Chapter 23

The woman from earlier was now standing inside the archway. The umbrella in her hand was gone, and she held that porcelain vase in both arms.

At that moment, Xue Liangliang was astonished to discover that after arriving beneath this archway, not only had the pull of the current vanished, but even that terrifying feeling of suffocation from before had disappeared.

He immediately began gulping down breaths, but though he kept making the motions, he received none of the expected effect.

It was as if his mouth and nose had been plugged. No fresh air was coming in at all.

He suddenly realized that only his perception had changed. The reality before him had not.

He was still at the bottom of the river.

But how had this been done?

He could swim. When he was little, back in his hometown in Anhui, he often played in the water and swam with his friends. After entering college, he would occasionally go to a pool with classmates and happily swim several laps back and forth.

But he did not think his swimming ability could possibly be this absurd. He had been underwater for so long that he had long since surpassed his limit for holding his breath.

He touched beneath his ears. It was still his original skin. No gills had grown there.

He even looked behind him and farther into the distance. He suspected that perhaps he had drowned long ago, and the current him was merely...

Xue Liangliang clutched his head tightly, forcing himself to calm down. A method that had always worked well when taking exams or reviewing design proposals had lost its effect now.

His heart was still in turmoil, his body continued to tremble, and his teeth kept chattering.

He was terrified—of the environment at the riverbed, of this archway, and of the woman standing inside it with the porcelain vase in her arms. He desperately wanted to escape this place, provided that was even possible.

Then the woman moved. She began walking farther in.

Xue Liangliang did not move. He did not dare enter the archway or actively explore this small town.

Yet once some distance opened between him and the woman, that dreadful suffocating feeling returned.

Xue Liangliang had no choice but to stagger forward several quick steps. The suffocating sensation vanished again.

He understood now. As long as he was too far from that woman, the feeling would appear.

The woman continued walking ahead, and Xue Liangliang could only follow her into the archway.

He had no choice. For someone who had just experienced the despair of suffocation, going back to endure it again would have been several times, even dozens of times, more agonizing.

There was clearly no connection between him and the woman, yet it felt as though an invisible chain linked them, one end grasped in the woman's hand and the other looped around his neck.

Beyond the archway was a continuous flight of more than thirty steps leading downward.

Xue Liangliang could not help feeling puzzled. Ordinarily, unless the terrain made such construction unavoidable, most ancient villages and towns with archways would not choose a layout that sank downward the moment one entered the main gate.

The ancients preferred to raise the terrain a little, with the archway at the front and lower down while the land behind it rose higher, better highlighting its grandeur.

But here, not only had they failed to raise it, they had deliberately built it into a depression—and such a large one at that.

No wonder the buildings in town had looked so hazy when viewed from outside. Half of them had actually been blocked from sight, leaving only their upper portions visible.

The design of the stairs was also strange. Usually, the edges on both sides were made smooth and level, while most of the middle was formed into steps for people to walk on. Here, however, the center was an enormous smooth slope, while the walkable steps were squeezed onto the sides. Not only were they narrow and small, but they were also steep.

When walking down, Xue Liangliang sometimes had to turn sideways. It was as though everyone who traveled here had bound feet.

After descending the stairs and reaching level ground, he saw a stone-brick road that was neither wide nor spacious, even giving off a cramped feeling.

Moreover, these stone bricks had not been laid flat. Every one of them stood upright, with their narrow ends facing upward. This not only required more bricks but also increased the difficulty of construction.

At the same time, even the finest ancient road would become uneven after years of weathering. Here, because of this bizarre brickwork, finding even a patch of ground where one could place a whole foot steadily was impossible.

With every step, only a small part of his sole found solid support, while the rest hung in empty space. He had to walk with extreme care, or he could easily twist an ankle and fall.

Fortunately, the woman holding the porcelain vase ahead was not walking too quickly, so Xue Liangliang could keep up.

Once he had adapted somewhat to the road, Xue Liangliang began examining the residences on both sides.

The houses were packed tightly together, built in the style of a Jiangnan water town, with white walls and gray tiles.

