Xian Chengyue sat on a wooden stool, eating peanuts, while the auntie sat next to him, mending a pair of trousers. On the white wooden table sat a mountain of peanuts white-skinned peanuts that were not as fragrant when eaten raw as the red-skinned ones, though Xian Chengyue had no room to be picky. Two teacups also rested on the table, filled with brewed honeysuckle tea.
Once she finished mending the trousers, the auntie asked Xian Chengyue with a kindly expression, “Young man, would you like anything else to eat? My family still has some dried sweet potatoes.”
Xian Chengyue nodded, and the auntie went to fetch him another handful of dried sweet potatoes. Xian Chengyue began to chew them slowly, one by one.
They were not the common red-fleshed sweet potatoes found in modern times, but white-fleshed ones, though most people never bothered to distinguish them by name, uniformly calling them sweet potatoes.
As he chewed slowly, he felt they were somehow more fragrant and sweet than the dried sweet potatoes sold in supermarkets.
The auntie began to eat some herself, her gaze fixed entirely on Xian Chengyue, paying no attention whatsoever to Su Yan and Lin Min, who were standing on the field ridge.
Smiling warmly, she said, “You look just like my son, just as handsome.”
Xian Chengyue took a sip of the honeysuckle water and asked in a relaxed posture, “Auntie, is it going to rain tomorrow?”
The auntie raised her head to look at the sky. Though she was very thin, a smile always hung on her face. She refilled Xian Chengyue’s cup with water, sat back down, and answered amicably, “I couldn’t say. It might be tomorrow, it might be the day after, or it could even be tonight.”
Xian Chengyue offered the auntie a smile his smile was utterly stingy, vanishing even before the auntie could see it clearly.
The auntie sighed once more, “When you smile, you look even more like my son.”
On the field ridge not far away, Su Yan was chatting with Lin Min. Lin Min was a quiet person, far more timid than the average person, and would stutter whenever she felt nervous. Though Lin Min did not dare to stand too far from Su Yan, she did not want to be too close either, leaving a distance of half a meter between them.
Watching Xian Chengyue, who was still eating dried sweet potatoes, Su Yan sighed, “I’d say I don’t look half bad myself.”
When they had passed by earlier, the auntie, who had come out to dump dirty water, stopped dead in her tracks the moment she laid eyes on Xian Chengyue. She had dragged Xian Chengyue by force over to the table outside the courtyard to sit, acting like an affectionate, doting mother by offering him peanuts and pouring him water. Yet Xian Chengyue had maintained a completely cold expression the entire time, which the auntie didn’t mind in the least.
Perhaps this was the advantage of having a handsome face?
Yet Su Yan did not feel he looked much worse than Xian Chengyue; their styles were simply different. Anyone who preferred his type might even say he looked better than Xian Chengyue.
Lin Min whispered, “Xian… Brother Xian looks good, like a celebrity.”
She pressed her lips together and smiled with a hint of embarrassment.
Su Yan raised an eyebrow and looked at her. “Do you have a crush on Brother Xian?”
Lin Min remained silent, but the question needed no answer. Even though Xian Chengyue was cold, he was strong, and coupled with such striking handsomeness, he gave people a sense of security. It would be strange not to like him.
Everyone possessed a psychology of admiring the strong. Even if someone were a villain, as long as they were strong and attractive enough, they would command countless supporters let alone the fact that Xian Chengyue was not a villain, but rather on her own side, his strength acting as her protective umbrella.
Xian Chengyue was still talking to the auntie when she kindly advised him, “During the sacrifice, stand a bit further toward the back.”
“Mhm.” Xian Chengyue nodded. After finishing his last piece of dried sweet potato, he stood up.
They spent the rest of the day wandering around aimlessly.
On their way back, as they passed by the mill, they happened to see Liang Shu and the others playing on the grass with the miller’s young son.
Xian Chengyue stopped in his tracks and looked at the miller’s son, who was currently directing a man to use a knife to cut off his own little finger.
