Yang Yong stood at the village entrance without a word, staring at the dirt road emerging from the mountain hollow in the distance.
The dust arrived first, making throats tighten, followed by the sound of engines rolling out from behind the mountain like muffled thunder.
Loose stones bounced on the ground, as though someone were beating a battered drum.
Most of the paint had peeled off the blue pickup in the lead, and its bodywork was covered in scratches, but Yang Yong recognized it at a glance: his Demoness Pickup Truck.
Someone stood in the truck bed, the wind blowing her hair into a flag as she waved at him from far away.
Yang Yong did not wave back.
He counted the vehicles behind it first.
One, two, five, ten. He stopped counting.
His fingers unconsciously rubbed against his trouser seam twice, the old calluses on his palm scraping against the coarse fabric with a rustle.
Dust flooded his nose, carrying a pungent mixture of diesel and rust.
He turned and walked into the village at an unhurried pace.
Beside the old well, Huang Santainai's soul form leaned against the rim, her translucent outline as faint as a layer of mist in the sunlight.
Yang Yong walked over, his shadow passing over her, and she did not move aside.
"Come out and fix the array patterns."
Huang Santainai lifted her eyelids, her wrinkles bunching together.
"Look at the state I'm in. Do I look capable of fixing an array?"
Yang Yong said nothing and reached into the Nine Nether Yuanchen White Bone Ring.
The inside of the ring was icy, like touching a dead person's skin.
He pulled out a cloth doll and slammed it onto the ground.
The cloth doll swelled on landing, inflating into a Fuwa with a