The night was quiet, dotted with twinkling stars.
In the city, it was rare to see such a beautiful, star-filled sky. The pale moonlight and the clear breeze should have made the night peaceful and pleasant—but at this moment, no one was in the mood to appreciate it.
After the ritual ended, Jiang Luo took off his mask. The mask had made him uncomfortable—clearly shaped into a smiling face, yet it felt lifeless, stiff, rigid, and laced with something uncanny.
He stuffed the mask into his pocket and silently listened to the hushed conversations among the contestants.
“Did you notice anything today?”
“Nothing at all. You?”
“Nothing either. But I did notice there are very few elderly people in this village.”
“Even the village chief only looks like he’s in his fifties—not really that old.”
In rural areas, it’s common to see elders in their fifties or sixties still working the fields. Most are strong and can live well into their seventies or eighties. With little entertainment, one of the most typical scenes is old people basking in the sun at their doorsteps.
But in Shen Tu Village, there were hardly any elders to be seen.
After eavesdropping on the conversation, Jiang Luo stopped straining his ears.
Lu Youyi suddenly said, “Jiang Luo, isn’t that the little girl we saw earlier?”
He tugged on Jiang Luo’s sleeve and signaled for him to look to the left.
Jiang Luo turned his head and saw the little girl in red silently slipping away from her parents, running stealthily from the corner.
He made a snap decision: “Come on, let’s follow her.”
Jiang Luo and Lu Youyi quietly distanced themselves from the crowd and followed the little girl.
They trailed her all the way to the deserted outskirts of the village. After crossing a dense forest, the view suddenly opened up.
At the end of the woods was a wild graveyard—mound after mound crowded closely together.
Each grave was like a small hill, with a tombstone in front of it. At first glance, aside from the varying amounts of weeds, the graves were nearly identical.
Jiang Luo scanned the area quickly and spotted a flash of red. “There.”
The little girl was digging up a grave.
Her hands were only half the size of an adult’s, and she held no shovel or tool. Using her bare hands, she clawed at the earth. Her delicate fingers were soon cut and bloodied by the sharp grass and stones.
Even when she noticed someone approaching, she only glanced up at Jiang Luo and Lu Youyi before lowering her head and continuing to dig.
Jiang Luo crouched down calmly and gently asked, “Little girl, what are you doing?”
Lu Youyi trembled as he crouched beside him.
The girl didn’t respond. Jiang Luo asked again. She finally replied, in a dull voice, “I’m digging up a grave.”
Jiang Luo patiently asked, “Why are you digging up a grave?”
The little girl said, “I’m looking for my mom and dad.”
“Are your mom and dad buried here?” Jiang Luo asked calmly. “Then the parents we saw with you earlier today, they’re not your real parents?”
The little girl didn’t answer. She just silently shook her head—it wasn’t clear whether she was denying Jiang Luo’s question or confirming that the couple weren’t her real parents.
She dug a few more times, then suddenly looked up at the sky and mumbled, “It’s getting dark. I need to go home.”
With that, she left the half-dug grave and darted into the forest.
Jiang Luo and Lu Youyi were caught off guard. By the time they reacted, she had already vanished. Lu Youyi gulped. “Should we go too?”
Jiang Luo looked down at the grave, his eyelashes lowered. The corners of his mouth lifted slightly. “Lu Youyi, have you ever dug up a grave before?”
Lu Youyi: “…”
Ten minutes later, the two of them were digging up the grave using two long planks they found.
Under the moonlight, the clearing was eerily bright—almost like a spotlight.
Lu Youyi was drenched in sweat, but now that he was fully immersed in grave-digging, the fear had vanished. He wielded the plank energetically, and soon half of the grave mound was gone.
The coffin inside was buried shallowly. It didn’t take long before they uncovered the coffin lid.
Working together, they cleared off the remaining soil. Jiang Luo pried up the coffin lid with the plank’s edge. Lu Youyi’s voice trembled. “Luo ah… are we really going to open it?”
Jiang Luo paused and looked at the grave. “Then should we bury it again?”
Remembering how hard they’d worked digging it up, Lu Youyi fell silent.
With a firm push, Jiang Luo flipped open the coffin lid. Lu Youyi peeked inside and gasped sharply.
Inside the coffin laid the corpses of a man and a woman—identical in appearance to the couple they had seen with the little girl earlier that day.
Though the corpses were partially decayed, their clothes were tidy, suggesting they had died recently.
Lu Youyi stammered, “T-then…”
If the corpses were the girl’s real parents, then who were the couple they had met earlier?
The mystery only deepened. After inspecting the bodies, Jiang Luo and Lu Youyi replaced the coffin lid and restored the grave mound to its original state.
