Qiang Village

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"": "What chilled Luo Bin most was this: why weren't they rescuing him?

With so many people and so much talking, they could have saved that old man already!

That was the first thing wrong.

The second was that, despite their numbers and the seemingly impenetrable ring around Luo Bin and Gu Ya, none of them stepped in his way when he walked around them.

Just as they made it past half the crowd, everyone abruptly fell silent. The babbling questions vanished in an instant, leaving a silence in which a pin dropping would have been audible.

Gu Ya tightened her grip on Luo Bin's arm. Cold sweat covered her face as she lowered her head and murmured, "Don't look at them... don't look at them..."

Luo Bin didn't want to look, but there were people in front of him and on either side. He had nowhere to turn his eyes...

Despite what Gu Ya kept saying, she too met their eyes out of the corners of her own!

Their eyes were round and brimming with sly intelligence.

Luo Bin froze again as he noticed something wrong.

Although their eyes were round, they were actually... different from normal human eyes. Were those horizontal pupils?

At that instant, the creeping horror intensified. Several people around them seemed to rise onto tiptoe, their necks pressing down slightly and their heads tilting forward. The movement was bizarre, as though they were about to ram someone!

"Ha!"

A thunderous shout suddenly rang out.

A heavy landing followed. Terror flashed across the surrounding people's faces, and they scattered in every direction!

In the blink of an eye, they had vanished.

Luo Bin was drenched in sweat and was just about to turn around.

"Go!" Luo Feng's hushed voice sounded beside his ear.

Then Luo Feng stepped up beside them. He was dressed very strangely now, with several filthy hides covered in matted hair wrapped around his shoulders and body. He held a rough wooden stick topped with an enormous sheep's head.

Weren't those the things from the racks at the edge of the clearing?

Before long, the family of three had put a considerable distance behind them. Though the sunlight was still strong, the forest felt more eerily still than ever...

"Those people... who were they? They weren't villagers from that village, were they? Were they the people you said we'd run into on the road, Dad? The ones who called for help yesterday and then went after Mom?" Luo Bin kept blinking as he spoke. Sweat from his temples had seeped into his eyes, making them sting terribly.

Gu Ya made a shushing gesture, leaving Luo Bin even more bewildered.

After they walked for a very, very long time, the third resting place came into view!

Luo Feng didn't enter it. He continued onward.

"There's someone in the resting place?!" Luo Bin blurted out, fine goose bumps rising over his face.

On the hillside, the door of the wooden house amid the burial mounds stood open. A face vaguely protruded from inside, seemingly watching them.

"Shh..." Gu Ya hushed him again.

Luo Bin stopped speaking.

Right. Apart from their family of three, there wouldn't be any normal people here.

The village couldn't possibly have sent anyone else, and such a person certainly wouldn't have made it to the third resting place and stopped somewhere so dangerous.

Suddenly, Luo Feng stopped and stared at a tree trunk.

Luo Bin and Gu Ya stopped at the same time.

There was a mark on the trunk, dark and reddish.

At a glance, Luo Bin recognized the character 羌, except that an extra si had been added inside the curved hook at the bottom right.

Luo Feng let out a heavy breath and started walking again.

After another hundred meters or so, some of his tension seemed to ease, and he began gasping for breath.

Only then did Luo Bin notice that Luo Feng was also drenched in sweat. The hides had concealed it, but the hem of his clothes was soaked through.

"I saw the mark here a while ago. I thought some villager scouting the route had written it. I didn't expect it to be a village marker... Qiang." Luo Feng's eyelids kept twitching.

"Those things aren't human. If you think they look human, then they are. If you say they aren't human while you're within their territory, they'll look even more human the next time." Luo Feng continued hoarsely, "Luckily, these things were in the abandoned village. Those villagers had been using them to hold them off."

Luo Feng tightened his grip on the stick and glanced at the hides over his shoulders.

For some inexplicable reason, Luo Bin looked back.

Under a tree a hundred meters away, another person stood, seemingly watching them.

No... not a person?

Only then did Luo Bin realize it was a sheep. It was very strange, standing upright on its hind legs like a human, with a pair of horns on its head.

The sheep slowly shuffled forward. Its movements were stiff, but it was coming toward them.

Luo Bin noticed another detail: a moment earlier, the sheep had been leaning against the very tree marked with the character "羗."

"That's why I didn't explain it to you in detail, and why I wouldn't let your mother tell you. If I'd told you beforehand, your eyes would have looked different when you encountered them. They would have picked up on that. You might not have been so frightened or so eager to avoid them either. Now you should understand how many of them there are..." Luo Feng was still explaining.

Luo Bin took a deep breath before answering, "They're sheep? Sheep that can walk upright on two legs?"

"Dad, you mean we've already left their territory? Then why has one followed us?"

Luo Bin raised his hand and pointed into the distance.

Luo Feng and Gu Ya both looked over.

At first, the sheep had walked stiffly. Now its steps actually seemed much more agile.

"How... how did it get out...?" The alarm in Luo Feng's eyes deepened.

"Go!" he said under his breath, then hurried forward again.

Gu Ya and Luo Bin didn't dare delay and stayed close behind him.

They walked from the glaring sunshine of noon until dusk approached, crimson clouds spreading across the sky.

