Before Zuo Zhu could react, Demon Huo Fu bit down on her arm.
Tears instantly welled up. It was not really painful, the demon had not used full strength. Her nerves had tricked her into thinking her arm had been ripped off.
Seeing her tears, Demon Huo Fu froze, then hesitated, reluctantly releasing her arm.
Zuo Zhu continued crying, wailing, “If you bite my arm, it will not even stop bleeding!”
She was moments away from becoming the first person in the Mountain Village to die from blood loss after being bitten by a ghost.
Her cries were pitiful. She worried both about dying before she could return and about whether she would ever have her arm again if she survived.
The demon, intimidated by her display, growled, “I did not bite you!”
“You did!” Zuo Zhu glared at him as if he were a wayward child. “Such a huge, huge tooth mark. Hmm? My arm is still here?”
Only then did she realize her arm was fine.
She became even more aggrieved. “I spent tonight covering your secret in front of Lin Tianming and the others, practically making myself look like a seductive troublemaker, and you try to bite me while I am asleep, wuwuwu!”
Demon Huo Fu did not understand the concept of a seductive troublemaker, but he was unyielding. “I am hungry!”
“I am hungry too!” Zuo Zhu sniffled, glancing at him. “I did not eat much today so you would have better taste, and I even did all that exercise. I was starving but did not chew on your arm, yet you cannot match my self-control.”
The demon, who slept during the day in Huo Fu’s body and did not know what the daytime Huo Fu did, was momentarily confused. Being chronically hungry, he understood the suffering of hunger and reluctantly acknowledged her effort.
No, wait.
He glared at her, ominous. “Why should I consider you? Filling my stomach is all that matters!”
Zuo Zhu slowly extended her hand, hooked it around his arm, and leaned against him, looking pitiful. “But I have stayed with you for several nights, helped cover your secret. Even if I do not have merit, I have effort. Do not you want to save the best food for last?”
Though she offered herself willingly, Demon Huo Fu remained a demon, untouched by romance.
Yet after thinking briefly, he realized she had a point.
“Fine, I will try to restrain myself,” he finally said begrudgingly.
Zuo Zhu exhaled in relief but could not sleep, haunted by his salivating gaze while she slept.
He held her possessively like a single-serving meal, her eyes fixed on his mouth.
In any other romance novel, those lips might be perfect for a kiss.
But in this horror comic, they were scarier than the Slit-Mouthed Woman.
Zuo Zhu felt utterly helpless, fearing for her life.
If Demon Huo Fu were lustful, she might have even offered herself. Wait? Why did she instinctively feel like offering herself to the nighttime demon? Why not daytime Huo Fu?
She reminded herself. Her drawn son was twenty years old, a pure young man who had never held a girl’s hand.
What if he lost control?
By morning, when Huo Fu awoke, he saw Zuo Zhu staring blankly at the ceiling.
He poked her cheek. “What is wrong?”
She wailed, “My arm’s gone!”
“Nonsense,” he said, poking it. Her pale, slender arm was fine, only marked by a huge, exaggerated tooth print.
Zuo Zhu refused to believe it. “My heart felt like it was gone.”
Tears flowed as she continued, “Last night your mouth was so wide, I was so scared. My arm was so scared too.”
Huo Fu stayed silent.
Huo Fu said, “Then maybe I should finish the bite?”
Zuo Zhu immediately sat up. “No need for that.”
She feared that if she overplayed it, Huo Fu might actually bite her, realizing that he and the demon were two very different beings.
She slowly inched toward Huo Fu, grabbed his hand, and said softly, “Brother Huo, I… I know you do not want Lin Tianming and the others to die. Last night I helped cover your secret. See? I am more than just a mere piece of food. Can you tell the nighttime demon not to bite my arm randomly?”
Her words were heart-wrenching. “If I lose too much blood and die, the body will not be fresh either.”
Huo Fu glanced at her. “How did you know I did not want Lin Tianming and the others to die?”
“Because you have nothing to do with them, yet you still try to save them, even restraining yourself at night to help.”
Without Huo Fu’s guidance, Demon Huo Fu would not have held back, starving as he was, to save Lin Tianming and the others.
Huo Fu suddenly smiled. “You are right. I really do not want them to die. To leave this village, I need to use their life force to escape.”
Zuo Zhu encouraged him. “Why do you want to leave?”
“There are people everywhere outside the village. Guess what I want to do?”
Zuo Zhu said, “Oh.”
So to eat them.
Huo Fu raised an eyebrow. “Are you not afraid?”
Sincerely, Zuo Zhu said, “A piece of food has no right to fear.”
Huo Fu laughed.
After a while, finding her amusing, he lifted her. “Come, I will show you the whole village.”
By show, he meant scooping her into the air, defying gravity, flying over the village.
Zuo Zhu suggested, “Could you hold me differently, like in your arms?”
Huo Fu refused. “No, you are too fat.”
Zuo Zhu exclaimed, “???”
She protested loudly. “I have a chest and hips. That is not fat, you straight man. Even straight men appreciate you more than you, you wimp.”
Huo Fu feigned a smile, trying to let go.
Zuo Zhu clung to his arm, crying. “I am sorry, I was wrong, Brother Huo, spare me, wuwu.”
Youth and inexperience, her mouth careless, ended in tears.
Seeing her submit, Huo Fu said, “Look down below.”
Obediently, Zuo Zhu looked down and realized the village was shrouded in thick mist. With slightly better vision, she could see all the courtyards were empty, inhabited only by ghosts drifting back and forth.
Earlier, when they had walked through the village, the scenes had seemed normal. Floating above, she realized it had been an illusion. The villagers were all ghosts, endlessly repeating their memories before death.
She also saw Lin Tianming, still wandering, seeking a way out.
But today Liu Minmin had not joined him, likely still shaken from yesterday.
Having experienced the previous day, Lin Tianming probably knew whether any villagers were alive. Yet he used the daytime calm, when ghosts did not appear, to search actively.
Zuo Zhu knew he would succeed. Huo Fu had chosen him after many days, intending to leave the village using Lin Tianming’s life force, and he would safely send Lin Tianming away.
Liu Minmin would leave with him as well.
And she, Zuo Zhu, a cannon-fodder girl who had died in the first chapter’s ending, would remain as Huo Fu’s reserve meal until he was hungry enough to devour her.