Qi Family Gang (15)

A fire pit was installed in every stilt house, allowing for a fire to be lit inside; at this moment, the pit was burning, casting a warm glow throughout the room.

"Really! Why won't you believe me? If you ask me, that thing couldn't be called a person!"

Nan Yue didn't recognize the man in the center of the crowd, but she learned from the others that his name was Dapeng.

"Think about it. Can something without a tongue or teeth be called a human?"

The people around him jeered dismissively. "That's not enough to say it wasn't human. You're just too cowardly."

Dapeng's face turned red with anger. "A person's mouth should have red flesh inside, right? His was just a black hole!"

"And his mouth was stretched all the way down to his eyes! Who can open their mouth that wide?"

Dapeng scratched hard at the rashes on his back; they had grown larger, turning into small blisters.

Under his scratching, some of them burst.

"So, was he trying to attack you, or was he trying to say something?"

As soon as Dapeng saw Nan Yue, he remembered how Zhao Wu had told him to ask her to accompany him to pee.

He felt a bit embarrassed.

In their Qi Family Gang, there were four people held in the highest regard: besides Headman Qi and Manager Wu, there was the Zhan You.

They were even more respected than Shaman Zhu.

Consequently, he answered Nan Yue's question very seriously.

"I got up to pee... I mean, to relieve myself in the night. I turned around and saw him standing right behind me, silent as a ghost."

"I spoke to him, but he ignored me. Suddenly, he opened his mouth at me. A-Nan, you have no idea—that mouth was stretched so wide!"

Dapeng gestured on his own face, then lowered his hand, still trembling from the memory. "What kind of person has a mouth that big? It scared the life out of me."

"You said he had no tongue or teeth?" Nan Yue pressed further.

Dapeng nodded. "Yeah, I just saw a pitch-black hole of a mouth. I thought he was going to eat me!"

His heart was still cold with dread and his clothes were damp with sweat, but his companions found it hilarious, with some even teasing him for his cowardice.

"What happened after that?"

Dapeng gripped his own hand. "After that, I ran back. I thought he would follow me, but he didn't."

"When I ran back to the second floor and went to close the door, I took a look. He was still in the same spot, still holding his mouth wide open."

Nan Yue fell into deep thought, while the others continued to tease him.

"A-Nan, you actually believe him? Dapeng's courage is smaller than a grain of rice. You know that."

Dapeng was the most timid in the horse gang, though saying that wasn't entirely fair.

He was simply the most afraid of the supernatural.

If he had run into a person, he would have been the first to draw his blade.

It was precisely because everyone made fun of him that he hadn't insisted on someone accompanying him last night.

The villagers were human—that was his belief. Once they entered the village, the weird occurrences from the forest should have ended, which was why he dared to go alone.

If he had known, he would have made Zhao Wu go with him no matter what they said.

This was just his rotten luck.

"Stop shouting."

Headman Qi emerged from the room. He wiped his face; his dark-skinned arms were also covered in red rashes.

"Since you're so scared you peed yourself, don't just stand there. Pack your things and let's go."

With the headman speaking like that, Zhao Wu didn't dare to argue. Everyone immediately began packing, intending to leave this eerie village.

"Go call Manager Wu."

Gu Xiang Kai volunteered for the task. When he went downstairs, the sky wasn't yet fully bright, and the entire Fish Fry Village was shrouded in the dim light of dawn.

He made a point to look around as he descended. The other houses were quiet; the villagers seemed to still be resting.

However, he felt the village was a bit too quiet.

Even if people were sleeping, there should be some sound, especially with so many of them.

Yet the other houses were deathly silent, as if no one was there.

He quickly moved to the other building and pounded on the door.

"Who is it?"

The door was opened by Ma Liu, who always followed Manager Wu and was considered his apprentice.

"It's Old Gu. What are the headman's orders?"

Gu Xiang Kai looked through the crack in the door. There was nothing unusual in the room; most people were not yet awake.

It seemed only Dapeng had encountered something strange.

"Pack your things. We're leaving."

Ma Liu gave an affirmative shout and called out to the men inside, and the room soon became lively.

The men of the horse gang were disciplined and were soon packed and downstairs.

After several days of sleeping in the elements, they had finally found a place to rest, and everyone's complexion looked much better today.

However, everyone had the rashes from the insect bites in the rainforest; in severe cases, they had even spread behind the ears.

The fine, pinhead-sized red rashes had turned into rice-grain-sized blisters because they hadn't been treated.

They were oily and glistening; if scratched open, a sticky clear fluid would leak out, and it was somewhat painful.

Everyone looked rather pathetic. The herbs the horse gang carried were useless, and they didn't know what kind of poisonous insect it was.

They were even more afraid they had been tainted by the miasma of the rainforest or some other toxin.

Leaving this place was everyone's sole desire.

Headman Qi originally intended to find the villagers to thank them before bidding farewell, so as not to make the Qi Family Gang seem ill-mannered.

But they soon discovered a very serious problem.

Their horses were gone.

The horse gang relied on horses for survival; one could say they made their homes on horseback.

The horses were their brothers and partners.

But now, all fifty horses were missing.

Before resting yesterday, the horsemen had tied the horses to the pillars on the first floor.

Although the large jars nearby were creepy, there were no other buildings in Fish Fry Village besides the stilt houses, so they had to tie them there.

They hadn't expected all the horses to be gone when they woke up.

"Dapeng! Did you not see the horses when you got up last night?!"

Headman Qi let out a thunderous roar, his dark face flushing red.

Those horses were the backbone of the Qi Family Gang, especially that black horse; it had been with him for most of his life, and it wouldn't be an exaggeration to call it family.

Dapeng broke into a sweat immediately under everyone's gaze.

"I... I don't think I saw them!"

Dapeng remembered now. He had been groggy at the time, but he had felt something was wrong.

The horses were gone.

The first floor had been just as quiet as the second, with no sound from the horses.

But then he had been scared half to death by the sudden appearance of the villager and completely forgot about it.

Now that Headman Qi mentioned it, he remembered.

"It seems I didn't hear any movement from the horses when I went down in the middle of the night."

Furthermore, as men who had spent their lives with horses, the smell of horses was the most familiar scent to them.

Fifty horses gathered together would have a very strong animal scent, but now there was nothing.

"Search!"

Headman Qi squeezed the word out through gritted teeth. The thirty horsemen scattered to find the horses.

Fish Fry Village was small; it only took ten minutes to search, but there was no sign of the horses.

However, they found something else.

Unlike the others searching for horses, Nan Yue and her companions immediately went to investigate the oddities of Fish Fry Village.

Unlike the optimistic Qi Family Gang, they were well aware that there was a high probability they wouldn't be able to leave.

The mission truly began here.

Fish Fry Village.

Whether it was the fear or the resentment of the Qi Family Gang, it all originated here.

The starting point and the ending point: Fish Fry Village.