The heart that had been hanging in Long Ya's throat finally settled a little.
"The children have been taken," she said.
"I know."
"I couldn't catch up with them."
"I know."
"Master..." Long Ya's voice finally began to tremble. "Could they already be..."
"They won't die," Yang Yong cut her off. "Those bastards didn't take the little ones to kill them."
"When I told you to stick close to Red Blessing, I wasn't telling you to rescue anyone. I was telling you not to get yourself caught up in it too."
Long Ya bit her lip, the veins bulging on the backs of her hands as she gripped the steering wheel.
"Then when can I go save them?"
"Wait."
"For what?"
"For it to get a little darker." Yang Yong's voice was utterly level. "For them to think you're scared and panicking, crying in some mountain gully."
"For them to take those little ones where they're supposed to go."
Long Ya said nothing.
She knew the place Yang Yong meant was most likely nowhere good.
"Master, what do they want the children for?"
Yang Yong fell silent for a while before speaking. "Are you sure you want to hear this now?"
"Yes."
So Yang Yong held nothing back.
He told Long Ya everything about the Red-Clothed Female Ghost's surveillance, the eerie domain, Womb-Corpse Village, and the Abdominal Fetus Gu Shadow.
He neither exaggerated nor concealed anything.
Long Ya never interrupted him, but her breathing grew increasingly rapid, and her fingers tightened around the steering wheel.
When Yang Yong reached "pregnant men" and "cutting their bellies open," Long Ya finally couldn't hold it in. She rolled down the window and began dry-heaving.
There was little in her stomach.
All she brought up was some sour fluid.
She wiped her mouth and