their stomachs, so they can only save food rations in this way." Qin Yuan said.
"Whether this is the case or not, we have to wait until nightfall to see the ghosts here to find out." Although Song Yushan was somewhat sure, he did not dare to make a conclusion on such a major matter that affects human life.
Several people searched the entire cave and found hundreds of corpses, which was really shocking.
After night falls, the ghost of the old man appears in the cave without any summons.
But compared to the bones in the cave, they were still much less.
Moreover, the ghost power of these ghosts is relatively weak.
This is the consequence of being exposed in the wilderness, without being laid to rest, and without the protection of a ghost house.
Ning Danxia asked about these ghosts.
As expected, they were sent to this cave by their sons and daughters, and then died.
Among the villagers, this mountain is called Qilao Mountain, and this cave is Qilao Cave.
In a family, if there are great-grandchildren, the elderly in the family have three places to choose from.
One is called "Jingzi", one is called "Shengzi", and the other is "Shanson".
The one who chooses the son of the well will be thrown into a dry well, and the one who chooses the son of the rope will be hanged from a tree.
Those who choose the son of the mountain will be left to die in Qilao Cave.
But unexpectedly, they had no complaints about being abandoned, and even accepted it well:
"There is nothing we can do. There is only so much food. Only if we die can the children survive. We are old and can no longer work. The only way we can help our families is not to increase the burden on them."
The ghosts' words made Ning Danxia, who was angry for them, feel depressed.
They actually accepted being abandoned by their descendants so easily.
"Heirs, could you please help me bring a message to my son? Tell him that I have no grudges and that the monster is not me?"
An old woman in green floated out and begged.
Ning Danxia: "..."
The old woman died in a horrible state, with a big hole in her stomach. She must have been the person eaten by the mandrill.
The ghosts all looked like the last moment before they died. This old woman was obviously bitten to death by a mandrill.
She endured so much pain before her death, but she didn't hate her at all. Instead, she was afraid that her son would misunderstand her, and she wanted to reassure her son.
After coming out of the cave, Song Yushan, Qin Yuan, Ning Danxia and Mo Yuming looked not very good.
There is a feeling of powerlessness with nowhere to vent your energy.
Such a tragic thing happened, but they didn't know what they could do.
Revenge these old people? But they are all voluntary.
Such cruel customs are precisely the key to the village's ability to survive in the harsh environment of the mountains.
But if they just let it go and let more old people be thrown into dry wells, hung on trees, or abandoned in caves, they would feel bad about it.
"Is there any way to make the lives of the people in this village easier? This way they won't abandon the elderly because they can't afford to support them!" Mo Yuming said.
They have money, but in this isolated village, money can't even feed the people in the village.
They have food, but limited food cannot prevent the villagers from ever having a food crisis.
