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墨書 Inktalez
Human Sacrifice
Zhou Manman said, "For now, everyone should be safe. I overheard Guo the Blind and Guo Huaiyi talking; they want to enter the forbidden area in the back mountains of Futu Ridge."
"The forbidden area?" I asked, puzzled. "No one knows what exactly is in the back mountain's forbidden area. The rumor is that the Snake Goddess resides there, and nine out of ten who enter end up dead. What are they planning to do with the forbidden area?"
I couldn't make sense of it. It was already late at night, and Futu Ridge would light up promptly at four-thirty in the morning. The out-of-body experience had drained my energy, leaving my head heavy and my body fatigued. I needed to sleep a bit more before dawn.
Zhou Manman required immense energy to maintain her presence after I had touched her. Without the Zhou Compass, I couldn't see her at all. I watched as she gradually faded from view, her expression peaceful as she finally returned to my side.
However, when I woke up, it was already afternoon. I hadn't expected the out-of-body experience to be so exhausting.
My mother told me she had called for me twice during that time, but I hadn't woken up. She was very happy to see Manman return.
I asked where Manman had gone since I had the Zhou Compass with me but couldn't see her. My mother said she had followed Big Black Cat and would return later.
I found it strange, but Zhou Manman believed that Big Black Cat could transform into a ghost. After several attempts to save her soul, it shouldn't pose any harm to her.
After last night's events, Guo the Blind and Guo Huaiyi had already turned against us. I never imagined I would find myself on the same side as someone like Li Fugui.
I recalled Huang the Lame's words before he died: if I couldn't defeat Guo the Blind, I should leave Futu Ridge; staying here would only lead to my demise.
After last night's events, I had decided to leave Futu Ridge. In just two days, regardless of whether my mother agreed or not, I would take her with me.
What was about to happen in Futu Ridge was beyond what ordinary people could handle. Guo the Blind and Li Fugui were already enigmatic figures, and now with Guo Huaiyi's appearance, my worries deepened because, in a sense, he wasn't human at all.
He was an evil spirit with dark powers; decades ago, the villagers of Bright Moon Village killed him for this reason. Now he had come back from the dead, and it was clear he intended to kill everyone—he was simply waiting for the right moment.
With his current abilities, killing a person would be no different than crushing an ant. How could someone like him not be feared? Could I really hide from him?
But before leaving, I needed to inform Huzi about everything so that he and his family could also escape Futu Ridge. No matter how strong Li Fugui was, he was still just a man—not someone specialized in exorcising ghosts or dealing with demons like a Daoist Sect member; he was merely an old man who was slightly stronger than average. I believed he could protect himself, but if Guo Huaiyi targeted his family, could he ensure their safety?
I planned to move with my mother to the county town first and then find a place to settle down. When I studied in the county town before, I knew of a place nearby where rent was cheap—ordinary residential houses. The money Old Man left me was enough for us to live there for several years without issue. By then, I could find a job that would definitely cover our daily expenses and living costs.
“Huzi!” I called out twice at Huzi's front door, but there was no response.
After knocking for a while, Aunt Huzi came out of the house, looking sleepy, as if she had just woken up from a nap.
“Aunt, is Huzi home?” I asked.
Seeing me, Aunt Huzi shouted towards Huzi's room, “Son, Yang Hao is looking for you.”
As she called out, she opened the door for me. “He’s probably still napping inside; he didn’t even come out for lunch.”
I followed Aunt Huzi into Huzi's room, but he wasn’t there. The television was still on, so he couldn’t have gone far.
“I’ll give him a call,” I said as I took out my phone to dial Huzi’s number. However, after two attempts, there was still no answer.
“He’s probably gone to the store; he doesn’t play with the other kids in the village,” Aunt Huzi chuckled.
“Alright then, Auntie, I’ll head out. I’ll call him again later; his phone is probably on silent. If he comes back, please tell him to find me; it’s urgent.” After saying goodbye to Aunt Huzi, I walked towards the grove on the west side of the village.
I remembered how often Huzi and I used to go to that grove to catch butterflies. It was a large area with an abandoned old well in the middle that had been filled in after a child drowned there. The center of the grove was spacious and covered with wildflowers and grass.
When no one else was around, Huzi and I would take sticks and compete to see who could catch more butterflies. At that time, martial arts movies were often playing on TV, and we practiced swordplay this way, dreaming of becoming chivalrous heroes when we grew up.
Back then, our most common battle cry while wielding our sticks was, “You shall die!”
“Yang Hao, you shall die!” I still remembered his voice from those days.
I recalled one time when Huzi hit me on the head with a stick when I wasn’t paying attention, leaving a big bump. Looking back now, it was quite funny.
Later on, due to conflicts with Huzi, we lost contact for over ten years. But I knew that whenever he was feeling down, he would come here to play. Now that I thought about it, it felt wrong not to have kept in touch with a friend I grew up with just because of school pressures.
When I reached the clearing in the grove, I didn’t see Huzi. So I climbed further west into Low Hill. At the bottom of Low Hill was a clear pond where the village kids often came to bathe.
In the pond were a group of twelve or thirteen-year-olds. When they saw me coming over, they waved at me; one or two recognized me and called my name, inviting me to join them.
I smiled and said, "I'm already in my twenties, yet here I am bathing with a bunch of kids. Have you seen Huzi?"
"Who is Huzi?" one of the kids asked.
I replied, "He's the grandson of the village chief, Li Fugui. Li Hu."
