……
As expected, spatial abilities really are convenient. But to pull off a switch right in front of so many people—he’s impressive.
“Setting aside whether it’s toxic or not, just looking at it is disgusting.”
From the moment they entered the courtyard, the villagers had already harbored hostility toward them. Even without saying it outright, a person’s thoughts could be read from their expressions.
“I can sense an unusual power inside that water vat. I’ll go check it again later tonight. You stay here and handle them. This family is not as simple as they appear.”
Li Ge responded with a teasing smile.
“If we want to leave without alerting anyone, that’s going to be difficult—the door has been locked from the outside.”
Even though only a door separated them, and they had deliberately lightened their movements, the sound of the lock still carried inside.
There was only one door—and a window that had been sealed shut. Any attempt to leave would inevitably make noise and alert the people downstairs.
“Then we go together. Don’t worry, I’m not here to compete with you for anything. What I want is that cactus.”
“A cactus? Your taste really is… unique.” Xi Zhou was slightly surprised. What use could a cactus possibly have?
Even Li Ge herself couldn’t explain it. The cactus looked completely ordinary—but deep inside, she felt a strong, almost uncontrollable urge.
She wanted it.
At night, the previously peaceful village revealed a completely different side. In one household at the very end of the village street, lights were blazing brightly.
In the courtyard, it looked like some kind of ritual was being held. Dozens of villagers stood in a circle around an unremarkable water vat.
They treated the vat like a deity. The village chief personally offered incense and bowed in worship, while the surrounding villagers looked utterly devout.
The moon hung high in the sky. At the village chief’s signal, Qin Yi respectfully drew a bucket of water.
Strangely, after a full bucket was taken out, the water level in the vat rose on its own. Witnessing this, the villagers’ reverence deepened even further.
The man carrying the bucket walked ahead, followed by a woman and two other men, heading through the houses toward the backyard.
At Yan Jie’s home, little Yuan Yuan was sleeping uneasily at night. Yan Jie sat by the bed, coaxing her to sleep, her wet eyes showing she had just been crying.
After patting the blanket, Yuan Yuan finally drifted off again.
The door was gently closed, and the woman holding a candle quietly went upstairs.
The house was silent. The people inside seemed to be asleep, and the lock on the door remained intact.
Hearing faint footsteps deliberately softened, Li Ge slowly opened her eyes and sat up from the bed. She had only been resting with her eyes closed for the past two hours—she hadn’t actually slept.
Xi Zhou was still sitting by the table, studying the two cups of water they had brought back from the village chief’s house, as if he had discovered something.
“What’s in the water? You look like you’ve figured it out,” Li Ge asked in a low voice. Yan Jie had already gone downstairs; as long as they kept quiet, they wouldn’t be discovered.
Xi Zhou seemed quite interested in explaining, though his tone carried a hint of mockery.
“Just rainwater. In a small village like this, even if there’s poisoning, at most they’d mix in pesticides. Conspiracies don’t really suit them.”
“Rainwater?” Li Ge didn’t dare relax.
Since the apocalypse began, there had only been one rain—the one filled with massive amounts of zombie virus that spread across the entire world.
That rain had caused zombies to evolve into first-level infected. Nearly everything that came into contact with it—humans, animals, plants—had turned into zombies.
If the water in that vat really was stored rainwater… then what would happen if someone drank it? The effect might be no less than being bitten by a zombie.
“From what the village chief and Yan Jie said, people drink from that vat regularly, so they should have noticed if something was wrong. That means they’re doing it on purpose.”
Thankfully, they hadn’t drunk that water out of politeness. Thinking back on it now was genuinely chilling. Indeed, one cannot judge a book by its cover.
“You’re not completely stupid,” Xi Zhou said as he put the cups away into his spatial ability storage. He walked toward the door. “But just rainwater isn’t enough to interest me. There should be something else inside.”
It was time to investigate.
He placed his hand on the doorknob and released flames. The high temperature melted the lock silently, the molten metal dripping down without making a sound—let alone alerting anyone downstairs.
The second-floor corridor wasn’t fully enclosed, and the house faced the street. He simply leapt lightly from the second floor down to the road outside.
Li Ge peeked out. He turned back at just the right moment, looking smug.
The ground floor was at least four meters high, and the road was hard asphalt.
Li Ge took a deep breath and tried to land as quietly as possible, but the impact still numbed her legs.
“Hurry up. You were too loud—they might hear you.”
Xi Zhou glanced at her with mild disdain, hands in his pockets, looking completely relaxed.
“Heh.” Li Ge sneered. “Maybe the people inside never planned to come out anyway.”
To be honest, she had no ability. Even though she tried to minimize the sound, the height made it impossible to land completely silently—but there was no movement at all from the courtyard.
“Earlier I said something wrong. Your face is actually quite useful,” she said, rubbing her legs as she stood up and followed him.
If they were deliberately monitoring them, Yan Jie couldn’t have fallen asleep so quickly. As for whether her landing noise had been detected—that remained uncertain.
Inside the bedroom, the just-extinguished candle still emitted a thin wisp of white smoke. The woman on the bed tightly held her child, tears soaking into the pillow.
The night in this village was deathly silent—no barking dogs, no birdsong, no insects chirping. The only thing present was the high-hanging moon, casting a cold light over the ground.
Yet in such an outwardly peaceful village, it was precisely this silence that made people uneasy. It was too quiet.
They didn’t move very fast along the road. Li Ge deliberately paid attention to the courtyards where villagers had come out earlier in the evening, but found nothing.
As they approached the last street where the village chief’s house was located, Li Ge suddenly felt a wave of weakness in her limbs, followed by bursts of dizziness in her mind.
Chaotic footsteps sounded around them, but her strength seemed to be drained in an instant. She pressed her hand to her forehead and crouched down weakly on the ground.
Beside her, Xi Zhou didn’t look much better—he could barely stand, his body swaying unsteadily.
Recalling everything that had happened that day, she had already been extremely careful. So why was she still caught?
“Was there something wrong with the meal tonight?”
Xi Zhou nodded. “Seems like it.”
Apart from the meal Aunt Yan had prepared, they hadn’t eaten anything else in the village. But even during that meal, Li Ge had been paying attention the whole time, so there shouldn’t have been any chance to tamper with it.
Besides, could an ordinary villager really get hold of something powerful enough to make someone completely weak?
But clearly, this was not the time to figure out the cause.
Seven or eight burly men were already surrounding them from both front and back.
The previously simple and honest villagers now looked extremely dangerous. Their fierce expressions were fully exposed, and among them were Qin Yi and Qin Bo, the two who had shared a meal with them before.