Nightmare Apostle

Chapter 433: Chapter 371: The Wine Cellar

"Could it be... could it be that anyone who stays in the village for too long will turn into those things that are neither human nor ghost?" Wuma Haoming shuddered more as he thought about it.

At that moment, Yang Xiao suddenly recalled the twisted tree outside the walls of the Buddhist Temple courtyard. Although it appeared lush and leafy, the entire tree had long since died inside. "I’m afraid that’s the case. If we can’t leave in time, even if the Du Family people don’t kill us, we will become just like them."

Everyone deeply agreed, particularly considering that even the highly skilled Taoist outside had met such a fate, let alone them.

At the same time, Cheng Cha recalled something: the screen talisman array in the ancestral hall bedroom, which trapped many resentful spirits and fierce ghosts, was likely set up by the Taoist outside.

"Stop dawdling, the task at hand is more important."

Everyone gathered together, using the faintest glimmer of light to start searching for the entrance to the wine cellar in the courtyard. Despite the urgency, no one suggested splitting up, as after separating, no one could guarantee that the next time they met, it would still be their own teammates.

Everyone originally thought it would take a lot of trouble, but unexpectedly, just ten minutes later, they made a discovery in a room in the backyard. The room wasn’t locked; the door was ajar and pushed open easily. What caught their eyes was a piece of paper on the wall, written with vigorous strokes saying ’wine cellar’ in bold characters.

The surprise came too abruptly. Yang Xiao and the others’ first reaction was suspicion; they hesitated to go in, choosing to first open all the doors and windows in the room. In this way, the thin moonlight that filtered through made everything slightly clearer.

The room wasn’t as old as expected, and there wasn’t much dust on the floor, as if someone still cleaned it occasionally. What was stranger was that the paper on the wall was particularly new, without a hint of moisture damage or yellowing and brittleness, making it feel as though it had just been put up not long ago.

Yang Xiao had a very strange premonition that this piece of paper was specifically prepared for them.

Mi Shu tentatively walked into the room, took a close look at the paper, and soon spotted the issue, "The handwriting here and the Ghost Talisman outside were written by the same person."

Tong Han’s eyebrows raised, "Are you sure?"

"Yes," Mi Shu nodded firmly. "My calligraphy skills are fairly decent. The stroke work and the final touches in these characters are exactly like those on the talisman outside."

In other words, this paper bearing the words ’wine cellar’ was also from the hands of the Taoist outside. But if that really was the case, it spelled trouble; it meant that the Du Family Patriarch had lied, and the wine cellar had always existed, never having disappeared.

By now, they had no one to verify these revelations, though they were still unclear on what exactly the Du Family Patriarch was plotting. However, one thing was certain: the necessity of the wine tonight was true, as according to the order of the Buddhist Five Precepts, the one they needed to break tonight was that against drinking.

"Mi Shu, you come with me, the rest wait outside," Yang Xiao spoke. "We’ll go in and scout; if we don’t come back in half an hour, you... you’ll have to decide for yourselves."

Bringing Mi Shu was not because her abilities were superior to Tong Han Cheng Cha’s, but because she had once obtained half of a joint-heart lock from the Bridal Ghost. In a pinch, perhaps the Ghost Monk or the ghost villagers of Mangjia Village might spare them for the Bridal Ghost’s sake, though the chances were very low.

But this suggestion was immediately opposed, as Tong Han Cheng Cha strongly insisted on going together. After all, retrieving the wine was an unavoidable task, and without it, they wouldn’t even have a chance to escape; the sinister Taoist was just outside.

If something happened to Yang Xiao and his team inside, and then they could go in only to worsen the situation. Furthermore, without Yang Xiao, they would lose a major asset.

Once the discussion was finished, Mi Shu, carrying the complete joint-heart lock, stepped forward and forcefully lifted an embedded trapdoor on the ground. Although it was made of wood, it was extremely heavy. Using both hands, she barely managed to lift it with great effort.

As the trap door opened, a gust of cold wind instantly rushed out, causing everyone present to shiver, and as it escaped through the doors and windows, it carried with it a terrifying moaning sound.

Behind the trapdoor was a row of stone steps, evidently very old, and the surfaces were slightly damp and slippery. The group, holding onto the wall, carefully made their way down.

It was very dark below, but not the type of darkness where you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. As Mi Shu, leading the way, descended further, her fear grew because she noticed a light up ahead.

It wasn’t the warm light of a candle, but a chilling, cold light, icy and cooling, which instantly reminded her of a past mission where a corpse suddenly surfaced from the dark waters of a lake, nearly scaring the unprepared her to death; the corpse’s face was covered with this kind of cold, ghostly light.

That corpse was the ghost in the mission, and now the Resentful Eye also had fallen into her hands.

But upon seeing the source of the light, everyone couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief. There were two marble-sized luminous pearls embedded in the right wall, with several old white candles and a Fire Starter housed in a hollowed-out box nearby.

