"One person turning on a light is enough. We don't know when we'll be able to get out, so we should conserve our phone batteries. Remember to turn on power-saving mode," Ning Zhe said as he switched on his flashlight. "I'll carry it. I brought a Charging Bank."
"All right." Feng Yushu nodded.
By the light of the flashlight, the two of them made their way through the narrow alleys. Water rushed beneath the stone slabs underfoot, flowing through the drainage channel built beneath them.
Just as Zhang Yangxu had said, every house in He Family Village had its doors shut and windows closed that night. Ning Zhe tried several doors in a row, but they were all locked and wouldn't budge, so he had to stop.
"Um... Ning Zhe?" Feng Yushu asked softly.
"Nothing. I wanted to ask you something," Ning Zhe said thoughtfully. "You said earlier that when you pushed open your hotel room door, you came here. The stainless-steel doorknob in your hand turned into a brass door latch in an instant, and the door you pushed open changed from a hotel security door into an old wooden one..."
Feng Yushu nodded repeatedly. "That's right. What did you want to ask?"
"I want to know where the door you pushed open was when you arrived in He Family Village," Ning Zhe said plainly. "Let's go there and take a look."
"Oh? All right." Feng Yushu agreed and started leading the way.
The Ancestral Hall where the Snake God was worshipped stood in the southern part of He Family Village. The door Feng Yushu had pushed open upon arriving was near the village center. Starting from the hall, she led Ning Zhe north, deeper and deeper between the stone-built, tile-roofed houses.
Along the way, Ning Zhe repeatedly tried pushing the tightly shut doors lining the street, but none of his attempts turned up anything suspicious. In the stillness, the two of them crossed the crisscrossing blue-stone alleys by moonlight, until a stone arch bridge appeared before them.
He Family Village was built beside the water. A river running north to south passed through the middle of the village, dividing it into eastern and western halves. Three arch bridges spanned the river, and the one before Ning Zhe was the southernmost.
After crossing the bridge to the other side of the river, they saw the house Feng Yushu had emerged from when she first arrived in He Family Village not far ahead.
"This is the place." Feng Yushu led Ning Zhe to the house. He noticed that its door opened outward. It was the first open door he'd seen since leaving the Ancestral Hall.
"The house has only one floor, and it's completely empty inside. There's just some scattered straw on the ground. It must be a woodshed or an abandoned cowshed." Ning Zhe closed the door and opened it again, but nothing happened. "As I thought..."
There was no way they could find the exit from the village so easily.
Feng Yushu looked at the time. It was 1:10 a.m.
Forty minutes had already passed. Less than an hour remained before the time they'd agreed to meet, an hour and a half after setting out.
"Should we head back and check out some other places along the way?" Feng Yushu asked.
"We don't have any better leads," Ning Zhe replied.
The two of them left the empty house with its open door and retraced their steps across the arch bridge. By then, the clouds had cleared, and the bright white moonlight spilled down. The river flowing beneath the bridge burbled, its sound crisp and clear.
Ning Zhe walked quickly, one hand on the railing beside the bridge. Suddenly, the ground vanished beneath his foot.
"Ning Zhe!" Feng Yushu cried in alarm.
With a sharp crack, the stone broke apart. Ning Zhe's balance gave way, and one leg plunged through the collapsed bridge deck. Fortunately, he reacted quickly and braced himself against the bridge with both hands, stopping himself from falling any farther. The long stone slab he'd just stepped on had split in the middle and dropped into the river below, sending up a huge splash.
"...You've got to be kidding me..." Ning Zhe frowned deeply as he climbed out of the hole. He hurried off the bridge, taking two steps at a time, but his heart still pounded from the scare.
Feng Yushu hurried after him, shining the flashlight all over him. "Are you hurt? I'm glad you're all right... How did this happen? The stone bridge just collapsed out of nowhere..."
Ning Zhe stood at the end of the bridge, one hand braced against a stone pillar. He was just as confused.
"What happened...? Why did I have such bad luck? And such obvious bad luck, too?" Recalling the close call, Ning Zhe felt a chill of fear. "I didn't break any taboos, so why did I have such bad luck?"
No... Had he really not broken any taboos?
Ning Zhe went over the day's auspicious and inauspicious activities in his mind:
[Suitable:]
[Unsuitable: travel, burial, funerals, sacrifice]
"I can be sure I didn't break the taboo against travel. Hiding Lin Zhiyuan's body under the altar table doesn't count as 'burial' or 'funerals,' and 'sacrifice' is even more absurd. Who did I sacrifice to?"
Ning Zhe's thoughts raced as he quickly retraced everything he'd done since midnight, but he couldn't find a single thing that conflicted with the day's Almanac.
"I didn't break any taboos, yet I had bad luck for no reason. It makes no sense. Could the Snake God have gone mad and started killing at random, no longer needing a reason like someone breaking a taboo?" That was the only explanation he could think of.
But reason told Ning Zhe that it might not be right.
"No, think again. Did I really not break a single taboo?"
Ning Zhe repeatedly went over everything that had happened in the past hour. "Travel... no. Burial, extremely unlikely... It wasn't funerals either. Could it have been sacrifice? But did I really do anything that could be considered a 'sacrifice'? Who did I sacrifice to?!"
Feng Yushu watched Ning Zhe's grave expression with deep concern, panic rising in her heart. His inexplicable bad luck terrified her.
"Wait. Sacrifice? That's it... It can only be that." A flash of inspiration struck Ning Zhe, and he understood. "It was a sacrifice. I sacrificed to the Snake God... I offered Lin Zhiyuan's body to the Snake God as a sacrifice."
That explained everything. It even explained why their group had entered the Ancestral Hall while the Snake God was having an episode and hadn't encountered any danger.
"Ning Zhe? Are you all right?" Feng Yushu asked cautiously.
"I'm fine." Ning Zhe sighed and shook his head gently. "I accidentally broke today's taboo, which was why I had that spell of bad luck. At least I've figured out why."
The bridge's collapse had been dangerous, but it hadn't been a deadly misfortune for Ning Zhe. After all, he'd only broken one taboo. The Snake God was generous; this wasn't a situation where he was sure to die.
I have to be extra careful from now on. I absolutely can't break another taboo.
Then he raised his head and looked at Feng Yushu. "Come on. Let's hurry back to the Ancestral Hall."
"All right." Feng Yushu nodded repeatedly, but just as they were about to leave, her phone rang.
She unlocked the screen and saw who was calling: Xie Sining.
"Why is Xie Sining calling me?" Feng Yushu answered the phone, puzzled.
Before she could even say hello, her face suddenly turned deathly pale. Pointing at the river ahead, she screamed, "Ning Zhe! There's something in the water!"
Ning Zhe immediately turned around and looked over. In the river where Feng Yushu was pointing, a human-shaped figure floated on the water, slowly rising and sinking in the gentle current as it drifted downstream.
In the bright moonlight, the two of them could make out the woman's suit jacket covering the floating body, along with the tight skirt and black stockings below. One of her high heels had been swept away by the water. Only two straps remained around her ankle, drifting back and forth.
"Is that body... Xie Sining's?"
Before you continue