Volume 1 Chapter 48 Do You Want to Leave the Village?

The lamp oil soothed his throat, dulling the urges to shun the light and thirst for blood. He had recovered.

"There's something outside the door. I didn't see clearly what it was, but it seemed to keep peeking at us," Luo Bin replied in a low voice.

Luo Feng stared at the crack in the door for a long time, and so did Gu Ya.

Luo Bin lightly wiped the corner of his mouth, concealed the oil-wrapped plastic in his palm, and casually tossed it behind him. He stepped on it with his foot and wedged it into the gap at the base of the wall behind.

There had been nothing outside the wooden hut earlier.

Luo Bin was acting.

If he hadn't made a fuss to distract Luo Feng and Gu Ya, there was no way he could swallow lamp oil right in front of the married couple.

If he had held back any longer, something terrible would have happened.

Fortunately, in this environment, even if nothing was wrong, the slightest change in one's gaze or demeanor would make others suspect something.

Whispers and low laughter echoed, and numerous shadows loomed outside the gap in the door.

"Kill them, and you can be together with us. Go and kill them."

The instigating and bewitching whispers came from the wooden wall behind them. Not only could Luo Bin hear them, but Luo Feng and Gu Ya could hear them just as clearly. Yesterday, the evil entity had bewitched the couple Luo Feng and Gu Ya; today, it had changed its target.

Luo Bin's heart sank like a stone. Any other villager would have been driven to wild imaginations. It was fortunate that Luo Feng and Gu Ya had strong minds, otherwise, problems would have bound to arise.

"Xiao Shan, don't pay attention to them." Gu Ya approached Luo Bin, holding his hand, her eyes filled with comfort and concern.

Luo Feng walked to the other side of the base of the wall, sat down heavily, and completely ignored any words or actions of the evil entity.

"Mom, go get some rest. You're very tired too." Luo Bin smiled, adding, "I'm fine."

Only then did Gu Ya return to Luo Feng's side. Luo Bin lay back down on the ground as usual, closed his eyes, and fell into a deep sleep.

...

A single candle burned inside the cramped room, its orange glow casting an even light across every corner.

Gu Yiren had been lying quietly on the bed, but suddenly she sat straight up, staring blankly around the room.

"It's dark, time to come out."

"He's not here."

Her tone was very gentle and soft, as if she were coaxing something.

She got up and got off the bed. The room was small and could be scanned at a single glance, but Gu Yiren found nothing.

She dropped to all fours and looked under the bed.

Her pretty eyes trembled slightly, but the space under the bed was also empty.

Slowly standing up, she dragged herself sluggishly to the cabinet against one side of the room and pulled it open. It was equally empty inside, containing absolutely nothing.

A sense of wandering uncertainty and a trace of agonizing torment filled Gu Yiren's heart.

"Where did you go?" Gu Yiren asked with a trembling voice.

"Come out! Come out!" A piercing scream suddenly burst from her lips. With a loud *bang*, she slammed the cabinet door shut. Screaming frantically once more, she smashed her head heavily against the cabinet, leaving a red mark instantly on her fair forehead.

Suddenly, her eyes widened as she lunged toward the door, pushing against it with all her might!

With a heavy clang, the door did not open. A thick, heavy lock on the outside held the panels firmly and tightly shut!

"Peeping! I know you're peeping again!"

"You scared it!"

"Only it can take us away from here! Only it can let us walk out of this village!"

"Get lost! Get lost! Go die!"

At this moment, Gu Yiren was a completely different person from her previous serene and gentle self!

There was no one outside the door.

In the main room, the oil lamp cast a soft glow. Two figures sat facing each other beneath the lamp, their shadows stretched long against the wall.

To the left of the table sat the shaman He Gui, with a hunched back, slender eyes, a hooked nose, hair covering his bald spot, a pointed chin, and a goat-like beard. His expression was exceptionally gloomy.

To the right sat Zhong Zhi Cheng, who had a square face, heavy sideburns, and arhat-like eyebrows.

A tinkling sound filled the air as Zhong Zhi Cheng tapped his fingers rhythmically on the table.

