The Road into the Village

Bang!

Zhou Yang's left calf slammed against the edge of the bed. The dull pain made him yank his leg back and sit up.

He looked around, his eyes still wide with fright.

Everything before him was pitch-black.

The smell of burning incense drifted through the air.

After Zhou Yang's eyes had adjusted to the darkness for a while, he gradually made out his surroundings.

He was sitting on his bed at home in Guan Village.

A coarse-cloth quilt covered his legs, and the straw mat beneath him was slightly warm.

The smell of incense came steadily from the bedpost at the left side of the foot of the bed. Realization dawned in Zhou Yang's eyes. He threw back the quilt and crawled to the foot of the bed, where he saw that a corner of the straw mat had been rolled up, exposing the wooden boards beneath.

A clay incense burner sat on the boards.

A handful of incense sticks stood in the burner, burned down to different lengths.

A length of hemp rope was tied to the bedpost beside the burner.

The other end of the rope had been burned through by the incense. The severed length was still wrapped around the leg Zhou Yang had just knocked against the bed.

It was a very strange arrangement.

Anyone who did not know the reason behind it might have thought something eerie was afoot.

The truth was quite simple: Zhou Yang had deliberately tied a hemp rope around the bedpost and his leg, leaving his left leg half-suspended. Then he had placed an incense burner at the foot of the bed and lit incense, using the glowing tips of the sticks to burn through the rope.

After a certain amount of time, the rope would burn through and his leg would strike the edge of the bed.

The physical pain would then startle him awake from the Knife Credit Ledger.

This arrangement was a crude timer Zhou Yang had made.

Zhou Yang picked up the clay burner, slipped into his straw sandals, and got out of bed. He set the burner in a corner and rose to glance at the window opening. A dark blue light glowed outside; it was probably somewhere between the fourth and fifth watches.

There was not much time left before he had to get up for work.

But he was deeply worried about what was happening in Daliangzi Village.

Hesitating, he opened the Knife Credit Ledger to the page containing Ding Ling's personal history.

He could see no unusual changes in her personal history.

But just as he had left Daliangzi Village, the Opera Ghost had manifested in the courtyard-and at that critical moment, he had left Ding Ling behind and returned alone.

Ding Ling was still weak. Could she get away and escape with her life on her own?

Judging by the state of the courtyard at the time, the Ghost Rhyme had grown overwhelmingly dense in an instant. That was a clear sign that the Opera Ghost itself had arrived to kill. Faced with a real ghost, Ding Ling was unlikely to escape, even with Breathing of the Ghost and the Averting God to protect her...

Zhou Yang's thoughts were tangled in a jumble.

Unable to sit still, he paced back and forth across the room.

Suddenly, as though he had remembered something, he stopped in his tracks.

Before my consciousness returned to Guan Village, I definitely heard a heavy object hit the ground.

Thinking back carefully, it sounded like someone's feet landing after they climbed over the wall and jumped into the courtyard.

At that point, the Opera Ghost, which had already spotted Ding Ling and me, suddenly turned its head back...

Could the person who climbed over the wall into the courtyard have drawn the Opera Ghost's attention? Who could that person be? There aren't many living people left in the village. Could Troupe Leader Chang have come over too?

If Troupe Leader Chang really did come, that would be good for Ding Ling. When the sky falls, the taller person holds it up; compared to Ding Ling, Troupe Leader Chang is the taller one. He brought the Opera Ghost here, so he should be the first to fend off its attack.

And under those circumstances, Ding Ling was still maintaining Breathing of the Ghost.

Could she have used it to survive another calamity?

Zhou Yang calmed himself a little, then sighed softly.

He knew these thoughts were all wishful thinking.

A single strand of the Opera Ghost's Ghost Rhyme, attached to the dead Gao Hongbo, had inflicted heavy casualties on the opera troupe and nearly overwhelmed Chang Dafeng. If the Opera Ghost itself had truly come to that little courtyard, could Chang Dafeng really have held it off, even if he had arrived?

Guan Village is extremely unusual. It's the village where the Great Zhao dynasty selects its officials.