"It's still following us..." Luo Bin felt deeply uneasy.

There was always a "human figure" at the edge of his vision. Yes, it looked even more like a person now.

"They're things from Qiang Village. Did they stay inside that territory because they didn't understand anywhere else? Had no one ever entered Qiang Village before? We went in and came out, so it followed us? Will the others follow too? Will it go back and tell them?" Luo Bin's thoughts raced, and a faint, uncontrollable dread rose within him.

"But that still isn't right. People have been there before. You went there too, Dad, and they didn't follow you out. Why did it follow us? What affected them?"

"Was it... this thing?!"

Luo Bin stared fixedly at the stick in Luo Feng's hand, the sheep's head on top, and the hides draped over his body.

Luo Feng's expression changed at once. He drove the stick firmly into the ground and tore off his hide "coat."

"These things clearly warded them off. I wanted to take them back and study them..." Luo Feng looked grim.

"They're their heads, their hides. Yes... all those bones and hides formed a deterrent, along with the traps for animals, keeping them out of the Qiang villagers' territory. By bringing them out, we became something like a tour guide waving a flag, and they followed us. There's only one now, but there'll definitely be more..." Luo Bin's face grew even paler.

"Let's get farther away first," Luo Feng said gravely.

He draped the matted hides over the sheep's horns,

then the family of three headed farther away.

They walked all the way to the wooden house at the second resting place. By then, the distant sheep had reached the spot where the stick stood. It was no longer walking upright, but kneeling on both legs, crouched quietly beneath the stick.

No, it was kneeling before the sheep's head and hides!

It was almost dark.

"Dad, I think... we should kill it."

"It's followed us a long way out. The other sheep are still inside Qiang Village. We can't let it go back and tell them, or their territory will grow much larger, even getting closer to Cabinet Mountain Village. Once they've followed us, they'll follow us again. If someone else comes to scout the route, they might lead them down the mountain. Evil spirits at night and these strange spirits during the day-it would drive people mad..."

"The people of Qiang Village already lacked doctors and medicine, and these things had chewed away the grass. They couldn't even find more than a few medicinal herbs. Waiting to die was inevitable..."

"In the long run, it has to die!"

Luo Bin spoke with conviction, slowly drawing a knife from his leather belt and gripping it tightly.

Alarm spread across Gu Ya's face. "Xiao Shan... how could you dare?"

Luo Feng's eyelids twitched again, betraying a trace of uncertainty. He said nothing, sinking deeper into thought.

"You can't kill it. Things that have lived a long time are especially vengeful. If you provoke a chicken or a dog, it'll peck or bark whenever it sees you, let alone something like this! Besides, they're dangerous... those horns can punch straight through wood. They'll definitely put a hole in a person. And it's almost dark. This is the wrong route anyway, and we won't come back here. Don't provoke them..." Gu Ya kept shaking her head, her face growing paler. She tugged Luo Feng with one hand and Luo Bin with the other, trying to pull them into the wooden house at the second resting place.

"We have half an hour until dark, at most," Luo Feng said hoarsely, a ruthless edge in his voice.

He didn't move.

Naturally, Luo Bin didn't move either.

How could Gu Ya pull two grown men along?

She was so anxious she nearly cried.

"We might come here again. Even if we don't, we can't bring danger this close. Xiao Shan is right. Go wait inside, dear. Xiao Shan, come with me. We'll surround it." Luo Feng took hold of the hand Gu Ya had gripping his clothes and pulled free.

"Mom," Luo Bin likewise reminded her quietly.

Gu Ya knew there was no point trying to persuade them. Luo Feng was famously stubborn in the village.

Luo Shan was the same. Back when he'd refused to behave, nothing anyone said had gotten through to him.

Now father and son were joining forces, and she was even more helpless.

Utterly resigned, Gu Ya could only let go. She retreated to the wooden house's door and warned them with the utmost care, "If you can't kill it, then don't... hurry back. Whatever you do, don't get hurt..."

"Mm-hmm." Luo Bin nodded.

Luo Feng said nothing. He gestured for Luo Bin to circle around to the left, while he bent low and slowly approached from the right.

Before long, they had circled to its eastern and western sides. The sheep was still kneeling beneath the hides and horns supported by the stick, utterly motionless.

In the distance, Luo Feng waved, signaling him to advance.

Luo Bin immediately closed in, and Luo Feng approached from the opposite direction.

The sheep... slowly stood up.

It stood upright on two legs, its forelegs held across its chest. Its waist was slender, its chest full.

There was no daze, no distortion. Luo Bin simply noticed that something was wrong...

How was the figure beneath the stick a sheep?

It was actually... Gu Ya?

Gu Ya's hands hung at her sides. Her eyes were red, and her mouth seemed to be saying something.

Even though he knew this was wrong,

Luo Bin couldn't help turning to look toward the wooden house at the second resting place!

In front of the house, Gu Ya stood perfectly unharmed, watching them.

"Xiao Shan! Watch out!" Luo Feng's shout exploded through the air!

Luo Bin shuddered, snapping back to his senses, and fixed his gaze ahead again.

An enormous sheep was charging at him, its hooves flailing!

Its horns were sharp as black daggers, pointed enough to make his scalp crawl!

And those horizontal pupils, in particular, held an icy gaze that seemed to see through everything!