After Marrying the Lord of the Underworld

When at Ah Mei’s house, Lu Yingjiu had already seen a faint black mark on Feng Mao’s neck.

 

Just like Ye Deyong in the photo.

 

In addition, although Feng Mao looked healthy on the surface and had a ruddy complexion, Lu Yingjiu was too careful and at that time had already used the spell inviting the gods.

 

After inviting the gods, his five senses were heightened, and he smelled a bloody odor on Feng Mao’s body.

 

It was faint, almost covered by the wet rain, but it’s there.

 

At that time, he remained silent and didn’t immediately tell Ye Feng- he knew that Ye Feng valued his family very much. When he saw something was wrong with the second grandfather in the photo, without saying a word, he set off to the village road the next day.

 

Sometimes caring leads to chaos. Lu Yingjiu didn’t know the situation in the village, so he left Ye Feng and Xiao Li to appease everyone, and went to the village chief’s house to take a look at the situation.

 

The house in front was brightly lit, illuminating the rainy night.

 

It should have been a warm feeling, but at the moment, it felt a bit eerie.

 

Lu Yingjiu wanted to knock on the door directly, as a result, he heard a “squeak——thud!” sound.

 

It sounded like a door being opened and closed.

 

And it didn’t sound like it was coming from inside the house, but more like it was coming from outside.

 

Could it be that Feng Mao went out?

 

Lu Yingjiu was stunned for a moment, walked to the window and looked into the house.

 

Just half a minute ago, there was a figure swaying by the window. The lights were still on inside, but the living room was completely empty…….except for a baby cradle, there was a small fair and tender hand holding a rattle, shaking it up and down.

 

Child?

 

Lu Yingjiu thought to himself, leaving such a young child at home and going outside,  Feng Mao was quite daring.

 

He looked at it in silence for a few seconds, and then said to Jing Xian, “Go straight in. I’ll see if the window is locked.”

 

As soon as the words came out, he thought of something again, and quickly grabbed Jing Xian and added, “Let me do it, don’t smash other people’s windows directly.”

 

“Oh.” Jing Xian’s face was filled with disappointment.

 

Lu Yingjiu reached out to pull the window.

 

Fortunately, Feng Mao didn’t lock the window at all. He pulled gently and the window opened silently.

 

He turned over lightly and entered the house covered in moisture from the rain, and was embraced by the warm air. Jing Xian followed closely behind him and came in.

 

The room was very quiet, except for the sound of the rattle. Lu Yingjiu took a quick look and confirmed that Feng Mao was really gone.

 

Since he’s not there, and he’s not in a hurry to chase after him either, just in time to search through his house.

 

Looking around, scratches on several wooden sofas, neither deep or shallow could be seen, very similar to the ones on Ah Mei’s sofa.

 

Lu Yingjiu touched it with his hand and felt the uneven texture under his fingertips, thinking deeply.

 

The child seemed to sense some activity and began to excitedly babble, although it was unclear what they were saying, and continued to play with their rattle. Lu Yingjiu didn’t approach, but only looked from a distance——

 

This was originally just a casual glance.

 

It turned out that there were scratches on the inside of the baby’s cradle.

 

…Human nails couldn’t scratch such marks, let alone such a small child.

 

Lu Yingjiu thought for a moment and said to Jing Xian, “I’ll go upstairs, you stay downstairs, search and see what he has in the house.”

 

Jing Xian nodded.

 

The two of them searched for things very quickly, one used talisman paper and the other used Yin energy. For a while, Feng Mao’s curtains, potted plants, and various small decorations….all turned on their own without wind. The books were flipping through, and the TV on the first floor was covered with Yin energy. Affected, a static screen was displayed directly. If anyone were to suddenly come home, they would definitely think it was haunted.

 

Lu Yingjiu put down a book in his hand, thinking to himself that it was indeed caused by a ghost, it was Jing Xian making a noise.

 

He glanced downstairs.

 

Just happened to make eye contact with Jing Xian.

 

Jing Xian gave him a smile.

 

Lu Yingjiu looked away awkwardly and continued to flip through the next book.

 

Black hairball came to play with him again, rubbing at his feet, and finally tried to nibble on the potted plant at the end of the corridor, but he picked it up and took it away.

 

At the end of the corridor on the second floor, Feng Mao’s bedroom was locked. Lu Yingjiu used his excellent lock-picking skills, straightened a paperclip, kept turning it into the keyhole, and silently pried the door open.

 

——This time, he finally gained something.