Between the entrance of every residence and the road was a groove less than half a meter wide, covered with stone slabs. It should have been a drainage ditch.

Xue Liangliang could not understand the point of building drainage ditches at the bottom of a river... unless this town had only fallen into the river later.

To the left of every doorway was a wall niche containing a lit candle that gave off a ghostly green glow.

At first, all the residential doors he saw after entering had been closed. But soon, Xue Liangliang spotted open doors, their interiors pitch-black and impossible to see clearly.

A deeply uncomfortable feeling rose in Xue Liangliang's mind. It did not come from fear or oppression, but from a sense of wrongness, especially after seeing these doors.

After pondering it for a moment, he finally understood. It was because there were no thresholds beneath the doors.

Modern buildings had long abandoned thresholds, and people were accustomed to seeing and using doorways without them. But in traditionally styled buildings, doors were often designed to be tall and long, so without a threshold, they gave off an intensely discordant feeling.

They were too direct, too eerie, like the open mouth of a monster that filled one with dread.

"Ah!"

As he walked, Xue Liangliang suddenly saw someone sitting inside an open doorway of a residence to his right.

He recoiled two steps in fright. The damned uneven ground made him lose his footing, and he slipped onto the ground, ending up seated directly facing that doorway.

Inside sat an old woman. Perhaps from soaking in water for too long, her skin was terribly pale and slightly swollen.

She wore a blue padded jacket, bright in color like burial clothes, though its design was far more elaborate.

Her head, neck, and hands were covered in all kinds of jewelry.

She sat there as though she had been sitting for a very long time. Fortunately, her eyes were closed.

"Whew... whew..."

If her eyes had been open, Xue Liangliang felt that this single unexpected glimpse might have scared him unconscious.

The environment he was in and the woman leading him were already bizarre enough, but the unique design of the residences combined with the people sitting inside them created a different, even more shocking kind of horror within the already eerie atmosphere.

Xue Liangliang climbed to his feet. The suffocating feeling showed faint signs of returning, so he immediately jogged forward for a short distance and closed the gap between himself and the woman.

Yet the old woman sitting in the doorway remained in his mind. Behind her was total darkness, with no furniture or furnishings visible.

That made those compact two-story residences seem like tombs belonging solely to the women within them.

Open-air graves.

So this was not an abandoned town flooded by water.

Then were there people inside those residences with closed doors that he had seen when entering?

And those residences with open doors but no one visible inside... could their owners be upstairs?

At that thought, Xue Liangliang instinctively moved a little closer to the woman.

He was afraid of her too, but when he thought of the houses on both sides as graves and himself walking down the path between them, the woman ahead somehow felt easier to bear. At least she moved.

As he walked, Xue Liangliang saw a second residence with an open door and someone sitting inside.

It was a young woman dressed in embroidered clothing, her hair piled high in a formal style. She sat with both hands folded over her knees, eyes closed, her lips strikingly red.

After taking one look at her, Xue Liangliang shuddered and quickly looked away.

Then he saw a woman in a qipao sitting in another doorway. Her waist was slender, her seated posture seductive, her hands resting at her sides, and the corners of her lips seemed to hold a smile.

It was as though she were silently beckoning him inside to speak with her.

Xue Liangliang discovered that the deeper they went, the more residences had open doors, and the greater the proportion that contained seated women.

From the first old woman until now, he had already seen more than a dozen women sitting in doorways.

They varied in age and clothing style, but all had dressed themselves very formally, like elderly people in rural areas preparing their own burial clothes and coffins before passing away, wanting to leave their most dignified appearance for their funeral.

This was the appearance they had carefully designed for themselves... after death.

Because they had been soaked in water, their skin was all very pale—too pale.

Yet unlike corpses that had swollen grotesquely after prolonged immersion, they generally had not deformed. At the very least, they had retained much of how they looked in life.

What was even harder to understand was that the dead either had been ill, injured, or had passed naturally from old age. In short, their final condition was usually not very good.

But among these women, even the oldest one still retained an air of composure.