Jiang Luo patted down the last handful of soil, then walked up to the tombstone to read the inscription.
Lu Youyi wiped the sweat from his brow, but out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flash of light behind Jiang Luo. His heart skipped a beat, and he shouted, “Jiang Luo, get down!”
Jiang Luo heard the whooshing sound of something slicing through the air and instinctively rolled to the side, ending up beside another grave.
When he stopped and looked up, he saw a gleaming broadsword buried deep in the spot he had just occupied. The blade had sunk more than halfway into the ground. If he had been a second slower, he would have been cleaved in two.
Jiang Luo turned toward the direction the sword had come from.
From within the forest stepped a strange-looking man.
He wore odd clothing—either rags wrapped around his body or some kind of ancient robe. He emerged slowly from the darkness into the moonlight, his tall figure crunching fallen leaves and branches underfoot. He walked over to the sword and yanked it out of the ground.
With a sharp clang, the man gripped his blade and looked at Jiang Luo and Lu Youyi.
He resembled a general or warrior from ancient times—his gaze was cold, filled with bloodthirsty killing intent. Jiang Luo rose from the ground, his back slightly bent, body taut, ready to attack or flee at any moment.
The man’s oppressive presence was overwhelming. He was neither fully human nor ghost, radiating a murderous aura so tangible it seemed to take form—something only someone who had killed thousands could possess.
“Who are you?” Jiang Luo asked cautiously.
The man said nothing, instead raising his blade and walking toward Jiang Luo. Jiang Luo turned the Yin-Yang hoop in his hand, but from the outside, he appeared frozen in fear.
Suddenly, Lu Youyi leapt over and threw his arms around the man’s leg. Gritting his teeth, he shouted at Jiang Luo, “Run!”
“Run, Jiang Luo! Hurry!” Lu Youyi was pale with panic.
Jiang Luo froze.
The man, clearly irritated, frowned slightly and halted, turning his head to look at Lu Youyi. He raised the blade in his hand.
The cold gleam of the blade flashed across Lu Youyi. Though obviously terrified, Lu Youyi kept his eyes tightly shut and held the man’s leg tightly. Just as the blade was about to strike his back, a burst of golden light exploded in the air. A golden shadow lunged at the man, a furious tiger’s roar erupted, and a massive golden tiger struck the man’s head with a paw. Its bloody maw opened wide, roaring in his face: “ROAR!”
Lu Youyi opened his eyes in a daze. Jiang Luo, breathing heavily, crouched in front of him and snapped, “Lu Youyi, are you an idiot?”
Lu Youyi: “Huh?”
Jiang Luo pressed his lips tightly, his expression tense and cold, almost deliberately indifferent. As if Lu Youyi’s brave act hadn’t touched him at all, but only annoyed him.
“Why did you jump in like that?” Jiang Luo’s tone was laced with irritation. “Did I ask you to?”
But Lu Youyi didn’t notice his tone at all. He replied, dumbly, “Your legs looked like jelly. If I’d been any slower, you’d be dead.”
Jiang Luo’s inexplicable anger paused. He took a deep breath, pulled the idiot to his feet, and looked coldly at the man pinned under the tiger.
A moment ago, in the chaos, he had been filled with fury and panic. One thought blazed in his mind: You dare hurt someone who’s mine?
And in that moment of emotion, he had summoned the Yin Tiger—something he had never managed to summon before. The tiger was massive, at least twice the size of a real one. The colder Jiang Luo’s gaze became, the more forcefully the tiger pressed its paw into the man, its roar growing louder.
The man still seemed conscious. His hand twitched around the blade. The Yin Tiger, as if provoked, smashed another paw ruthlessly into his skull.
Blood ran down the man’s forehead as he finally closed his eyes. Jiang Luo and Lu Youyi walked over slowly. Jiang Luo’s sharp gaze swept over the man’s body, then he kicked the blade from the man’s hand.
Lu Youyi stared at the majestic tiger without blinking, muttering repeatedly in awe: “Holy sh*t, holy sh*t, holy sh*t!”
“So freaking cool!”
He reached out, wanting to touch the tiger—only to see the man under its paw suddenly open his eyes again. The wound on his forehead was completely healed.
Lu Youyi fell on his butt in fright, “Jiang—Jiang Luo, he opened his eyes again!”
Jiang Luo quickly turned his head. The man was staring directly at them, but instead of attacking, he simply watched them in silence.
The tiger let out another roar. The man, expressionless, looked at the tiger, then at Jiang Luo and Lu Youyi. “Who are you?”
He paused. “Who am I?”
Jiang Luo: “…”
Lu Youyi: “…”
A hint of confusion softened the man’s formerly cold features. “Why is this tiger standing on me?”
