Chapter 366: Mo Chou (4)


    The temple was where Fan Zheng met his destined lover, Zhao Ai, the beautiful seventeen-year-old daughter of the vige head. The girl was a devout believer who volunteered to clean the temple every day.


    As Zhao Ai had a very charming smile that could beat even the city girls in the group who wore makeup all day long, Fan Zheng found her very charming and fell in love with her at first sight. It became another thing the male lead was grateful for when he prayed again to the obese deity. Brewing within his brain were ways he would employ to trick the littledy with a sweet smile back to the city.


    Unfortunately, heter discovered that she was kind of different from what he initially envisioned in his mind after he truly interacted with her.


    Compared to the other friendly and kind vigers. Zhao Ai''s behavior was odd, or, rather, extremely horrible. After observing her some more, he found out the vige head''s daughter was only like that to outsiders, especially girls. To the locals, she was very helpful and nice, like the way he thought her to be.


    Since the male lead''s sister was the one getting the most hate from her, everyone in the group, Fan Zheng included, began to believe it was because Fan Lan, the sister, looked as beautiful as her.


    However, was that the real reason?


    The girl who brought the Ouija with her, the one whoter became a bit ostracized in the group for that ursed board that prompted them to see weird things, sought out one of the vigers to ask why Zhao Ai was being mean to them.


    The woman''s eyes turned weird and gave her a slight smile before answering, "Miss, I''m sorry about what you experienced. But I implore you to be more patient with Xiao Ai. Her childhood days were not as easy as she grew up without a mother''s care. She is not friendly to outsiders because it''s them who took her mother away."


    That reply reached everyone''s ears and then made them more understanding of Zhao Ai. Their hearts even softened and they became more amodating to the pretty girl.


    But then again, was the woman''s answer the real reason for Zhao Ai''s actions?


    Experience is the best teacher, they said, a saying yet to be proven wrong. The college students came to know the truth about the female lead''s attitude when the third night came.


    The boys, except the male lead who was busy exorcising some ghosts outside, suddenly got captured, chained, and locked inside a small hut located far away from the other houses.


    The girls were seized too, tied with a rope, gagged, and brought to the center of the vige.


    None of them were prepared about this because prior to the operation, the vigers had sprinkled the group''s food with some local equivalent of date-rape drugs. They did it to make sure the preys would not be able to protest and cause unnecessary troubles.


    Guilty and afraid, Zhao Ai hurriedly looked for Fan Zheng. She was crying when she found him in the forest, her pitiful appearance arousing some tenderness in Fan Zheng''s heart. He asked what was wrong. As the good-hearted female lead that she actually was, she didn''t want his sister, and anyone else to go through hell. Therefore, she exined to him about what was happening in the vige while pulling him back to save the others.


    It turned out that while the vigers appeared simple and honest on the surface, in actuality, they were all devils in human skin.


    The vige had this weird curse so hardly any girls had been born within it. Newborns would always be male. Very rarely would there be a girl, perhaps, only two every century. Yes, this insane female to male ratio was real.


    So where did the vige womene from? Who gave birth to these little boys frequently seen ying with the dogs or training to be hunters? All of them, with Zhao Ai as the only exception, were captured or abducted from outside! Right! Each of them was either trafficked or had mistakenly walked into the ce!


    These girls were mostly with bright futures and had families in the city waiting for them. But here, they were sold to the locals who bid the highest for them, forced to create children, one after another.


    The men were all rapists and had twisted morals. It was not umon for a woman to be lent to another family or group of scourges for some silvers or harvests.


    The men had no sense ofpassion for the fairer sex as they were educated from a young age that women were made to worship and serve them, and give them children. It was this extreme patriarchal belief that reigned in that ce, dooming countless girls with tragic endings.


    They want to escape? And report the monsters here to the police? Or just have anyone destroy this hellish ce? Pipe dream!


    These vigers who were also the rulers of this forest area knew they had to keep their secret from leaking, so they especially devised a set ofws to tighten the security in the vige.


    They made sure it would be easy to go inside, but impossible to go out, like a prison ind housing the fiercest amongst the criminals.


    Girls were regrly fed drugs, abused, and given some beatings every now and then until their minds break. Boys were brainwashed to stay for good and integrate with the others as if this became unsessful, they would be killed.


    Did none of them try to make the vige women sympathize with them and help them?


    Of course, not. However, the belief ''it is impossible to escape so why try'' and ''escaping or allowing someone escaped means more terrible abuse and punishments'' had long been instilled in the brains of these vige women so they turned a deaf ear to the pleas.


    Perhaps in their subconscious too, they were thinking, ''I can''t even save myself, how can I save you?''


    ''I am suffering. So why would I help you escape?''


    Only Zhao Ai seemed to be an exception


    Even if she was the vige head''s daughter and treated like some sort of treasure by everyone, Zhao Ai knew she might get the same ill fate someday and was helpless to escape due to being tightly guarded and watched. This was why she greatly sympathized with thedies who were being treated less than humans by the other locals.


    In her own ways, she tried to help. Her always giving bad treatment to outsiders was in hopes it would force them to leave. Better if they leave while everyone else was asleep. She also tried to rope in the other women in this endeavor. Sadly, those foreigners never failed to let themselves be misled by the faked kindness of the others.


    This time was no different. She purposely acted mean to that group of college students, yet her efforts only made her a good contrast to the generosity and hospitality of the vigers, not made them run away.


    That night, the nave girl despaired, like she always did every time it happens. She saw the crying sister and friends of her crush got tied up, led towards the center in the vige or the most isted house in the outskirts.


    She despaired more when the auction began. The male lead interrogated her if she was part of this farce and almost ran forward to hack everyone. Thankfully, Fan Zheng listened to her exnation and agreed to rescue the people after the auction.


    However, bad things still happened even after they sessfully pulled off their impromptu rescue n.


    Although the leads managed to save Fan Lan on time, they couldn''t do the same to the rest. The other two girls had already been vited when they arrived, staring nkly ahead with tears streaming nonstop. They appeared to have just lost their souls.


    Also when they were escaping, although they managed to into the safest and shortest route to the city with Zhao Ai''s help, one girl and two boys still ended up dying in the hands of those devils... It became an experience that would forever scar their hearts, haunting their dreams more than the ghosts that they encountered before they entered that disgusting vige.