 

The wind brought by the talisman swept across the room and opened a large book on the bedside, stopping at a page in the middle.

 

Inside was a photo.

 

The sun was shining brightly in the photo, and Feng Mao and Ye Deyong stood side by side by the lake in the village.

 

Feng Mao smiled brightly, and the wrinkles on his face were squeezed together, but Ye Deyong still maintained a neutral expression, showing no emotion.

 

These two people actually knew each other.

 

Unexpectedly, there was something in the photo that made Lu Yingjiu feel strange.

 

That was Feng Mao’s age.

 

Lu Yingjiu flipped through the photo but couldn’t find the time.

 

However, Ye Feng said that the nursing home was closed in 2002, and Ye Deyong and the others came back one after another in the next year or two, and finally died of lung cancer in 2007.

 

In other words, this photo was most likely taken before 2003, moreover Ye Deyong in the photo looked quite young and energetic. Considering his appearance, Lu Yingjiu guessed that it should be at least before 1995.

 

Taking a step back, the latest should be 2007, which was 14 years ago.

 

Feng Mao’s appearance in the photo had not changed at all.

 

Can a person’s appearance not change at all for more than ten or twenty years?

 

Feng Mao looked to be in his forties or fifties in the photo. From the age of 40 or 50 to the age of 60 or 70, whether it was wrinkles, mental state, gray hair…most people’s changes should be very significant.

 

Feng Mao in the photo already had a little gray hair.

 

Today, more than ten years later, not only had the wrinkles and gray hair not increased significantly, but even the length of his hair had not changed. It was as if the past twenty years have stopped on him and he had just stepped out of the photo.

 

Lu Yingjiu took the photo, took a few steps back and went out, and said to Jing Xian downstairs, “Can you find his ID card? Or anything related to his age.”

 

“There is one.” Jing Xian replied immediately.

 

He hooked his fingers lightly, and the dark wind immediately flew a photo frame forward and landed firmly in his hand.

 

The baby nearby witnessed the whole process with a face full of (⊙⊙).

 

Then it continued shaking the rattle crazily, giggling, meaning one more!

 

Lu Yingjiu went downstairs and watched together with him.

 

The photo frame showed a huge birthday cake. Feng Mao was sitting at the dining table, and next to him was a seven or eight-year-old boy cutting the cake.

 

Next to it were words written by a child with a pen, crookedly. [Happy 50th birthday to grandpa! Live to be a hundred years!!]

 

The signature time was [2000.1.8]

 

In other words, Feng Mao should be 71 years old this year.

 

But the man who appeared in front of them had nothing to do with being in his 70s.

 

Lu Yingjiu looked at the two photos in silence and said, “We haven’t seen his backyard yet.”

 

10 minutes later, they came to the backyard through the back door.

 

The backyard was overgrown with weeds and had not been taken care of properly. It was a mess and contained all kinds of wild flowers and weeds. At first glance, it looked like a good place to breed mosquitoes. In the mud, there was a set of fresh footprints leading into the depths of the thicket.

 

It seemed to have been left by Feng Mao.

 

Lu Yingjiu followed the footprints and saw something unusual among the layers of knee-deep weeds.

 

He put hairball down, and it immediately splashed on the soil and grass, scratching away all the mud covering it.

 

A handle was exposed. It was an iron door.

 

It turned out to be a door leading underground!

 

The door was engraved with very complicated patterns, which seemed to be some kind of talisman. Even Lu Yingjiu had never seen them before.

 

Just as he was thinking about how to break it open, he saw Jing Xian placed his hand gently on the door.

 

Jing Xian’s hands have distinct joints and long fingers, and they were full of strength at first glance. A few seconds after placing it on the surface, a “sizzling” sound was heard, and the lines on the door began to disappear one by one from the middle, as if they had been erased by a strange force.

 

There were cold gusts of wind around, making the rain piercing to the bone, causing Lu Yingjiu to breathe out white fog.

 

As long as Jing Xian made a move, there would undoubtedly be encounters with formidable ghosts and demons in the vicinity.

 

When all the talismans disappeared, Jing Xian pulled the handle again – he was very strong and opened the door without any effort.

 

Squeak—thud!

 

That familiar sound came.

 

The two of them looked at each other and understood that this was the sound they heard before entering the door.

 

It seemed that Feng Mao really went underground.

 

Lu Yingjiu looked down and saw that it was pitch black underneath, but there was a circle of spider silk floating at the door, it was white and fluttering in the wind, and dropped down as it was wet by the rain.

