"We can't be sure of her motive yet..."
Bai Xiaoxiao stole a glance at Ning Qiushui.
His head was lowered, and he said nothing, as if something weighed on his mind.
"In any case, gathering the clues still comes down to us."
"We have plenty of time for now, so let's cover the farthest spot first—that way the pressure eases off in the days ahead."
Following the trail markers through the dense forest, the three of them arrived at the Never-Dry Well.
The well opened amid lush green bamboo, its mouth crawling with moss, the ground around it a tangle of weeds. Apart from a wooden sign planted beside it, there was nothing else there at all.
By the look of it, no one had come this way in a very long time.
The sign's inscription told the long history of the well—and did not fail to retell, in brief strokes, what had happened in the year of the great drought.
The story of Ruan Kaihuang and Guang Xiu.
"These villagers do remember their debts of gratitude..."
Liu Chengfeng said approvingly. He wandered to the well's edge and peered down at the water.
Ning Qiushui and Bai Xiaoxiao stood before the wooden sign, one on each side, studying it for a long while.
"Any thoughts?"
Bai Xiaoxiao asked.
She found this newcomer Ning Qiushui genuinely interesting.
His psychological fortitude... would rank among the very best even among veterans four or five Blood Doors deep.
"I have one very ugly hunch..."
Ning Qiushui's tone was grave.
"Do you remember, the first time we saw Hou Kong, he told us that if we ran into anything strange, we could go to the village's Spirit Medium Ruan?"
Bai Xiaoxiao looked thoughtful:
"You mean... Ruan?"
Ning Qiushui nodded.
"Yes. Same surname. This Spirit Medium Ruan is very likely a descendant of Ruan Kaihuang."
"And whatever happened in this village back then absolutely cannot be as simple as the records claim. These villagers are hiding a crucial... truth."
"Remember the hint the Blood Door gave us? The kind bled themselves dry, and became the sweet rain... Suppose—just suppose—that Guang Xiu, the man they hacked to pieces, was actually a good man?"
He was about to go on when, out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of Liu Chengfeng—and his face changed abruptly. He lunged for the well and seized Liu Chengfeng, who was on the very verge of jumping in, hauling him backward!
"Liu Chengfeng, have you lost your mind?!"
Ning Qiushui shouted.
But Liu Chengfeng seemed not to hear at all. His eyes were glazed, his hands locked in a death grip on the well's rim. Squeezing himself toward the opening, he kept murmuring, over and over:
"So thirsty... I'm so thirsty..."
"Let me drink... just one mouthful... just one..."
Ning Qiushui was no weakling—years of brutal training had given him a frankly monstrous physique. Yet even so, all he could do was slow Liu Chengfeng's slide into the well. He couldn't stop him!
As Liu Chengfeng's upper body tipped toward the mouth of the Never-Dry Well, Bai Xiaoxiao's voice came from behind:
"Qiushui, hold on a little longer!"
"Right!"
Ning Qiushui clamped his jaw shut and used his own body as a living rope, hauling against Liu Chengfeng's frenzied crawl toward the well!
And still it made no difference!
Ning Qiushui could feel that if this went on, he would be dragged into the well as well!
Had it been anyone else, Ning Qiushui would have let go long ago.
But in the last Blood Door, when the red-clothed ghost had seized him in the third-floor corridor, Liu Chengfeng had risked his life to come out and save him!
So Ning Qiushui did not let go.
His teeth ground near to cracking, his refined face flushed dark red, every muscle in his body strained to its absolute limit!
Just as Liu Chengfeng was about to plunge into the well, Bai Xiaoxiao finally dug out an ancient, bloodstained bronze mirror. She darted forward and turned the mirror to face down into the old well!
"AAAAAA—"
A horrific, blood-curdling wail rose from the pitch-black bottom of the well—and at the same moment, Liu Chengfeng himself screamed:
"Holy shit!"
"Bro! Bro, pull me up, pull me up!!"
With the mysterious force gone, Ning Qiushui's terrifying strength finally told: he all but flung the hundred-and-sixty-jin Liu Chengfeng bodily away from the well, arms locked around his waist!
Liu Chengfeng rolled over the ground several times and lay in a drift of fallen leaves, panting hard, his face bloodless!
Seeing him free of the well's grip, Bai Xiaoxiao withdrew the bronze mirror.
As she put it away, Ning Qiushui's sharp eyes caught several new cracks spreading across the already battered mirror.
"I'm sorry..."
He said.
Bai Xiaoxiao waved it off:
"That's just how it is inside a Blood Door... one slip of attention and you're caught. That's why, the deeper the doors go, the more people prefer to move in twos and threes—so someone's there to pull you back in time."
As she said it, her eyes dimmed faintly.
Only for an instant, and then it was hidden away.
But Ning Qiushui saw it.
He knew Bai Xiaoxiao must be thinking of her closest friend—the one who had followed her love into death.
In this fog world, to become sworn sisters or brothers surely meant a friendship of life and death.
For such a companion to suddenly be gone—the blow to the one left behind had to be immense.
But Ning Qiushui said nothing of it, only looked at Liu Chengfeng lying on the ground nearby. He seemed to have come back to himself, though his face was ashen and his eyes swam with fear.
"Big Beard—what on earth happened to you just now?"
Liu Chengfeng slowly turned his head, his face slick with cold sweat.
"I... I only looked down into it once. It was dead water down there, nothing at all. But then... faces started surfacing in the water. Dead people's faces, one after another!"
"I tried to run, but my body just wouldn't move!"
"Then they climbed up from the bottom, grabbed my hands, and started dragging me in!"
A cold wind rustled through the bamboo grove, and ice slid down three spines.
"But..."
Liu Chengfeng's expression shifted slightly.
"Near the end, it was like something burned them. As they let go, I saw one of the dead hands was holding something—something glowing—so I just... grabbed it on the way out..."
The other two's eyes lit:
"What is it?"
Liu Chengfeng opened his hand. In his palm lay a battered wooden token strung on red cord. He wiped the foul grime off it carelessly with his shirt—revealing a single large character: Ruan!
"Ruan?"
"What is this thing?"
"And here I thought it'd be something important..."
Liu Chengfeng eyed it with disgust.
But Bai Xiaoxiao beside him smiled:
"Oh, it's important all right..."
"Getting this thing has just confirmed one of the guesses we made earlier."
Liu Chengfeng blinked at her, lost:
"What guess?"
Neither of them answered him.
"It seems this Spirit Medium Ruan really is a serious problem..."
Ning Qiushui was saying it when his peripheral vision swept the depths of the bamboo grove—and his face changed. He dropped his voice:
"Quick!"
"Someone's coming. Hide!"