Fortunately, it wasn't without gain. The progress for the side quest [Explore the Living Dead Secret Realm] ticked up again, increasing by 0.5%.
Chen Zhou observed the spatial rift gnawed out by the mutant insects. After confirming it was temporarily stable, he decided to investigate in person.
Losing a single skeleton was of no consequence, and his true body was still perfectly safe within the Dead Man’s Forest. Who gives a damn? Let's go!
At nightfall, Chen Zhou's consciousness quietly slipped through the rift within the secret realm, descending once more into Shikan Village.
The madness of the day was replaced by another, more unsettling atmosphere in the night.
The entire village seemed draped in a massive black cloth. Not a single light could be seen; only the murky moonlight barely outlined the shapes of the houses.
Every household had its doors tightly shut, not daring to leave even the slightest crack, as if a man-eating beast lurked just outside.
Chen Zhou arrived at the same house where he had buried the skeleton's skull during the day.
On the earthen bed, the two children had finally fallen into a deep, peaceful sleep, snoring lightly. But the adults were not at rest.
The man was named Zhao Yong. He and his younger brother, Zhao Meng, sat on the edge of the bed against the wall, clutching thick wooden sticks as weapons to bolster their courage.
Although Zhao Yong had claimed they could sleep soundly during the day, once the eerie night actually arrived, the family was still too anxious to sleep, not daring to relax for a second.
"Brother."
Zhao Meng lowered his voice, speaking almost in a breathy whisper for fear of waking the children—and seemingly even more afraid of disturbing whatever was outside. "I heard... I heard that in neighboring Huangshawo, walking spirit gods also appeared during the day..."
"Huangshawo? Their village is miserable. The able-bodied men are almost all dead; there's hardly anyone left to keep watch..."
"Brother, do you think our Shikan Village will... will end up like Huangshawo?"
Zhao Yong's Adam's apple bobbed. "Don't scare yourself! Our village... our house has a spirit god buried here. What could go wrong?" His words seemed intended to cheer up his brother, but they sounded more like he was trying to convince himself.
Zhao Yong's wife and his elderly mother lay on the bed with their clothes on, eyes squeezed shut, merely pretending to sleep.
In the dead of night, all was silent.
Thud... Thud... Thud...
A heavy knocking at the door rang out without warning, like the rhythmic beat of a funeral drum!
The sound was steady and deliberate, one knock after another. It struck clearly against the Zhao family's thin wooden door, and against the heart of everyone inside.
Zhao Yong and Zhao Meng's minds tightened instantly; the blood in their bodies seemed to freeze.
What was meant to come had finally arrived.
All color drained from Zhao Meng's face, a flicker of despair crossing his eyes. He suddenly stood up, his voice trembling yet exceptionally resolute. "Brother... this time... let me open the door."
"Xiao Meng!"
Zhao Yong grabbed his brother's arm, his eyes instantly turning red. He knew exactly what opening that door meant.
Zhao Meng forced his brother's hand away, giving a tragic smile and whispering.
"Brother, you have a wife and two kids, and Mother needs you to take care of her... My wife passed away last month; I have nothing to hold me back. From now on, I'm entrusting Mother to you."
Zhao Yong's heart felt like it was being twisted by a knife. His jaw was clenched tight, but he refused to let go of his brother, squeezing out a few words through his teeth: "Wait... wait a bit more! Let's just wait and see!"
The knocking continued for about ten strokes. That rhythmic, dull sound tortured everyone's nerves in the dead silence of the night.
However, just as the Zhao brothers were about to be crushed by the pressure and prepare for the worst, the knocking... abruptly stopped.
Silence returned to the outside, as if everything that had just happened was merely a hallucination.
Inside the room, Zhao Yong and Zhao Meng looked at each other, both seeing an unbelievable sense of wild joy in the other's eyes!
They gasped for air as if a heavy weight had been lifted, their backs already soaked in cold sweat.
On a level they could not perceive, Chen Zhou had keenly captured a familiar and disgusting aura the moment the knocking began.
It was filled with venom and resentment, extremely similar to the foul aura that the White Jade Old Ghost used to emit when trying to steal evil spirits or toy with mortal souls.
Chen Zhou quietly released his Ghost Domain, his death qi spreading outward like a spiderweb. He wanted to probe the depths of that ghostly thing.
However, the thing outside was incredibly sharp. The moment Chen Zhou's death qi was about to touch it, it seemed to sense a threat of death from a higher level in advance.
The resentment and baneful energy immediately receded like a tide, fleeing far away and vanishing into the thick night. Chen Zhou didn't even have time to judge what the hell that thing was.
"It... it's gone?" Zhao Meng slumped to the ground, his voice still shaking but filled with the excitement of a survivor.
"It really left..." Zhao Yong also let go of the wooden stick he had been clutching, his palm twitching slightly from overexertion.
Their previous belief in the protection of the walking spirit gods had mostly been the instinct of dying men grasping at a lifeline; deep down, they hadn't fully believed it.
But tonight, the life-claiming knocking had actually stopped for the first time in history. They had no choice but to believe.
The two were overcome with emotion, yet they desperately suppressed their voices, not daring to wake the children or fully let down their guard.
They huddled close together, ears strained for any movement outside, planning to keep watch like this until dawn.
The next day, light struggled to pierce through the dust and settle on Shikan Village.
As the surviving villagers cautiously poked their heads out of their homes like gophers, confirming that the night had truly passed, they spontaneously gathered around the dried-up ancient well in the center of the village.
Every face bore the daze of having survived a disaster and a flicker of unbelievable hope.
The village chief began habitually counting the people. When the last head was counted, a collective, stifled gasp rose from the crowd.
"Not one... not a single person missing?" someone muttered to themselves, as if confirming a miracle.
"Really... last night... no one was taken?"
The village chief asked in a raspy voice, "Who had knocking at their door last night?"
Zhao Yong instinctively raised his hand. However, to his surprise—and the surprise of all the villagers—three or four other households also raised their hands one after another.
Those families had only managed to grab a small finger bone or a shard of a rib, far less complete than the skull the Zhao family had obtained.
The old village chief couldn't help but look at those families. "Your houses were knocked on too? And then?"
"They knocked! It only sounded seven or eight times, and then there was no more sound. I... I was scared to death at the time, thinking it was my house's turn..."
Another woman holding an infant, tear stains still on her face but wearing an expression bordering on ecstasy, added, "My house too. It only knocked about ten times and then stopped. It really stopped!
"The baby's father... he didn't have to..."
She choked up and couldn't continue, but everyone understood what she meant.
According to the bloody lessons of the past, once the knocking sounded, someone had to walk out, trading one life for the temporary peace of the whole family.
Rate on N.U.
