The Sacrificial Ceremony

Yin Xiu didn’t dare confirm it outright, but settled on that possibility in his mind.

At least judging by the townspeople’s reactions, they truly hated the woman who appeared during the day and seemed quite willing to prepare for the sacrificial ceremony.

“When you arrived, did you see the stone stele at the entrance to town?” Seeing Yin Xiu fall silent, the mayor brought up another topic.

“I did.” Yin Xiu nodded. It recorded the rules of this town. He hadn’t just read them—he’d committed them to memory.

“Then do you remember the first one?” the mayor asked with a beaming smile.

“Children are forbidden from touching the altar in the square at night?”

“That’s right.” The mayor looked away from Yin Xiu and toward the altar in the distance. “Before that woman was sealed, she loved eating the children in town. But after she was sealed, she had little power to eat them. Her only remaining power was to turn people into monsters through the altar, and it only worked on children. Children have no resistance, so they must never touch the altar at night. Otherwise, they’ll be tainted by the curse and turn into monsters.”

Yin Xiu lowered his eyes, lost in thought.

Scenario prompt: A happy little girl followed her mother to live in the monster town where her grandmother lived.

The little girl came to town with her mother, which meant they were outsiders, not townspeople. By then, the town had already become a monster town. Only the townspeople turned into monsters; the outsider girl and her mother didn’t...