Xie Fan froze for a moment, then suddenly realized: in this village, acting too normal was the most abnormal thing of all!
There had been something wrong with his reaction to the sheep dying just now. He had acted far too much like a normal person.
Even his fingers had gone numb. Just as Xie Fan was wondering how he should explain himself, he saw Xiao Yao, who had leaned closer, suddenly stare unblinkingly at something behind him again.
Behind him... his hair?
Xie Fan hadn't quite reacted when Xiao Yao returned to her usual cheerful, smiling self.
“Brother A-Xie's hair ribbon is really pretty.”
“All right, I was just teasing Brother A-Xie.”
Xiao Yao thoughtfully withdrew her gaze from the silver ribbon in Xie Fan's hair and patted the dirt off her clothes.
“Anyway, Brother A-Xie, I'm going home to wash clothes. Do you want to come with me?”
“No.”
Xie Fan tried his best to make his expression look natural. Although he had no idea why Xiao Yao had suddenly changed what she was saying, after the scare just now, he absolutely did not want to go into the home of any villager in this village!
His fingers twitched slightly. Seeing that Xiao Yao was about to leave, he finally breathed a sigh of relief inwardly.
But the very next second, the little girl who had walked ahead beneath the old locust tree suddenly turned around again.
“Oh, right, Brother A-Xie. The weather hasn't been good these past two days, so stay farther away from those outsiders who came into the village.”
Xie Fan had absolutely no idea what bad weather had to do with staying away from those outsiders.
But since Xiao Yao had said so, to avoid making her suspicious, he could only nod and respond.
“Got it.”
Only then did Xiao Yao wave at him.
The instant that dark-blue figure disappeared, Xie Fan felt as though his entire body was drenched in cold sweat, and even his fingers were icy. He closed his eyes for a moment. As sunlight fell over him, he moved his stiff calves a little and finally felt as if he had come back to life.
Holy shit, she'd scared him to death!
He'd almost been found out.
Still shaken, Xie Fan thought back over his conversation with Xiao Yao and realized that she seemed to have stopped questioning him only after seeing the ribbon in his hair?
His hair ribbon... was there something wrong with it?
After a brief moment of confusion, Xie Fan couldn't help reaching up and touching the ribbon. Then he came back to his senses and remembered the real issue. One of the sheep meant for the ritual was gone, but Xiao Yao didn't seem to have any intention of telling the village chief.
Or did he already know?
But if he knew, why was the village so quiet, without the slightest commotion even now? Under normal circumstances, shouldn't everyone have been summoned to a meeting long ago?
...
There was still no notice of a village meeting even by the afternoon.
The young masters staying at the inn really couldn't stomach any more bug rice that afternoon, so once the weather cleared, they left the village.
They followed a small path through the village and walked for quite a while toward the woods. He Cheng spun the dagger in his hand as he looked at the weeds around them. He had originally planned to pick some wild vegetables to eat, but now he had completely lost his appetite.
“Can you even eat this stuff?”
Clumps of filthy-looking weeds sprouted straight out of the dirt. They looked nothing like the wild vegetables he ate at home.
Tan Qingxian glanced at him. “Having something to eat at all is good enough.”
“But I didn't expect this place to actually have mustard greens.” When he'd heard the villagers say there were some around here, he'd assumed they meant some strange local vegetable. He hadn't expected them to be ordinary mustard greens commonly found outside.
After saying that, he lowered his head and started digging them up.
Shen Xun was also somewhat helpless in the face of He Cheng's pickiness. “If you don't eat this, the only other option is bug rice.”
“Let's just dig some up. Maybe it'll actually taste pretty good once we get back and try it.”
Just as he finished speaking, Shen Xun's voice paused slightly, and his brows furrowed almost imperceptibly.
For some reason, even though he'd clearly gotten used to eating the bug rice over the past two days, merely mentioning it now made him feel nauseated again. In fact, he felt even worse than he had while eating it that morning.
A wave of nausea surged up from deep inside him, and his expression changed slightly. But he didn't think much of it, assuming it was caused by his cold combined with psychological factors.
Coming back to himself, Shen Xun shook his head and suppressed the discomfort.
Wild mustard greens grew across the field in thick patches. After they pulled up a bunch, the basket they'd brought was already full. Shen Xun instinctively raised his head and looked around, only to find something strange.
“Where's Pei Jing?”
Hadn't he been right here just now? How had he disappeared the moment they turned around?
He Cheng was wiping his dagger. He looked around and realized that Pei Jing really was nowhere to be seen.
It was quite a while before they finally saw Pei Jing emerge from the woods beside the path with his sleeves rolled up.
“What were you doing?” He Cheng couldn't help asking.
“My stomach was bothering me.”
That single sentence immediately made He Cheng shut his mouth and look away. Tan Qingxian, however, glanced at Pei Jing, his gaze falling on his hand.
The other man was instinctively concealing the side of his hand... It looked like he'd been scratched?
There were already enough mustard greens in the basket. If they picked any more, they wouldn't be able to finish them anyway. Seeing that everyone was back, Shen Xun reached out and hefted the basket.
“This should be enough for this afternoon, right?”
“Pretty much. Let's hurry back and wash our hands.” After digging around for so long, He Cheng felt like his entire body reeked of vegetables. He didn't want to stay in this wild vegetable patch for even one more minute.
Shen Xun laughed and looked toward Tan Qingxian and Pei Jing.
Seeing that neither of them objected, he lowered his head and began tidying everything up.