It was as if they had not approached death when their strength was exhausted, but had actively chosen to die while they still possessed the ability to go on living calmly.

Honestly, if they had been in all kinds of gruesome states of death, Xue Liangliang might not have been so frightened.

But this atmosphere—of them deliberately dressing up, sitting there for him to see, or perhaps watching him—placed enormous pressure on his mind.

In his daze, his awareness began to blur. Was he observing them, or were they sitting in their homes, observing him?

Distracted and shaken, Xue Liangliang bumped into the woman's back.

At some point, the woman had stopped.

She did not move from the collision, but Xue Liangliang fell backward onto the ground.

The woman did not turn around. Instead, she turned right and headed farther in along a different route.

A crossroads appeared here, with two small land bridges on either side. There was no water beneath them; they were purely decorative, perhaps for feng shui.

Xue Liangliang climbed up and could only follow the woman around the corner.

From here on... every residence on both sides had its door open, and every residence had a woman sitting inside.

"Ah..."

Xue Liangliang felt his mind was about to collapse. Though their eyes were all closed, the dense sensation of being watched was still there, leaving him in unbearable misery and confusion.

He could only choose the most ostrich-like approach: follow behind the woman with his head lowered halfway, refusing to look to either side.

Though his peripheral vision still caught glimpses of some of them, and though his heartbeat grew faster and faster, he somehow managed to endure it.

A normal person who came here would probably go insane.

If Little Yuan were here, he probably would not react like an ordinary person, right?

Forget it. Little Yuan had better not come here. Xue Liangliang did not even know if he himself could get out alive. No, he was not even sure whether he still counted as alive.

At last, the houses on both sides disappeared.

Xue Liangliang rubbed his forehead and took deep breaths. Even if it was merely an empty motion, he needed it now to relieve the pressure in his heart.

Then he quickly caught up with the woman.

Now that the terrifying stares from both sides were gone, he was finally able to lift his head and look ahead.

Ahead lay a small open area, with an ancient building that was clearly different from the other residences standing there.

It should have been Bai Family Town's ancestral hall.

Xue Liangliang could not help stopping. Was he going to enter?

Then he walked forward. What was there to hesitate over? It was not as though he had any choice.

"Creak..."

The ancestral hall's pitch-black doors slowly opened on their own as the woman approached.

This ancestral hall still had no threshold. And once inside, there were more downward stairs, with a broad smooth area in the middle and only tiny walkable sections on both sides.

After crossing a not particularly spacious square courtyard, the woman continued deeper inside.

As Xue Liangliang followed her, his gaze was drawn to the old well in the center. Its opening did not rise upward but sank downward, and the surrounding area had also collapsed inward.

This was not formed later. It had been designed this way from the start.

Rusty chains encircled the well walls.

Xue Liangliang could not help wondering whether they were meant to make it easier for those above to descend and draw water, or for those below... to climb up.

They had reached the core of the ancestral hall.

The woman knelt down with the vase in her arms and did not proceed any farther.

Xue Liangliang approached her and came to her side, studying her again.

Why had this young woman, so clearly dressed like a modern person and carrying an air of travel-weariness, appeared here? And why was she familiar with this place... as though she were simply returning home?

So should he remain here with her, or continue deeper inside to take a look?

With her as the center, he had a certain range in which he could move. He had simply been too afraid to walk ahead of her before.

But he still chose to remain at the woman's side, going nowhere.

Yet gradually, the suffocating feeling surfaced again.

He began to feel miserable and pained, his hands instinctively gripping his own throat.

But the woman was right here, kneeling diagonally ahead of him. Why had the feeling returned?

Xue Liangliang moved closer to the woman, but the suffocating feeling did not disappear.

Was she no longer effective?

He could not imagine having to keep enduring endless suffocation in such a sinister and oppressive place. What kind of bottomless torture was this?

"Urgh... ah..."

Xue Liangliang collapsed to his knees as well, howling in agony.

His consciousness blurred again and again, only to return to clarity again and again. He hated this clear-mindedness more than anything, because it meant his mind was being repeatedly whipped and tortured.

