Early the next morning, Bi Changsheng disguised himself as Ximen Xue and followed the townspeople to the banks of the South Dragon River. At a glance, he saw that the river, originally nearly a hundred meters wide, had shrunk to only forty or fifty meters because of the drought, exposing large stretches of cracked riverbed.
An altar had already been erected on the cracked riverbed. It was laden with sacrificial offerings—melons, fruits, and the three ritual animals. Most eye-catching were the two boys and two girls at the top of the altar. They had all been dressed in bright red festive clothes, their eyes filled with confusion and panic. They still did not understand what fate awaited them.
As time passed, more and more townspeople gathered. By the time the hour of Chen arrived, nearly everyone in the town had assembled.
Just then, Bi Changsheng saw a group of people making their way through the crowd toward the front. Whenever they passed, the townspeople immediately and instinctively cleared a path for them, terrified that if they moved too slowly, they would not be able to get out of the way in time.
Seeing the terror on the townspeople's faces when they looked at this group, Bi Changsheng guessed that they were probably the people from the River God Temple he had heard about the previous day.
Just as Bi Changsheng had expected, after passing through the crowd, the group arrived before the altar. Once they had taken their places, Bi Changsheng was surprised to discover that their leader was a woman in her fifties, dressed in splendid robes embroidered with python designs, her gaze haughty.
What astonished Bi Changsheng even more was that, judging by his experience, the woman was clearly an ordinary person. Several of those behind her, however,