The man did not dare to do it. Trembling all over, he stared at the young boy, terrified to cut, yet equally terrified not to.
“I want to play!” The young boy’s voice was sharp and piercing, like fingernails scraping across an iron window, sending goosebumps and cold sweat cascading over the listeners. He acted just like any ordinary spoiled child, his mouth opening and closing as he repeated, “Cut it off for me to play with! If you won’t cut your hand, cut off your head instead!”
The man clutched a knife that clearly looked dull. Staring at his hand, his forehead slicked with cold sweat and his eyes brimming with tears, his body shook uncontrollably to the point where he could barely stand steady. He cast a look of desperate appeal toward Liang Shu and the others.
However, his teammates had already been frightened into silence, and even if they could speak, no one was willing to take his place.
Abruptly, the young boy stopped shouting. Lowering his head, he asked with a sinister, eerie undertone, “Aren’t you guys supposed to be playing with me?”
As the sunlight fell upon his face, something seemed to be wriggling beneath patches of dark red, rotting flesh. The moment he opened his mouth, the corners of his lips split all the way to his ears as he fixed a steady gaze on the man holding the knife.
The man looked helplessly at Liang Shu and the others. Large drops of sweat fell from his forehead, quickly sinking into the grass and vanishing without a trace.
“Give it to me!” the boy shrieked. “Are you going to give it to me or not?!”
With a trembling voice, Liang Shu said, “Brother Feng, ju—just listen to him.”
The man’s mind was in total chaos. He raised the knife, but no matter what, he could not bring himself to make the cut.
“You do it.” The man handed the knife to Liang Shu, his face pale as death. “I’ll put my hand on the stone. You chop.”
Shifting her gaze to another man in the group, Liang Shu pleaded, “Brother Zhou, you do it. I don’t have enough strength and I’m afraid of making Brother Feng suffer more.”
Brother Zhou wore an expression of sheer terror as well, but he refused not a single bit for he knew he had no right to refuse. If Liang Shu and the others did it, Feng would only suffer greater agony; a dull blade like that required enough force to sever the finger cleanly in a single blow.
Otherwise, it would turn into a sawing motion that could literally hurt a person to death.
“I—I’ll try…” Brother Zhou swallowed hard.
In the real world, he had never even killed a chicken; even fish were gutted and handed to him by vendors at the vegetable market.
Feng Zhong placed his hand flat upon a relatively smooth stone, closed his eyes, and tensed every muscle in his body.
Liang Shu and Xie Youmin did not dare to watch. Only the young boy walked over to Feng Zhong with a chuckle, staring unblinkingly at Feng Zhong’s little finger.
Brother Zhou raised the dull knife. Even though it had not been sharpened for a long time, the blade seemed to flash with a cold gleam under the sunlight.
Taking a deep breath, Liang Shu and Xie Youmin turned their heads away.
The first strike failed to sever Feng Zhong’s little finger, but it smashed the bone instead.
Paralyzed by the excruciating pain, Feng Zhong rolled on the ground, his face streaming with hot tears.
The young boy walked over and kicked Feng Zhong directly in the stomach. “It hasn’t been cut off yet! Get up already!”
Clenching his teeth, Feng Zhong was in too much pain to utter a single word. The young boy looked at Brother Zhou and shrieked, “Cut it off! Chop his finger off!”
Wobbling as he walked toward Feng Zhong, Brother Zhou felt his calves cramp continuously, shaking his entire body with violent tremors.
“Feng Zhong…” Brother Zhou dropped to his knees beside him.
Feng Zhong could no longer hear the voices of the others; he felt only pain—the agony of having his bone deliberately smashed apart.
With no other choice, Brother Zhou forcefully pinned Feng Zhong’s hand down, had Liang Shu and Xie Youmin hold his legs and head, and then began to hack down with the dull blade, blow after blow.
