The moment he ripped open the yellow talisman, the barrier around the village chief’s house vanished. Dingxiang slapped half the house down with a single strike, her sharp claws reaching straight into the kitchen to take their lives.
As if he had eyes in the back of his head, Ye Zhou flew forward and tackled Lin Chubai to the ground, while instinctively shoving the frozen Song Siyun toward the kitchen cabinet with a loud bang.
However, Ye Zhou’s own luck wasn’t quite as good. Those sharp claws were a bit too long after all, cruelly carving a fresh tattoo onto his back as raw flesh tore through the skin.
Hearing the old woman’s voice, Dingxiang’s blood-soaked hands froze mid-air. Her hollow eyes stared straight at the old woman, as if trying to process what she was saying, but she remained completely still.
“Elder sister, they are good people.” Tears continuously welled up and spilled from the old woman’s eyes, her shoulders trembling uncontrollably as she sobbed, unable to finish her words.
Lin Chubai forcefully swallowed a mouthful of blood threatening to spill from his throat, pulled Ye Zhou aside, and propped himself up by pushing against the ground. He then turned to the crying old woman next door and said, word by word, with absolute seriousness: “Ding Lan, do you want to give your elder sister release?”
Hearing Lin Chubai call her by her real name, the old woman paused in a daze, while the words about granting her sister release echoed in her ears once more.
She nodded almost imperceptibly. Lin Chubai dug his five fingers deep into the stone slab door and pulled with force. A sliver of blood-red light pierced into the pitch-dark basement, as if portending that the person inside was about to pay with their life.
Vines whipped out accordingly. Within half a second, a malnourished, disheveled middle-aged man was dragged out, his limbs struggling unceasingly.
As the vines loosened, the middle-aged man collapsed weakly to his knees, his body trembling uncontrollably, finally too terrified to kick and thrash around anymore. Lin Chubai cast a cold glance down, his lips parting and closing as he slowly spat out two names: “Li Ba.”
Hearing himself called, Li Ba trembled even more violently, a large yellow stain spreading across the front of his tattered pants.
The shock had not yet faded from Song Siyun’s face when Dingxiang, moving with incredible speed, fired a nail from out of nowhere straight into Li Ba’s glabella, pinning him flat onto the ground on his back.
A Soul-Locking Nail. Never reincarnated for all eternity, denied even the path of beasts.
Heartrending wails echoed through the air, part relief, part resentment. Blood rain beat against her face, as if attempting to wash away tears that should never have been shed for him.
Li Ba, who was not yet fully dead, had his limbs twisted at bizarre angles, instantly letting out a horrific, earth-shattering scream.
Yet perhaps the sinner’s shrieks sounded too grating; shortly after, he choked on the black blood gushing from his mouth, reducing the noise to a bubbling gurgle.
His skin peeled away from his flesh and bones like a discarded garment, floating up into the air to be crafted into a filthy human-skin drum.
Tooth by tooth, his teeth were pulled out along with the gums by a mysterious force, fusing together to form maracas.
The rib closest to his heart pierced outward through the skinless flesh, transforming into a flute in the blink of an eye.
With that, Li Ba was thoroughly dead.
Slender, well-articulated fingers danced across the flute, and a lingering, distant melody wound its way into everyone’s ears.
Song Siyun gently shook the maracas in his hands, as if summoning stray souls back to peace, while the sound of leg bones tapping against human skin joined in right on cue. The ensemble played together, sounding unexpectedly pleasant.
The rising requiem pierced through the bloody sky. The torrential downpour seemed as though it had been hit with a pause button, and wisps of morning sunrise once again spilled over the mortal world.
The crying gradually subsided. The dozen-meter-tall blood giant shrank along with the fading music. A young woman of about twenty-one or twenty-two slowly touched down, standing with her hands hanging loosely amidst the bloody filth, yet her gaze had never held such profound release.
As the song ended, the surrounding crimson had already faded away. A gentle breeze blew past, carrying away the musical instruments from the three people’s hands.
“Elder sister!” The old woman beside them ran with all her might toward the sister she hadn’t seen in thirty years. With every step she took, she grew a few years younger as if shedding her mortal coil. By the time the two embraced, she had transformed back into a girl of sixteen or seventeen.
Lin Chubai turned around, no longer disturbing the sisters’ reunion, and walked over to where Ye Zhou had just sat down.