With a thud, Xue Liangliang pitched forward and fell to one side.

Because there was no threshold, strictly speaking, half his body had entered the core area of the ancestral hall.

Then he suddenly realized that the suffocating feeling had weakened.

After a brief hesitation, he immediately shifted farther inside. The suffocating sensation lessened again.

He understood. The woman holding the vase no longer worked. The chain that had bound him to her had broken, and the new chain was inside here!

He continued crawling inward until the feeling of suffocation completely vanished. Only then was he finally able to stand.

When he looked back, the space beyond the doors was pitch-black, with only the woman holding the vase faintly visible near the entrance.

When he looked ahead again, he saw an enormous red coffin.

There was a stand beneath the coffin holding it aloft, so even standing on tiptoe, Xue Liangliang could only vaguely see a little of the yellow lining inside. Beyond that, he could see nothing unless he climbed onto the coffin.

With unease in his heart, he slowly circled the coffin, mentally preparing himself to see something suddenly emerge at any moment.

Yet even after he had completed a full circuit around the coffin, nothing terrifying appeared.

Directly opposite the head of the coffin should have been an offering table and spirit tablet stand, but there was nothing here except a grandmaster's chair.

The walls on both sides of the coffin were made of gray bricks.

The ancestral hall at the center of Bai Family Town was far too plain and deserted, like a house that had been built and decorated but never occupied.

But was that really the case?

Xue Liangliang thought of the women sitting inside the residences they had passed along the way. If everyone had died in their own homes, then there truly seemed to be no need to place spirit tablets in the ancestral hall.

Then could there be a way out here?

Xue Liangliang did not give up on saving himself. He vaguely felt that the way out ought to be somewhere within this ancestral hall.

Next, he gathered his courage and stopped circling only the coffin. He began searching over a wider area, feeling along the three walls as he walked, making a complete circuit.

He even used his hand to knock on the bricks, checking for hollow spaces and hidden doors. As he walked, he also stomped heavily on the ground, probing for an underground passage.

Unfortunately, he found nothing.

The area here was not very large, and it was too empty. It was so empty that hiding anything would have been difficult.

Then what about overhead?

Xue Liangliang raised his head and looked up. It was an ordinary old-style roof with exposed beams. He had no way to search it unless he found some tools.

But go into those homes to look for tools?

At the thought of those women sitting behind the doors of those homes, Xue Liangliang felt a chill run down his spine. Asking him to get past them and search through their houses... he would rather stay here.

"Hm?"

But after making a large circuit and returning to the entrance, Xue Liangliang was startled to discover that the woman who had been kneeling there holding the porcelain vase was gone.

The porcelain vase had disappeared as well.

This sudden change made Xue Liangliang feel terrified again. That woman he had followed all the way here had actually become the thing he was most familiar with in this place.

Her disappearance was tantamount to casting him back into confusion and loneliness.

He wanted to look for the woman, to see whether she had moved somewhere else to kneel or gone elsewhere. But just as he was about to head toward the door, even though he was still some distance from it, that suffocating sensation appeared again!

But earlier, once he had entered the room, he had not felt this way.

Xue Liangliang took a deep breath of air that did not exist, then steeled himself and rushed to the door. The suffocating sensation came crashing down even harder, and he endured the pain as he made it outside.

He looked around, but there was no sign of the woman. She had truly vanished. She really was no longer here.

At the same time, the outermost gates of the ancestral hall that had been open when he came in had somehow closed.

And now he had reached his limit. He did not even have the strength to run into the courtyard.

He could only hurry back. His legs began to weaken, and he fell to the ground, his body like a shrimp being relentlessly squeezed dry.

Finally, he crawled back to the coffin. The suffocating sensation receded, and he was saved once more.

But when he raised his head and looked at the underside of the coffin above him, he could not help wondering: Was this really salvation?

After recovering a little, he got to his feet and cautiously began walking to the side.

To his horror, he discovered that once he moved a certain distance away from the coffin, the suffocating sensation would strike, and even more violently than before.