The harder Brother Zhou exerted himself, the more miserable Feng Zhong looked, and the wider the smile stretched across the young boy’s face. The boy’s disproportionately large eyes reflected Feng Zhong’s face, the bulging veins on his forehead, his cold sweat, and his expression of profound grief, all of which only served to excite him.
He let out a cackling laugh, sounding just like a hen.
At last, the little finger was “smashed” off. Bending over, the young boy picked up the severed digit. It was a man’s little finger, not particularly attractive, with slightly crooked joints, unclean nails, and a terribly messy amputation site where bits of shredded meat clung to the bloody flesh.
Showing no disgust whatsoever, the young boy popped the finger straight into his mouth, treating it as though it were a snack.
As Liang Shu and the others watched, the boy having secured his new toy held the clean severed finger in his hand and began to chew on the nail of Feng Zhong’s little finger just as he would his own. Then, with a sudden snap, he broke off the knuckle.
“His isn’t fun.” With his round, fish-like eyes fixed intently on Liang Shu, the boy spoke in the tone of a spoiled child throwing a tantrum, “I want your middle finger!”
Liang Shu took a step back. She looked at Feng Zhong, who had passed out on the ground, and then glanced at Brother Zhou, who stood frozen with the knife still in his hand.
Biting her lower lip, Xie Youmin whispered, “Xiaoshu…”
Cold sweat broke out across Liang Shu’s back, soaking through her clothes.
“Youmin, help me. Find a piece of wood for me to bite down on so Brother Zhou can chop.” Knowing they could not escape the mung bean cakes were not yet in hand, and since Feng Zhong had already lost a finger, they could not call a halt now.
Yet she was still terrified, so terrified she wanted to faint away just to avoid facing any of it.
Holding the knife, his eyes bloodshot and the young boy still staring right at him, Brother Zhou covered his face with one hand and collapsed onto the ground in despair. “I can’t take it anymore. I can’t do this again. I can’t do it, I can’t bring myself to swing it…”
He really had chopped off a man’s finger, strike by agonizing strike.
At the time, he had heard nothing; he had been deaf to Feng Zhong’s cries of agony and deaf to his screams.
Yet now that his rationality had returned, he could scarcely believe he had actually severed a person’s finger with his own hands.
“Brother Zhou.” Although her face was deathly pale, Liang Shu managed to squeeze out a smile. Even as her teeth chattered from fear and her breathing came in ragged gasps, she forced herself to comfort him. “Brother Zhou, we can’t call it quits right now. We have to get those mung bean cakes no matter what. Brother Feng has already lost a finger; we can’t stop here.”
“Brother Zhou!” Liang Shu shouted aloud.
Weeping as he spoke, Brother Zhou choked out, “You… you have to endure it.”
Liang Shu’s bones were not as hard as Feng Zhong’s; it took three blows to sever her finger. Her fingers were lovely fair, slender, and delicate. In the real world, she made her living with those hands, playing not only the piano but also the guzheng and the guqin.
Yet now, that perfection had been ruined.
Clenching her teeth, Liang Shu looked toward the young boy.
Seeming quite satisfied with Liang Shu’s finger, the boy tucked it into his jacket pocket.
Surely… this would be enough now?
Would they finally pass the test?
Having paid such a heavy price and suffered such excruciating pain, they would finally be able to obtain the mung bean cakes, wouldn’t they?
Suddenly, the young boy let out a “hmph.” His bizarre eyeballs rolled in their sockets, a rattling sound emerged from his deep throat, and stretching out a thin, skinny arm, he pointed toward the roadside. “Make him come over and play with me!”
Liang Shu and the others looked over.
The man standing by the roadside maintained his usual impeccably dressed appearance. His hair was very dark, his skin exceptionally fair, and as he stood there, he seemed to be admiring the scenery, or perhaps waiting for someone.
In that instant, the hearts of Liang Shu and the others plunged straight into an abyss.
Xian Chengyue had no use for the mung bean cakes would he really help them?
Would he?