Volume 1, Chapter 52: Damn man, do you know you're dead?

"Put the skull down, Xiaoshan." Luofeng got out of bed, his gaze exceptionally cold and stern as he stared at the big ram on the ground. He looked at it with scrutiny and suspicion, tinged with a trace of vigilance, yet he did not suspect Luobin because of this.

Luobin snapped back to his senses and put the skull cap, still attached to the ram's horns, back in place.

The skull fit into the fracture, but it looked somewhat bizarre, with a few holes as if something had been jammed in and then pried open.

"Isn't this too eerie? It's clearly just a dead ram, yet it made Xiaoshan see a human face?" Gu Ya said, still lingering in fear.

"Mmm." Luofeng pressed his fingers against his glabella before saying, "We don't understand this kind of thing to begin with. No matter how bizarre it gets, it's not surprising."

Gu Ya was speechless.

"Go to sleep, Xiaoshan. Don't look at it. Even if you see anything else unusual, don't touch it. Just wake me up," Luofeng instructed again.

"I know, Dad." Luobin felt very unnatural. The urge to vent was still overwhelmingly strong in his heart; he even wanted to tear into the ram's hide and flesh again.

Yet how could he dare? Luofeng not suspecting him right now did not mean Luofeng would not suspect him if he made any more terrifying moves.

He used the already filthy quilt at the corner of the bed to wipe the blood off his hands, and under Luofeng's watchful gaze, climbed back into bed.

After that, Gu Ya and Luofeng got into bed and lay down as well.

Feigning sleep with his eyes half-closed, Luobin cast a sidelong glance at the ram carcass on the ground. At this moment, it was just a ram carcass.

His memory traced back, yet it chilled Luobin to the bone.

In the retraced scene, what he had seen was indeed a ram.

There was no such thing as easily removing a ram-horn cap; it was his own fingernails that had jammed into the ram carcass's skull cap and pried it open...

The memory was real. The reason he had seen it wrong was because his instincts regarding malevolent entities were too intense, and his desire to dismember a human was so strong that he had imagined the ram carcass as a person?

The scene was fragmented. Luobin slightly bent his arm and looked at his fingernails. The blood had been wiped clean, but there was still some white, greasy, paste-like matter stuck in the crevices of his nails. Could it be... ram brains?

His emotions were contradictory; the sense of stress relief still lingered in his heart, but the chill had grown even denser.

His own fingers digging into bone, was it just like digging into tofu?

He desperately wanted to try again...

The moment this thought arose, Luobin quickly felt around in his pocket, pulled out an oil-paper package, stuffed it into his mouth, and bit through it. As the lamp oil flowed down his throat, the desire in his heart was suppressed.

Daring not to think or look anymore, Luobin first cleaned the crevices of his nails, wiped them clean on the quilt, and forced himself to close his eyes. Drowsiness finally crept over him slowly, and he fell into a deep sleep.

He slept soundly until daylight. When Luobin woke up, the sunlight was exceptionally blinding. The door of the wooden cabin where they stayed was wide open, and the figures of Gu Ya and Luofeng were moving about outside.

Luobin got out of bed, supporting his forehead as he walked out.

Luofeng was using a few pieces of wood, tree bark, and ropes to rig up a makeshift stretcher.

Beside the doorway was a dirt stove with tongues of flame licking outward. The meat soup boiling in the pot smelled rich and fragrant, and several bowls next to it were filled with broken pieces of flatbread.

"Xiaoshan is awake. At the latest, past noon, we can be home."

"His dad, take a break and come eat." Gu Ya's demeanor was much better than last night's as she called out to Luofeng.

Luofeng patted the dust off his clothes, looked at Luobin, and asked, "Xiaoshan, is your wound feeling better?"

"Mmm-hmm, much better," Luobin nodded.

Following that, he glanced at the ram's head.

The ram's scalp hadn't been peeled off; it had been forcibly torn apart when his fingernails pried open the ram's head last night.