But earlier, he had been able to walk along the walls. He had even touched those bricks with his hands.

That meant his range of movement had shrunk again.

He came to the head of the coffin. Suddenly, his vision blurred, and he thought he saw someone sitting in the grand chair directly opposite the coffin's head.

But when he looked again, the person was gone.

No, it was not his eyes playing tricks on him. That might happen elsewhere, but not here. Absolutely not here!

Xue Liangliang circled the coffin once more, then darted back to the head of it.

This time, he saw it clearly. Someone really was sitting in the grand chair, and that person... was himself!

Xue Liangliang clenched his fists. He felt as though he were about to go mad. He could not understand why that guy, who looked exactly like him, was sitting there.

If that was Xue Liangliang, then who was he?

He reached up and touched his own face. The sensation was no different from usual. After confirming that he was still himself, he looked up again and found the grand chair empty once more.

Though if he circled the coffin again, he would most likely see the person in the chair again, Xue Liangliang no longer had the courage to do that.

At the same time, he could no longer do it anyway.

Because the suffocating sensation had returned. Even with one hand braced against the coffin, it still came at him.

It was contracting. He was like someone standing inside an invisible air bubble beneath the water. That bubble had been moving earlier, but now it was shrinking.

Once he lost its protection, he would never again find even the smallest gap to catch his breath.

Xue Liangliang pressed himself tightly against the coffin. He found that the closer his face was to it, the weaker the suffocating sensation became.

But gradually, he realized it was not enough. The suffocating sensation was still intensifying.

No. He could not. It could not be like this...

Xue Liangliang stepped onto the rack beneath him, gripped the edge of the coffin, and began climbing up.

Once he got up there, he felt better again. He had once more escaped the pursuit of suffocation.

But when he lowered his head and looked down, his gaze froze. His mouth fell open, his arms gave out, and he tumbled down.

He had seen it. There was someone lying inside the coffin!

A woman in red, her head covered by a red veil, her hands resting over her lower abdomen!

The pain from the fall was secondary. What was truly terrifying was being engulfed by the suffocating sensation again.

Earlier, Xue Liangliang had still been able to run outside and search for the woman, but now, it seemed that the moment he left the safe zone, he could not endure it at all.

What had originally been mere suffocation now felt like a pair of invisible hands, terrifyingly strong, clamping down hard around his throat.

He was no longer merely suffering the agony of suffocation, but also the visceral pain of his neck being relentlessly crushed and twisted.

Xue Liangliang immediately climbed back up. He planted his feet on the rack again, grabbed the coffin's edge with both hands, and pulled himself up.

Driven by the torment of overwhelming pain, he overcame the fear in his heart, all for the sake of finding that brief moment of comfort.

Though that comfort probably would not last long either.

He tried his best not to look at the woman lying in the coffin. Shifting his gaze, he looked from above toward the direction facing the coffin's head, and he saw it again. He saw himself in the grand chair.

Only, the him on the chair was dressed differently from him now. He wore a black jacket with a flowing sheen, purple trousers, a hat on his head, and a red flower pinned to his chest.

He looked like... a groom from the old days.

That face, identical to his own, frightened Xue Liangliang so badly that tears nearly streamed down his cheeks.

At that moment, he found the himself in the grand chair more terrifying than the woman in the coffin.

So he lowered his head and looked at the woman.

When he had entered town earlier, every woman behind the doors of the homes had been sitting. This woman, however, was lying down, and she lay in the most central, most vital spot of the ancestral hall.

At that moment, the suffocating sensation surfaced again.

Xue Liangliang felt like livestock being driven by a whip.

Though he already had a suspicion, he still craned his head upward, left, and right, feeling out the changes in the intensity of the suffocating sensation.

In the end, he found that his guess was right. Only by moving into the coffin could he be safe.

Both hands clamped tightly around the coffin's edge as he made one final internal struggle.

But the ever-nearing and increasingly intense suffocating sensation greatly shortened his hesitation.

He exerted force through his waist, got one foot onto the coffin's edge, then reached down with both hands and wrapped them around the inner wall of the coffin.

