Such a relief

"": 200,

"": "",

"": "He didn't want to admit it, didn't dare admit it, but he was sick of lamp oil, wanted to drink blood, and felt no fear at seeing an evil entity kill someone. Instead, he found it cathartic, even faintly exciting. Those were all facts...

Because the nail on his left little finger had been taken away, his body had become an evil entity, while his soul was still that of a normal person. Was that why his conscious mind resisted the entity's instincts?

Heaven was far too unfair.

In his previous life, he had diligently embraced the "blessing" of working nine to nine, six days a week. When the stock market crashed, he had held on for the good of the nation.

He had bought domestic, driven an electric car, and endured whatever hardships came his way.

He had stayed up late for years and eaten poorly and irregularly. Before he could save enough for a down payment and bride price, a sudden brain hemorrhage had left him bedridden for five or six years.

His previous life had been miserable enough. Now he had started over in a place riddled with danger, and he couldn't even be human?

"Fuck you!" Luo Bin swore for the first time since his rebirth.

He wanted to live-to live like a normal person!

Something his attending physician, Xu Kaiguo, had once said suddenly came to mind. "Difficult illnesses don't scare me. Having no way to save someone does."

I've become an evil entity, but perhaps not completely?

If this were cancer, maybe it hasn't reached the terminal stage. Maybe my body can still recover?

Luo Bin staggered to his feet, leaned toward the oil lamp, and took careful sips.

The remaining oil dropped by a tenth. The burning in his throat eased, and although the lamplight still hurt his eyes, he could at least bear to look straight at it.

Luo Bin hurriedly stopped.

He returned to the bed and lay down, licking the oil from the corners of his mouth. He treasured every drop and swallowed it all.

He knew what his medicine was now.

Drowsiness gradually washed over him, and Luo Bin fell into a deep sleep.

The roosters crowed at precisely five in the morning.

Zhong Zhicheng was the first to leave his house.

Carrying a gong, he walked along the village road. Its clanging rang out, mingling with the roosters' cries.

The gong and the crowing were more like a signal, dividing the horrors of night from those of day, allowing the villagers to live like ordinary people, rising with the sun and resting at sunset.

Passing the mortuary in the center of the village, Zhong Zhicheng grabbed the flatbed cart beside its wall.

Rust and dried blood mottled its surface. The wooden bed had long since been stained a dark, bloody red, and it reeked.

This was the corpse cart.

Whenever he heard screams during the night, Zhong Zhicheng would take the corpse cart out the next morning to clean up the scene.

The breeze was still cold. The damp mountain air left dew clinging to Zhong Zhicheng's eyelashes and thick beard.

When he approached the Mountain God Temple at the far end of the village, he stopped striking the gong.

Looking ahead, he saw the horribly mutilated corpse on the ground.

He held a fist to his forehead and observed two seconds of silence. Then he set down the corpse cart and walked over to the wooden hut.

Something was wrong with the Luo Family's lamp oil consumption.

Luo Shan was, after all, missing the nail on his left little finger. That was wrong too.

Luo Feng's explanation had seemed reasonable.

But however reasonable things seemed, when one anomaly could be linked to another, there was clearly a problem.

That was why he had sent Luo Shan to watch the outsiders, getting him away from the Luo Family.

His hand rested on the knife at his waist.

Zhong Zhicheng approached the door, tilted his head slightly, and peered through the crack. His gaze landed right on the oil lamp.

The flame was burning, and a little over a third of the lamp oil was gone?

Normally, one lamp could burn for three nights, but many villagers lit theirs before dark. This amount of consumption was normal. Was Luo Shan fine?

Only after several seconds did Zhong Zhicheng return to the corpse cart, pick up its handles, and pull it toward the Mountain God Temple.

Inside the hut, Luo Bin slowly opened his eyes.

An image flashed before him.

An eye had appeared at the narrow crack in the door, cautiously scanned him, and settled on the oil lamp. A moment later, the eye had withdrawn, and light and shadow returned to the crack.

Luo Bin had been awake for some time, deliberately keeping his eyes barely open as he lay there waiting.

The village chief might come or might not, but he would most likely come.

Sure enough, he had.

Did I fool him?

Luo Bin got up and blew out the oil lamp before opening the door.

Just then, the village chief stopped a rust-mottled flatbed cart beside the mangled corpse from last night.

Luo Bin had been about to call out to him, but an abrupt shudder stopped him.

Last night, seeing the driver tortured and brutally killed had felt cathartic to Luo Bin. He had even felt eager to join in.

