The ancestral hall door opened once more, blood dripping from the scissors in the woman's hand, matching the deep red of her coat perfectly.
Seeing this, the villager who had been the first to carry a basket into the ancestral hall crumpled to the ground. She fought to compose herself, but a sob escaped anyway.
No one around her moved to help. No one even dared to lift their gaze.
The woman stepped out of the hall and approached the coffin, whispering softly as though communicating with whatever lay inside.
After a moment, she spoke a few more words toward the villagers.
The second basket-carrying villager shook her head repeatedly, clearly unwilling to send her child away.
The woman raised three fingers, and before the last one folded down, a villager beside her snatched the bamboo basket and set it before the woman.
The hand holding the scissors lifted the basket, and under the stimulus of the coppery scent, the infant's crying grew louder—but no one dared to stop what was happening.
The woman entered the ancestral hall yet again. The door shut behind her, and no one knew what transpired inside.
The ritual continued. Accompanied by the infant's piercing wails, Living Coffin Village grew more terrifying by the moment, and in the darkness, pairs of unfamiliar eyes slowly blinked open.
Chen Ge and Lao Wei, hiding in their room, ran into trouble of their own. The old house—once passably safe—began to shift, the soil loosening as though something was trying to claw its way out from below.
Tattered cloth scraps hung from the eaves, swaying in the wind. Wrapped inside them seemed to be a twisted human face.
Shadows flickered past the windows from every direction, and from inside the room came the occasional strange noise—like someone hiding beneath the bed, tapping rhythmically against the bedboard.
The wicked spirits were awakening. Terror blanketed the entire village, slowly closing its grip around every living heart.
The dilapidated ancestral hall door was pushed open by the woman. The infant's crying had stopped. Blood dripped from the scissors, and even beneath her crimson clothes, the dark clots on the woman's body were plainly visible.
"Number two." Chen Ge's eyes fixed on A'Qing, whose deformed arms—one long, one short—trembled without cease.
The woman stood beside the coffin, scissors in hand, whispering. From within the red coffin, another woman's laughter was clearly audible—unnerving, like an unbreakable curse.
Her hand holding the scissors rose upward. The woman seemed to understand the red coffin's intent, and her gaze settled on the third basket-carrying villager.
Numb, indifferent, utterly devoid of hope—the person set the bamboo basket before the woman of their own accord.
After the woman carried the third basket into the hall, the offering table inside lurched, and spirit tablets toppled one after another, as though refusing to watch any longer.
The door closed. The infant's wail surged to a piercing shriek, then cut off abruptly.
Blood seeped from beneath the doorway. Strange sounds echoed from every corner of the village, as though the very land itself were weeping.
A new change came over the courtyard where Chen Ge and the others were hidden. A dull thumping echoed from the coffin in the bedroom. The portrait on the wall cracked open its eyes, its expression one of pure malevolence.
It was as though the female ghost wanted nothing more than to torment the people of this village—life after life, denying them peace even in death.
The woman in red emerged from the ancestral hall for the third time, blood dripping from the hems of her trousers. In that instant, Chen Ge finally understood why she wore such a vivid red coat.
Leaving a bloody footprint with every step, she addressed the coffin—but only laughter drifted out from within.
Hearing that sound, A'Qing's quivering legs finally gave out. He collapsed to his knees, both arms—one long, one short—clutching the bamboo basket for dear life.