He had only intended to lower his upper body inside, keeping as much distance as possible from the woman within.

But he had overestimated his current strength. By the time he painstakingly flipped himself up, he no longer had the strength to maintain his balance and make another move. Instead, he lost control and fell entirely into the coffin.

He landed on top of the woman. Her body was icy cold and slick.

But the slickness was not ordinary slickness. It felt more like a jellyfish, or some kind of secretion. In any case, it made him intensely uncomfortable on a physical level.

Just then,

Xue Liangliang discovered in horror that the woman before him was slowly raising her head.

As she moved,

the red veil that had covered her face

slowly slipped down as well.

"Buzz!" "Buzz!" "Buzz!"

On the archway of Bai Family Town, the white lantern on one side suddenly turned red.

Starting from there, the candles in the niches outside every home throughout the town changed from their ghostly green hue to red, radiating a festive air that was both eerie and chilling.

"Creak..."

"Creak..."

Those tightly shut doors of the homes were slowly pushed open from within.

And the women who had already been sitting inside the homes with open doors slowly stood up.

Very soon,

women of different ages and dressed in fashions from different eras emerged from their doorways, stepping across the bluestone slabs over the gutters and arriving at the roadside.

They appeared from homes all over town, then formed lines and moved slowly at the same pace.

They were gathering toward the ancestral hall in the center of town.

Although their eyes remained closed and none of them opened their mouths, rustling noises continuously rose throughout the town.

At first, they were faint and chaotic. Gradually, they grew louder and more orderly.

In the end, they merged into one unified chant, as though everyone were singing, echoing across Bai Family Town:

"Heavenly officials bestow blessings, the Bai family seeks a son-in-law!"

"Hello, this is Li Zhuiyuan."

"Hello, do you know Xue Liangliang?"

"I do."

"I think I've heard your voice before. My surname is Luo. Have we met somewhere?"

"Are you Director Luo? I'm the kid who was with Brother Liangliang yesterday."

"Oh, so it's you."

"Director Luo, did something happen?"

"Something happened to Liangliang. While he was unconscious, he kept muttering 'Little Yuan,' and he also recited this phone number."

"What happened to Brother Liangliang?"

"He fell into the water from a boat. He's being resuscitated at the hospital now, and the doctor says his condition is very bad."

"Can I go see him?"

"Yes. I'll send a car to pick you up right away. Give me an exact location."

"Shijia Bridge in Shinan Town. We'll wait for the car there."

"Alright."

After hanging up, Li Zhuiyuan immediately raised his arm and found that the mark had long since completely disappeared. It did not reappear now, either.

So what had happened to Brother Liangliang?

Could it be that Bai Family Empress still held a grudge and had come back to take revenge on him?

But that should not have been possible. Hadn't it already been severed?

Li Zhuiyuan took out his pocket money and said to Aunt Zhang, "Aunt Zhang, I'm buying a pack of cigarettes for my Great Grandfather, and some candy too."

"Alright, I'll get them for you... Here, just right."

"Thank you, Aunt Zhang."

Li Zhuiyuan put the cigarettes and candy into his pocket, his expression grave as he headed home.

He vaguely sensed that this matter was related to Bai Family Empress. It was definitely not a simple case of falling into the water and losing consciousness.

Otherwise, Brother Liangliang would not have kept muttering his name and phone number while unconscious and unaware.

Most importantly, if it were not strange enough, Engineer Luo would not have sent a car late at night to pick up a child like him. He must have been extremely anxious too.

When he returned to the courtyard, Aunt Liu was clearing the dishes and cleaning up, while Uncle Qin was chopping firewood. These were all chores delayed by going to the movies.

The East Room was lit, but its door was shut. Liu Yumei and A Li were probably inside. After the movie tonight, Liu Yumei had been in very poor spirits.

Li Zhuiyuan walked up to Uncle Qin and said, "Uncle Qin."

"Little Yuan, what is it?"

"If my family's soy sauce bottle fell over, would you lend a hand and set it upright?"

Uncle Qin: "..."