The group carried the basket of vegetables back. Since none of them knew how to use the village's earthen stove, they simply paid one of the villagers to steam the vegetables for them.
The fresh wild vegetables mixed with wheat flour and steamed actually looked fairly decent. Even He Cheng was starting to look forward to them. But the instant he took a bite, his face turned green.
“What the hell is this taste? Why is it so bitter?” And there was a strange spiciness to it as well.
He Cheng put down his chopsticks and felt that this stuff was actually worse than the bugs. The bug rice might look disgusting, but at least it didn't taste particularly strange.
Tan Qingxian, who had originally been looking forward to a change of flavor, also had a strange expression after eating several bites and couldn't help looking toward the figure behind the woodshed.
He couldn't tell whether the villagers simply didn't know how to prepare wild vegetables or whether the mustard greens in this place were just bad, but they really were dry, bitter, and awful.
After spending the entire afternoon digging them up, the group was left rather speechless.
Shen Xun, on the other hand, actually thought they tasted... pretty good?
He couldn't taste any of the spiciness the others were talking about. To him, the wild vegetables tasted sweet, fresh, and crisp.
“They're not bad.”
After finishing one bowl, he stood up and couldn't help asking the kitchen for another, then calmly continued eating.
He Cheng stared at the childhood friend he'd grown up with and felt as though Shen Xun had mutated.
“You've never been a picky eater, but you weren't this indiscriminate before.”
“What part of this stuff tastes good?”
Thinking instinctively that perhaps something was wrong with his own sense of taste, He Cheng picked up his chopsticks and tried another bite. The next second, his face twisted and he put them down again.
Forget it. He still couldn't accept it.
Shen Xun ate five bowls in a row and still felt as though it wasn't enough. But vaguely, he felt that eating this much was too excessive, so the instant he stood up, he forcibly restrained himself.
“I thought you were about to go get even more vegetables. You scared the hell out of me.”
He Cheng couldn't help breathing a sigh of relief.
Shen Xun: ...
“Maybe I just couldn't help myself because I haven't eaten vegetables these past few days.”
He smiled faintly and instinctively put down his bowl. Only after the smell of greens disappeared from beneath his nose did he belatedly realize that his stomach was already so full it hurt. If he ate any more, he might actually throw up?
...
Perhaps because one dreams of what occupies one's thoughts during the day, Xie Fan had spent the entire day thinking about the “sheep,” and that night he actually dreamed about sheep.
After washing up that night and lying down on his bed, he'd originally intended to fall asleep as usual. But the moment he closed his eyes, his consciousness became hazy.
Wave after wave of drowsiness swept over him. Xie Fan didn't even have time to remove his hair ribbon before he felt himself sinking into a soft, muddy swamp, without even enough strength to open his eyes.
His muddled thoughts flickered and skipped intermittently. In a daze, Xie Fan felt as though he had arrived somewhere in the village?
As for how he'd gotten there, he had no idea.
Was this a dream?
The faint spark of lucidity vanished almost as soon as it appeared, and Xie Fan saw the house in front of him.
Deep in the night: every household in Xican Village had candles burning. Beside the pond on the northern side of the village stood a wooden house built right by the water.
He had no idea why he'd come here. He had only taken a few steps forward when a burst of barking suddenly rang out.
“Woof! Woof! Woof!”
The sudden, vicious barking startled him badly. Xie Fan quickly turned around with the candle in his hand and finally saw where the sound was coming from.
——A large black dog had been curled up inside a doghouse ahead of him. Hearing the noise, it stood up.
Fortunately, the dog was tied up. After hearing the sound, it merely barked twice out of instinct and didn't charge out of the doghouse.
But... a dog?
Xie Fan froze for a moment before suddenly realizing: this was the place where the village kept its livestock?!
His gaze instinctively shifted toward the courtyard, and he saw the pens enclosed by tall wooden fencing, exactly as Xiao Yao had described.
Why had he come here?
Xie Fan realized something was wrong, but he couldn't control himself within the dream.
After realizing that the black dog was merely putting on a show and couldn't actually get loose, he seemed to relax instead and walked into the wooden building before him.
Just one look.
He was only curious and wanted to take one look.
Xie Fan reassured himself: this wooden building was where the five sacrificial animals were kept. Normally, no villagers lived here at all. Nothing could possibly happen.
Above his head, honey-yellow pupils silently watched him, yet he remained completely unaware.
As he cautiously pushed open the door, his mind remained hazy and confused.
The sheep Xiao Yao had mentioned during the day flashed through his mind again. Xie Fan remembered the way it had lain stiffly inside the pen, its eyes rolled white, and nausea churned in his stomach.
Instinctively, he raised the candle toward the pens in the courtyard.
He had only glanced over casually, but in the next second, Xie Fan was shocked to discover that there seemed to be a... person inside one of the pens not far away?
How was that possible? How could there possibly be a person inside the sheep pen?!
His temple throbbed faintly. Beneath the night sky, he stiffly raised a hand and nervously scratched at his hair. When his fingertips touched something soft and slightly cool, he sucked in a deep breath and abruptly came back to his senses:
He saw the blurry-faced figure standing perfectly straight inside the sheep pen, clutching a handful of rotten weeds and stuffing them into his mouth one bite at a time.
A chill swept through Xie Fan's entire body. The instant he yanked out a strand of hair and jolted himself awake, the candlelight finally let him see the man's clothes clearly.
He was wearing a white outdoor jacket...
What the fuck!