A Way Out

It seemed that the only sound left in the room was the ticking of the watches on their wrists.

Through the scattered gaps, Zheng Wuyou confirmed that the half-man, half-head had left the "Woodshed."

She quickly shoved the firewood in front of her aside and awkwardly wriggled out of the arms behind her.

Calmly, she tidied her disheveled hair and turned around.

But she saw Miao Laisheng freeze for a moment at what she had said.

She couldn't help the curve of her lips.

With the air of someone in control, she reached out to him. "What, handsome? Has nobody ever chased you before?"

Miao Laisheng raised his eyes and met hers seriously for a couple of seconds. His faintly furrowed brows seemed to show that he couldn't understand how she could joke around in a situation like this.

He didn't respond. Instead, he took her wrist and used it to pull himself up.

How polite.

He even knew to keep his distance.

Zheng Wuyou glanced at her sleeve. The wrinkles left by his tight grip soon smoothed out.

"No wonder they left without finding anyone. All the clues were taken away."

Standing in the middle of the room, Zheng Wuyou sounded a little regretful.

The surrounding black-soil walls were bare.

Not a single thing had been left behind.

If not for the mess all over the floor, it would have seemed like what happened was just her imagination.

"Not long after you left, Zhu Li took the villagers and scattered them," Miao Laisheng said indifferently, patting his clothes. He ignored the bloody scratches on his palm from the thorns on some of the dry firewood.

Seeing him return to his original, indifferent self, Zheng Wuyou shook her head.

"So how did you know someone would come?"

"I've seen too many cases." Miao Laisheng dismissed her question with those five indifferent words.

"Do you remember the first three points I mentioned? King Yama wearing a mask... Now all we need to do is find King Yama." On the way back to the Main Hall, Zheng Wuyou looked up at the sky.

The setting sun once again claimed the sky. Another evening had come.

The roof of the Wooden House replaced the sky in her view, blocking her sight.

"To the cemetery!"

Zheng Wuyou strode across the Main Hall and hurried toward the narrow path into the mountains, as if the wind were beneath her feet.

She didn't stop for the people in the Main Hall.

Wansi hurried after her.

The others had no idea what she'd seen in the Backyard, so they could only follow her, puzzled.

As soon as they reached their destination, countless skeletons seemed to come alive, struggling and trembling as they crawled out of the earth.

Their twisted faces were stripped of flesh, and their fingertips were reduced to broken bones.

One of the skeletons belonged to Madam Zhao, whose grave had been dug up yesterday and was already restored today.

Oh no!

I forgot to throw a stone first!

Zheng Wuyou instinctively grabbed Wansi and tried to dodge backward, but froze when she saw the skeletons crawling toward the sacrificial platform.

Looking more closely, Zheng Wuyou realized that all the skeletons came from women's graves.

Bones from what seemed to be a mass grave behind the mountainside were also pouring in from all directions.

The sacrificial platform began to turn again, grinding the brittle, rotten bones between its rollers.

It was both shocking and spectacular.

In an instant, clouds of powder swirled in front of everyone...

Taking the shape of a vortex.

The scene unfolded like a tragic yet magnificent rehearsal.

The sacrificial platform, nearly swallowed by bones, seemed to have been rewound. It rapidly reassembled as day and night raced overhead.

At last, the long arc of time stopped on a festive evening.

Most of the villagers had gathered at the entrance to the village, many carrying colorful packages.

Their faces were alight with joy as they headed in the same direction.

At the sight, Wen Dian and Hu Yu immediately thought of the wedding at Old Zhu's family home.

But in an unnoticed corner of Zhu Li's House, a little boy stuck half his head out from behind a doorframe. He puffed out his cheeks in anger and glared at every villager who passed.

Quite a few villagers even teased him. Today was a happy occasion for his family, so why wasn't he glad to see his younger sister get married?

Was he in love with his own sister?

"Those people are monsters. How can they joke about something like that?" Uncle Cai watched the villagers of his own generation, more or less his age, and listened to their vile remarks.

Furious, he charged forward and punched one of the grinning men.

But it was like punching a cloud.

The man didn't react at all.

"Uncle Cai... I think this is a memory." Hu Yu's few words felt powerless in that moment. She kindly pulled Uncle Cai back.

The others fell silent and continued following the crowd toward the main character's home.

All night, the familiar courtyard rang with laughter and song. The guests raised their cups and sang, drinking to the happy occasion.

Suddenly, the little boy burst in, shattering the festive mood. He must have been steeling himself for a long time. Shouting, he charged into the courtyard and overturned a table full of food and wine, the kind he rarely got to eat.

He shouted that nobody was allowed to eat tonight!

When the boy ruined the celebration, his father scowled, dragged him to the doorway, grabbed a wooden stick from beside the wall, and began beating him.

Outside the door, the little boy screamed and sobbed...

His cries mingled with the singing and laughter inside.

Standing at the doorway and watching it all, they were like an audience immersed in a movie...

They exchanged glances, but could do nothing.

Just as the little boy lay outside the door, beaten within an inch of his life, Zheng Wuyou and the others saw the village chief enter the room draped with colorful ribbons, carrying candy. He closed the door behind him.

The women outside looked awkward. They tactfully left the courtyard and started back to their homes.

Most of the men stayed behind, continuing their lewd conversation.

The little boy lay in despair, watching the women leave. Some of them kindly gave him a piece of candy they'd taken from inside and urged him to leave this place and never come back.

But...

The stubborn little boy only clenched the candy in his fist.

Finally, when the village chief came out, the courtyard erupted in jeers.

The door to the room opened and closed, opened and closed again.

No one knew how many times it shut that night, or how many times it opened.

The little boy couldn't move. Enduring the pain, he crawled to a corner outside the door. The tears on his face had dried into tracks.

The noise inside gradually faded. Most of the guests had drunk themselves senseless and were helping one another home.

The little boy's father came out of the room, very pleased. After exchanging a few pleasantries with the courtyard's owner, he left with a large bundle of cooking oil, salt, rice, and firewood.

Perhaps the boy heard that the courtyard had fallen quiet, with only one person left, snoring steadily.

Only then did he prop up his bloodied body and lean against the wall as he made his way into the courtyard.

He picked up the shards of a bowl that had been smashed earlier and not yet cleared away, then plunged one straight into the sleeping man's nape. For every time they had opened and closed that door, he stabbed him once with a shard.

Warm red liquid gushed over his entire body. Everything in his vision turned red...

The man's neck was so mangled that it could no longer support his head. It bent to one side, exposing the tissue inside.

Only then did the boy drop the shard and stagger toward the room.

The hand clutching the candy trembled as he shakily opened the door.

There was no furniture inside except for a shabby bed, covered with a festive quilt and bedding.

Wrapped in the bedding was a little girl with a deathly pale face. Her vacant eyes stared at the rafters.

Her pitiful expression seemed to drift toward the happy future she should have had.

Enduring the pain, he offered his sister the candy in his hand, but her frail body didn't respond at all.

His tears fell onto her pale face, blossoming like flowers.

He found a Basket and gently laid his sister, wrapped in the bedding, inside. Carrying this light burden of love on his back, he set fire to the village of demons.