Chapter 132. Liúshuǐ People (8) Village Cadres Dedicated to Scientific Principles

     Unlike the forbidden area on the top of the mountain, the ghost undead in the mass graves all died a violent death. They were either black and invisible, or incomplete and twisted, just like the single eyeball that Wang Xue had looked at.

     Very scary.

     The 12 tourists on the midnight adventure were absolutely terrified.

     Half of them felt as if their feet weighed a thousand pounds, their minds and bodies disconnected. They stood frozen, watching helplessly as dozens of ghosts swarmed and engulfed them. Even though Yunnan Province had entered summer, they were trapped in an environment colder than a refrigerator.

     It was too cold!

     Their whole bodies were icy!

     Was this the day he/she was going to die?

     When the ghost presented them with severed, bloodied heads, some people urinated in terror, others fainted with their eyes rolling back, only to be jolted awake by the biting cold and forced to meet the spirits’ gaze once more.

     “Aaaaaah—”

     The other half of the tourists stumbled and fled, some even crawling on their hands and knees, falling countless times along the way, but they couldn’t care less about the injuries on their hands or legs.

     There is a ghost on the back!

     Their heart rates skyrocketed to two hundred beats per minute, their breathing became increasingly labored, and goosebumps erupted all over their bodies from the biting cold. Their running pace slowed, the weight of the ghosts upon them grew heavier, and the cold sweat that poured out soaked through their clothes.

     In addition, those who had claimed to have been bitten by green spiders or other unknown insects were not lying. They had all been bitten by various poisonous insects, and some of the Gu worms had already entered their bodies, using them as vessels.

     As a result, some people’s lip color darkened by eight shades, some developed strange patterns on their arms and faces, and one person even experienced the hallucination of being submerged in a pile of insects, repeatedly switching between the ghosts and the insect swarm.

     “Help!”

     They screamed for help with heart-wrenching cries.

     So there really are ghosts in this world, and they really are just like the legends. They had kicked a hornet’s nest. Were they about to die? Many were filled with endless regret.

     When Ye Mo and Wang Xue could finally see the burial mound, this was exactly the scene that greeted them.

     Wang Xue stopped in her tracks, almost causing the dazed Ulangda in her arms to fall: “Oh!”

     A real-life horror scene is much more terrifying than anything in the movies.

     Not to mention Wang Xue, even Ulangda and Gan Lan, who weren’t afraid of corpses, felt a little uneasy at this moment. After all, the ghosts in the mass burial mound were different from those in the Miao village.

     Ye Mo also came to a full stop, putting down Gan Lan, who was dizzy from the roller coaster-like descent and the speed that surpassed any roller coaster. She took out three emerald green wood-type crystal cores from her storage space, giving one to Wang Xue, Ulangda, and Gan Lan respectively.

     “Hold onto these, you wait here.”

     After saying that, she took out a crimson red antique-style deep robe from her space, simply draped it over herself, changed into a pair of high boots, and then used a red silk cloth to cover her face.

     Wang Xue: “Sister Jing?”

     Ye Mo glanced at Ulangda, and Gan Lan and said,  “We two are not suitable for exposure in front of ordinary people, you should also cover up a little.”

     “Okay.”

     Before her voice faded, Ye Mo pushed off with her toes and, with a whoosh, flew towards the 6 people at the mass burial mound.

     The red clothing was very conspicuous in the bright moonlight of the dark night, a clear target.

     The ghosts saw the red-clad woman, whose Yang energy was as strong as the sun, in the gloomy dark forest at first sight. They would never mistake a human for a ghost. Some avoided her because of her strong Yang energy, while others rushed straight towards her.

     Ye Mo didn’t need to dodge at all, after all, it certainly wasn’t her who would be scattered into wisps of smoke upon collision. As one, two, then three ghosts vanished into thin air, all the remaining ghosts avoided her as if she were a plague.

     In the eyes of the tourists, they could no longer distinguish between humans and ghosts. Seeing the masked woman in red, and seeing how terrified the ghosts were of her, they assumed she was the legendary red-clad female ghost. Some people finally succeeded in fainting.

     Ye Mo: “…”

     This is much more convenient.

     Ye Mo casually took out a metal container from the storage space and placed it on the ground. She used her mental power to control the Gu in these people’s bodies to come out, and they jumped into the container one by one.

     The few people who were awake at the scene saw a centipede or flying ant growing on their faces or palms of their companions. The ghosts did not scare them, but the Gu worm successfully scared them.

     This process took a very short time. Ye Mo looked at the shivering ghosts undead hiding in the grave, and then flew to the 6 more people who had just escaped.

     When a ghost undead took the opportunity to attack the fainted person on the ground again, what awaited it was mental piercing, and the soul was instantly scattered, and the energy dissipated in the air.

     The ghost undead dared not move: “…scare ghosts!”

     Among the six people who had fled, one had rolled down the slope while escaping at the beginning, covered in blood. The vigorous Yang energy of the blood caused the ghosts to merely observe from a distance.

     The remaining five people hadn’t gone far either. There wasn’t a single instance of mutual help, everyone scattered when disaster struck.