"I observed her on the first day. She was just wandering around the room looking for things and whispering. When she discovered I was watching, she started hurling curses. It's gotten worse these past few days," He Gui said.

"Can she see things? Things we can't see?" Zhong Zhi Cheng stopped the movement of his fingertips.

"It's absurd. If she could see anything at all, I certainly would have been able to see it. When her epilepsy acts up, she suffers from hysteria. That guy Zhang Li didn't lie; Zhu Qianqian probably believed her rambling nonsense during an episode and was killed by an evil entity." Pausing after his explanation, He Gui continued, "The unstable factor is too strong. Send her to the Mountain God Temple; don't give her any lamp oil, and let her die."

After a moment of silence, Zhong Zhi Cheng said, "Zhang Li is missing. When the time came, he didn't come to collect his lamp oil. I went to check; his house was empty, and quite a bit of lamp oil was left behind. Calculating the timeline, he hasn't been home since the day Gu Yiren was taken away."

"Obviously, Gu Yiren said something else, and he believed it." He Gui shook his head and said, "In my opinion, Gu Yiren is sick, and that is indeed a fact. It's just that he was still taking a gamble, believing that some of the things Gu Yiren said were true. He wanted to leave the village, and desperate times call for desperate measures, so he played along. He told us Gu Yiren was sick, thinking he could pull the wool over our eyes. But he was far too wishful-thinking. Do you expect someone who's sick in the head to become special here in Guishan Village?"

He Gui sneered, "People like that deserve to die when their time comes. He was clever by half and deserves no pity. Even without Gu Yiren, he wouldn't have survived in the village much longer anyway."

"You don't also think that Gu Yiren knows something, do you?" A trace of suspicion flickered in He Gui's eyes. "Old Zhong, you're the village chief. As chief, you need to be even more cautious. Nothing must go wrong, or the order and peace the village has maintained for years will be destroyed."

"No, I don't. I was just mentioning Zhang Li's disappearance in passing," Zhong Zhi Cheng shook his head.

"Send her away tomorrow. The sooner she dies, the sooner she can be liberated. The sooner she's gone, the fewer words spoken, and the less influence she'll have," He Gui added.

"Mmm," Zhong Zhi Cheng nodded.

...

At this very moment, at the Luo family residence.

In Luo Bin's room, on the bed.

Chen Xianxian propped herself up with her hands on both sides of the bed frame, her legs dangling gently as she pouted.

"It's been two days and two nights, and he actually hasn't come back? Could he have died out there?"

Chen Xianxian felt quite melancholic.

It had been so difficult to find a man that her elder sister fancied, and she had wanted to see what was so special about Luo Shan anyway. It was just that Luo Shan was unlucky enough to draw the black lot, and Luo Feng was famously cautious and... stubborn.

More than two years ago, Luo Feng went on a scouting trip and took nearly nine days to return. Everyone thought the couple had died, and back then, Luo Shan had hidden away instead of joining the scouting party.

Chen Xianxian had assumed that this time, Luo Shan would hide away again.

To her surprise, Luo Shan had just cheerfully tagged along and left.

This completely disrupted her plans.

She had always believed that while luck could hold out once, it could never hold out twice or thrice. If Luo Feng's family died out there, and Luo Shan died out there as well, eaten by other evil entities, it would be such a waste.

"Sigh..." Chen Xianxian sighed, muttering to herself, "The shaman and the village chief too... They couldn't possibly believe Gu Yiren's words, could they? Why haven't they let her out to wait for death? Zhang Li really is an idiot..."

Over the past few years, aside from patrolling the village, the village had only ever dealt with people who posed risks and intended to harm others.

And then, of course, there were those suffering from severe, incurable, and contagious illnesses. Guishan Village lacked both doctors and medicine, and resources were limited.

Under normal circumstances, such people were thrown into the Mountain God Temple.

Chen Xianxian had been waiting—waiting to fish someone out of the Mountain God Temple.

Yet, in the blink of an eye, several days had passed, and the shaman's house remained dead quiet, showing no movement at all.

This made her feel that something was amiss.

Meanwhile, in another courtyard.

An oil lamp burned quietly in the main room. By the well in the courtyard, a tall, thin man was concentrating intently on shaving meat.

