Looking at this wooden box, everyone felt a strange unease.

Finally, Gongsun Zhiruo stepped forward and carefully lifted the lid of the box.

After seeing what was inside, everyone exhaled in unison.

It was a prayer wheel, not nearly as ornate as the one Jiang Cheng had seen on the bus in Jiangcheng. The craftsmanship and materials were quite ordinary.

"What's a prayer wheel doing here?" Huai Yi asked, puzzled.

"I once heard a saying that places like intersections and lakesides easily attract bad things." Jiang Cheng said, staring at the prayer wheel in the wooden box, deep in thought.

Han Juanjuan was stunned for a moment, then asked in an uncertain tone, "What will it attract?"

Jiang Cheng glanced at him and replied succinctly, "Ghosts."

"Ghosts?"

"Yes, it is said that ghosts can disguise themselves as people, or simply kill someone and control the corpse to participate in such sacrificial activities. If they are not discovered during the entire activity, then it will be assumed that they have obtained this opportunity, and they can continue to live under this person's identity in the future." Jiang Cheng explained in detail.

Hearing this, Zhou Yuxuan seemed thoughtful, and then said, "Similar sayings are a bit like the Huangpizi Tao Feng circulating in our area." (Huangpizi Tao Feng: Weasel Seeking Conferment - a local folk legend).

"But Mr. Jiang, what does all this have to do with the prayer wheel?" Bai Xi asked. He rarely spoke, but every word he said was on point.

After thinking for a moment, Jiang Cheng looked around and said, "If I'm not mistaken, this prayer wheel is placed here to prevent ghosts from mixing in."

"Before each activity begins, everyone who comes to participate must walk to this wooden box one by one, and under everyone's gaze, spin the prayer wheel."

"If it's a person, naturally there's no problem, but if it's not, it will reveal a flaw."

Undeniably, in addition to being knowledgeable, Jiang Cheng also had a talent for storytelling. He successfully aroused the curiosity of everyone present, and even Huai Yi looked at him with anticipation.

"What flaw will it reveal?" Han Juanjuan swallowed and couldn't help but urge.

Jiang Cheng looked at him and said calmly, "The prayer wheel must be turned clockwise, but those things can't do it. If they pick up the prayer wheel, it will turn counterclockwise."

Staring at the prayer wheel in the wooden box, the scene described by Jiang Cheng flashed in their minds, and everyone couldn't help but feel a sense of horror and strangeness.

"Of course, these are all things I've heard. As for whether this is really the case, I can't be sure." Jiang Cheng said finally.

But even if he said so, the scene before them still made everyone believe that it should be as the man said.

After a moment of silence, Gongsun Zhiruo finally spoke, saying that this place was too evil and it was better to stay away from it. His suggestion was unanimously approved by everyone.

They didn't go too far, and after circling around, they came back. When they passed a low shack, everyone stopped. The shack had a tattered cloth hanging in front of it like a door curtain. From the cracks on the side, it was dark inside.

"It's so strange." Zhou Yuxuan said, "We haven't seen many people along the way. This is supposed to be a village. How could there be so few people? Where did the rest go?"

Hearing this, Han Juanjuan's face turned pale, and he muttered in a low voice, "Could it be... could it be that they were all dragged away by that Hungry Ghost?"

"Don't talk nonsense." Gongsun Zhiruo immediately interrupted. He was the leader of their group. Now that the mission hadn't officially started, he didn't want to disrupt morale with some unfounded speculation.

"Whether it's nonsense or not, we'll find out if we go and take a look." Jiang Cheng didn't seem to care. After all, some things would have to be known sooner or later. Knowing it sooner would allow them to prepare earlier.

Seeing that Jiang Cheng intended to go over, Gongsun Zhiruo signaled the others to stay where they were, and he and Jiang Cheng went to investigate.

The two walked towards the shack, one on the left and one on the right. The closer they got, the more they could feel the dilapidation and backwardness of the village.

The shack was not entirely built with rags, but also with a few animal skins. Because they were old, some mottled hairs remained on them, which was very strange.

Standing in front of the "door" of the shack, there was no sound inside. Gongsun Zhiruo breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed that no one was inside, and maybe the shack had been abandoned long ago.

Jiang Cheng reached out and slowly lifted the curtain, but the scene that followed made his hand freeze in mid-air, and Gongsun Zhiruo, who had just breathed a sigh of relief, turned pale.

There was a person sitting in the shack, facing the door.

It was an old man, at least he looked like one. He was wrapped in tattered clothes, and his exposed skin was a strange gray-white color and extremely thin, with only a layer of skin wrapped around his bones.

The old man had his eyes closed tightly, his face was haggard, his eye sockets were sunken, he was sitting cross-legged on the ground, motionless.

Gongsun Zhiruo immediately realized that the old man was dead.

It was a corpse!

A terrifying idea instantly took shape in his mind. There were at least dozens of shacks nearby. Could it be that there was a corpse in each shack...?

What exactly happened here?

Jiang Cheng hesitated for a moment, but in the end, he didn't choose to touch the corpse, which looked strange. Just as he put down the curtain and was about to leave, he inadvertently stepped on a stone.

As Jiang Cheng looked down, Gongsun Zhiruo suddenly shouted. By the time Jiang Cheng reacted, the old man's corpse, which had been sitting upright just now, had opened his eyes and half-crawled up, and was reaching out his withered arms to grab him.

Jiang Cheng immediately backed away and pulled Gongsun Zhiruo up to run.

The others heard the screams and ran over. Realizing that the old man hadn't chased after them, Jiang Cheng stopped.

Looking back, he found the old man standing in front of the shack door, staring at them with a pair of cloudy eyes, and at the same time, he was angrily shouting something in a language they couldn't understand. Without guessing, they knew he was cursing them.

Before long, more and more locals came over, so Jiang Cheng and the others slipped away first.

The good news was that the old man was not dead; he was alive.

After walking a long distance, Jiang Cheng secretly looked back and found the old man standing alone in front of the shack door, looking down at the ground. Jiang Cheng suddenly had a strange feeling. He smelled fear on the old man, and an indescribable fear.

Worried about causing more trouble, the group went straight back to the large tent where they had started.

After a short walk, they confirmed that this tent was definitely in the super-luxury presidential suite level in the village. They didn't know how Shang Mo had managed to get it.

The Fatty was getting along very well with the three women. When Jiang Cheng and the others lifted the curtain and came in, the Fatty was facing away from them, gesticulating and telling the three women something, making them cover their mouths and giggle. If they didn't know better, they would have thought they were a group on vacation.