Folk Strange Stories Part 1: The Witch Ancestor of Miao Township Chapter 9 Section 3: The Golden Skull

The man with white hair seemed as though he hadn't heard Lao Wang's words and left him aside. He walked directly to the front of the Tower of Heads, circled around it, and suddenly reached out to push the tower over. This sudden action caught me off guard, and I thought something had attached itself to him from the Tower of Heads.

Hundreds of desiccated heads rolled around on the ground, a scene that even the normally composed Song Erstwhile found shocking. He retreated several steps, hopping from side to side, just barely avoiding the heads that rolled near his feet.

There's something in the Tower of Heads! The man with white hair retrieved a golden skull from the fallen tower. I could see clearly that there were symbols painted on the skull's crown with something similar to red paint, but I couldn't recognize what exactly they were.

The man with white hair's expression grew extremely solemn. He didn't shy away from us. Instead, he kneeled on one leg right in front of us, bit his index finger to draw blood, and used it to draw a pattern on the ground. Lao Wang and the others didn't recognize it, but I looked at it and found it familiar. He was drawing symbols! The bald Taoist who used black dog's blood to wash my hair had often drawn such symbols on yellow paper. Though the symbols they drew were not exactly the same, they were of the same category.

After completing the final stroke, the man with white hair placed the golden skull in the center of the symbol. He dripped a few drops of his own blood from his fingertip onto the skull, muttered words I couldn't understand, and though I couldn't comprehend what he was saying, his solemn demeanor indicated that this was no trivial matter.

As he finished the last syllable, a short sword appeared in the man with white hair's hand. He aimed it at the center of the skull's crown and thrust down. I had thought there would be no suspense; surely, the short sword would pierce through the skull. However, with a "clang," the sword was deflected, and the man's arm was thrown high in the air, almost losing his grip on the sword.

Missing the mark, the man with white hair's expression turned grim. He gritted his teeth and smeared fresh blood from his index finger onto the blade of the sword. Then, he bit his tongue and sprayed blood onto the skull. Shouting "Open!" with his mouth, he gripped the sword with both hands and thrust it directly into the top of the skull.

This time, there was no sound. The sword went in all the way, and the skull split into pieces. Before I could fully comprehend what was happening, the main hall suddenly echoed with a wailing cry, a sound as if thousands upon thousands of people were mourning. It was a lament both tragic and mournful.

I was startled, and Lao Wang and the others appeared unfazed, still focused on the man with white hair. Only Fatty was thoroughly terrified, his plump cheeks trembling from time to time. He looked at everyone and stammered, "Can't you hear it?"

Lao Wang's gaze shifted from the man with white hair and he asked, "Hear what? What's wrong?"

Fatty started to panic, saying, "There are thousands of those things wailing! Can't you hear it?"

Lao Wang and Liu Jingsheng tilted their heads and listened carefully for a moment, then said, "No, it must be your imagination."

"It's not his imagination." I couldn't hold back any longer. "I heard it too, it's crying, the cries of many people."

"Impossible, Laizi, why can't I hear anything?" Lao Wang raised his ears, but he couldn't hear a thing.

The man with white hair's gaze shifted from the fragments of the golden skull. He gave me and Fatty a cold look and said, "You two are experiencing tinnitus. Take a deep breath, hold it for a minute, and you'll be fine."

Really? Fatty and I exchanged glances. The sound of thousands upon thousands of crying voices was very real. Could it be that such a grand scene was just tinnitus? Well, a desperate remedy for a desperate situation. We both took a deep breath and held it for a minute.