Chapter 5: The Shrine with Bleeding Eyes

This eerie scene made my body, which had just begun to relax, tense up once again.

Subconsciously, I slowly stood up, ready to say something. Old Chen immediately placed a finger to his lips, signaling for me to stay silent. Seeing Old Chen squinting with a grave expression, I held my tongue and gave a slight nod.

The door to the wooden cabin had swung completely open by this time. Old Chen set down the rabbit he was holding, rose slowly, and walked to the entrance.

However, what I saw next...

The moment Old Chen looked inside the cabin, his body shuddered involuntarily, and he staggered back a few steps. His pupils dilated, as if he had witnessed something he found utterly impossible to accept.

Then, I saw Old Chen drop to his knees and begin to kowtow frantically toward the inside of the cabin. He struck his head against the ground with such force that it made a dull, thudding sound. Soon, bloodstains appeared on the floor, but Old Chen seemed not to notice, continuing to knock his head with desperate intensity.

Even as he did so, he trembled, his voice thick with sheer terror: "Lord Wushan, have mercy! I was wrong! I was wrong!"

To be honest, I was completely bewildered. This sudden transformation in Old Chen’s state was as shocking as it was terrifying. After all, I had been working under Old Chen at the logging camp for three years. In my memory, he had always been a man of immense composure. No matter what happened, he remained steady. Even the death of our employer had meant nothing to him. But now? Old Chen was terrified to this extent.

And this "Lord Wushan" he spoke of—I knew who that was. Back at the camp, the hunters had taught me. Across the country, any hunter—whether from the silent mountains or the echoing ones—worshipped the same deity: Lord Wushan. According to an old hunter at the camp, Lord Wushan was the god of all hunters. In the deep woods, if Lord Wushan wanted you dead, you died; if he wanted you to live, you lived. If he willed it, you would find game; if he forbade it, you would find nothing.

At first, I had scoffed at this. I didn't believe in such superstitions, thinking that survival and hunting success were entirely a matter of a hunter’s skill. But now, seeing Old Chen in such a strange state...

The deep woods were deathly quiet. I swallowed hard and slowly walked over to his side. Following his lead, I looked into the cabin.

But, after just one glance, I froze.

Inside the dilapidated cabin, there was no place to sleep. Right in the center stood a table, and upon it sat a thirty-centimeter-tall shrine. Perhaps due to the passage of time, its features were indistinct, though one could vaguely make out a human face—eyes, nose, and mouth.

The most chilling part, however, was the incense burner sitting ten centimeters in front of the shrine. Inside it... were three sticks of incense, burning brightly. Their tips glowed with a dark red light, and three thin wisps of smoke curled slowly upward.

"This... how is this possible?" I muttered, my eyes wide with disbelief.

I knew that from beginning to end, only Old Chen and I had been here; there was never a third person. And looking at these sticks of incense, they had clearly just been lit. So... who lit them?

A chill ran down my spine, an inexplicable frost surging toward my brain. Moreover, the three sticks of incense were of different lengths: two short and one long. Having grown up in the countryside, I knew a little bit about these things. People fear the "three longs and two shorts," but they fear "two shorts and one long" when it comes to incense even more.

Damn it! Something was terribly wrong!

Gritting my teeth, I swallowed again, about to speak to Old Chen. But before the words could leave my lips, I watched in horror as the eyes on the shrine began to ooze liquid. At first, I couldn't tell what it was, but as I squinted, illuminated by the flickering red glow of the incense, I saw that the two lines of liquid on the shrine's face were crimson.

Blood. It was blood. The shrine's eyes were bleeding.

This gruesome sight left me rooted to the spot, my body as rigid as stone, unable to move. The two trails of bloody tears reached the corners of the shrine's mouth, and then, another terrifying sight unfolded: the corners of the shrine's mouth began to curl upward, forming a... ghastly smile.

A blood-weeping shrine... was smiling.

My legs felt as if they had been filled with lead; I couldn't move a single step.

A ghost! There was a ghost! This world truly held spirits.

Just as I was at a complete loss, Old Chen, who had been kowtowing frantically, suddenly acted like a madman. He stood up, grabbed me, and began running aimlessly into the woods. His erratic behavior snapped my frozen legs back to life, though, having never encountered such a situation, I could only follow him blindly, running without direction.

Actually, back at the camp, the old masters had told me that the deep woods were full of sinister things. Some even teased me, saying there was nothing you couldn't find in these ancient forests. I hadn't believed them then. But now, seeing it with my own eyes, I truly believed.

Damn it. My first time in the Greater Khingan Mountains, and I had run into something so bizarre.

Suddenly, I thought of the dry bones Old Chen had tossed aside. A thought struck me, and I called out to Old Chen, who was still dragging me deeper into the woods:

"Old Chen, could it be... could it be those... those bones you threw away?"

But the moment I finished my sentence, Old Chen began to let out a strange, chilling laugh.

"Hehehe... hehehe..."

I froze. Then, the Old Chen leading me slowly turned his head.

"You... you are not Old Chen!" I shouted, my eyes wide with disbelief.

It was true. At this moment, the face that turned to look at me was not the Old Chen I knew. It was a skull. Under the moonlight, the skull, just like the shrine, had crimson blood streaming from its eyes. Its jaw hung loose, clicking as it produced a harsh, grating sound.

"Hehehe~ Hehehe~"