The children all shook their heads. I found it strange; aside from these two places, Huzi usually didn't go anywhere else. Today wasn't a market day in town, so could he have taken a bus to the county for some fun?
Right now, leaving Futu Ridge was urgent. Delaying even a moment could lead to danger. Guo Huaiyi was neither human nor ghost, and his demeanor was unsettling. He had used Zhou Manman to achieve his Yin Marriage and come back to life. Since I had taken Zhou Manman away from him and had been targeting him at every turn, if he wanted to kill me, I would be helpless. The more I thought about it, the more uneasy I felt. I decided to talk to my mother about moving away from Futu Ridge that very night.
During dinner, I brought up my thoughts about leaving Futu Ridge and recounted all the recent events in detail to my mother. She was quite superstitious, so even if I spoke in a way that seemed far-fetched, she might still believe me.
After listening to me, my mother hesitated and said, "How about you move to the city first? I'll come find you after a while."
"Do you not believe what I'm saying?" I asked her and pulled out the Zhou Compass to demonstrate its miraculous ability to reverse time.
"I believe you, but I can't leave. You go first," she replied.
I slammed my chopsticks down on the table and shouted at her, "You're willing to risk both your life and mine for someone who's expendable! How selfish!"
I came from a single-parent family and knew my mother had a tough life. No matter how much I suffered, I never lost my temper with her. But this time, even after laying out the imminent threat to my life, she still didn't want to leave.
"That's not how it is! That's not how it is!" she said as she wiped her tears.
I retreated into my room, feeling frustrated. Suddenly curious about what my estranged father looked like, I stepped out of my room and stood in the yard fiddling with the needle of the Zhou Compass.
The light and shadow shifted, but everything remained blank. No matter how I adjusted the needle's position, I couldn't see any figures.
"What’s going on?" I wondered silently, unable to understand why.
Using the Zhou Compass for an extended period could greatly deplete one's energy. From what Guo the Blind and Guo Huaiyi had said, it seemed they couldn't harness the power of the Zhou Compass either.
Not wanting to dwell on it any longer, I stood in the yard for a while before returning to my room.
Around eight in the evening, a sudden knocking echoed from outside the door. I got up to open it and was surprised to see Li Fugui.
Li Fugui, usually indifferent, had a hint of urgency on his face. He asked, "Is Huzi with you?"
"Hasn't he come home yet?" I asked in confusion. "I went looking for him this afternoon, checked the woods to the west, and couldn't find anyone. I tried calling, but no one answered. Did he go to the county town for some fun?"
Li Fugui replied, "The buses from the town to the county have stopped running long ago, and he didn't take the car from home. He wouldn't go to the county town; Huzi is missing."
Without another word, Li Fugui turned and walked toward the back of the village. I called out, "I'll go change my clothes and join you in looking for him."
I hurried back to my room to change into long sleeves and pants; otherwise, I'd be covered in mosquito bites after going out at night.
However, Li Fugui didn't wait for me. By the time I came out, he was nowhere to be found. A bad feeling crept into my heart, so I headed straight to Guo the Blind's house to ask.
Guo the Blind opened the door and, upon hearing that Huzi was missing, spoke with a harsh tone. "Just a worthless fish. Even if I were to take action, I wouldn't kill him first. Besides, doesn't he have a protective jade? Guo Huaiyi can't touch him either. If we had done something to him, Li Fugui would have been here long ago; why would you need to come asking?"
"Sorry for bothering you," I said apologetically.
A couple of hours later, some villagers also came out looking for Huzi. Captain Liu led a group of people to search around the abandoned Land Temple at the back of the village but found no sign of him.
Just then, my phone suddenly rang, displaying Huzi's number.
I quickly answered and asked, "Huzi, where have you been?"
On the other end of the line was only a busy signal. I immediately tried calling him back, but it rang for a long time without an answer.
I opened my messaging app and sent Huzi a text: Where are you? What happened? I added a few crying emojis at the end.
Soon enough, Huzi replied: "Come to the back mountain."
"What are you doing there in the middle of the night? Your grandfather and I have been looking for you for half an hour."
"The cliff on the back mountain is deserted; hurry up."
After that, no matter what I sent to Huzi, there was no reply. He didn't answer my calls either. I couldn't understand what was going on with Huzi. Was it because I had said a few harsh words about his grandfather that put him in a bad mood and made him want to scare me? That didn't seem like Huzi's character at all. Moreover, the night at Futu Ridge wasn't peaceful. Our trip to the Pine Forest before the forbidden area in the back mountain felt pointless. Did he discover something unusual that night?
I was both puzzled and anxious, so I hurriedly made my way to the back mountain.
When I reached the entrance at the bottom of the cliff, I called out, "Huzi, where are you?"
There was a rustling in the grass ahead, followed by a flicker of light from a phone.
"Huzi, is that you?" I asked cautiously, picking up a sharp stone from the ground. I realized something was wrong; Huzi would never joke around with me at this hour.
The light in the grass disappeared. I took out my phone and dialed Huzi's number. The sound of his ringtone echoed from within the bushes. I pushed aside the grass and saw Huzi's phone lying alone on the ground.
"Huzi!" I shouted loudly, startling birds into flight and causing wild rabbits and cats to scurry away in the silent back mountain.
There were several bloodstains on Huzi's phone. I looked toward the trampled grass ahead, where faint traces of blood were visible.
Following the blood trail, my heart raced with growing fear as there was too much blood on the ground. When I stepped out of the thicket, a dead tree stood before me.
Huzi's head was hanging from it.
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