The moonless period lasted far longer than anyone had imagined. Stranger still, after the moon vanished, the atmosphere inside Wu Manor subtly changed, as if something dormant had awakened in the darkness.
Even the passage of time seemed to slow. The deadlock was broken by the buzz of a phone.
The next second, everyone looked at their phones.
Luo Tianhe sent a message to their group. It was an absurdly brief list of names and numbers: 2, Yuan Shanyuan; 3, Bai Yu; 4, Wang Fugui; 5, Yao Shunyao; 6, Li Bai; 7, Jiang Cheng; 8, Lin Qianqian.
Clearly, Luo Tianhe himself was the missing number one.
After receiving the message, Yuan Shanyuan and Bai Yu set out. They didn't see Luo Tianhe along the way. After turning a corner, they came upon a sight that made even the usually composed Yuan Shanyuan frown.
In the night, Wu Manor's gates stood wide open. From where he stood, he could see the empty street beyond. Even with no moon in the sky, the area around the gates was clear to him, thanks to the several large lanterns hanging on either side.
As he drew closer, Yuan Shanyuan noticed something else. The sturdy gate's threshold had been removed and set down at an angle. The ground just beyond it had been dug up, leaving a pit more than half a meter deep. A hoe lay beside it.
There were several other marked spots nearby. They were simply sheets of paper, each bearing a number from two to eight. To keep the wind from blowing them away, a silver dollar had been placed on each one.
The corners of the white papers fluttered in the breeze, rustling. Combined with the large white lantern Bai Yu carried... the scene had an uncanny resemblance to a