Paranormal incident investigation notes

Usually bandits come down from the mountains to attack large households just for money and food. After getting what you want, wouldn't it be troublesome to dig up ancestral graves, dismember the bodies, etc.?

The relationship between this group of bandits and the Tang family seems to be more than a simple robbery and being robbed.

At Lu Ming's request, Huang Weimin immediately focused his subsequent research on the Tang family.

So more details were collected bit by bit from every corner of these ancient books and from the background of other stories.

""Floating Stories" records that after the fall of the Tang family, the local government sent Yamen and Minzhuang to search the Tang family mansion after it was set on fire. As a result, 'a lot was found', and many people were found in the ruins. Things like gold and silver. Well, it seems that the group of bandits who destroyed the Tang family did not search the Tang family's house closely."

This further proves that the reason why the gang of bandits destroyed the Tang family was not for money, at least not just for money - after the revenge, the robbery of money was more incidental, which is why so much was missed.

""Tingfeng Pavilion Book" records that after the fall of the Tang family, nearby villagers found many mountain god statues with large heads and small bodies in the ruins of the Tang family. The government officials also found an underground palace with 'many strange objects' in it. For example, the meeting Flying iron birds, small talking boxes, etc. Later, the county magistrate used these things as unlucky and 'burned them' and burned them all."

Lu Ming's brows gradually wrinkled.

If the previous records only made the Tang family a little more suspicious, now these descriptions can almost be regarded as solid evidence.

A flying iron bird? Is it a drone?

The little talking box, is it a recorder or a mobile phone?

A statue of a mountain god with a big head and a small body?

According to common customs, even if a large family wants to worship, they should also worship Buddha statues and other gods. It is difficult not to suspect that there is something weird in worshiping mountain god statues on such a large scale.

"Teacher Huang, doesn't the book mention the legend of offering sacrifices to the mountain god?"

Lu Ming seriously suspected that the Tang family made its fortune by sacrificing people to the mountain gods. Now that so many mountain god statues and so many "wonderful objects" have been seized, it stands to reason that there should be an uproar in the local area. And this is unlikely to have been missed by the person who recorded it at the time.

"No." Huang Weimin shook his head: "But this is normal. When the Tang family was destroyed, it had been more than two hundred years since that poor boy. Later, we sorted out the context and connected these things together. For People at that time had long forgotten about it.”

Lu Ming nodded and continued thinking in his head.

"There's something weird here."

Huang Weimin pointed to an ancient book and said slowly: "It's also "The Record of Strange Stories from a Living Life". Well, the time was before the fall of the Tang family. At that time, a woodcutter went into the mountains and accidentally lost his way. He accidentally went around When I reached a certain cliff, I saw a village in the valley below that I had never heard of before. In the village, men farmed and women weaved. It was peaceful and seemed to be protected by warriors.

He was afraid that he had encountered a mountain spirit and a ghost, so he ran away in a hurry. After finally returning home, I started to publicize the matter, but when I tried to look for it again, I couldn't find it. Not long after, the person disappeared inexplicably.

Later, another hunter in the mountains said that he had also seen the legendary village. But he only saw the desolation of the village. The fields were abandoned and the houses were almost submerged by weeds. They seemed to have been abandoned. Not long after, the hunter also disappeared.

The author of "The Record of Strange Stories from a Living Life" heard about this incident and recorded it. He believed that this was an illusion created by the spirits in the mountains. Anyone who saw it would later be possessed and disappear. "

"There's more here..."

There are many things that may or may not be related to the Tang family, and Huang Weimin dug them out one by one. So, during the regular meeting that night, Lu Ming told all these things.

Zhang Dingshan was absent from this regular meeting due to other commitments. This time, only Lu Ming, Lu Qingliang, and He Wei participated.

After hearing Lu Ming's story, the two fell into a long silence.

"The Tang family, which started its fortune in the Chongzhen era, is most likely the family that, as we speculated, accidentally learned the truth about mountain god sacrifices, and gradually mastered the 'core laws', which can steadily reap benefits."

None of the three of them had any objections to this point.

Whether it is the numerous mountain god statues, the "curious objects" unearthed from the underground palace and burned by the county magistrate as unlucky, or the family's unique history of fortune, all support this. .

"But... Teacher Huang and I have collected a lot of information on the history of the Tang family since its founding, but we have not found any records of local people who have been missing frequently for a long time."