At this moment, the ram's hide had been placed back over it by Luofeng, but it had bled so much that one side of the carcass was soaked red with blood.

Fortunately, it was only the skull pried open by his fingernails, leaving no fingerprint impressions. Setting aside the fact that his memory retrospection could spot this detail, the skull cap was fitted back together seamlessly.

Because of the inherent bizarreness of these bipedal sheep, Luofeng had not given it much thought or suspected him.

The family gathered around the stove to start eating.

Yet Luobin felt somewhat dazed and lost again. The surging emotions were intensely strong; at least for the past few years, the escape route explored by the village had been a joke. Did everything have to start over from scratch?

It had also been quite a while since he was summoned back. He hadn't figured out Guishancun itself, and on top of that, he had discovered even more new problems and troubles.

Leaving this place seemed as distant and indefinite as ever.

He inexplicably recalled what Village Chief Zhong Zhicheng had said, words that had been repeated by many people.

Everyone wanted to leave this place.

Yet no one had any way to leave this place.

Was hope... still resting on Gu Yiren?

Right, there was hope!

Xu Kaiguo had even left him a note, saying that those who could influence the mountain would be hunted!

Xu Kaiguo's warning to him meant that he had the potential to influence the mountain!?

With a sudden jolt, Luobin muttered, "The one with the problem has never been the village; it's the mountain?"

Luofeng's eating motion stopped. His pupils shrank sharply as he stared fixedly at Luobin.

Gu Ya didn't react as strongly, asking oddly, "Xiaoshan, what have you thought of now?"

...

Outside the Mountain God Temple.

Today's sunlight was exceptionally bright, shining right into the temple and illuminating the statue of the Mountain God.

The grayish-white at the top, the yellowish tint on the face, and the bright red on the bridge of the nose were all heightened in color by the sunlight, giving off an overwhelming sense of majesty.

With a dark expression, Zhong Zhicheng stood at the temple entrance.

At the shrine priestess's behest, he had come once yesterday at noon, working together with the priestess to tie Gu Yiren to the roof beam. The priestess did not want Gu Yiren to live, believing she would bring danger to the village, so she had to die.

Before nightfall, Zhong Zhicheng had come alone a second time. Gu Yiren was supposed to die, but could she die in a way that served a greater purpose? As long as she no longer appeared in the village, it would be no different from being dead.

By that time, Gu Yiren had vanished. Had she been rescued by someone, or had she escaped on her own? Zhong Zhicheng had no answer.

This morning, he came again.

He came together with the priestess, He Gui.

At this moment, He Gui stood beside him, her expression exceptionally gloomy.

Outside the Mountain God Temple were throngs of villagers. They had all listened to He Gui's words and come to watch Village Chief Zhong Zhicheng collect Gu Yiren's corpse. Not only was the body nowhere to be seen, but there wasn't even a speck of blood on the ground, which left the villagers panicking and whispering among themselves in unease.

"Gu Yiren probably escaped."

Zhong Zhicheng turned his head, his gaze sweeping over everyone outside.

"Or perhaps, she was taken away by a villager!"

"Someone believed her mad ramblings, but I want to make it explicitly clear: that is untrustworthy! Take Zhu Qianqian and Zhang Li for instance—Zhu Qianqian died a tragic death, and Zhang Li's body was never found, most likely perishing in the mountain forests! A madman's words must never be believed!"

"Hand the person over, and this matter will be let bygones!"

"If any villagers are killed as a result, then whoever is responsible will be paraded through the village!"

Zhong Zhicheng raised his arm, pressing it down heavily into empty air, his words ringing with a resounding clang.

"Before nightfall, I hope someone voluntarily steps forward to confess. If no one confesses, the village chief will order the young-adults team to search house by house!" The priestess's sinister voice echoed all around.

The villagers looked at each other, suspicion and contemplation in their eyes.

