Why Did You Stop Talking?

Inside the dilapidated house, the stench of liquor mingled with the smell of unwashed bodies, making people dizzy.

After several bowls of cloudy homemade liquor, Hou San felt heat coursing through his body. The filthy thoughts in his heart were like wildfire doused with oil, burning ever fiercer.

With drunken, slanted eyes, he slapped the back of a rogue beside him who looked like a skinny monkey and breathed out alcohol fumes as he said:

"Damn it... this damned weather, and drinking only makes it even hotter! Brothers, when are you going to find Third Brother here a sweet little wife to put out this fire?"

A gap-toothed man beside him grinned.

"Third Brother, isn't that easy? Widow Zhang at the west end of the village—her man's been dead for over half a year, and her family can barely keep the pot boiling.

Give her half a sack of millet, and she'll be feeling her way to your door herself tonight!"

"Pah!" Hou San spat in disgust and waved a drunken hand.

"That Widow Zhang has a face like a bitter melon, and there isn't even two ounces of flesh left on her body. No fun! Common rouge and powder—Third Brother doesn't fancy her!"

"Oh? Third Brother's standards are pretty high?" Another rogue waggled his brows. "You don't even fancy Widow Zhang. In this poor village of ours, who else could possibly catch your honored eye?"

Hou San gave a lewd chuckle. A wicked glint rose in his muddy eyes as he deliberately lowered his voice and said mysteriously:

"There really is one... that figure, those brows and eyes... tsk, tsk. Though she smears her face a little too dark, Third Brother's eyes are sharp!

She's definitely a rare sight... hehe..."

He rubbed his hands together, his face wearing a thoroughly obscene look of lingering enjoyment.

Those words immediately stirred the curiosity of the others, and they all crowded closer to press him.

"Who is it, Third Brother? Tell us already!"

"Exactly—which wife has Third Brother thinking about her so much?"

"Open our eyes, Brother!"

Seeing that he had thoroughly whetted their appetites, Hou San felt even more smug.

At that moment, he felt the urge to piss rising. He swayed to his feet and deliberately kept them in suspense.

"What's the rush? Let Third Brother go drain some water first. When I get back, I'll tell you all about it! I guarantee you'll drool when you hear!"

Dragging his worn shoes, he hummed an off-key filthy tune as he staggered over and pushed open the creaking wooden door.

A gust of cold wind mixed with snowflakes rushed in, making him burp drunkenly.

He did not go far, merely undid his belt by the half-collapsed corner of the courtyard wall, still muttering to himself:

"Damn it... little wench... once I get into the city with my cousin... get hold of some nice things... won't she obediently submit..."

Hou San staggered over to the Courtyard Corner, humming an off-key filthy tune as his freezing hands trembled while reaching for his belt.

His mind was still savoring the pleasure of boasting inside just now, along with... certain even filthier thoughts.

"What have those brats ever seen? That little wife really is..." He narrowed his drunken eyes, and a lewd smile had just begun creeping onto his lips.

Hou San raised his voice. "Brothers, let me tell you, that little wife is..."

He had not even finished muttering the sentence.

A cold, hard clod of frozen earth with sharp edges smashed viciously into his temple!

Bang! The dull sound was almost completely swallowed by the wind and snow.

Hou San's humming abruptly stopped.

Agonizing pain and lethal dizziness instantly seized every shred of his consciousness.

His vision went black, and his body toppled backward like a rotten log.

A black shadow shot out from the darkness at the base of the wall like a ghost, closing in before he could hit the ground completely.

A cold voice sounded low beside his ear:

"Go on. Why did you stop talking?"

These were the last words Hou San heard in this world.

He did not even see who it was before boundless darkness and cold utterly devoured him.

The lewd smile froze dead on his face. His eyes stared wide in disbelief, reflecting the endless, dancing snowflakes devoid of all warmth.

Fang Yuan succeeded in one blow and did not linger.

He swiftly scanned his surroundings. The ruckus in the ruined courtyard continued as before; no one had noticed the change outside.

Calmly, he dragged Hou San's limp corpse over to the half-collapsed latrine entrance.

In this freezing wilderness, the hard-as-steel edges of the frozen earthen wall were the finest murder weapon.

He cleverly tilted Hou San's head against a sharp break in the wall bricks, a spot that happened to be stained with blood and a little grayish-white matter.

