Time ticked away by the minute and second, yet the screams lingered, one after another. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

Shanxing huddled in the blanket, desperately counting the seconds.

He didn’t know how long it had been when a rooster crowed, and the brilliant sunlight beamed from the east, filtering through the window into Shanxing’s room.

As the rooster crows, the world turns light, and the terrible screams vanished instantly, as if they had never existed.

Shanxing carefully peeked out from under the blankets, and upon seeing the bright outdoors, he slowly breathed a sigh of relief, having endured another night.

"I wonder which senior brother met with misfortune last night," Shanxing murmured to himself.

The lurking demon seemed to regard this group of monks as captive food, killing one every three days.

Sure enough, a cry of pain echoed through the temple, and upon entering, a monk was found dead in his room, his chest hollowed out, his heart taken by the demon.

"Ninth Senior Brother!" Shanxing’s tears couldn’t stop falling.

He mourned the departure of his cheerful senior brother, and grieved his own tragic fate.

"We can’t go on like this; we must leave this place, otherwise we’ll all become food for the demon!" the fourth senior brother suddenly stood up and declared.

In just a few short days, the temple had already seen several deaths. Regardless of their reluctance, it was time for them to make a choice—to leave the temple that had turned into a demon’s den.

"Let’s go, we’ll find the abbot!" led by the fourth senior brother, everyone headed to the Mahavira Hall.

An aged abbot was sitting in front of the Buddha statue, slowly tapping the wooden fish in front of him.

The sound of the wooden fish echoed in the empty hall, seemingly carrying a hint of Zen.

"Amitabha Buddha, Shankong, what brings you and your brothers here in such an uproar? The Buddhist Sect is a place of tranquility; how can you be so noisy?" the abbot’s voice carried a slight annoyance.

"Master, it’s not that we lack tranquility, but the ninth junior brother is dead, and there is a demon head in this temple," Shankong responded.

"And what do you intend to do?" the abbot asked, still with his eyes closed and in a deep voice.

"Leave this place. As long as we escape, we can save our lives."

"Do you think the demon will let us leave this place? We are his captive food. If we stay within the pen, he will enjoy us slowly, but when we try to leave, death will follow swiftly. He won’t allow his food to escape from here," the abbot’s voice echoed in everyone’s ears, bringing deep despair.

Shanxing felt only darkness in the future, that profound despair biting at his soul like a venomous snake.

"So we just wait here for death?!" Ninth Senior Brother suddenly shouted in anger.

With that, he didn’t wait for anyone to hold him back and charged toward the outside of the temple, with everyone hurriedly following him.

However, just as they reached the main gate, a dreadful scream came from outside, piercing and soaring to the skies—it was Ninth Senior Brother’s voice.

Everyone who heard the sound felt their skin crawl. Upon opening the temple doors, they saw the outside shrouded in a grey fog, and the air was filled with a particularly pungent odor.

Then, the sound of chewing reached their ears, as if something was feasting beyond the mist.

"Twelfth Senior Brother!" Shanxing murmured, everyone present knew that the Ninth Senior Brother who had rushed out had become food for the demons.

The group could only retreat back into the monastery, and a sense of despair immediately enveloped everyone.

"We will all die here!" a little monk muttered to himself, his words filled with fear.

The oppressive air around him was driving him to the brink of madness.

That night, no one returned to their dwellings; instead, they gathered in the Mahavira Hall, silently chanting the Buddhist Scriptures, praying for Buddha’s protection.

In the dead of night, Heaven and Earth were deathly silent, even the usual sounds of insects had disappeared.

The grey fog began to spread, and once again familiar screams filled the air; this time, there seemed to be one more. Everyone clearly knew that it was the Ninth Senior Brother’s screams.

It seemed that with each person’s death, the cries echoing in everyone’s ears would increase by one.

The monks chanted the scriptures louder, as if only through such means could they lessen the fear in their hearts.

Strangely enough, although the screams continued throughout the night, not a single monk in the hall died, and everyone managed to make it to dawn successfully, as the screams gradually faded away.

Shanxing looked around at the familiar faces and broke into a brilliant smile, "It’s great, not a single one of us is dead."

However, the joy didn’t last long, as soon those trapped in the monastery soon faced another problem—the food supply was dwindling. Normally, some monks would leave the monastery at regular intervals to purchase food.

But now, the outside was enveloped in a mysterious fog, and going out meant certain death, while the food stored in the monastery wouldn’t last much longer.

If this continued, they would not be killed by demons, but would starve to death instead.

As dusk gradually fell, the Twelfth Senior Brother who was in charge of the kitchen sighed and said, "After this meal, we will run out of food, and we will all have to go hungry from tomorrow on."

"What, we’re out of food so soon?" someone asked in disbelief.

"The last time the First Senior Brother and others went out to buy supplies, there was an accident; we’ve been living off the stockpiled grain," he explained.

Twelfth Senior Brother was a fat monk with a constantly smiling fat face, but now he bore a look of worry; hunger was approaching, but what were those in the monastery to do, how could they survive?

"Cut the crap, I know what you people are like, always sneaking around. You must have hoarded food, hand it over!" a tall and burly monk with a deep scar on his face stood up and accused.

Shanxing remembered he was a monk who had come from outside and was currently staying at the monastery, now also trapped here.

His words immediately gained the approval of many. In such an environment, the evil in human nature was fully exposed.

People ripped away their formerly kind appearances and began to show their fierce true faces—concealment, deception, hatred. These negative emotions filled the entire hall, constantly stirring the souls of everyone present.

All the negative emotions erupted at that moment, and the survivors began to blame and curse each other, ultimately escalating into a conflict.

Shanxing watched the chaos unfold; it seemed everyone wanted to vent the fear in their hearts, and the Mahavira Hall was instantly thrown into turmoil.

Under the majestic and sacred statues of Buddha, the ugliest scenes of the human world were unfolding, a truly lamentable sight.