Occasional disappearances, such as falling off a cliff or being kidnapped by human traffickers, are inevitable. These things are very common and will not be recorded in history books.

But if there are long-term, stable and frequent missing persons, it will definitely attract attention. With so much information, there should be one or two records.

But there was none.

He Wei suddenly said: "There is something weird about that village that looks like a peach blossom garden."

"oh?"

"Is it possible that... this village is a 'human animal' raised in captivity by the Tang family? The ancestors of the Tang family found a rule to stabilize the success of sacrifices, so they captured some such people, found a secret place in the valley, and These people were raised in captivity, allowed to reproduce naturally, and then periodically captured people from the village to be sacrificed to the mountain gods?"

Lu Ming trembled all over.

If we speculate based on this basis, then many things recorded in ancient books will have a different explanation.

For example, the "warrior" that the woodcutter saw seemed to be protecting the village. In fact, he was not protecting the village, but was just a guard sent by the Tang family to look after the village.

The ruins that Orion saw behind him were the Tang family who abandoned this place after realizing that the location of the village was leaked, and chose another place to trap these people.

The deaths of the woodcutter and the hunter were not due to being possessed by mountain spirits and ghosts, as the author of "Story of Strange Stories from a Living Life" believed, but rather...

In order to keep the secret, the Tang family killed people and silenced them.

Even further, the group of bandits who wiped out the entire Tang family - there were even women and children among them. It seems that their attack on the Tang family was not just for money, but for revenge and venting their anger. Is this the group of bandits? Villagers?

Lu Ming had to admit that this was extremely possible.

Now, the only doubt remaining is the mystery of the Tang family's destruction.

After all, a huge family that has been in business for hundreds of years and its power is so huge that it doesn't look like it can be wiped out by a group of ragged bandits, including women and children.

So……

Just like the possibility that we had already guessed when we first formulated the standards, that is, the golden cicada escapes from its shell?

Did the Tang family intentionally fake death to escape in order to prevent people from associating their family with "sacrifice to the mountain gods"?

On the surface, the family is destroyed, but in fact, it starts again in a different place?

But this is somewhat unjustifiable. After all, it is clearly recorded in historical data that many mountain god statues were found in the ruins of the Tang family.

Isn't this deliberately drawing people's attention to the mountain god?

Lu Ming couldn't think clearly or understand. But one thing is at least roughly certain.

"Through the family inheritance model, stable benefits can be obtained by offering sacrifices to mountain gods. This kind of thing is very likely to be true. Maybe...the Tang family is not the only one who discovered this secret? Or maybe the Tang family is because of someone For some reasons, the family was indeed wiped out by bandits, but there were also survivors who escaped with this secret and then made a comeback?

A more extreme possibility is that there may be some ancient book information passed down from the Tang family. After decades or even more years, other unrelated people also mastered this secret and reorganized X organization? "

If this is the case, then the attempt to uncover Organization X by tracing the Tang family has also failed.

“But there is always one core point, that is, if you want to obtain stable benefits by worshiping mountain gods, it is always inseparable from two factors: first, the place where you worship mountain gods is in Woye County or in the surrounding mountains. The executor cannot be too far away. Second, there must be a steady stream of people with the Hag.1 gene as sacrifices."

In other words, after the demise of the Tang family, if there are still successors - whether the Tang family fakes death and escapes to make a comeback, or the survivors who have mastered the secret revitalize the family, or the rest of the family has mastered the secret through various channels. People and their power must also be in this area.

Moreover, it is most likely that a stable supply of sacrifices was obtained through "raising human animals in captivity".

Then it’s clear what to do next.

Continue to search for other large families similar to the Tang family in historical materials.

These large families may have overlapped with the era when the Tang family existed - after all, it was possible that more than one family of the Tang family had mastered the secret at that time; or they may have existed after the Tang family - which is why someone else later mastered the secret of the Tang family.

After all, the existence of the Tang family has confirmed the rationality of this model. Then, it is more likely that Organization X was inherited from ancient times through this model.

"well."

Lu Ming sighed.

He knew that in the next period of time, he would have to deal with those troublesome ancient books again.

Time slipped away slowly like this. While reviewing and collecting information day after day, one night, Lu Ming was suddenly awakened by the sound of rapid footsteps.

Lu Ming and Huang Weimin both raised their heads in confusion and temporarily turned their attention away from the ancient books.

Then Lu Ming saw several heavily armed soldiers rushing in.