 

He took a piece of talisman paper in his hand, lit it and threw it down.

 

The flame of this talisman paper was weak and looked like it would extinguish itself soon. Even if it was thrown into hay, it would not cause a fire. It could be said that it was very safe and was only used to explore the way.

 

As the talisman fell downwards, the firelight illuminated layers of spider silk. It was all white and was all intertwined together and crowded the entire passage. When it fell down, it looked like some kind of strange curtain… Just looking at it made one’s face itch, as if one could imagine the touch of spider webs floating on the face, and it also reminded one of the rustling sound of spiders and their furry feet.

 

A spider web of this size would take at least hundreds of spiders to create.

 

And the spider web was filled with Yin energy.

 

Lu Yingjiu frowned and threw a few more talismans down.

 

This time, the firelight melted away the spider silk directly below, along with the Yin energy.

 

Jing Xian jumped down first and turned back to reach out to him.

 

Time was running out, so Lu Yingjiu didn’t hesitate or be pretentious this time, and jumped directly down, and was firmly caught in Jing Xian’s arms.

 

——He vaguely felt Jing Xian pinch him on the waist.

 

But he had no evidence, so he just glared at Jing Xian and was done with it.

 

The black hairball followed the two of them closely.

 

Lu Yingjiu ignited a talisman paper again for illumination.

 

As Lu Yingjiu got closer in the firelight, he could clearly see the splendor of the spider web. The road in front of them was about four or five people wide, stretching to an unknown end, with cobwebs covering every corner.

 

Spiders of all sizes were crawling around, their bodies looming in the white silk. Lu Yingjiu didn’t know many kinds of spiders. He had done some research in the past two days and seeing spiders like wolf spiders and white haired high legged spiders, which didn’t typically build webs, perched on the web was indeed quite unusual.

 

There was also a strange smell in the air, mixed with the smell of soil and rain, which made people uncomfortable.

 

Fortunately, the passage was simply paved with wooden planks on the soil. Although quite dirty, it was also easy to walk on.

 

Lu Yingjiu walked forward and couldn’t help but sigh. “This place is just like a Pansi Cave.”

 

Jing Xian didn’t answer.

 

Lu Yingjiu waited for a few seconds before he heard him ask in confusion, “What is Pansi Cave?”

 

Lu Yingjiu was stunned for a moment, and then he remembered that Jing Xian had probably never read the Four Great Classics. He couldn’t help but smile and briefly told him the story of the Pansi Cave, how the seven spider spirits kidnapped Monk Tang, and how they took baths in the spring water.

 

Unexpectedly, after Jing Xian heard this, he nervously came over and hugged his waist again.

 

Lu Yingjiu:?

 

Lu Yingjiu asked, “What are you doing?”

 

“It’s not because I’m afraid that a female spider spirit will come and snatch you away, and even drag you to take a shower with it,” Jing Xian said.

 

Lu Yingjiu: “…”

 

He had a new understanding of Jing Xian’s excuse, so he took off the hand from his waist, threw it aside, and took the lead in walking forward.

 

Jing Xian followed him with a look of regret on his face.

 

There was no end to this underground passage. The further they go, the darker the surroundings become and the more rampant the wandering spiders become.

 

Originally, the spiders they saw earlier were very afraid of people, but after walking for ten minutes, a spider dared to approach the two of them, and it looked like it wanted to bite them.

 

The spiders were no threat at all. Lu Yingjiu used the light of the talisman to easily drive them back.

 

After walking some distance, he found that he didn’t seem to hear hairball’s footsteps anymore, and he didn’t hear Jing Xian talking for a long time.

 

He turned around.

 

This time he almost suffocated——

 

Jing Xian actually held hairball in his hand and was moving it towards a big spider on the wall!

 

Hairball stuck out its tongue and was eager to try. Its saliva was almost dripping to the ground, and it wanted to stretch out its paws to pull at it.

 

Lu Yingjiu:? !

 

Seeing that hairball was about to bite it, he quickly stopped them. “Jing Xian!”

 

When Jing Xian was discovered by him, with a tremble in his hand, he quickly withdrew hairball and looked at him innocently.

 

Lu Yingjiu: “Don’t feed it strange things anymore!”

 

Jing Xian: “Mnn, mn, mhnn”

 

Lu Yingjiu felt uneasy, so he snatched hairball from his hand and held it in his own arms.

 

Hairball: “Aw-aw-wu-“expressing dissatisfaction.

