People

The night wind carried an endless chill, stirring the green leaves on the branches until they rustled like whispers.

A redwood offering table stood on the open ground. Three incense sticks were planted in a dull, unadorned burner, thin wisps of smoke drifting quietly upward.

Two faded shadow puppets lay side by side, spread out on a white porcelain plate. Their little faces were deathly pale, their features growing ever more indistinct, as if water had dissolved the paint.

The porcelain plate holding the puppets, the burning incense, and several plates of paper-folded pastries and food—everything needed for the ritual was here.

And besides the offerings, a line of people stood in front of the table.

"So, how long are we supposed to wait?" In the silence, Nie Lang's impatient voice broke the quiet. He rubbed his neck.

While the whole village had gone to watch the shadow puppet show, they had slipped out of the earthen house. With Zhao Mou's divination, they had found the spot on the village's outskirts best suited for communicating with yin energy, and prepared for the ritual using the information Ren Yi had provided.

Since the ritual was merely a customary offering the Ma family made before a performance, the process wasn't complicated. Quinn took a redwood offering table and several plates, along with fresh incense, from his inventory and quickly arranged everything.

One puppet was the fake Old Huang from Yu Xing's group; the other was the one Song Xue's group had encountered. To let the Ma family's "ancestors" feel their sincerity, they used both. Ren Yi addressed the puppets as a junior would address their elders, then joined the others waiting nearby.

They waited and waited. A thin mist seemed to rise around them, gradually blurring everything.

Something began to change about