Alive... she was alive again. After Fang Minglan spat out that dark, mud-like clump of liquid, her consciousness slowly returned. She felt a wave of relief at having survived—what a close call.
From the very mont she heard the voice on the other end of that call, she had already been contaminated. It happened so suddenly that she couldn’t react in ti when the black cat leapt onto her.
Among common folk, there was an old rumor about black cats leaping onto corpses—It is said that any corpse over which a black cat jumps will beco possessed and turn into a revenant.
Fang Minglan suspected that what she had just gone through was related to this legend. Fortunately, she always carried a bottle of dicine made by "Bian Que."
"Bian Que" was a person, a codena. He possessed a rare special ability that could counter ghost and monster: the power to heal. What made it unique was that it could reduce the contamination within the human body.
This bottle of dicine was sothing Fang Minglan had bought for a high price in the real world through special channels.
"Bian Que" refused to appear in public or work for the governnt. Outsiders knew the na but never the face—only the dicine he made ever circulated on the black market.
Otherwise, Fang Minglan might never have gotten her hands on this bottle.
But now—Fang Minglan slowly lifted her head and looked at Wan Qian, a hint of confusion surfacing in her eyes.
Why would Wan Qian want to save her? Wasn’t her being contaminated exactly what Wan Qian wanted to see?
Wan Qian stood with her back to the doorway, her whole figure silhouetted against the light, her features swallowed by deep shadows. Fang Minglan couldn’t make out her expression at all.
"It’s good you’re okay. You really scared when you suddenly fell ill," Wan Qian said with a long sigh of relief.
Fang Minglan was stunned for a second. She hadn’t expected Wan Qian to keep up the act even now. But then her eyes shifted past Wan Qian and saw Hao Shijun and the others standing outside the door.
Fang Minglan understood—it wasn’t for her. Wan Qian was putting on a show for Hao Shijun and the others.
Fang Minglan lowered her gaze and murmured a soft thank you. "Thank you. I’m fine now."
She finished speaking and got up from the floor. Suddenly, Fang Minglan froze, realizing sothing was wrong.
She touched her teeth, then looked down at the stick-like object on the ground. In her hazy mory, Wan Qian seed to have stuffed that thing into her mouth.
At that mont, Wan Qian stepped aside, no longer blocking the light. The sunlight streaming in from outside was faint but still bright enough for Fang Minglan to clearly see what that stick actually was—a human bone, stripped clean of flesh and blood.
"Urgh—" Fang Minglan couldn’t hold it in. She covered her mouth and rushed outside the general shop, vomiting violently.
Wan Qian watched Fang Minglan’s figure rush out the door to vomit, a hint of pity flickering in her eyes. Such a young girl, and so pretty—who would’ve thought she’d have an illness like this?
Full of concern, Wan Qian turned to Hao Shijun. "Why don’t you go over and check on her? See if she’s okay—do we need to call a doctor?"
Hao Shijun hesitated for a mont, then nodded and walked toward Fang Minglan.
"Are you okay?" Hao Shijun asked coldly, standing beside her.
Fang Minglan had just finished throwing up. With no tissues, she had to grab so leaves from a nearby tree to wipe her mouth.
But the mont she brought the leaves to her face, she shuddered all over, flung them away, and vomited again, even more violently.
Hao Shijun focused his eyes and noticed that the leaves Fang Minglan tossed aside curled unnaturally.
He froze, then looked up at the tree next to them. All its leaves were curled in that sa strange way.
Almost involuntarily, Hao Shijun reached out and flipped over a leaf—on the curled underside were clusters of translucent insect eggs, densely packed and grotesque.
Was the entire tree like this? Hao Shijun couldn’t help but check other nearby trees. Sure enough, they were all the sa—every leaf curled unnaturally, the backs covered in eerie insect eggs.
Fang Minglan finally finished vomiting. She bent down, lifted the hem of her skirt, and wiped the filth from her mouth.
"I’m fine," Fang Minglan said quietly.
Hao Shijun frowned, putting aside the matter of the insect eggs for the mont.
"It was Wan Qian who saved you. Are you still going to claim Wan Qian is an imposter?" Hao Shijun asked calmly, looking at her.
From the mont Fang Minglan had seen Hao Shijun appear at the door, she knew all her sches from the morning had co to nothing.
Who would have thought Wan Qian was capable of such deep and cunning sches that with just a casual move, she overturned all of her careful planning. How could Fang Minglan not feel a chill run down her spine?
She stayed silent and walked back to the general shop with Hao Shijun. Wan Qian was busy helping Xie Jia and Wang Hui fill their thermos with hot water.
Because one of the ’Village Rules’ required them to soak their feet every night, Hao Shijun had told Xie Jia and Wang Hui to bring thermoses.
"Earlier today, I took them around the village. We saw the ancestral hall," Hao Shijun said, sharing what he’d found as they gathered at the general shop’s entrance.
"The villagers keep saying the God Worship Festival is the day after tomorrow, that they’ll hold a ritual. But I’ve been wondering—where exactly will they hold it?"
"In a backward, superstitious village like this, the most important place should be the ancestral hall, right? But there wasn’t a single person near it. Could the ritual really not be in the ancestral hall?"
"The ancestral hall?" Fang Minglan echoed instinctively. It seed like an important place too. "Did you go inside?"
Hao Shijun shook his head. "No. But its door wasn’t locked. Standing at the entrance, we could see the weeds inside had grown really tall."
Fang Minglan frowned, thinking it over. "It shouldn’t matter if we go in, right? The ’Village Rules’ don’t say we can’t enter the ancestral hall."
"We can tell you the location. If you want to look, you can go in." To their surprise, the usually frail-looking Xie Jia spoke up.
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