Dark clouds hung heavy in the sky, and the damp, cold smell of earth filled the air.
Muffled thunder rumbled in the distance. A downpour threatened to break at any moment.
Chen Yue carried a chicken coop, trudging through the muddy path. Cold sweat mixed with the damp air and trickled down his temples. The sweat-soaked shirt clung uncomfortably to his back.
He had been an ordinary person in the modern world. One night, he had closed his eyes to sleep, and when he opened them again, he had been transmigrated into this strange world, one that closely resembled ancient Huaxia. He was now an apprentice at an apothecary in the county seat.
They called him an apprentice, but in reality, he was treated worse than a servant. His days were filled with menial labor like chopping wood, fetching water, and running errands. He hadn’t learned a single thing about pharmacology or any real Medical Skill.
A few days ago, he had accidentally offended the apothecary’s steward and was now being assigned such grueling tasks at will.
He’d been sent to the desolate countryside to procure roosters, under the guise that "the medicine requires fresh, free-range chickens." But Chen Yue knew it was just a deliberate attempt to make his life difficult.
’Why run all this way when you can buy roosters anywhere in town?’ Chen Yue had considered just buying them locally, but he remembered the look in the steward’s eyes. It was as if the man was just waiting for him to try something like that.
It was a round trip of dozens of miles on a dirt road, and to make matters worse, he was caught in this god-awful weather.
The rooster, startled by the gale, grew restless and struggled in its coop from time to time. Chen Yue’s wrist ached from carrying it. He looked up and saw the dilapidated eaves of a temple peeking through the woods not far off. He knew that if he delayed any longer, he’d likely be soaked by the storm and fall gravely ill.
’If I really get sick, with my status as an apprentice, whether I pull through or not will be up to fate.’
With that thought, Chen Yue grabbed the coop and dashed into the long-abandoned, dilapidated temple.
The temple doors had long since rotted, hanging half-open to reveal a pitch-black interior. A statue of a deity stood with a broken head and severed arms, covered in thick dust and cobwebs. A pile of dry kindling was stacked in a corner, and the floor was littered with rubble and broken tiles. The place exuded a cold, deathly stillness, a sign of long abandonment.
Chen Yue pushed the twisted temple door mostly shut, set the chicken coop in a corner, and gathered some dry kindling. Using the flint and steel he carried, he painstakingly lit a small bonfire.
Orange-red flames leaped up, dispelling some of the damp chill from his body and tearing a small gash in the temple’s gloom.
The flickering firelight cast the broken statue’s shadow onto the earthen wall. The shadow danced, one moment monstrously contorted, the next eerily still. It was enough to make one’s skin crawl.
Chen Yue huddled closer to the fire to dry his damp clothes. He pulled a piece of hard, dry tack from his robes and began to gnaw on it, taking small sips of cold water from the flask at his waist.
The wind grew more frantic, battering the rotten temple door and causing it to whine. The thunder drew closer, shaking dust from the ceiling with each rumble.
Just as Chen Yue swallowed his last bite of food, a blinding flash of white light tore across the sky. It was immediately followed by a deafening clap of thunder that exploded overhead, making his eardrums ache. The next second, a torrential downpour began to crash down.
KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK!
Before the echo of the thunder had faded, a knock suddenly sounded at the temple door.
The sound wasn’t loud, but in the dead silence of the abandoned temple, it was jarring. Every muscle in Chen Yue’s body tensed. He instinctively reached for the wood-chopping hatchet beside him.
Chen Yue didn’t answer. The person outside, however, had no patience. The rotten door was slowly pushed open, and rain poured in through the crack, carrying a bone-chilling cold.
The visitor wore a straw raincoat and a conical bamboo hat, and a woven bamboo basket was slung over his back. He looked like an herb gatherer. When he saw Chen Yue and the fire, a look of delight appeared on his face beneath the hat.
"Young man, the rain is coming down hard. It’s a relief to see a fire. Might I trouble you to share it for a bit?"
The herb gatherer’s voice was hoarse. As he spoke, he took off his hat, revealing the face of a middle-aged man. His complexion was dark, and deep wrinkles creased the corners of his eyes.
He set down his basket, which was filled with common herbs.
No sooner had he finished speaking than the rooster in the corner, which seemed to have been thoroughly terrified by the thunder, went from occasional flutters to a frantic struggle, throwing itself desperately against the bars of the coop.
Chen Yue quickly sized up the herb gatherer. The man’s expression seemed simple and honest.
After a moment’s silence, Chen Yue slowly nodded. He stepped forward and pushed the door completely shut. But just before it closed, he glanced outside.
The rain was a torrential sheet, blurring the world into a white haze. There was nothing to see but the raging storm. On the ground, there were no footprints other than his own.
After thanking Chen Yue, the herb gatherer sat on the other side of the fire, holding his ice-cold hands out to the flames and warming them in silence.
The only sounds in the temple were the wind and rain, the crackle of the burning wood, and the desperate thrashing of the rooster. The atmosphere was suffocating.
"Are you from around here, young man?" the herb gatherer asked, rubbing his hands together.
"Just passing through," Chen Yue answered curtly.
"I was in the mountains gathering herbs. Didn’t expect this downpour. Lucky for me this temple was here."
The herb gatherer pulled a food pouch from his robes and took out a flatbread to eat. "It’s going to be a long night. How about I tell a story to pass the time?"