"It's that college student who stayed with us last night. Something happened to him, and he's being resuscitated at the hospital.

I won't tell anyone about this, and I definitely won't tell my Great Grandfather. So, Uncle Qin, can you lend a hand?"

Uncle Qin felt around in his pocket and took out some money. "Little Yuan, do you need to pay his medical bills? Uncle has a little here. I'll ask your aunt for some more later, then we'll take it all to your friend."

"Alright... Thank you, Uncle Qin."

Li Zhuiyuan could only nod. It seemed he could only wake Great Grandfather and ask for his opinion.

But Great Grandfather probably had no solution either, because that day he had also shown wariness toward Bai Family Empress and chosen to retreat.

Just then, the door to the East Room opened from within.

Liu Yumei, already changed into pajamas, walked out with her hair down. Her eyes were still red-rimmed.

"A Li, go with Little Yuan to the hospital and take the money."

"Alright, I understand."

Li Zhuiyuan looked at Liu Yumei in surprise. He had only intended to give it a try, but he had not expected Liu Yumei to agree so readily this time.

"Little Yuan, wait a moment. Uncle will go bring out the bicycle."

"No need, Uncle Qin. We'll wait on the bridge south of the road at the village entrance. A car will come pick us up."

"Oh, alright. Then let's go. If we get back late and your Great Grandfather wakes up, Aunt Liu will explain it to him for you. Don't worry."

"Okay."

"Do you need to bring anything?"

"No, we can leave now."

Before leaving, Li Zhuiyuan bowed to Liu Yumei. "Thank you, Grandma."

Liu Yumei did not respond and turned to go back inside.

After Li Zhuiyuan and Uncle Qin left, Aunt Liu came in carrying a basin of hot water. After setting it on the stand, she picked up a comb, went to Liu Yumei's side, and began tending to her hair.

The wheel of time mercilessly crushed everyone beneath it. Liu Yumei's hair had only been silver-gray last year, but now only the surface retained that shade. As the comb parted it, soft white hair showed underneath.

As Aunt Liu combed, she could not help choking up a little.

"Why are you crying?"

"I'm not crying."

"Heh." Liu Yumei returned a polished spirit tablet to its place.

"I want to know why you agreed this time.

Even if Uncle Sanjiang does not know anything and this truly has nothing to do with him, Little Yuan still lives here. He and Uncle Sanjiang are relatives, so if something were to happen..."

"Of course I know what might happen." Liu Yumei looked at the rows of spirit tablets before her. "But I'm in a bad mood today, and for now, I don't feel like caring about what might happen."

Aunt Liu silently continued combing her hair and did not reply.

Liu Yumei suddenly raised her voice. "What? Have I become so old that I no longer even have the right to be willful for once?"

"No, you do. You do!"

Liu Yumei stood up and pointed at the spirit tablets one by one, her tone agitated:

"These people—back then, they took the fleet and left just like that, without even informing me. The whole family—no, both families—deliberately kept it from me!

Fine, every last one of them was so generous, dying without leaving a single soul behind. When they left me, a widow and orphan, behind, did they ever spare a thought for me?

They weren't even willing to leave behind a trace of spirit. They sacrificed it all, leaving me to stare at these lifeless Spirit Tablets for decades, without even someone to talk to!

Why was it that they alone could act as they pleased, while I had to remain here so cautiously, terrified that the slightest mistake would trigger a backlash from our fortune?

This wasn't fair..."

As she spoke, tears welled up in Liu Yumei's eyes. One hand braced against the Offering Table while the other covered her face.

Aunt Liu's heart ached for her, yet she had no idea how to comfort her.

After a moment,

Liu Yumei lowered her hand and raised her head again.

She looked at the Spirit Tablets and smiled.

"Hehe, did you see that? Did you see it? You've only been gone for so long, and those white rats beneath the river already dared crawl ashore and disgust people."

Liu Yumei's expression turned solemn, her gaze sharp.

"Then I'll send them back with one slap.

I'll make them remember—

On this river,

Whose family

Had the final say!"