"This is the first time I've seen this style of architecture. The Zhou family seems to be followers of Buddhism."
Jiang Siyan's voice was gentle and melodious, providing a sense of security in such a sinister environment.
The bullet comments clearly felt the same.
【Followers of Buddhism? Pfft.】
【Heh, what Buddhist family doesn't enshrine the Buddha properly but instead plasters them all over the walls?】
【Exactly. And this architectural style is usually only found in temples. The Zhou family really thinks they're bodhisattvas, but they should see if they can actually handle the weight of it.】
Jiang Siyan read the comments seriously. He said slowly, "So if they aren't believers, there's only one other possibility."
His gaze shifted to Nan Yue, who was off-camera. They exchanged a quick look.
"The Zhou family was afraid of death."
Only extreme fear of death would lead someone to carve a thousand Buddha statues on the ceilings of their bedrooms and the main hall. The Zhou family only felt safe sleeping beneath them.
This indirectly confirmed Nan Yue's previous suspicion. Imprisoning women, setting up Liping Garden, and constantly changing wives wasn't due to accidents or personal preference.
They must have been using these women for something heinous.
It was so severe that they needed a thousand Buddha statues just to sleep, and so dire that even though every legal wife died after giving birth, none of those children lived long enough to leave descendants for the Zhou family.
So severe that... even after all that, they didn't survive that day a hundred years ago.
According to the bullet comments, everyone with Zhou blood—not just the main branch in the Zhou Family Compound, but even those scattered elsewhere—had dropped dead.
Nan Yue fell into thought, but Jiang Siyan's voice suddenly cut off. She looked up and saw him staring intently at the statues above.
In the flashlight's glow on Jiang Siyan's stream, the statues in the shadows looked... wrong.
Blue faces, protruding fangs, crimson eyes, and streaming blood...
They were nothing like the kind, smiling statues from before.
Click-clack.
Both flashlights flickered and died. The main hall plunged into darkness, leaving only faint outlines visible on the stream.
A sudden gale outside slammed the open doors shut with a loud bang.
Nan Yue raised an eyebrow. Were they trapped?
The wind sounded like a woman's shrill scream, sending chills down her spine.
A bolt of lightning illuminated the room. Nan Yue's first instinct was to check the ceiling.
For a brief second, she saw...
The ceiling of the main hall was empty!
The densely packed statues were gone, leaving only bare beams.
Had they disappeared? Or... had they come to life!
Thunder roared and lightning followed in quick succession, bathing the room in bright light.
Nan Yue took the chance to say to Jiang Siyan, "Something's wrong. Let's get out—"
She choked on her words. Jiang Siyan, who had been standing nearby, was now covered in palm-sized Buddha statues.
From a distance, he didn't look human; he looked like a giant human tower covered in parasites.
Nan Yue quickly looked at the stream. To her horror, the entire screen—both the main view and the reaction window—was filled with Buddha statues.
Countless smiling Buddhas crowded the lens. They were motionless, but their smiles were unnervingly twisted.
Their lips, painted bright red, were pulled back in wide grins. What should have been divine looked utterly malevolent.
And she realized they weren't static... they were alive!
A face in the corner that had been angry was now smiling at the camera. Another that had been weeping was now crying blood.
The audience was terrified, the bullet comments filled with protective chants.
But Jiang Siyan's actual condition was invisible from both the screen and the room.
Black mist rose from Nan Yue's hand. If Jiang Siyan didn't move soon, she was going to grab him and run.
Just as she was about to force the door open, his voice came from within the human tower.
He sounded contemplative, a faint sigh in his voice.
"Thus have I heard: all is vanity."
Hearing him, she pulled her hand back.
He was fine. The human tower was just an illusion meant to drive them out of the hall.
She glanced back and realized that at some point, the area outside the door had become crowded with people.
They were all slender women, pressed tightly against the door. Their faces were pale and hideous, blood from rotting wounds staining the wood crimson.
Through the thin door, they screamed silently.
If she had opened the door, she would have walked straight into them.
Nan Yue stared at the woman closest to her. This one looked more mature than most of the bodies she'd seen in the mass grave. Based on her silk clothes, she was likely a legal wife.
Her fine silks were decayed, revealing a body tortured beyond recognition.
Nan Yue frowned. The woman had died from her abdomen being ripped open—not by a blade, but from the inside out.
It wasn't human work. It looked like... the revenge of a vengeful ghost.
But why would a ghost take revenge on these innocent women?
The scene lasted only thirty seconds. The wind, thunder, and rain vanished as if they had never been.
Nan Yue exhaled. Someone stopped behind her. "It's over. It's fine."
Jiang Siyan held his screen. "That was just an illusion. Those statues are meant to suppress the returning spirits of the Zhou residence."
He looked up. The ten thousand statues were back in place, silent as before.
"I just didn't expect them to fail so completely."
Nan Yue gave a cold smile. "Fail? On the contrary, I think they succeeded at first."
Rate on N.U.
