Not the Same

The "black hair" binding Pang Jun flung him into the air, then plunged downward. He was about to be dragged into the dry well.

With astonishing reflexes and jumping power, Wang Zikai leaped up. The muscles in his arms instantly swelled, growing thick and hard. He locked his arms around Pang Jun's huge belly from behind and flew toward the dry well with him.

Thud. At the last possible moment, Wang Zikai planted both feet against the well's outer rim, bracing himself firmly.

"Aaaaah!" Pang Jun screamed in agony. Luckily, he weighed over two hundred pounds and was covered in fat. Otherwise, the pull of those two tremendous forces would have torn his bones apart.

Unable to drag Pang Jun into the well, the black hair hurled him high into the air again. Wang Zikai refused to let go and flew up with him.

The black hair gave a violent swing.

Bang! Pang Jun and Wang Zikai slammed into a nearby room, sending splinters and dust flying.

Still refusing to release Pang Jun, the black hair continued swinging them in circles along the ground.

Crash, crash-bang, bang-bang! Like a giant pendulum, Pang Jun and Wang Zikai careened through the ancestral hall, pulled along by the black hair. They smashed doors and windows, snapped roof beams, then flew up to the second floor and shattered its carved railing. In barely half a minute, the entire hall had been wrecked and was on the verge of collapse.

Fortunately, Wang Zikai was like a hard turtle shell, holding Pang Jun tightly from behind and shielding him from most of the impacts and damage. Otherwise, Pang Jun would have been dead or crippled.

Gaoyang and Officer Huang still stood at the ancestral hall's entrance, holding their pistols up like a pair of idiots without pulling the triggers. Forget pistols-even two submachine guns would have been useless against those black strands. If they had to use a firearm, a flamethrower would probably have been more effective.

Their only hope now was Qingling, and she knew it too. She had already drawn her long saber and crouched down, waiting for an opening. Soon, her chance came. She seized a lull in the black hair's movements, sprinted forward, brought her blade around, and slashed.

Whoosh-

Steel flashed, and hundreds upon thousands of tiny black strands drifted through the air. The hair covering Pang Jun began falling away in great clumps. Just as everyone thought he was saved, more black hair suddenly surged out of the well and attacked Qingling.

Startled, Qingling swung her saber to cut it down, but even her thorough defense had a gap. A strand wound around her wrist, followed by more and more hair wrapping around her. Soon, she too had become a "human dumpling."

Bang, bang, bang! Gaoyang opened fire, but just as he had expected, the bullets passed through the black strands like water, doing no damage at all.

The black hair stopped fighting. All of it pulled at once, dragging Pang Jun and Qingling toward the well.

Qingling flipped over, bent her legs, and kicked out hard, bracing herself against the outside of the well's mouth. Meanwhile, Wang Zikai still held Pang Jun, his legs also wedged against the rim.

"...Help!" Pang Jun sobbed.

Gaoyang and Officer Huang immediately rushed over and grabbed Qingling and Wang Zikai, holding on for dear life.

Then a bizarre scene unfolded: five people clung together in twisted positions, forming a grotesque figure with "three heads and six arms," wedged tightly against the well's mouth. Dense, tough black strands covered their bodies, slowly tightening inch by inch.

From a distance, the scene looked perfectly still.

In reality, the two sides' strength had reached a delicate equilibrium.

Gaoyang swore this was the longest and most painful "tug-of-war" he had ever endured.

Three seconds passed.

Five seconds passed.

Ten seconds passed...

As the strongest of the five, Wang Zikai was gradually reaching his limit. "Fuck, fuck... I can't. I can't hold on anymore. I'm gonna let go..."

"Don't! Don't let go!" Pang Jun begged loudly. "I don't want to die..."

"Fatty, sacrificing you to save four of us is a good trade. Your big bro will avenge you later..."

"Why me..." Pang Jun shouted. "Why don't you let go of Gaoyang? This was his test in the first place! I just got dragged into it..."

"Shut up, dumbass! Even if I die... I'm not abandoning my best buddy..."

Boom!

Before Wang Zikai could finish, the entire patch of ground around the well's mouth collapsed, sending all five of them plummeting deep underground.