 

Lu Yingjiu flicked it on the forehead.

 

They walked like this for another ten minutes.

 

The surrounding spider webs were almost as thick as a curtain, and light finally appeared faintly at the end of the passage.

 

Not a firelight, but like a light bulb.

 

After getting closer, they saw an iron door embedded in the soil and rock wall. An incandescent lamp was lit on the left and right sides of the iron door.

 

The iron door was locked.

 

Lu Yingjiu looked at Jing Xian and poked him.

 

Jing Xian received the order and immediately violently removed the entire iron door. The entire metal door was almost crumpled, and he threw it aside aggrievedly.

 

The turbid air inside hit their face.

 

It was clean inside, with no spiders or spider webs to be seen, and no sign of Feng Mao.

 

Lu Yingjiu stepped in and saw a simple single bed, a TV and a player. The bookshelf next to it was filled with black video tapes.

 

He raised the talisman and looked closer.

 

The video tapes were divided into six piles in total. From the first pile to the last pile, the numbers varied, some were piled high and some were not piled at all.

 

There was a wooden frame embedded in each pile. In the wooden frame was a gray-black stone slab, about 15 inches in size, with patterns engraved on it.

 

Lu Yingjiu looked at the first stone slab first.

 

The patterns were all very simple lines, like some cultural relics left by primitive people.

 

The painting showed a huge spider entrenched in the mountains, its body almost submerged in the clouds. A man knelt on one knee in front of it, stretched out his left hand to pick up the spider silk on its front legs.

 

There were already many people behind him, all with their left hands wrapped in spider silk.

 

At this moment, it became clear to Lu Yingjiu: The spider really had something to do with the fact that all the people in the village were left-handed.

 

Perhaps in the legend, ancestors received the spider silk with their left hand, so they considered the left hand to be sacred.

 

Below this painting, the title “Spider Mother” was written

 

On the second stone slab, there was a painting of a bunch of little people dancing around the fire, called “Sacrifice”.

 

There were many video tapes under the stone slab. Lu Yingjiu picked one up, turned on the TV and stuffed it into the machine.

 

After a flash of static display on the screen, a picture appeared on the TV.

 

The bonfire was burning, and a group of villagers danced and sang around it.

 

This should have been a warm and lively scene, but both their movements and singing were completely weird.

 

The song was whimpering, like a baby crying, and like a sharp wind blowing through the valley, screaming. And their dance movements were extremely stiff, with every joint twisting abnormally, like a group of marionettes…or perhaps imitating some kind of arthropod, such as a spider.

 

Lu Yingjiu fast-forwarded through it without expression, and then put in other video tapes.

 

The scene was the same, they were all dancing and singing around the fire, but the time and place were different. Judging from the number of videotapes, it was estimated that they were recorded over several decades.

 

During the fast forwarding process, Lu Yingjiu pressed the pause button from time to time, and then looked carefully at the villagers’ faces.

 

Sure enough, he found a few familiar faces.

 

He had met those people in the past few days.

 

These people who danced more than ten years ago still live in the village with the same appearance. The girl was still as beautiful as a flower, and the boy was still young and handsome. Time had frozen them in one moment forever and never passed by.

 

Lu Yingjiu: “Everyone in this village has problems…” He thought for a moment, and then smiled helplessly, “My protective talismans, I guess I gave them away for nothing.”

 

He continued to look at the next tablet titled “Grace”.

 

There was a drawing on the slate of a man with eight legs of a spider growing out of his back. There was a large pool of vomit on the ground. If one looked closely, it was all internal organs, with liver and gallbladder flowing out.

 

He was vomiting his entrails out desperately.

 

The more he vomited, the more spider-like he became.

 

The two people in front of him – to be precise, they were no longer people, two spiders were crawling happily.

 

Jing Xian touched the slate with his hand and said, “The anchor who played the Pen Fairy was called Zhao Ziming, right?”

 

“Yes,” Lu Yingjiu closed his eyes, “It seems that when he went to the bathroom to vomit, he vomited out all his internal organs. He turned into a human-faced spider.”

 

Then, without the knowledge of his friend Aaron, he was stomped to death.

 

Lu Yingjiu had seen many tragedies and heard many sad stories.

 

His thoughts would not be affected by this, but he still felt sad and sighed softly.

 

When he turned on the videotape, sure enough, the images played showed people spitting out their entrails.

 

Some were holding on to the toilet and vomiting, some were vomiting into the sink, and some were vomiting directly on the ground in a bloody mess. There was no sound in the videotape, but Lu Yingjiu could almost imagine their heartbreaking sounds.

