A secret chamber lay on higher ground in an underground cavern, accessible only after passing through several narrow paths.
This was the girl's home.
A bonfire built from piled wood burned, making sounds like cracking joints. Some of the logs even writhed in the flames, resembling the limbs of a living person.
As for where the wood came from, one only had to follow the stone corridor outside the chamber for more than three hundred meters to reach the woodland beyond the village.
The light released by the bonfire did its best to illuminate the entire stone chamber.
Water seeping through the carbonate layers dripped from stalactites of varying lengths and was collected in a handmade wooden basin for drinking and washing.
Yi Chen and the girl sat facing each other before the bonfire, while the Pig Head Mask, torn open by claws, lay temporarily to one side.
"What do you usually eat besides drinking water?"
"I eat this most of the time..."
The girl thrust her arm directly into the fire, pulled out a burning log, quickly shook out the flames, and then stuffed it into her mouth and began gnawing.
As strange as it sounded, despite being some distance away, Yi Chen could still smell a meaty aroma coming from the roasted branch.
The girl asked with a beaming smile, "You thought I was going to eat the 'Sick Ones' in the cavern, didn't you?"
Yi Chen did not answer. Instead, he took the opportunity to ask, "The Sick Ones? You mean the villagers who had no value and were thrown down here?"
"I don't really understand what 'value' means. Sometimes I hear people outside the well talking about 'Sick Ones' or something, and then they throw them down here.
"They're basically all too weak to move, practically