The herb gatherer looked up at Chen Yue, a faint smile playing on his lips. The firelight flickered across his face, a mix of light and shadow that obscured the look in his eyes.
Chen Yue picked the last crumbs of his meal from his palm and ate them. He looked up at the herb gatherer, and the tense line of his mouth suddenly curved into a slight smile. "No rush. Before I hear your story, I have a better one. Care to listen?"
A flash of surprise crossed the herb gatherer’s eyes, quickly replaced by keen interest. He leaned forward slightly. "Oh? And what wonderful story might that be, young man? Please, do tell."
"I’m an apprentice at the apothecary in town. I watch the physician see patients every day, and I’ve seen all sorts of people seeking treatment."
Chen Yue’s hand, still holding the hatchet, twitched slightly. His tone was level. "We often get patients who are afraid of acupuncture. They squirm and won’t stay still. It’s always a real headache. Do you know how to solve that?"
The herb gatherer’s brow furrowed in curiosity. He instinctively asked, "I can’t say that I do. Please, enlighten me, young man."
"It’s simple!"
Before the words were out of his mouth, Chen Yue’s wrist snapped. The hatchet in his hand flashed in the firelight, a streak of cold steel. There wasn’t even time for a gasp inside the temple, only the whisper of the blade slicing through the air.
The herb gatherer’s body froze. The curiosity hadn’t faded from his face; the smile was fixed on his lips. A fissure slowly bloomed across his neck. The next moment, his head tumbled to the ground and rolled to the edge of the bonfire, the crimson flames illuminating his face, still etched with astonishment.
Wind and rain gusted through the cracks in the temple walls, causing the bonfire to flare violently before dying down. Dead silence returned to the temple, broken only by the ceaseless storm outside and the increasingly faint struggles of the rooster in the corner.
No blood.
Not a single drop!
’No footprints outside on a rainy day. No mud on his shoes. It really is one of those damned things!’
Chen Yue gripped his hatchet, his eyes fixed on the corpse. The severed head lay face down, motionless. The headless body was slumped beside the fire. Its fingers twitched twice, then went still.
The temple fell silent again, save for the crackling fire and the anxious clucking of the rooster.
Chen Yue took a deep breath. Back at the apothecary, he’d often heard the other apprentices chatting about how those who walk the roads at night often run into... unclean things. Chen Yue had always dismissed them as ghost stories, like the ones from his past life, and paid them no mind.
After all, he’d heard far stranger ghost stories in his previous life.
What was real, however, were the gravity-defying Martial Artists of this world. Chen Yue had seen them with his own eyes. Even the apothecary occasionally treated injured gang members who’d been in street brawls.
The previous owner of his body had tried to practice martial arts, but had made no progress. Chen Yue even suspected that his predecessor had trained too hard, done something wrong, and ended up killing himself.
After arriving in this world, Chen Yue had also tried to practice. It was an obvious way to change his fate, after all. But after a while, he gave up the idea completely.
It wasn’t a matter of effort. There were simply no results, just full-body aches. Chen Yue worried that if he kept at it, he’d suffer the same fate as the body’s original owner.
Suddenly, the head moved.
It flipped over to face him. Its eyes snapped open, staring directly at Chen Yue.
"You’ve got a lot of nerve!"
The head spoke. The voice was identical to the herb gatherer’s, but in the silent temple, it was utterly horrifying. "How did you know? Weren’t you afraid of killing an innocent man?"
Chen Yue didn’t say a word. He just undid his belt. The previous owner of this body had been a virgin. Chen Yue had heard people say that when you encounter these sorts of ghastly things, Child’s Urine is effective.
"You—!" The head’s expression changed drastically. It tried to say something, but it was already being drenched in Child’s Urine.
The urine splashed onto the head and the headless torso, which immediately began to SIZZLE as white smoke rose from them. The herb gatherer let out a bloodcurdling shriek. The sound was inhuman—sharp and piercing, echoing through the temple.
Chen Yue ignored the screams, thoroughly soaking the herb gatherer’s head and torso.
The white smoke grew thicker. The head and torso began to twist and deform, their surfaces charring and blackening.
"Stop! Stop! I’m a victim too! I was gathering herbs in the mountains and ran into..." the herb gatherer screamed, but Chen Yue didn’t hesitate for a second.
The herb gatherer, furious, shrieked, "If you kill me, you won’t live either! You’ll die a death far worse than mine! Stop now, and you still have a chance!"
Chen Yue ignored him. After squeezing out the last drop, he rushed to the coop, grabbed a rooster, and swung his hatchet. The rooster’s head fell to the ground, and blood sprayed from its neck!
’Good thing I bought roosters today.’ He’d heard that these ghoulish things were also afraid of rooster blood. Chen Yue didn’t know if it was true, but since he had it on hand, he had to try.
He poured the hot chicken blood over the herb gatherer’s head and torso. The SIZZLING intensified, and white smoke filled the entire temple.
Chen Yue’s eyes lit up. ’It’s working!’
The herb gatherer’s screams reached a crescendo, then rapidly weakened, finally fading into a whimper before falling silent.
Chen Yue didn’t dare to linger. He drained the rest of the rooster’s blood onto the charred, twisted mass, then grabbed the coop, threw open the door, and plunged into the downpour.
If he could have, Chen Yue would have killed the other two roosters as well. But if he returned to the apothecary with no chickens, he would never be able to explain it.
As for telling the apothecary he’d run into a monster... Chen Yue suspected his fate wouldn’t be much better if they heard that story.