Before long, someone took the lead and shouted, "Even if she's found through a search, parading through the village must still happen! It's not that the culprit didn't intend to confess voluntarily, but that we contained the problem in time. We weren't killed not because they didn't want to, but because they didn't have time to do it, so they must die!"

The shouts instantly overwhelmed the area, everyone chanting: "Parade through the village! Parade through the village! Parade through the village!"

Among the crowd was a person named Chen Xianxian.

Following the current, she raised her arm and chanted along with the rest about parading through the village.

Yet, deep within her bright eyes, a trace of contemplation was hidden.

A few minutes later, the villagers spontaneously began to walk toward the village, the phrase "parading through the village" endlessly on their lips.

Originally, not many villagers had gathered to watch at the Mountain God Temple. But now, word spread like wildfire—the rumor that Gu Yiren might have been rescued by a villager swept through the entire Guishancun! The news that if no one confessed today, tomorrow the young-adults team would conduct house-to-house searches also spread far and wide.

Chen Xianxian followed the villagers for a long time, and when the crowd converged to a certain density, she hurriedly turned and walked in the direction of her home.

Returning to her room, she slipped into the cellar.

Over the past few days, Luobin had not appeared at her doorstep, and her sister Chen Xianxian had not woken up during the day either, so the cellar had been cleaned meticulously, completely free of bloodstains.

She had even changed Chen Xianxian into clean clothes and washed her hair.

Had it not been for the heavy chains binding Chen Xianxian's body, looking solely at her face, one would have thought she was merely an exquisitely beautiful woman fast asleep.

At the other end of the cellar, Zhang Li was bound only by his wrists, leaving his feet and fingers free to move.

Beside him sat a urine bucket and a bowl containing food.

He looked unkempt and disheveled, the very picture of wretchedness.

"You... you told someone else about Gu Yiren, didn't you?" Chen Xianxian walked up to Zhang Li, hooking his chin up with her finger.

This was not a question; it was an accusation.

"No... I swear, I only told you..." Zhang Li stammered in terror.

"Then how is that possible? If you hadn't told anyone, who would have rescued her? I had been waiting for the opportunity, and finally, the village chief and the priestess put her in the Mountain God Temple. When I went there, she was already gone! Today this matter has blown up even more; she's not dead, and she's missing. The village chief and the priestess are furious!"

"They're going to search the village tomorrow! Do you have any idea how serious this is?"

Chen Xianxian's expression was exceptionally chilling. "You'd better tell the truth, or tonight, I'll feed you to my sister!"

Zhang Li's face was full of horror as he muttered in a low voice, "Luo Shan! Right! It must be Luo Shan! The day Yiren ran out of the house, she definitely told Luo Shan something. Luo Shan spent a whole night with her—don't you know about this?!"

"Go trick Luo Shan into coming over! Didn't you say long ago that you wanted to trick Luo Shan into coming here?!"

"Yiren and I can help you leave the village, you can't kill me! Luo Shan is the one who knows Yiren's secret, he has to die! He must die!"

Chen Xianxian pouted and said, "Do you take me for someone who, like my sister, has big breasts but no brains?"

She patted her own chest; although her figure was petite, she was not the childlike, skinny sort; instead, wherever there should be curves, she lacked not an ounce.

Zhang Li was dumbfounded, failing to react for a moment.

"Luo Shan's family of three went out to scout the path for a full three days and their lives are still unknown. Someone else took Gu Yiren away. If you still refuse to tell the truth, I really will feed you to my sister. She hasn't eaten a human in days and is truly starving." Chen Xianxian clenched her dainty fists and hammered them twice against Zhang Li's chest.

Then she bit her lower lip, looking aggrieved as she said, "You stubborn man, refusing to tell me the truth. Do you really want to die, or what?"

Setting aside Zhang Li's current state and plight, Chen Xianxian's words and actions carried a rather unique charm.

But for Zhang Li right now, he could only laugh through his tears.

He hadn't spoken to anyone else about Gu Yiren at all!

Then where on earth had Gu Yiren gone?