Then he awkwardly wedged one of his legs beneath a loose stone at the latrine threshold.

It looked as though he had been in a hurry to relieve himself, slipped underfoot, and slammed his forehead into the edge of the wall.

After finishing, he quickly covered the drag marks with snow, like the most seasoned hunter erasing the traces left by his prey.

He smoothed away his own footprints and kicked the bloodstained clod of frozen earth deep into a distant snowbank.

The entire process was clean and efficient, without a single unnecessary movement.

At last, he stood amid the wind and snow, coldly sweeping his gaze around.

Only the howling wind and snow bore witness to everything. The drunks in the ruined house were still cheering and drinking to their bright future.

Dreaming of going to the city for work!

There was not a single flaw.

Only then did Fang Yuan silently retreat, swiftly vanishing into the vast curtain of snow as though he had never appeared.

The wind and snow continued, mercilessly covering this land.

Inside the ruined house, liquor fumes filled the air. The halo of the oil lamp flickered, illuminating faces flushed red from drink.

After several bowls of cheap liquor, everyone became even more animated. Their boasting, laughter, and cursing nearly lifted the low roof clean off.

"Hou San's taking a long enough piss, isn't he? Don't tell me he fell into the latrine pit? Hahaha!"

A man with his shirt hanging open laughed through a drunken burp.

Another man with a pointed face and monkey-like cheeks immediately chimed in, waggling his brows.

"I say he must've been unable to hold it and felt his way over to Widow Zhang's wall at the west end of the village! That woman lives alone—maybe she even left the door open for him!"

The remark brought a round of knowing, lewd laughter.

After they drank another round and played a few rounds of finger-guessing, they realized Hou San still had not returned.

"Eh? It's been almost half an incense stick's time. Did a dog really drag him off?" someone muttered.

The open-shirted man who had spoken first frowned and got to his feet impatiently.

"Damn it, don't tell me something really happened. I'll go take a look! That bastard better not have drunk too much and fallen asleep in a snowdrift. This weather can freeze a man to death!"

Muttering, he staggered to the door and pulled it open.

A gust of icy wind immediately swept in with snowflakes, making the oil lamp in the room sway violently. Everyone shrank their necks.

"Hou San! Hou San! Where the hell did you die off to? Are you pissing or giving birth?" The man shouted twice into the pitch-black courtyard.

Other than the wind, there was no response.

"Fuck!" The man cursed, wrapped his clothes tighter around himself, squinted through the snow blinding his eyes, and trudged deep and shallow through the snow toward the latrine at the Courtyard Corner.

It was dark by the latrine, and he could not see clearly.

"Hou San? Don't you fucking play dead!" he shouted again, beginning to feel uneasy.

The silence was a little too strange.

As he approached, borrowing the faint light reflected off the snow, he vaguely saw what looked like a black shadow curled up in the corner.

"Really fell asleep?" Both annoyed and amused, the man stepped forward, bent down, and reached out to pat the black shadow on the shoulder.

"Get up! Go sleep inside! This damn—"

His words abruptly stopped.

The feel beneath his palm was wrong! It was not the softness of a padded coat, but something... stiff and icy! And his palm felt something sticky, wet, and cold!

The man's heart violently skipped a beat. Half his drunkenness was frightened away in an instant. He reflexively pulled his hand back before his eyes.

In the dim light, a large patch of dark, viscous liquid not yet fully congealed covered his palm, giving off a faint bloody stench!

Blood!

"Ah—!!!"

A scream of extreme terror, wrenching enough to tear one's heart apart, suddenly ripped through the silence of the snowy night, even briefly overpowering the howling wind!

The people drinking and laughing in the ruined house all jolted at the sudden scream.

The crash of liquor bowls shattering on the floor and chairs being knocked over rang out one after another.

"What happened?!"

"What's going on?!"

"Was that Black Skin screaming?!"

Forgetting the cold, they scrambled and stumbled out the door, running in panic toward the Courtyard Corner.

They saw the man nicknamed Black Skin sprawled on his backside in the snow, his entire body shaking like a sieve.

One hand pointed at the black shadow in the corner, while the other, smeared with dark red blood, flailed desperately through the air. His mouth hung wide open.

Yet he could not utter a single complete sentence.