Before he died, my grandfather grabbed my wrist and screamed: "The Sophora japonica God is going to change the sacrifice!" The bronze lock around my neck suddenly became hot, and a bloody Sophora japonica root drilled through the keyhole - this was the "relic" he gave me, and also the "death talisman" of Sophora Coffin Village.
The locust roots on the three-arch bridge will wrap around your ankles, and the eyeless paper lanterns will grow longer and more human-like when they illuminate the road. Three dead rules are written on the hemp paper of the blue-shirted man: look in the mirror at dawn and see a cracked face, and smile sarcastically; do not hide in the wardrobe when the gong is ringing and you will be "skinned"; if you touch the red cloth sacrifice, the locust petals will stick to the body and bleed.
But the scariest thing is not the rules, but the secret that Grandpa hid in his diary: Twenty years ago, he retrieved the body and secretly rescued the baby girl who was supposed to be fed to the Sophora God. Nowadays, the Sophora japonica god will devour one person every birthday when asking for debts - the lantern-delivery man has a peach wood stick stuck in his chest, hundreds of Sophora japonica coffins float in the bridge holes, and the Sophora japonica flower petals in the "calming soup" handed over by the village chief are all turned up with "ghost eyes".
I held half a bronze mirror with the inscription "See the locust tree but don't bury it" and hid in the closet. The locust tree leaf pattern on the corner of the shroud suddenly glowed. Only then did I understand: the bronze lock is the key to suppress evil, the baby girl has long been symbiotic with the roots of Sophora japonica, and the "god" of Sophora Coffin Village is actually an evil object made from living people a hundred years ago!
When the fog covered the whole village, the branches of the old locust tree were wrapping themselves around the villagers and digging into the soil. I have to choose: should I fill the roots of the Sophora God as a sacrifice, or should I smash the bronze lock and let this cannibal village and the millennium taboo be buried in the fog together?