“You still pretending?” Lu Youyi sneered. “You think you can fool us by playing dumb, you dead ghost!”
“Dead Ghost—is that my name?” the man asked. “Then what’s yours?”
Jiang Luo: …When in doubt, draw a divination.
The divination signs confirmed he wasn’t lying. Jiang Luo cautiously summoned a golden charm in the shape of a Si Snake to bind the man before letting him stand.
Once the man was upright, Jiang Luo understood why he had amnesia.
When the tiger tackled him earlier, the man had been thrown onto a sharp stone. The rock had pierced the back of his head. Strangely, though, the wound had already healed in that short time, the stone embedded in his skull and only a small tip visible outside.
Jiang Luo narrowed his eyes at the injury and even chuckled.
His anger from before dissipated somewhat. He exchanged glances with Lu Youyi, who cleared his throat and asked, “You really don’t remember who you are?”
The man looked blankly puzzled. “Didn’t you say my name is Dead Ghost?”
Lu Youyi choked, then smirked wickedly. “No, ‘Dead Ghost’ is just your nickname. You also have a formal name.”
“What is it?” the man asked.
“Jiao Jiao,” Lu Youyi said with a straight face. “Because you love to act spoiled.”
The man pondered for a moment. “Then you better call me Dead Ghost.”
After confirming the man truly had amnesia, Jiang Luo decided not to do anything more to someone who was essentially a blank slate. He said indifferently, “Lu Youyi, let’s go.”
Lu Youyi immediately ditched “Dead Ghost” and followed Jiang Luo. The two left the graveyard—only to find the man who’d tried to kill them silently picking up his blade and trailing behind.
Jiang Luo summoned the Yin Tiger again and coldly curled his lip, “If you keep following us, I won’t be so polite next time.”
“Why?” Dead Ghost looked at them in confusion. “Aren’t we friends?”
Who would be friends with someone who tried to kill them?
Jiang Luo didn’t waste any more words. He summoned the Yin Tiger to hold the man back and left the graveyard quickly with Lu Youyi.
The man, left behind, struggled to fend off the tiger’s attacks and slowly dragged himself in their direction.
…
Half an hour later, Jiang Luo and Lu Youyi returned to their lodging. They told their companions about the discovery of the little girl’s parents’ corpses. It was such a strange event that no one could make sense of it.
“It seems we can only wait for tomorrow’s ancestral hall selection,” Wenren Lianlian frowned. “But what does that selection even mean? Don’t you think it sounds like they’re picking a sacrifice?”
“But if it were really a sacrifice, the village chief wouldn’t have said things like ‘don’t be anxious’ or ‘make sure there are no disputes,’” Ge Zhu said, resting his chin on his hand. “Unless, in their eyes, this sacrifice symbolizes something good.”
Liao Si was about to speak when he suddenly glanced out the window. A flicker of surprise flashed in his eyes, and he smiled faintly. “Looks like there’s a living corpse at our door.”
Just as he said that, a shadow appeared in the gap beneath the door.
Lu Youyi turned to Jiang Luo instantly. “Could it be Dead Ghost again?”
Jiang Luo raised an eyebrow, got out of bed, and opened the door. Sure enough, outside stood the man dressed like someone from ancient times, carrying a large blade.
His body was covered in wounds that had already healed. Only the dirtied, bloodstained clothes hinted at his previous distress. When he saw Jiang Luo, the tension in his face relaxed slightly, though he still wore a deadpan expression. “Friend, I’ve come to find you.”
Lu Youyi and the others came to stand behind Jiang Luo. Lu Youyi looked at him speechlessly. “Why is it still you?”
Liao Si watched the man from the back of the group. His eyes flashed, and he raised his voice deliberately. “Jiang Luo, do you know this living corpse?”
The man looked in Liao Si’s direction upon hearing the voice. Liao Si silently mouthed: Why are you here?
But before he could finish mouthing even one word, the man turned away expressionlessly and fixed his eyes once again on Jiang Luo and Lu Youyi, as if he didn’t recognize Liao Si at all.
Liao Si twitched at the corner of his forehead. What happened to Teng Bi?
“He’s a living corpse?” Jiang Luo asked Liao Si. “What’s a living corpse?”
Liao Si came back to his senses and explained, “A living corpse is someone whose body is dead but can still move like a living person. They’re not the same as corpses. They still retain their memories and emotions from life, so they seem alive, but they’re actually dead.”
Ye Xun added, “Living corpses are extremely rare. Some people carry such heavy murderous energy that when they die, no soul warden dares to collect their spirit. Under the right conditions, they can become living corpses that roam the world.”
