"Sister Long..."
The little boy with the cleft lip sounded like a kitten, his voice so faint it was barely audible.
Long Ya didn't turn around, only answered softly, "Sleep a little longer. It isn't light yet."
"I... I'm not cold."
The boy tucked his neck in and tugged the half of a ragged blanket covering him toward the little girl beside him.
"I just... miss Dean Granny."
Long Ya's throat tightened, and she said nothing.
Dean Granny, the old woman who had dug them out of piles of corpses, one by one...
Long Ya had seen how she was killed. The other children didn't know.
She knew perfectly well that the dead couldn't come back.
But she didn't dare say it.
Of these dozen or so little kids, few could still hold back their tears.
She was the oldest. She couldn't fall apart.
"Dean Granny will come back."
Long Ya heard herself say it, her voice as dry as sandpaper.
"Get yourselves well, and when she comes back, we'll all travel together again."
The boy murmured an assent, finally closed his eyes, and curled up to sleep.
In the distance, the light of the Blood Moon suddenly flickered.
Long Ya whipped her head around, her gun rising instantly.
There was only the wind rustling through dead grass.
She didn't fire.
Not because she was softhearted, but because she knew that once a shot rang out, everything still alive in this mountain hollow would be exposed.
And right now, she didn't even know what those things were.
As dawn approached, Yang Yong still hadn't returned.
Neither had the Red-Clothed Female Ghost.
Long Ya's right eyelid began twitching, irritating her.
She pressed it with her fingers. It didn't help.
Birdcalls could already be heard in the distance, but they were strange,