 

Then, spider legs sprouted from their backs, and their body gradually shrank.

 

They turned into spiders.

 

The fourth tablet was called “Transformation”.

 

There were no video tapes, but villages and dozens of spiders were painted on the stone slabs.

 

The whole village turned into spiders.

 

The fifth tablet was called “Heavy Rain”.

 

There were still villages painted on the slate, but this time there were no spiders, and they turned into simple stick figures again.

 

The stickmen made a gesture of raising their hands in greeting, while cars were approaching outside the village.

 

Lu Yingjiu frowned and put in the video tape.

 

Then his breath stagnated——

 

The faces of those anchors actually appeared on the screen!

 

The camera was very shaky, like the effect of a pinhole camera in the news.

 

He quickly browsed through each video tape and saw the familiar figures of the red clothes man, Aaron, Zhao Ziming, and even Ye Feng and Xiao Li… Some of them were talking in the hotel, some were climbing mountains to go to the nursing home, and some were just passing by in a car.

 

Just looking at the angle and time, it seemed like it was recorded by different people, such as the hotel waiters, the village doctors at the entrance of the village, or the old man feeding the chickens by the lake. They patiently and quietly recorded the daily lives of the outsiders.

 

From the moment the first batch of anchors entered the village, the entire village began to monitor them!

 

Lu Yingjiu subconsciously looked at the last stone slab.

 

There was nothing on the slate, as if the painting was unfinished.

 

There was only an empty title next to it: “Feast”.

 

It was already creepy enough.

 

His eyes returned to the first stone slab.

 

“Spider Mother…” Lu Yingjiu murmured, “I have never heard of this name. Jing Xian, do you know anything?”

 

Jing Xian pondered for a moment. “She has never been to the ghost world, and I have only heard some rumors, I don’t know if she really exists. If she really exists, then she must have been staying in the mortal world.”

 

He continued, “According to legend, the Spider Mother is a spider as huge as a mountain. She will turn those who follow her into spiders, become immortal, and sometimes turn back into humans.”

 

“Of course, if those human-faced spiders want to live forever and look like humans, they must constantly turn new people into spiders to provide the Spider Mother with new followers.”

 

Lu Yingjiu asked, “Doesn’t it feel a bit like aiding and abetting a tiger?”

 

——It is said that people who are bitten to death by tigers turn into ghosts after death and will lure other passers-by to the tiger’s place.

 

“Yes,” Jing Xian nodded, “The Spider Mother is very greedy and will never be satisfied. These anchors have already been her prey from the beginning.”

 

Lu Yingjiu pondered for a moment.

 

The situation was very difficult.

 

He walked slowly around the room twice, thinking as he walked, and then said, “I originally wanted to wait until the typhoon passed and the mudslides were cleared before going out with others, but it seems that’s not possible now.”

 

He pointed to “Grace” and said, “Now that a person has begun to transform into a spider, we don’t know the method of infection yet, and it is too dangerous to wait any longer.”

 

“So?” Jing Xian looked at him— at times like these, his tone carried a sense of ease and nonchalance, but when he inquired of Lu Yingjiu, it was with a special seriousness. “What are you planning to do?”

 

Lu Yingjiu said, “Ye Feng said that the Ye family would go to the graveyard on top of the mountain, that is, walk along the pavilion on the top of the mountain, along the route of Li Snake’s protection.”

 

“A place protected by ghosts and gods may be much safer and can delay or inhibit their transformation into spiders. Of course, this is just my guess. No matter what, we can’t stay here and must find a way out.”

 

He took a deep breath. “Although it is a very bad decision to climb the mountain during a typhoon… but now it seems that we have to take those dozen people and walk the road to the graveyard again. And we must set off now, immediately.”

 

As soon as he finished speaking, Lu Yingjiu heard a rustling sound.

 

It came from outside the room, at the end of the passage, and it was approaching quickly!

 

Lu Yingjiu’s expression was stern. He turned over four or five talisman papers in his hand and was ready to be released——

 

Then Jing Xian embraced him again.

 

Lu Yingjiu:?

 

He was almost buried in Jing Xian’s arms. When he raised his head, he almost bumped into Jing Xian, face to face.

 

Jing Xian looked at him seriously, “Look, the female spider spirit you mentioned who wants to take a bath together is here!”

 

Lu Yingjiu: “…”

 

Jing Xian is still thinking about this?