"Did you hear what that woman said to me?" Yao Shunyu looked at Li Bai with a complicated expression. "She said you dared speak to me that way because you'd stolen a man's heart and liver to eat? She... How could she even come up with something like that?"
Li Bai nodded, her expression stern. "It seems these villagers are even more vicious than we thought. They didn't just slaughter the men who failed to escape in all sorts of ways. Those beasts didn't even spare their corpses."
To be fair, after they'd found themselves stranded in Heishui Village, the customs here had been strange, but the villagers had provided them with decent food. Now, though, she suspected that the food—made from meat pickled from who knew what—had been deeply suspicious too.
They couldn't keep thinking about it. Yao Shunyu and Li Bai forced themselves to calm down. Their biggest concern now was making it through the night alive.
"Also, we've never seen the mysterious village chief of Heishui Village. From what the villagers have said, the chief has great authority in the village, because whatever the chief says represents Zhusheng Niangniang's will." Yao Shunyu clearly remembered how Wu Damei's legs had trembled in terror. That fear had come from the heart. It couldn't have been faked.
But this time, Li Bai shook her head slightly. "I don't think that's right. This should all be Zhusheng Niangniang's will. The village chief is merely her spokesperson—or, you could say, a messenger."
Li Bai wasn't saying this at random. She was drawing on what she knew of the dedicated priests who served in ancient ceremonies. In her eyes, the chief of Heishui Village was much like a priest. The villagers respected and even feared the chief largely because the chief could communicate