First Blood

"It's enough for one person to turn on a light. We don't know when we'll be able to get out, so we need to save the phone's battery. Remember to turn on power-saving mode." Ning Zhe said, switching on his own flashlight: "I'll do it, I have a charging bank with me."

"Okay." Feng Yushu nodded.

The two of them walked through the small alleys, guided by the flashlight. Beneath the stone slab path, the sound of rushing water could be heard; it was a drainage channel built under the stone slabs.

Just as Zhang Yangxu had said, every house in He Family Village tonight had its doors shut and windows closed. Ning Zhe tried several doors in succession, but they were all locked from the inside and wouldn't budge at all, so he had to stop.

"Um... Ning Zhe?" Feng Yushu asked in a low voice.

"It's nothing, I just wanted to ask you something." Ning Zhe said, deep in thought: "Aunt, you mentioned before that after you pushed open your hotel room door, you arrived here. The stainless steel door handle you were holding turned into a copper door bolt in an instant, and the door you pushed open changed from a hotel security door into an old wooden door..."

Feng Yushu nodded repeatedly: "That's right, what do you want to ask?"

"I want to know where the door you pushed open when you arrived at He Family Village is." Ning Zhe said directly: "Let's go take a look."

"Ah? Alright." Feng Yushu agreed to his request and walked in front to lead the way.

The ancestral hall dedicated to the Snake God was located in the southern part of He Family Village, while the door Feng Yushu had pushed open when she arrived was near the center of the village. Starting from the ancestral hall, she led Ning Zhe northward, walking deeper and deeper among the stone-walled, tile-roofed houses.

Along the way, Ning Zhe often tried to test the tightly closed doors along the street, but after trying time and again, he never found anything suspicious. In the tranquil atmosphere, the two of them crossed the crisscrossing bluestone alleys by moonlight until a stone arch bridge appeared before them.

He Family Village was built by the water, and the entire village was divided into eastern and western sections by a river flowing from north to south. There were three arch bridges over the river, and the one in front of Ning Zhe was the southernmost one.

Crossing the arch bridge to the other side of the river, not far away was the house Feng Yushu had walked out of when she first arrived at He Family Village.

"It's right here." Feng Yushu brought Ning Zhe to the front of the house. Ning Zhe noticed that the door to this house was open outward. From the walk over from the ancestral hall, this was the first open door he had seen.

"The house is only one story, empty inside, with only some scattered straw on the floor. It must have been a woodshed or an abandoned cattle shed." Ning Zhe closed the door and then opened it again, but nothing happened: "As expected..."

It was truly impossible to find an exit from the village so easily.

Feng Yushu looked down at the time: 01:10 AM.

40 minutes had already passed, and there was less than an hour left until their agreed-upon meeting time of one and a half hours.

"Let's go back, and check other places on the way?" Feng Yushu asked.

"That's all we can do." Ning Zhe didn't have a better direction either.

The two left the empty house with the open door and returned to the arch bridge to head back the way they came. By now, the dark clouds in the sky had dispersed, and the bright moonlight spilled down. The river water flowing under the bridge gurgled, crisp and clear.

Ning Zhe was walking quickly, one hand resting on the bridge railing, when suddenly, his foot stepped into nothingness.

"Ning Zhe!" Feng Yushu was terrified.

With a crisp sound of stone cracking, Ning Zhe instantly lost his balance, and one leg sank through the collapsed bridge deck. Fortunately, his reflexes were quick enough; he managed to brace himself against the bridge surface with both hands, preventing himself from falling further. The long stone brick he had just stepped on had cracked down the middle and fallen into the river below, splashing a huge amount of water.

"...Are you kidding me..." Ning Zhe frowned deeply, climbed out of the hole, and quickly hurried off the bridge in a few strides, his heart still racing with lingering fear.

Feng Yushu hurried over, shining her flashlight on him repeatedly: "Are you alright? Are you hurt? Thank goodness you're okay... How could this happen? The stone bridge actually collapsed suddenly..."

Ning Zhe stood at the bridgehead, one hand resting on a stone pillar, his heart filled with confusion.

"What's going on... Why did I have such bad luck? And such a blunt, physical kind of bad luck?" Recalling the thrilling scene just now, Ning Zhe felt horrified: "I clearly didn't violate any taboos, so why did I still have such bad luck?"

No... did I really not violate any taboos?

Ning Zhe recalled the almanac for the day:

[Suitable for:]

[Taboo: Traveling, Burial, Funeral, Sacrifice]

"I can be certain I didn't violate the travel taboo. Hiding Lin Zhiyuan's body under the offering table doesn't count as 'burial' or 'funeral', and sacrifice is even more absurd. Who did I sacrifice anything to?"

Ning Zhe's thoughts flew, quickly retracing everything he had done since midnight, but he couldn't find a single thing that conflicted with the day's almanac.

"I didn't violate any taboos, yet I still had bad luck for no reason. This makes no sense. Could it be that the Snake God has gone mad and started killing people at random, no longer needing a taboo as a reason?" That was the only explanation he could come up with.

But his reason told Ning Zhe that this explanation might not be correct.

"No, think again. Did I really not violate a single taboo?"

Ning Zhe kept repeating the experiences of the past hour or so in his mind: "Traveling... no. Burial, the possibility is very, very small... Funeral, no. Could it be sacrifice? But have I really done anything that could be considered a 'sacrifice'? Who on earth did I sacrifice to?!"

Feng Yushu looked at the solemn-faced Ning Zhe with worry, her heart in chaos. Ning Zhe's inexplicable bad luck terrified her.

"Wait, sacrifice? That's it... Yes, it must be that." Suddenly, a flash of inspiration crossed Ning Zhe's mind, and he understood: "It's sacrifice. I sacrificed to the Snake God... I used Lin Zhiyuan's body as a sacrifice and offered it to the Snake God."

That made everything make sense. It even explained why their group hadn't encountered any danger when they entered the ancestral hall while the Snake God was "acting up."

"Ning Zhe? Are you okay?" Feng Yushu asked cautiously.

"I'm fine." Ning Zhe sighed and shook his head gently: "I inadvertently violated today's taboo, which is why I had that bit of bad luck just now. Fortunately, I've figured out the reason."

Although the bridge collapse was dangerous, it wasn't life-threatening "blood luck" for Ning Zhe. After all, he had only violated a taboo once; the Snake God was magnanimous, and this wasn't a fatal situation yet.

"We must be extra careful from now on. We absolutely cannot violate any more taboos." Ning Zhe said to himself.

Then he looked up at Feng Yushu: "Let's go, let's hurry back to the ancestral hall."

"Okay." Feng Yushu nodded repeatedly, but just as she was about to leave, her phone rang.

Unlocking the screen, she saw the caller was—Xie Sining.

"Why is Xie Sining calling?" Feng Yushu answered the phone with confusion.

Before she could even say hello, Feng Yushu's face suddenly turned deathly pale. She pointed at the river in front of them and screamed: "Ning Zhe! There's something in the river!"

Ning Zhe turned around immediately and looked to the side. In the water Feng Yushu was pointing at, a humanoid object was floating, bobbing slowly in the gentle current and drifting downstream.

By the bright moonlight, the two could identify the woman's suit jacket wrapped around the floating body, as well as the tight-fitting skirt and black stockings on the lower half. One high-heeled shoe had been washed away, leaving only two ribbons dangling from the ankle, swaying in the water.

"Is this body... Xie Sining?"