A Meal for the Dead

"My son, it's time to eat."

Huang Shaozi's gentle call came from outside the door.

Zhou Yang lay on the bed, pretending to sleep. Before he could lift the covers, the door was forced open.

Huang Shaozi's frame filled the doorway. A loving smile still on her face, she swept the room with her tiny, darting eyes.

Zhou Yang climbed out of bed, looked at her in surprise, and called her "Mother."

Inwardly, he was calm.

He had deliberately left the door unbarred, reckoning that Huang Shaozi was only keeping up the appearance of a loving mother and dutiful son.

Leaving the door like this gave her a chance to look around.

If ghosts could be suspicious, his actions now would allay her suspicions.

If ghosts had no such thing as suspicion, then by leaving the door unbarred, Zhou Yang could test whether Huang Shaozi's family had given up probing him.

Clearly, the ghosts were probing him, a living person, at all times.

They would never stop.

"Come eat, my son.

"Mother made you some extra food."

Huang Shaozi set the little table she was carrying in the open space in front of Zhou Yang's bed. Turning her head ninety degrees, she spoke with a beaming smile to Zhou Yang as he put on his shoes by the bed.

"Thank you for bringing me food, Mother. Please go and eat too. I can manage here by myself." Zhou Yang's heart raced, but his expression did not change as he replied.

His gaze swept over the dinner on the little table.

A bowl of rice with more than twice the usual amount.

A bowl of whitish, yellow-tinged fat.

A dish of raw pig lung.

A plate of scarlet blood clots.

Three dishes... Both the portions and the number of dishes really were more "lavish" than usual.

Huang Shaozi stood motionless by the bed, looking at Zhou Yang with an increasingly gentle expression. "Heigou said you eat too little and look very thin. Mother will stay right here and watch you eat properly.

"Eat up, my son."

She meant to watch Zhou Yang finish his meal.

Zhou Yang frowned inwardly. Heigou deliberately opposed him at every turn, quite unlike the ghosts of Guan Village.

He suspected Zhou Heigou was a living person, just like him.

In a place like this, a person hostile to him could sometimes be more frightening than a ghost.

But if Zhou Heigou was a living person, then the fact that Laogou allowed him to go along to work the fields outside the village showed that he was held in far greater favor by the "Zhou family" than Zhou Yang was.

Had Heigou naturally won the Zhou family's favor, or had he used some special method to gain their trust?

Zhou Yang knelt before the little dining table.

He felt Huang Shaozi's gaze fixed on the back of his head and his back, making his whole body crawl.

Huang Shaozi had made up her mind, and he could find no excuse to persuade her to leave.

He lowered his eyes to the lavish meal. An odd smell drifted from the dishes and into his nostrils, stirring a feeling of disgust and aversion.

Cold and decayed.

That was Zhou Yang's immediate impression of the dishes.

Just as people could not eat tables, chairs, or benches, most of the dishes on the table were not part of a normal person's diet either.

But he picked up the bowl of rice and his chopsticks, steeled himself, and placed a piece of raw pig lung on the rice.

With the rice, the only thing he could swallow, he stuffed the bloody lung into his mouth-

Zhou Yang's pupils quivered at the first bite!

Sickly sweet, with a rich, gamey aroma!

Smooth and tender!

In that mouthful of raw pig lung and rice, Zhou Yang tasted a rare delicacy. It was completely different from the disgust and aversion he had felt looking at the food. Now every pore in his body was urging him to take another bite, to eat more!

His mouth watered involuntarily.

He swallowed and suddenly realized that his craving for the food on the table did not come from him, but from his skin, which had learned Ghost Breathing...

Next, Zhou Yang picked up a clump of raw blood with his chopsticks. He did not know what animal it had come from, or even whether it had come from an animal at all. Once again, he mixed it with rice and put it in his mouth-

It was so delicious he trembled!

The delicious taste sent a thrill through Zhou Yang, making the hairs all over his body stand on end!

He scraped the whole plate of raw blood into his bowl and devoured more than half the rice, his chopsticks flying.

Then he ate the plate of pig lung and the little bowl of fat, one after another.

Having polished off the dishes, Zhou Yang felt a fullness he had not known in a long time!

He could not help letting out a burp!

He was stuffed!

For once since coming to Guan Village, he had eaten his fill!

But after burping, Zhou Yang rubbed his belly and suddenly realized that his stomach was still almost empty, with only a little food in it. The blood clots, lung, and fat he had eaten were nowhere to be found...

What happened? he wondered.

Then Huang Shaozi came over from behind him and asked with a smile, "Are you full, my son?"

"I've eaten my fill. Thank you, Mother.

"I can clear these things away. Please go and eat, Mother."

Putting on a respectful, dutiful manner, Zhou Yang gathered the bowls and plates from the low table, took them to the woodshed to wash, and sorted them neatly.