The man in front of them was clearly the kind Ye Xun was describing.
Jiang Luo found it quite interesting. Why would such a rare living corpse appear in Shentu Village?
And why did he try to kill him and Lu Youyi?
Everyone looked curiously at the man. Seeing other contestants beginning to notice the commotion, Jiang Luo let the man into the room.
The man sat down at the table and placed his large blade on top of it. The blade still carried soil from when he attacked Jiang Luo. In the light, Jiang Luo could clearly see the weapon—it looked simple and deadly. Its handle was wrapped in black cloth, without any ornamentation.
As Jiang Luo stared, tendrils of black murderous energy began to rise from around the blade. Within the rolling mist, countless ghostly faces twisted and snarled, seemingly trying to escape but trapped within the metal.
“You want my blade?” the ghost man suddenly asked. “But I can’t give it to you. It’s the only weapon I have.”
Jiang Luo withdrew his gaze and tilted his head lazily. “How did you find us?”
“By following your scent,” the ghost man frowned. “Your scent was all mixed up—it took me a long time to track you down. Friend, were you trying to shake me off?”
Lu Youyi leaned over to whisper to Ye Xun, “He talks so weirdly. All poetic and stuff.”
Ye Xun nodded. “Judging by how he talks and acts, he’s probably a few hundred years old.”
Zhuo Zhongqiu asked curiously at that moment, “What’s your name?”
The ghost man replied, “I’m called Dead Ghost.”
Everyone fell silent. “…What a great name.”
Night had fallen, and it was time to rest. The group decided to shelve the discussion for now and head to bed.
When no one else was paying attention, Liao Si casually moved to stand beside the man and looked out the window. “Teng Bi, what are you doing?”
The ghost man looked at him strangely. “Who is Teng Bi?”
Liao Si frowned. “Did you really forget, or are you pretending?”
The ghost man had no intention of dealing with this strange person. He closed his eyes and ignored him.
Liao Si’s smile froze. When he saw people from Baihua University approaching, he had no choice but to drop the matter for now.
The next morning.
Jiang Luo left early, planning to look for the little girl he had met yesterday.
Not long after, he noticed a change in the village.
There were suddenly many more young women walking around. Their complexions were rosy, and their eyes were bright and full of affection, like black beads. Their glossy hair was braided behind them, their figures slender, and their clothes clean, fitted, and unusually refined—hardly like typical village girls at all.
Jiang Luo approached one friendly-looking girl and, as soon as he got close, caught a whiff of delicate fragrance from her. “Excuse me, miss. Do you know why there are so many beautiful girls around today?”
Jiang Luo’s appearance was too handsome to seem real. When he smiled deliberately, it made hearts race. Paired with his sweet tone, the girl blushed, covered her mouth, and giggled. Her eyes sparkled like stars. “It’s because the ancestral hall is choosing someone today. We all want to become the god’s bride, so of course we have to dress our best.”
“The ancestral hall’s selection is to choose a bride for the god?”
The girl’s eyes gradually took on a look of devotion. “The ancestral hall only opens when choosing a bride for the god. We’ve already devoted ourselves to Him. As long as the god chooses me, He will come to take me away on an auspicious day.”
Jiang Luo left the girl in thought. After circling around the village and failing to find the little girl in red, he returned to the lodging to regroup with his companions.
His companions had also noticed the strange influx of girls in the village. Wenren Lianlian rested his chin on his hand and asked, “Have you ever heard of the Luohua Cave Maidens?”
“Luohua Cave Maidens, along with corpse driving and Gu poison, are called the Three Evils of Xiangxi,” Wenren Lianlian said softly. “These cave maidens are unmarried women who imagine themselves married to a god. Their beloved is divine, so they no longer waver for mortal men. They maintain their beauty and gentleness every day, waiting for the day they can truly marry the god.”
Zhuo Zhongqiu asked, “You’re saying there’s really a god here?”
Wenren Lianlian shook his head. “Whether it’s truly a ‘god’ or just someone pretending to be one, we can’t say for sure. If we want to uncover the truth, the best way is to blend in with those girls and go to the ancestral hall again at six this evening.”
The usually nonchalant Jiang Luo suddenly had a bad premonition and took a discreet step back.
“To blend in with the girls, naturally, someone has to dress up like a girl,” Wenren Lianlian said with a smile. “I can go, of course, but one person isn’t enough. Right, Jiang Luo?”
Everyone turned in unison to look at Jiang Luo.
Jiang Luo: “…I’m not crossdressing.”
Over my dead body.
Author’s note:
Jiang Luo: Fine, forget it, forget it all.
Someone hiding in the shadows: Surprise.jpg
