[Soul-Shaking Ancient Village] Elder Care Tower

Not long after the thought occurred to him, Si Yehan went out.

The Elder Care Tower was very close. Looking at its vermilion walls and then at its golden plaque, Si Yehan felt none of the strangeness he had felt when he last observed it.

His every step was steady. When he reached the Elder Care Tower, he looked at the heavy vermilion wooden door before him, raised a hand, and pushed it open.

When the door opened, no dust flew up. Instead, the interior was remarkably clean, and the scene inside the tower came into view.

Cobwebs crisscrossed some corners, with a little dust settled on them, but the floor was exceptionally clean. The white tiles tinged with red looked somewhat eerie.

Shrines to gods and Buddhas hung high in the corners of the walls. The statues enshrined within seemed almost alive. Si Yehan looked around, but could see no sign that the old and young had once eaten one another here.

A faint smell of blood hung in the air. Si Yehan walked farther inside across the white-and-red tiles. Behind him, the door, which was only slightly ajar, suddenly swung shut in the wind with a loud, muffled bang.

Si Yehan took slight notice of the disturbance behind him. The Elder Care Tower had only one floor, with a very high dome and an exceptionally spacious interior. The howling wind just now had indeed been strong enough to blow the door shut, so it probably had nothing to do with a ghost.

But the real ghost ought to be lurking in the tower, or beneath it. And where was the place from which that wandering master operated behind the scenes?

Thoughts kept surfacing in his mind, but no one answered them. Si Yehan stopped before a wall, where intricate patterns intertwined to form a mural. Its colors were unusually monotonous, consisting only of gold and red. It was especially strange: the paint, dry for many years, looked like blood streaming down.

Si Yehan did not reach out to touch the mural, and even kept some distance from it. He raised his eyes and studied the somewhat indistinct mural bit by bit, gradually filling in its contents in his mind and making the whole sequence of events increasingly clear.

The mural depicted lifelike people and "ghosts" with blue faces and fangs. The story it told was the history of the Elder Care Tower.

Some guilt-ridden elderly people had painted it seven years ago to atone for their sins. They had left an explanation at the end of the mural: after finishing it, they would apologize with their deaths.

When Si Yehan's gaze fell on the end of the mural, a flash of disgust passed through his pitch-black eyes before they returned to calm. What utterly idiotic fools. At death's door, their unease and guilt drove them to choose a meaningless way to supposedly atone for their sins. How laughable. What was done was done. What was there to feel guilty about?

As for such conduct, all Si Yehan could do was deliver everyone but himself, one by one, into the hands of death. He did not believe in the so-called cycle of reincarnation. If it did exist, it would only grant those stupid pigs their wish and set them free, which was truly sickening.

His trip to the Elder Care Tower had yielded very little. Si Yehan turned and went straight out, pushing the door open. None of the mishaps common in horror movies occurred along the way, such as the door refusing to open or ghosts pouring out of the shadows.

Fresh air carrying the scent of rain rushed over him and into his lungs. The scenery and air in the mountains were indeed pleasant, Si Yehan thought, and he felt all the more that he should take up a blade and kill to adorn the view.

A gentle breeze blew as Si Yehan strolled through the streets and lanes. A length of blade protruded from his sleeve, flashing with a cold gleam.

Every household's door was tightly shut, and few people were to be seen in the streets. For the moment, Si Yehan was alone.

Si Yehan came to a remote part of the village, where adobe houses stood in rows. Their courtyard walls were low enough to climb over easily, and the houses were more dilapidated than those he had seen earlier in the village.

Grass and trees swayed gently in the distance. A ragged figure darted past, running swiftly.

Si Yehan caught sight of the figure. He drew his dagger and hurled it, but unfortunately the distance between them had already grown too great. The blade lodged firmly in a tree trunk.

Si Yehan went over and pulled the dagger free. He followed the figure at an unhurried pace. That person could not keep running forever, and he had plenty of time that afternoon, as long as he returned to his room before dark.

He followed the figure without losing track of him. The man remained completely unaware that Si Yehan was behind him and simply ran forward as if mad. His tattered clothes fluttered in the wind, carrying a foul, fishy odor mixed with a trace of blood.

Only after half an hour did the figure stop and turn, revealing a face covered in wrinkles. His hanging hair was tangled, his clothes were in tatters, and he held a rusty Buddha statue tightly in his arms. His expression was complex; at times he seemed deranged, and at others he laughed and cried.

He turned his head, looking this way and that, then entered a dilapidated house and huddled in a corner of the courtyard. Holding the Buddha statue in one hand, he dug with the other. He did not stop even when stones scraped his hand bloody, and dirt covered his palm.

The man was filthy and disheveled. Si Yehan looked thoughtful; presumably, this old thing was the old madman Chen Yong had mentioned earlier.

Si Yehan stood at the entrance and watched quietly. There would still be time to kill the old thing after he had finished watching.

As the old madman dug the hole, he muttered, "Evil thing... bury it... there's... something tasty!"

At the end of this, the old madman tossed the Buddha statue into the hole, got up, ran into the house, and brought out a moldy steamed bun. He began gnawing on it, looking thoroughly out of his mind.

He ate the cold, hard bun, his eyes clouded. Only then did he notice Si Yehan.

The old madman broke the moldy bun apart and offered a piece to Si Yehan. He approached with unsteady steps and asked, "Are you hungry? I'll share my bun with you."

Looking at the moldy bun before him, Si Yehan slowly raised his hand. At that same instant, the dagger in his sleeve stabbed out, piercing the bun and entering the old madman's body. The tear in his tattered clothes grew larger, and crimson blood flowed down his blackened skin.

The old madman flailed his limbs wildly, whimpering like a child and screaming with tears streaming down his face.

Without reaching out to touch him, Si Yehan slashed the dagger sharply up and down, then pulled it out and kicked the old madman to the ground. Interrogating a madman who had lost his mind was like playing the lute to a cow; he might as well search for himself.

Flesh curled slightly outward on either side as blood flowed freely from the wound. The old madman lay on the ground, dirt sticking to his wound. When his gaze fell on the hole, a brilliant light suddenly flashed in his eyes, and he threw away the moldy bun he had taken a few bites from.

He wriggled like a pupa, crawling toward the hole.

The scene was extremely comical. The old madman had almost bled dry by the time he stopped in front of the hole. Si Yehan stepped forward and kicked him, sending him rolling into it. Dirt pattered down and covered his body, while his blood flowed onto the Buddha statue.

Looking at the Buddha statue, Si Yehan thought it somewhat resembled the one in the Elder Care Tower, as if they were identical.

Could this old madman be something like a village guardian?

Did he sense the evil nature of this object and decide to dig a hole to bury it? Si Yehan looked at the face covered in tears and snot, at the mind so unlike its outward appearance.

Some of his internal organs had fallen out of the wound. He had bled too much, and the blood slowly dried in the hole.

The soil was damp. Si Yehan did not bury him, leaving the hole open to the sky. Only after watching the old madman become unable to make a sound and die completely did he turn and leave.

The dark clouds overhead had dispersed. The sun's light was not particularly strong, and the clouds in the distance took on a golden-red hue that shone into the hole in the courtyard.

The filthy, disheveled corpse's eyes were wide open, its tattered clothes covered in dried blood. Flies buzzed in the air. One corner of the Buddha statue was visible; the rest was entirely covered by the old madman's corpse.

An expression of fear was frozen on his face, without the slightest trace of resentment.