His thoughtfulness made Huang Shaozi look at him with even greater satisfaction.

Back in his room, Zhou Yang barred the door, then suddenly stopped in the doorway and stood still.

Wisps of cold abruptly began darting beneath his skin, weaving into a net throughout his body in the space of a few moments!

The chilling aura nearly froze his flesh and blood, leaving only his mind unaffected.

In contrast to his flesh and blood, which were nearly frozen stiff, his outer skin began to squirm. Layer upon layer of skin bunched up into numerous folds, continually absorbing the chilling aura that darted beneath it and formed a net. Absorbing that aura made his skin feel deeply comfortable.

His entire skin seemed to come "alive" in an instant!

I ate the ghosts' food, but in the end, I couldn't digest it.

But because my skin learned Ghost Breathing, it can absorb some kind of "nutrient" from the ghosts' food instead.

It digested the ghost food I ate!

Zhou Yang did not know whether feeding ghost food to his skin carried any hidden dangers.

He watched the changes in his body and soon felt his skin absorb every trace of the chilling aura darting beneath it.

His flesh and blood regained their vitality and once again became closely joined to his skin.

Zhou Yang moved his body. He felt no obvious change, but the weakness that had lingered in his body seemed to have faded considerably.

That weakness came from going hungry for so long in Guan Village and not getting enough nourishment.

From the look of it, even though I still can't digest ghost food myself, as long as I feed this skin, will it give some kind of nourishment back to me and keep me from growing weaker?

One meal could not bring about much change in Zhou Yang.

For now, he could only make that conjecture.

Zhou Yang sat on a stool and opened his palm.

Several "Ghost Mouths" like ant holes had opened in his palm.

The chilling Ghost Qi was constrained by Zhou Yang's Mindfulness, curled tightly in his palm.

His eyes brightened slightly-

He might have discovered another use for Ghost Qi.

When Huang Shaozi approached him, he had distinctly sensed the Ghost Qi in his palm stirring restlessly!

Faced with a ghost like Huang Shaozi, Zhou Yang would hardly be reckless enough to stick Ghost Qi to her as an experiment.

Yet the restless stirrings continually conveyed by the Ghost Qi gave him a bold idea.

What would happen if he used Ghost Qi together with the Draft of Divine Makeup and Ghost Painting?

While washing the dishes earlier, he had asked Huang Shaozi to bring him some pig offal tomorrow.

Once he had gathered everything needed for the first "gate-opening" ritual of the Draft of Divine Makeup and Ghost Painting, he would try to open that first gate!

Outside the window, the night grew darker.

As usual, Zhou Yang went out to the privy.

On his way back, he happened to glance toward a corner of the courtyard. There he saw the Zhou family's eldest son, Zhou Baigou, crouching in that corner with his eyes closed, pretending to sleep, just as he did every night.

As Zhou Yang looked at him, he opened his eyes too.

His pitch-black eyes watched Zhou Yang's every move.

Baigou is the Zhou family's watchdog...

With that thought, Zhou Yang returned to his room, barred the door, undressed, and got into bed.

Half-reclining against the wall, he opened the Knife Credit Ledger.

Zhou Yang glanced over his own record on the first page and froze. He saw that the value in the Mindfulness field had quietly risen from "5" to "6."

After all the dangerous and terrifying things he had been through, his Mindfulness had probably already been on the verge of a breakthrough.

He had also practiced Ghost Breathing for a long time that afternoon, finally bringing about the breakthrough in his Mindfulness.

The newly added Ghost Breathing in Zhou Yang's abilities field had not changed, and the Right Mindfulness Lock was still at the third level.

Turning to the second page, Zhou Yang looked at Ding Ling's personal record.

If I teach Ding Ling Ghost Breathing and let her learn the Draft of Divine Makeup and Ghost Painting, then my Good Karma will have a use: I can copy those two abilities once Ding Ling has learned them. Combined with my own constant practice, my progress in both abilities is bound to be far faster than usual.

Can I teach Ghost Breathing to Ding Ling in Daliang Village?

Zhou Yang did not rush to "settle the account." He considered the matter.

He settled on several questions he needed to investigate and verify first after going to Daliang Village.

First, the flow of time.

Last time, I stayed in Daliang Village for about two or three shichen, while an entire night, around four or five shichen, passed here in Guan Village.

Could the ratio between the flow of time in the two places be one to two?

Second, the question of location.

The difference in the flow of time between the two places doesn't necessarily mean they aren't in the same world-there might be a time difference involved.

What kind of place is the region they're in, and what year and era is it?

Zhou Yang's gaze returned to the second page of the ledger.

Ding Ling's personal record turned into blobs of ink, which squirmed and fused before forming the words: "You have sold a knife on credit. Settle the account?"

"Settle the account."