The wound on Ye Zhou’s back refused to stop bleeding, staining a large portion of his clothes red. Looking closer, he was shivering slightly, supporting himself with his hands as he sat down, and a muffled groan of suppressed pain could faintly be heard.
Lin Chubai raised his hand, wanting to touch the new tattoo on Ye Zhou’s back, but fearing he might cause him pain, he stopped halfway. Awkwardly, he forced out: “Thank you.”
Ever since his father died, the only person who might treat him like this was probably that punk Song Siyun. Yet Ye Zhou, someone he had only known for a few days, had saved him over and over again, making him utterly inscrutable.
Hearing Lin Chubai’s awkward voice, the protective talisman floating in front of Ye Zhou’s chest drifted back into his mind once more, stirring up a vortex of complicated emotions within him.
Clearly, you were the one who saved me first.
“Are you two flirting?” Holding a bundle of medicinal herbs, he had dug up from goodness knows where, Song Siyun cast a suspicious sideways glance at them.
“Get lost. Can you lend me 5 points?” Lin Chubai didn’t look at him, keeping his eyes fixed on Ye Zhou’s new tattoo.
“Can’t he buy it himself?!” Song Siyun’s eyes widened sharply. Staring in shock at Lin Chubai, whose mouth was talking normally, yet whose words were freezing-cold requests for a loan, he couldn’t help but bristle.
“Wait, how many points do you guys have?” Ye Zhou suddenly chimed in.
“20. Wait, you can’t buy it yourself?” Song Siyun had just opened the store interface when he heard this inexplicable question.
Ye Zhou thought to himself that the 2.5 points in his hand felt like they were cursing him out.
Seeing Ye Zhou fall silent, his complexion shifting like a painter’s palette, Song Siyun couldn’t help letting out a laugh to the heavens: “Don’t tell me you don’t even have twenty?! Looks like you really did something shady, hahahahaha.”
Lin Chubai looked searchingly at Ye Zhou, his voice returning to its usual flat, even tone: “How many do you have?”
“2.5.” Ye Zhou hadn’t wanted to bring it up, but since someone asked, there was no harm in saying it.
Hearing such a delightfully ironic number, the corners of Lin Chubai’s mouth twitched, and his shoulders shook slightly with suppressed amusement.
Attracted by their commotion, Dingxiang lifted her gaze, raised her hand to hold Ding Lan’s, and walked toward them, waving her remaining hand in a casual gesture along with the breeze.
The tattoo on Ye Zhou’s back stopped bleeding at a speed visible to the naked eye, scabbing over and healing completely, leaving not even a scar behind.
Feeling a warm current sweep across his back and the stinging pain vanish quietly, Ye Zhou raised a hand to touch the spot. It was smooth and delicate. He slowly stood up, cast a deep look at Lin Chubai, whose smile hadn’t fully faded yet, and then turned his head to look at Dingxiang: “Do you miss him?”
Dingxiang paused for a moment, her gaze lifting to stare at the blinding sun on the horizon, her thoughts drifting far away.
Come to think of it, they hadn’t seen each other in thirty years, had they?
Seeing Dingxiang’s reaction, Ye Zhou knew what needed to be done. He stepped forward and walked in the direction of the ancestral hall.
Along the way, the bloody filth in the farmland on both sides had long since faded away, leaving behind dried-up, barren earth where various crops drooped listlessly.
The countless corpses by the roadside were nowhere to be found, and even the pools of blood left behind had vanished with them.
In front of the ancestral hall, only scattered cold weapons remained littered across the ground, devoid of any human presence.
The heavy doors were pushed open from the outside, and the air returned to silence. Lin Chubai withdrew the gaze he had been lingering on Ye Zhou.
The perpetual lamps that always stayed lit inside the ancestral hall had all blown out, casting a somewhat heavy atmosphere over the room.
Low, soft whimpers drifted over. The runes on the black coffin quietly vanished. Dingxiang stepped forward, every single step pulling at her as if her legs were filled with lead.
The sealed coffin lid was pushed open. Lying quietly inside was a young man who looked to be about twenty-three or twenty-four. Thanks to some unknown spell cast upon him, the youth had not decayed, retaining his appearance from when he was alive.
The wounds, large and small, covering his body stung the eyes painfully. Even with makeup applied and broken bones mended, it could never conceal the cruelty of the sins he had suffered.