Next to him sat a basin piled high with finely textured chunks of meat—all lean meat, completely devoid of fat.

There were two other basins: one filled with rendered fat, and the other containing the stripped skin.

In the dead of night, after carving away every single part that satisfied him, he picked up the basins and walked toward the kitchen.

A few minutes later, the man emerged.

His expression, however, changed drastically!

Beneath the cold, pale moonlight, standing right beside the corpse by the well—its flesh shaved away to expose bare white bones—was a woman.

The woman held a cloth doll in her hands. The crude needlework made the doll's face twisted and terrifying. The woman was smiling. Her pretty features and poised demeanor made her look very beautiful, much like a pretty girl from next door.

"You slipped up and got found out, didn't you?" Zhang Yunling said softly.

A knife slid from the man's sleeve. The blade was as thin as cicada wings and gleamed with an icy, pristine white light.

"Do you want to leave the village?" Zhang Yunling suddenly asked again.

The man's body shuddered.

"I know it's you, and I haven't told anyone. I have a way to leave the village, but I need your help," Zhang Yunling said earnestly. "There's someone preventing all of us from leaving the village. He needs to die. I failed, but you certainly can succeed."

...

The morning breeze in the mountains was slightly cool.

The morning light in the mountains was warm and gentle.

Outside the fourth resting spot, Gu Ya had lit a campfire and was boiling some dried meat in a small iron basin, along with some salted vegetables. The boiling broth emitted a yellowish-white steam.

It was the third day. For the first two days, people could survive on dry rations and wild fruits, which was fine.

If it dragged on, eating that every day simply wouldn't work. At the other resting spots, there were pots and stoves outside every house, but this fourth resting spot was far too crude. Very few people ever came here, and it was terribly ill-equipped. Luckily, she had managed to find an old pot and a few old bowls. As for chopsticks, they were just branches picked up from the ground.

Breaking apart a flatbread and tossing the pieces into the soup, the salted vegetable and dried meat broth quickly grew thick, filling the air with an appetizing aroma.

Wrapping leaves around the rim of the pot, Gu Ya dished out two large bowls and one small bowl.

After the family of three finished their meal, Luo Feng spoke in a deep voice, "We will only explore for today. Tomorrow morning, we'll hit the road and head back."

Gu Ya was stunned. She truly hadn't expected Luo Feng to make this decision.

According to her understanding, once a problem was discovered, Luo Feng would typically pursue it to the very end, determined to get to the bottom of it.

Especially since this place apparently contained yet another village.

Luo Bin was equally taken aback. He hadn't planned on going back—at least, not right now. He wanted to thoroughly investigate this place and analyze the results to determine whether the people here had all died out or simply walked away.

Human nature being what it was, when it came to matters concerning oneself, people possessed a kind of inexplicable self-confidence: things were only done well if you did them yourself, and anything done by others was unreliable.

Luo Feng continued, "The things peeping at us are increasing. This is troublesome. If their numbers grow any larger, they might directly harm us."

"The paths we've explored so far are most likely all wrong. We need to head back promptly and report this to the village chief. We cannot die out here, or the entire village will end up taking a wrong path. Without Xiao Shan, if anyone else ever reaches this fourth resting spot in the future, they will get trapped wandering in circles and never be able to return."

"Okay," Gu Ya nodded heavily, though she cautiously looked left and right, appearing exceptionally wary.

Luo Bin remained silent, scanning his surroundings with equal caution, though he didn't see anyone at all.

There were "people" here.

They had encountered them yesterday during the journey, but Luo Feng had been unwilling to spell it out clearly.

Where were the people?

Why had Luo Feng seen them, yet he himself had found nothing?

Gathering his focus slightly, he retraced his memories.

Luo Bin recalled Luo Feng's demeanor while eating; indeed, his peripheral vision had been darting about at the time, his eyes and ears practically taking in everything around him.

Yet in his own field of vision, there hadn't been a single trace of a human shadow in the surrounding area.

As he replayed the memory once more, Luo Bin finally noticed the discrepancy.

In the distance and nearby, there were some sheep grazing on the hillside.

However, that was all there was...