     Out of humanitarian concern, Ye Mo checked on them. Perhaps because they usually filmed ghost-related videos as a profession, none of them had actually died from fright. They might have felt at some point that being scared to death was better than seeing ghosts while alive, but at least their lives were preserved for now, the psychological trauma was another matter.

     If the tourists died, it wouldn’t benefit the mountain village. If they survived, it would create some follow-up trouble.

     Ye Mo gestured to the distance, asking Wang Xue and the other two to come over.

     It’s best to break the formation at the Mass Burial Mound in one fell swoop under the cover of night. As for the tourists, the best way to handle them is to keep them within the mountain stronghold. As long as the two of them don’t reveal their true appearances to those outside the stronghold, it should be fine

     Ye Mo doesn’t mind, but Wang Xue’s name is too similar to Wang Xueqin. If it really doesn’t work out, it might be better to shift the focus to her.

     …

     When the villagers hurried to the middle of the mountain, Ulangda and Gan Lan had already used the Gu to remove the deadly toxins from the tourists who were poisoned. The remaining toxins could not be solved in a short time.

     During this period, two tourists woke up.

     When they saw people, they grabbed the villagers’ hands and excitedly shouted “There is a ghost, help me”, and then fainted again.

     Confirming that they would not die, Ye Mo began to study the maze of the mass burial.

     After the villagers talked with Wang Xue, they felt that this matter really could not be concealed at all.

     The village chief frowned: “Hey, these people are really making trouble. There will definitely be a series of follow-up investigations. The village is in trouble again. I don’t know when it will be stable…”

     “Maybe it’s not that simple. The country already knows–” Wang Xue pointed to the mass grave where Ye Mo was, “These ghost things, this is a continuous battle, unless…”

     While the village chief and Wang Xue were discussing, other villagers had already carried 12 tourists down the mountain. While calling 120 and 110, they also called the village secretary and village committee cadres down the mountain.

     The villagers’ report was roughly as follows: “Cadre Yang, we heard someone screaming on the mountainside in the middle of the night. When we came down the mountain, we saw more than a dozen people fainted in the jungle. Some seemed to be poisoned, and some fell and were injured. Fortunately, they were still breathing. We are rushing down the mountain.”

     The village committee asked: “Someone is eating mushrooms again? Did you call 120 and 110?”

     As we all know, the most famous poisoning in Yunnan Province is the wild mushroom poisoning incident. From 2010 to 2018, at least 9,686 people were poisoned by eating mushrooms. If wild mushroom poisoning is not rescued in time, the mortality rate can be as high as 60%-80%.

     “I called 120, and 110, and we are rushing down the mountain!” The village chief answered repeatedly, “It doesn’t look like mushroom poisoning. They are all shouting ghosts or something. They must have bumped into something.”

     “It must be mushroom poisoning. They must have been doing something stupid when climbing the mountain at night, and they accidentally ate mushrooms, which caused serious hallucinations and brought out ghosts. We are now a scientific society and don’t care about superstition. You should go back and spread the word to the people in the village.” The village committee hung up the phone and immediately notified the strong people in the village down the mountain to pick them up.

     …

     About three hours later, one ambulance after another took the 12 tourists to the nearby county hospital for rescue, accompanied by the village chief, the local village committee, and the local police station.

     They attracted a lot of people along the way.

     Once they entered the hospital, they were first treated for poisoning.

     Fortunately for the doctors, the patients were not severely shocked, comatose, or in heart failure, meaning they were not in immediate danger of death.

     What puzzled the doctors was that they couldn’t identify the toxin affecting these 12 people. Test results showed some had electrolyte imbalances, others had severely purple faces and fingernails, and some exhibited drooling, excessive sweating, drowsiness, nausea…

     Some even seemed to be experiencing hallucinations?

     When one patient was awake, they asked about his condition, and the response they got was – “Female Ghost in red!”

     The village chief at the scene: “…”

     The second, third, and fourth, what left the deepest impression on them was ghosts, with the red-clad female ghost being the most prominent… According to the individual interviews, in addition to the poisoning, they also experienced extreme shock, to the point that they needed sedatives to sleep peacefully.

     The village head was already numb with shock.

     The village cadre, a staunchly scientific old cadre, explained to the doctors: “These young children, they had nothing better to do, so they went to the ancestral graves to look for ghosts. They got bitten there, poisoned, and in their daze, they thought they saw ghosts. These kids nowadays!”

     The handsome policeman: “Yes, yes, yes.”

     The doctors were still skeptical, but they didn’t have a better explanation, so they just solved the problem.

     They were unable to find a specific antidote based on the toxins, so they could only perform different emergency treatments based on the abnormal physical data caused by the poisoning, such as intravenous drips, injections, and inducing vomiting.

     The tourists, who were tossed about between life and death, were speechless.

     When the village head and the village cadre came out of the emergency area, unknown media reporters had already arrived, having caught wind of the situation. They didn’t reveal any information and didn’t know how the reporters would write about it.

     The policeman had a phone call with several of his colleagues.

     Although it was just a township police station, they had to follow the normal process and investigate the place where the tourists had the accident to check whether there were any illegal behaviors.