"Aaaaah-"

Amid the chaotic screams, Gaoyang's vision went black.

[Checking vital signs...]

[Status: alive]

[Degree of injury: minor]

[Notice: you have entered an unknown domain. Exploration unavailable. Fortune point gains increased to 2×]

[System shutting down]

[Beep-]

Gaoyang slowly opened his eyes to bright daylight and dazzling sunshine.

He raised a hand to shield his eyes. It smelled of dirt and moldy moss. Slowly, he sat up and moved his arms, finding nothing wrong with his body.

The first person he saw was Qingling. She had taken off her athletic jacket and wore a sexy, strapless black tank top. With her head slightly lowered, she held the bandages she carried between her teeth and used one hand to wrap the wound on her right arm. At first glance, she actually looked a little like the heroine of Tomb Raider 9.

"Are you... okay?" Gaoyang asked.

Qingling raised her head slightly and glanced at him. Help me.

Gaoyang immediately took the bandage from between her teeth and helped wrap her arm.

"Where are the others?" Gaoyang asked.

"No idea. I just woke up too," Qingling said.

Gaoyang finished bandaging Qingling's arm, and his eyes finally adjusted to the strong sunlight. He looked up and surveyed his surroundings, startled!

Wasn't this Gu Family Village? The two of them were lying at the village entrance, and it seemed to be noon. Something's wrong... Am I still dreaming?

Gaoyang reached out and pinched Qingling's cheek... Probably not a dream. Nothing in his dreams had ever felt this good.

Qingling glared at him. "What are you doing?"

"Checking whether I can copy your Talent." Gaoyang kept a straight face while secretly watching Qingling's expression. Sure enough, she bought it. "Still can't. That means I wasn't unconscious for long. Less than twelve hours, at least."

He thought for a moment, then added, "We probably aren't in heaven either."

Qingling raised an eyebrow. "You think you'd get into heaven when you die?"

"Probably...?" Gaoyang wasn't too confident about that himself.

"Honk, honk, honk..." A goose called behind him.

Gaoyang thought he had misheard. He turned around and saw that it really was a large white goose.

The large white goose waddled brazenly past him. He was about to say something when whole flocks of white geese followed, passing him and Qingling and turning their surroundings into a bustle of activity.

"Honk, honk, honk... Honk, honk, honk..."

A dozen or so seconds later, the goose army departed, leaving Gaoyang and Qingling covered in feathers.

"You two from the city?" The speaker was an old man, short and wiry, with dark skin. He was bare-chested and wore black linen trousers. His bare feet were covered in calluses and black mud. He held a long bamboo pole and had a pipe dangling from his mouth.

There's someone here! What's going on?

While Gaoyang was still reeling, Qingling quickly stood, her movements guarded.

"Here to pay your respects?" the old man asked again.

"Mm..." Gaoyang stood too, giving a vague reply.

"Head to the ancestral hall. Whenever someone in our village dies, we get an opera troupe to perform there." The old man removed his pipe and pointed toward the ancestral hall on the high ground at the far end of the village. "There. That's it."

Gaoyang looked over. On the dirt clearing outside the ancestral hall stood a makeshift shelter, with over a dozen tables beneath it for the funeral feast. More than ten white funeral wreaths stood by the road entrance. The mourning hall was probably set up in the courtyard inside the ancestral hall, and he could faintly hear the opera troupe singing.

"Okay, thank you," Gaoyang said, playing along.

"Ah, Hua Zi's family died horribly. Five living, breathing people, all dismembered in one night... I live right next door, and I didn't hear a thing. When everyone woke up that morning, they were scared witless. In the yard, in the vegetable shed, up in the trees, on the roof... severed hands and feet everywhere. Hua Zi's head was sitting right on..."

The old man trailed off, instinctively looking at the stone marker beside his feet, engraved with the character "Gu." A patch of long-dried blood still stained it.

"What a tragedy!" He sighed deeply and left, herding the white geese along.

Gaoyang immediately noticed the problem. He turned to Qingling. "Did you notice?"

Qingling nodded slightly. "When we came here, this stone marker was broken."

Though he wasn't completely certain, Gaoyang had already reached a preliminary conclusion. "This Gu Family Village isn't the Gu Family Village we were in before."