The rhythmic scraping of potato peeling echoed continuously in the chilly, damp root cellar.
Grayish-brown potatoes tumbled in the women’s chapped hands as mud mixed with ice chips slid from beneath their blades. Shen Taotao dug out the green sprouts from the potato eyes, the icy water stinging her fingers like needle pricks. She shook her hands vigorously before the pain subsided slightly.
“Amitabha…” Lu Furen beside her tossed a peeled potato into the basin, her eyes fixed on Shen Taotao’s frost-reddened face. “If not for Shen Girl knowing we could still eat these by removing the sprouts, we’d all have become starving ghosts beneath Ningguta.”
She suddenly grasped Shen Taotao’s hands, her voice choked with emotion. “Rotten cabbage turned to pickled vegetables, poisonous potatoes becoming life-saving food… Shen Girl must be a reincarnated Bodhisattva sent to save us from this frozen hell.”
Those around nodded in agreement: “Indeed, ever since Shen Girl arrived, we’ve had a well to use instead of breaking ice in frozen holes.”
“Right, we even get to eat meat now. It’s been years since I last tasted any.”
“Absolutely, and now with the canteen being built, we get warm porridge every day. It’s like living in paradise.”
Shen Taotao’s hands grew numb from Lu Furen’s tight grip as she forced a smile. “It’s all just coincidence…”
“Coincidence?” Lu Furen’s throat seemed clogged with mud, her voice heavy enough to chill the heart. The snowlight filtering through the cellar entrance illuminated the deep grooves on her face, each wrinkle carved by the frozen soil’s cruelty. “Shen Girl has never seen true hunger hell.”
Her voice suddenly sharpened, and the potato scraping sounds ceased instantly.
Dozens of eyes fixed on her trembling, withered lips.
“I heard from elders about the great snow thirty years ago at Ningguta… The sky seemed torn open, burying grain routes for half a year.” Her finger pointed toward the pitch-black mountains outside the cellar, as if trying to pierce through time’s festering wounds.
“Even the rats went extinct after all stored grain was consumed. In the garrison, someone smothered his paralyzed old mother.” Her teeth chattered. “On the day they cut the meat, his wife crouched in the corner clutching half a frozen human leg, her eyes staring vacantly, while his mother’s skull boiled in the pot…”
“Guh—” A young woman in the corner suddenly twisted away retching.
Lu Furen’s eyes held no tears, only fear frozen solid. “When people starve mad, they even crush bones to render oil! When court officials broke into the relay station that spring, not a single intact corpse could be found—the bone fragments piled in corners had been ground to powder.”
She suddenly clutched her chest, as if fearing someone might tear out her heart. “Without Shen Girl… next spring our broken teeth and rotten fingers would surely be among those bone piles.”
Clang. Shen Taotao’s potato fell into the basin. Icy water splashed onto her cotton trousers, but the chill surged from her spine to the crown of her head.
Rotten cabbage, poisonous potatoes… not accidents.
Someone was using the same heavy snows of thirty years ago to push Ningguta back into the blood-soaked pit of cannibalism.
Deep in the dark prison, an oil lamp cast Xie Yunjing’s shadow on the water-streaked floor.
The dull thuds of whip meeting flesh had ceased, leaving only Zhao Laosi’s hoarse wails echoing in the confined space. “…The Imperial Concubine did order the starvation of Ningguta…”
He collapsed in bloody water, tears and mucus streaming down his face. “But I didn’t dare, I truly didn’t act! Who doesn’t have family? If we go too far, we’ll end up as rendered grease ourselves.”
“Someone dares.” Shen Taotao burst in, her voice colder than the frost on the prison walls. “And that person intends to kill everyone.”
Shen Taotao briefly recounted the events of the great snow thirty years ago and today’s incident to Xie Yunjing.
Xie Yunjing looked at Shen Taotao with admiration in his eyes. “How can we catch this person?”
“Lure the snake out of its hole.” Shen Taotao’s lips tightened, her fingertips pinching a half-blackened frozen potato sprout. “Have the guards hunt two wild boars and announce that we’ll be stewing pork for everyone tomorrow.”
The fear in her eyes receded, replaced entirely by the excitement of hunting prey.
The midnight wind howled like ghostly wails.
Outside the western wall of the relay station, three wooden stakes were erected. Two skinned wild boars hung upside down, their blood dripping steadily to fill an earthen basin on the ground.
The pungent scent of blood was swept by the northern wind, violently pouring into the cluster of hovels where the exiled convicts resided.
A sliver of faint light leaked through the cracks in the kitchen window, just enough to illuminate the snowy ground outside where the boars hung.
Shen Taotao crouched behind the haystack in the relay station’s kitchen, half-embraced by Xie Yunjing, her eyelids heavy with exhaustion.
Beside her, Xie Yunjing sat with closed eyes, regulating his breathing. His scorching body heat penetrated through the wolf-fur coat, burning uncomfortably in the cold night.
An extremely faint crunching sound suddenly came from beneath the snow layer.
Xie Yunjing’s hand instantly clamped around Shen Taotao’s waist like an iron vise.
In the darkness, his eyes snapped open, sharp as an eagle locking onto its prey’s throat.
A hunched black figure emerged from the cluster of hovels like a ghost.
The person held a porcelain vial in their arms, moving with quick, light steps that left barely visible traces in the snow.
The shadow went straight to the hanging boars, ignoring the bloody meat, and instead bent down to pour the contents of the vial into the basin filled with boar blood.
“Poisoning the boar blood to ensure everyone gets a share – what a meticulous old devil,” Xie Yunjing’s icy breath sprayed against Shen Taotao’s face from between his teeth.
Before his words faded, the shadow suddenly looked up, its turbid old eyes shooting straight toward the kitchen window crack.
At the same time, Shen Taotao clearly saw her face.
It was Granny Wang.
The old woman who worked in the kitchen all day, smiling obsequiously at everyone.
Now not a trace of timidity remained on her face. Her deeply wrinkled face contorted like a mountain demon in the snowy night, her withered claw suddenly raising the porcelain vial.
“Stop her! She’s going to take the poison!” Shen Taotao shouted.
“Whoosh—” A fierce gust of wind suddenly blasted against their faces as a lightning-fast figure shot out from the snow—it was Xie Er, who had been lying in ambush there earlier. His blade flashed as he swung upward toward Granny Wang’s arm.
“Thwack!” The sound of flesh being sliced open echoed.
Granny Wang’s withered arm was sent flying into the air like a torn straw bag, splashing crimson blood across the snow in a steaming waterfall ten feet long.
The arm still wore a gilded bracelet bearing the distinct Cloud Crane Palace insignia—the emblem reserved only for those serving in Consort Yun’s palace.
“Thud” The mangled arm fell, shattering the porcelain vial still clutched in Granny Wang’s grip.
Blue-glowing powder scattered across the warm pool of blood, emitting a terrifying sizzling sound.
Shen Taotao’s legs went weak, the metallic scent of blood rushing up her throat.
Xie Yunjing’s hand remained locked around her waist, his burning breath spraying against her sweat-drenched forehead. “So it was a matron from the Imperial Concubine’s palace.”
The mournful bone-chilling wails from thirty years ago still seemed to echo in the wind and snow.
And this new battle on the path of hungry ghosts had just bared its first bloodthirsty fangs.
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