But now, seeing the mangled flesh and limbs and smelling the thick stench of blood in the air, he felt sick enough to die. He dry-heaved, stumbled a few steps to the left, and crouched down to vomit until he nearly brought up bile!

Zhong Zhicheng was long used to sights like this. Without even turning his head, he took a shovel from the cart. With a scrape, he scooped up a severed leg and tossed it into the corpse cart. Another scrape, and he shoveled up the torso.

The last shovelful was the gnawed, unrecognizable head, which he tossed into the corpse's exposed chest cavity.

Bang!

The door of the Mountain God Temple was kicked open.

Zhang Li charged out and pointed at Zhong Zhicheng!

He had been about to curse, but his eyes involuntarily turned toward the severed limbs. His eyes reddened further, and his lips trembled harder. Vomit stains were plainly visible at the corners of his mouth, and his legs shook so badly he could barely stand.

Inside the temple, Zhu Qianqian huddled beneath the statue, clutching her knees. She kept trembling, filled with terror.

Gu Yiren stared at the mountain god statue, both hands pressed to her chest, utterly motionless.

Zhong Zhicheng covered the remains with a dirty cloth, then looked at Zhang Li and said, "I thought you'd all be dead, or still tied up there unable to move. Only one of you died? That's very good progress."

"Very good progress?" Zhang Li began shakily, then lost control and roared, "Xu is dead! He was killed! He was..."

The scenes from last night flashed through Zhang Li's mind. Merely thinking about them nearly broke him. "You actually call this good progress? You knew how terrifying and dangerous those things were... why didn't you get a few people to watch over us? Those things can even trick people..."

"Are you... even human?"

"You got Xu killed!!!"

"You untied the ropes yourselves," the village chief said, his expression unchanged.

"You ran out yourselves."

"I told you that opening the door would get you killed, but one of you opened it anyway."

"If I'd sent people to watch you, would you have believed them? You would've just thought we were a village of bandits, that everyone here was a bandit."

"So he got himself killed. You could also say you got him killed, since you didn't stop him from running out of the Mountain God Temple."

"I won't tie you up again. But let me remind you: you can only stay in the Mountain God Temple for these two days. If you force your way into a villager's home, any injury or death is your own responsibility. Outsiders must survive for three days before the village's rules will protect them."

"You!" Zhang Li choked, then growled, "Give us back the car! We can't spend another second in this hellhole!"

"Everyone wants to leave this place, but no one has any way to do it." With that, Zhong Zhicheng pushed the corpse cart toward the center of the village.

Zhang Li sprinted after him, reaching to grab him around the neck from behind.

Zhong Zhicheng turned, raised his leg, and kicked out. The entire movement flowed as one!

Luo Bin had only just stopped vomiting when he looked up and saw Zhang Li kicked three or four meters through the air, landing with a crash.

He curled up on the ground like a shrimp, convulsing.

The village chief walked away.

Luo Bin had intended to go over and make himself a familiar face, but vomiting had cost him the opportunity.

He retreated into the hut and poured himself a bowl of cold water. After drinking it, his stomach felt much better.

On the road, the man slowly got up, clutching his belly, and staggered miserably back into the Mountain God Temple.

The Mountain God Temple's door remained open.

A tall, slender woman with a waist small enough to encircle with a hand stood beneath the mountain god statue. Her hair was gathered behind her back, and she was strikingly pretty.

The woman with the tear mole.

Luo Bin didn't know her name, so he simply gave her that nickname in his mind.

"Xu Kaiguo" had told him to save them, yet he hadn't appeared last night.

That made the whole matter even stranger.

Suddenly, the woman with the tear mole turned around.

By sheer coincidence, she looked in his direction, and their eyes met across the distance.

Then she walked to a pillar on the other side and sat down, leaning against it.

Luo Bin's pupils contracted slightly.

The scene from a few seconds earlier immediately replayed before his eyes.

The tear-mole woman's frail, almost sickly face looked somewhat blank.

Her lips had moved slightly.

Following those tiny movements, Luo Bin murmured four words.

"I can help you."

Luo Bin had been sitting on the edge of the bed, but he sprang to his feet.

He replayed their earlier exchange of glances once more.

His heart pounded faster, and goosebumps prickled all over him.

Isn't this far too strange?

This woman is an outsider-an outsider who knows nothing about the village!

They had even lost a companion last night.

Luo Bin replayed the memory dozens of times.

He hadn't seen it wrong.

The tear-mole woman's lips had clearly said:

"I can help you!"