"Hm? What's going on?"
Tang Qisheng stood up and looked into the distance. A bank of fog had appeared over the village at some point, and now it was spreading toward them.
Yao Shunyu stood on a stone block, gazing outward. "It's coming from that patch of woods outside the village."
The fog had come at just the wrong time. It was clearly suspicious. Everyone instinctively gathered together. By now, the fog had drifted outside the courtyard, but strangely, it seemed almost alive: it stopped at the edge of the yard and showed no sign of seeping inside.
Visibility was poor. Everyone stared at the fog, as if trying to see through it and make out what lay hidden beyond. They hadn't spotted anything yet, but they were sure something was there.
A moment later, the Fatty's eyes fixed on something, and he suddenly tensed. He'd heard it. They'd all heard it: footsteps outside the courtyard, drawing closer.
There were quite a few of them—at least a dozen—and they were moving fast.
The footsteps stopped at the courtyard gate. Then came a knocking from outside. "Brother Jiang! Brother Jiang, are you there?!"
Jiang Cheng recognized the voice as Fuqing's. He was the villager who had led them into the village. But everyone silently held their breath. No one said a word.
The fog had come under strange circumstances, and they had already confirmed that the villagers were all rice-stalk ghosts. Those creatures lurking in the fog in the woods earlier had been them, too.
Now those creatures had followed the fog right to them.
The knocking went on for quite a while, growing harder and harder. The Fatty clenched his teeth, worried the door would be smashed to pieces. But thankfully, the dilapidated-looking wooden door held firm until the villagers