Wang Ying cleaved open the Ancestral Hall's door and charged inside.
The offering table was old, and wooden tablets stood at the far end...
The spirit tablets of the Mo family's ancestors.
Mo Family Village.
It was not an ancient village that had formed naturally. Its people had moved here later, and they had not even put up a sign at the village entrance.
Everyone searched the Ancestral Hall.
An offering table, a few chairs, leftover incense and candles, a lighter.
Then, nothing.
They searched back and forth more than once for a hidden chamber entrance or a secret compartment, but found no trace of either.
Wang Ying's patience was completely exhausted.
She tightened her grip on her long saber and struck her first blow.
Dirt churned up.
Beneath it was hard-packed earth, dull and solid.
Not here.
The second strike still hit solid ground.
That reverberation set their teeth on edge.
Fire burned in Wang Ying's eyes.
She struck several times in succession, each blow more urgent than the last.
The blade's light fell directly beneath the offering table...
Thud...
A hollow echo.
Everyone held their breath.
This spot was different.
Something was wrong.
Wang Ying scraped away the loose soil, revealing a hole in the ground.
It was barely wide enough for one person to pass through bent over. Its edges were rough, dug not with shovels, but with claws.
Those sharp things had clawed their way out from underground through sheer, stubborn ferocity.
Wang Ying turned and was about to crawl inside.
"Wait." Yang Yong stopped her.
With a thought, he summoned the Red-Clothed Female Ghost, who appeared soundlessly.
Her deathly pale face and pitch-black hair looked like a strip of old cloth pulled out of the ground.
"Go."
The ghostly figure vanished into the darkness.
Before long, she floated back and slowly shook her head.
Safe for now.
But the tension inside Yang Yong did not fully ease.
"Let's go."
The group bent down and crawled inside.
The passage was narrow, damp, and cold, carrying an indescribable rank smell...
Not the stink of rot, but something alive.
The farther they went, the wider it grew.
At the end, it opened up abruptly.
An underground space of two to three hundred square meters.
Everyone stopped in their tracks, eyes wide.
Grain.
Mountains of grain.
Gleaming white rice, a stretch of white with no end in sight.
Black beans, red beans, red dates, peanuts, unhusked rice.
All piled into a mountain.
A silent, full mountain carrying the dry fragrance unique to grain.
An old folk legend flashed through Yang Yong's mind...
The origin of eight-treasure porridge.
In winter, people in ancient times had broken into rat burrows and cooked the rats' winter stores together in one pot.
This was not a hidden chamber.
It was a rat nest.
A giant rat nest of terrifying proportions.
No one knew where the rats had gone.
But for them, the owners being away was all the better.
Yang Yong grabbed a woven plastic sack.
He felt a pinprick of danger, very faint, like a strand of hair lightly brushing the back of his neck.
But the grain was right before his eyes.
He gritted his teeth and began filling the sack.
The sound of gleaming white rice pouring into the sack was like a downpour striking roof tiles in the silent underground space.
The others reacted too, and everyone began filling whatever they had.
Backpacks, pockets, burlap sacks, hats-they stuffed them all full.
No one spoke. There was only heavy breathing and the rustle of grain pouring into containers.
Only half the mountain of grain was gone.
"Fuck! No more bags!" someone cursed under their breath.
Yang Yong took off his jacket, tied the cuffs shut, and kept filling it.
There was still no end to the grain mountain.
But the pinprick at the back of his neck had become a steel needle.
It stabbed so sharply that his scalp tingled.
It was not a specific threat, but some kind of tremor from deep underground.
The owners of this rat nest might be coming back.
"We can't stay any longer. Pull out."
Yang Yong lowered his voice.
It was not loud, but it cut through everyone's greed like a blade.
Hearing something wrong in his tone, no one dared delay.
The passage, only one person wide, was too slow. Wang Ying swept her saber sideways, unleashing a burst of blade energy.
A new exit leading straight to the surface blasted open through the side of the passage. Dirt flew, and daylight spilled in.
"This way!"
Everyone streamed out.
"Everyone, run!"
Yang Yong's low shout stunned quite a few people.
Some still looked puzzled.
Yang Yong did not explain.
Carrying his woven plastic sack, he sprinted toward the bus without looking back.
He could feel that thing drawing closer and growing heavier, like an invisible hand slowly pressing down toward his back.
The others dared not hesitate and hurried after him.
They had only run a few steps when Wang Ying's expression abruptly changed.
She whipped her head around.
A dense black mass was pouring down the hillside behind the village.
Like a tide...
Not water, but something denser, stickier, and hungrier than water.
"What is that?" someone cried out in alarm.
The earth was trembling.
Countless tiny vibrations converged, making the ground beneath their feet feel like a drumhead.
"Never mind what it is! Run!" Yang Yong roared sharply.
Everyone ran with all their strength.
Yang Yong was the fastest, with several agile young people close behind, while Wang Ying brought up the rear.
Two people fell behind.
It was not that they were slow runners. They were carrying too much, weighed down so heavily they could not run.
Wang Ying shouted, "Drop your things! Run!"
One young man glanced back. The black tide was drawing closer and closer.
He saw it clearly...
It was not a tide, but rats.
Countless rats, layer upon layer, trampling one another like an enormous, writhing black rug.
Terrified out of his wits, he threw everything away and sprinted.
The other was older.
He carried an enormous burlap sack on his back, a bundle against his chest, and a cloth bag in each hand.
He staggered a few steps...
The black wave surged up behind him.
"Ah... aah!"
A scream.
It lasted only an instant.
Then cut off abruptly.
Yang Yong had already rushed back onto the bus.
He instinctively looked back and sucked in a breath.
The old man was swallowed by the black wave.
One second, he was still struggling, his hands visible as they flailed desperately in the black tide.
The next...
Nothing remained.
The wave swept past.
Only a skeleton remained where he had stood.
Stark white.
Utterly clean.
Not a scrap of flesh remained.
Even the blood had been licked clean.
Fear shook Yang Yong.
Cao Xianming's loudspeaker blared, "All vehicles, start immediately! A rat tide! The rat tide is coming! Move slowly along the road and pick everyone up!"
The three off-road vehicles roared to life together, and the bus began moving slowly, picking up those still sprinting.
The survivors at the rear threw away all their supplies, their speed surging.
Every so often, Wang Ying turned and slashed. Blade energy tore through the air, carving trenches in front of the rats to slow their charge.
The remaining people escaped back by sheer luck.
The last survivor scrambled and tumbled onto the bus.
None of the vehicles lingered any longer. They accelerated with a roar.
The engines' roar mingled with the dense, rustling, scalp-prickling sounds behind them.
Just then...
A giant rat suddenly sprang from the rat tide.
It was as large as an adult wild boar, its gray fur bristling and its eyes crimson as blood.
The instant it sprang out, the entire rat tide went still for a moment.
Not silence, but submission.
It fixed its gaze on the speeding convoy and let out a piercing shriek.
That shriek pierced the roar of the engines and the windows, stabbing straight into everyone's eardrums.
It charged wildly toward them, more than twice as fast as the rat tide.
Yang Yong's gaze turned cold, and he gripped the One-Yang God-Sealing Banner.
The banner was trembling...
Not from the wind, but from the excitement of the things imprisoned inside.
The dormant Blood Moon Energy within him erupted into a boil.
That energy surged through his meridians with a searing sting.
The real hard fight was coming.
Before you continue