The flow of time here is completely different from Daliang Village, with no discernible pattern at all.

Even if I went back to Daliang Village now, could I be sure of returning to the exact moment the Opera Ghost arrived, in time to help Ding Ling escape danger? And how much stronger than her am I?

It's already too late...

Zhou Yang lowered his gaze to the book in his hands, his eyes dimming slightly.

In the brief time he stood there in a daze, the light outside the window grew whiter, and a rooster crowed.

After the rooster crowed, Huang Shaozi knocked on Zhou Yang's door.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

From the knocking alone, anyone would have thought the person outside was agitated to the point of frenzy, and rough and fierce in manner.

Yet over the knocking, Huang Shaozi called out to Zhou Yang in such a gentle voice that the hairs on his body stood on end and a cold sweat broke out on the back of his neck.

"Son, Mother brought back what you wanted.

"Shall I bring it into your room?"

The things I wanted?

What things?

Zhou Yang's expression remained calm as he wondered, but his voice sounded anxious. "Wait!

"Mother, I'm not dressed yet.

"Wait until I'm dressed, and I'll open the door for you!"

During his time in Guan Village, he had rarely taken off his clothes to sleep. Now he only had to throw on his outer garment to be fully dressed.

He spoke this way to the ghost outside the door to gradually establish a rule for it.

At the very least, he wanted to keep it from casually pushing open the door and entering his room.

"I gave birth to you. What part of you haven't I seen?"

Huang Shaozi spoke with a chuckle. Listening to her voice, Zhou Yang could almost see her beaming smile through the door.

But in the end, she did not open the door and come straight in.

She waited outside for a while, until Zhou Yang slipped on his straw sandals and came over to open the door.

Creak-

The moment the wooden door opened, Huang Shaozi's bloated body squeezed into the doorway.

It carried a wooden bucket in its left hand, and waves of a sweet, bloody smell rose from it.

Zhou Yang glanced at the bucket and saw the bloody things inside. He was taken aback for a moment, then understood-he remembered what he had asked Huang Shaozi for.

Before entering Daliang Village this time, he had asked Huang Shaozi to bring him some pig organs from the butcher's shop. He intended to use them to begin learning the Draft of Divine Makeup and Ghost Painting.

The bloody things in the wooden bucket were the pig organs he had asked for.

Carrying the bucket, Huang Shaozi walked around the room and checked every corner. Then she stood in front of Zhou Yang, her eyes, with far more white than pupil, fixed on him from her plump, pale face. Her gaze struck Zhou Yang over the head like a club. "You burned incense...

"Why did you burn incense in your room?"

"Yesterday was my first proper day learning smithing from Master A Fu. I worked up a sweat, so I burned incense to cover the smell." Zhou Yang had already prepared an answer. He lifted a corner of his clothes, and Huang Shaozi did indeed lean forward to sniff. Only after smelling the incense all over him did she nod, still somewhat doubtful.

Huang Shaozi turned her eyes to the bucket in her hand, and her face filled with smiles again. "The stomach, intestines, and blood you wanted... Mother got them from the butcher's shop.

"No pigs have been brought in from outside for days. The butcher's shop ran out of these things long ago, and everyone's been living off their stores.

"When Mother went there today, she happened to arrive just as pigs were being brought in from outside."

"Thank you, Mother." Zhou Yang took the wooden bucket Huang Shaozi handed him. Thoughts turning in his head, he kept his expression normal and said as though by chance, "I always hear about pigs being brought in from outside, but I hardly ever see villagers going out.

"The road into the village from outside must be hard to travel, right?"

The moment the question left his mouth, Zhou Yang's heart skipped a beat!

He had not yet shaken off the state he had been in while in Daliang Village. Now, facing Huang Shaozi, he knew full well that it was a ghost, yet he had unconsciously treated it as a person.

As a result, he had been far less guarded in what he said!

At his words, Huang Shaozi's head shot up. In her tiny black pupils, no bigger than pinpoints, it was as if two hooks had emerged, ready to pull out the thoughts hidden in Zhou Yang's heart. "You want to go out, my son?

"Mother can help you, sweetheart!"