The figure hanging from the beam looked like a piece of air-dried meat, and Zhao Mou caught a faint whiff of rot for no reason.
He stood frozen, his mind in disarray. He couldn't tell whether he was more shocked that the neighbors' family was dead or more terrified that this scene seemed to match what he had suspected.
A sense of absurdity clawed at his heart and spread through his veins. When a cold breeze swept past, Zhao Mou shuddered hard and came to his senses.
He pressed a hand against the door, overcome by the urge to go in and take a closer look.
A voice in his mind was clearly trying to stop him—"Don't go in. Hurry back, and pretend you didn't see anything!"
"The neighbors' deaths have nothing to do with you or A Jiu. Stop snooping... Go home, quickly, before A Jiu finds out..."
But why?
Pale-faced, Zhao Mou resisted his instincts and quietly pushed the door open.
He was confused.
Why had A Jiu's wooden carvings made him suspect that something had happened between A Jiu and the neighbors without his knowledge? Why, when the neighbors died, had he instinctively thought A Jiu was responsible?
He hadn't actually watched A Jiu kill anyone.
He had raised A Jiu all these years. He was his older brother, and he was supposed to know A Jiu better than anyone. Where had these thoughts, full of fear and suspicion, come from?
It was as if he had forgotten some truth, and only his subconscious was left to remind him of it in vain.
Zhao Mou wasn't the kind of person to ignore something strange. He had to find out whether something was influencing him, making him suspect his brother, or whether a fog had been cast over