They took out candles to light them, and as the candlelight flickered on, what revealed itself in front of them was a significantly large wine cellar, filled with many human-height wooden racks, layered top to bottom, filled with wine jars of various sizes. Taking a deep breath, their nostrils were filled with the aroma of the wine.

Wuma Haoming took a deep breath and couldn’t help but admire, "This is really good wine!"

"You know wine?" Yang Xiao was quite surprised, not expecting Wuma Haoming to have this kind of knowledge, which could potentially help with their upcoming tasks if they could determine the specific details of the wine’s vintage.

But the next second, Yang Xiao’s face tensed up because Wuma Haoming said he didn’t understand, he was just exhaling a remark due to the smell of the wine.

The group maintained formation, weaving through each wine rack, searching for that special "wine." The chill in the wine cellar was intense, and Mi Shu couldn’t help but hug her arms tightly.

"Wait... wait a minute!"

Walking at the back, Wuma Haoming stopped everyone. Yang Xiao and the others turned around, only to see Wuma Haoming standing still, not daring to move, breathing rapidly, looking terrified as if he had seen something horrifying.

"What’s wrong?" Tong Han asked quietly.

"I... I think I heard someone calling my name, just... just behind me." Wuma Haoming was so nervous he could barely speak clearly.

Yang Xiao and the others raised their candles to check, but there was nothing behind Wuma Haoming. This might also be due to the limited range of the candlelight, as beyond a certain distance, darkness enveloped everything. Each wine barrel, hidden in the shadows, looked elusive, almost like huge human heads.

Wuma Haoming was quite alert; he didn’t turn around immediately upon hearing his name, but instead called for his teammates to check for him.

Although they didn’t find the root of the problem, it was a wake-up call for everyone. This wine cellar was definitely not as peaceful as it seemed.

There were thousands of wine barrels in the cellar, all similar in appearance: just a dusty barrel with a layer of red coarse cloth wrapped around the seal.

But as they continued, they discovered a pattern: the barrels were organized by vintage. The nearer to the entrance, the older the vintage, the more dust accumulated on the barrels. The deeper they went, the newer the barrels appeared, bearing less dust.

"Chu Xi."

Just as Yang Xiao turned to look at a wine rack on the right, a ghastly voice suddenly emanated from behind him. This voice felt eerily familiar to him as if it was from someone very close, like a teammate, but Yang Xiao didn’t dare move because he didn’t recognize the person at all. frёewebnoѵel.ƈo๓

After receiving Yang Xiao’s warning, the group looked again behind Yang Xiao, only to see a row of wine racks crammed with barrels and nothing else.

This was now the fourth time they had heard names being called, and the frequency was increasing—a bad sign.

By now, everyone had realized something was wrong, and the looks they gave each wine barrel grew increasingly strange, finally turning fearful.

Cheng Cha swallowed hard. He knew everyone was thinking the same thing, but he decided to be the one to voice it, "Do you think... could it be... that these barrels are all filled with those things?"

His voice grew softer and softer, as if afraid something might hear him, while his body unconsciously moved away from the barrels.

Yang Xiao and the others suspected that these barrels contained human heads, specifically heads preserved in wine as a form of embalming. After all, the people from Du Family Village who lost their bodies didn’t die. The number of livestock in the shed behind the ancestral hall was limited and could not sustain the life of every head. Therefore, those heads from Du Family Village deemed less important were stored here.

Should there ever be a chance in the future, they would seek suitable bodies, retrieve the heads from the cellar, and bring them "back to life."

The more Yang Xiao thought about it, the more plausible it seemed. After all, he had seen at most a hundred people in the village, and to slaughter the hundreds or thousands of people from Mangjia Village, Du Family Village had to have no fewer members. Yet, he had not seen those undead whose bodies were taken, even considering the livestock, the numbers were far from sufficient.

"Keep looking further back," Yang Xiao understood somewhat where the danger of this mission lay. If they moved the wrong barrel, once they left the cellar, the heads inside might haunt them.

They were looking for a clean barrel, with only wine inside and no human heads.

These clean barrels would likely be placed at the very back of the cellar, after all, creating a new batch of "wine" would be easier and more convenient from there. Soon, they found a few barrels at the end of the last row in the cellar.

There were six in total, with hardly any dust on them, visibly fresh. It seemed the climax had arrived; now they had to pick the only clean one among these six and take it with them. fɾeewebnoveℓ.co๓

"What do we do next?" Wuma Haoming visibly tensed up. Choosing one out of six—if they chose wrongly, they would be haunted by ghosts.

"Move all these barrels to an open space, separate them, and we’ll test them one by one," Yang Xiao had an idea formed, "Each person takes a turn, standing with their back to one of the barrels. If you hear someone call your name from behind, it means there’s a head inside."

"Process of elimination, hurry up!"