Xu Muchan stared at Young Master Huang in confusion, unable to take his eyes off him. His footsteps slowed as well.
But at that exact moment, the two little dogs suddenly darted out one after another, interrupting Xu Muchan’s train of thought.
Xu Muchan crouched down and stroked the little dogs as they ran excitedly around him.
“Do you two want to go outside too?”
Wei Yao and Wen Dajiang nodded frantically, barking excitedly, their tails spinning like propellers.
They had finally managed to get out of the cage.
Following the scent of the Old Ancestor and Xu Muchan all the way over, they had arrived just in time to see the Old Ancestor confronting those paper effigies.
The enormous paper effigy leading the group clearly looked difficult to deal with, so the two of them immediately decided to hide.
The Old Ancestor was so powerful.
He could definitely handle it.
And sure enough, that paper effigy hadn’t even lasted five minutes against the Old Ancestor.
Seeing that the Old Ancestor was about to leave with Xu Muchan, Wei Yao and Wen Dajiang finally hurried out.
The two dogs surrounded Xu Muchan and barked excitedly.
“Brother! If you’re going, take us with you!”
Xu Muchan couldn’t understand them, but he could more or less tell that the little dogs wanted to go outside with them.
He hesitated and looked at Wei Xilou.
“They want to come with us too.”
Wei Xilou glanced at the little rats—er, little dogs—circling Xu Muchan and barking incessantly.
He said unhurriedly, “Little dogs are noisy, and they like to run around. They might even relieve themselves all over the road. If we take them along, I’m afraid we won’t be able to enjoy ourselves at all.”
As soon as Xu Muchan heard this, he immediately said, “Then we won’t take them.”
He then soothingly stroked the little dogs’ heads.
“You two stay home and play nicely. I’ll bring you something delicious when I come back.”
Wei Xilou directly instructed the steward, “Take good care of them. Don’t let them run around.”
Wei Yao and Wen Dajiang felt as though the sky had collapsed.
They lay listlessly at the main gate, watching helplessly as the two of them walked out hand in hand.
From behind, they actually looked rather well-matched.
Wen Dajiang stretched his neck out and said incredulously, “Holy crap. Don’t tell me they’re actually dating now?”
Wei Yao was equally worried.
“Am I really going to have to call Xu Muchan Great-Grandma?”
After leaving the house, Xu Muchan completely forgot about the little dogs.
His attention was captured by the endless stretch of lights outside.
The sky beyond was dark and gloomy, like the kind of sky that came before a storm.
Yet there were almost no clouds visible overhead.
There was only a vast, murky darkness hanging over everything.
Countless lights, like fireflies, flickered amid the darkness, stretching from nearby into the distance. There was a strange, eerie kind of beauty to them.
Xu Muchan exclaimed in amazement, “So it’s this lively outside.”
After walking closer, they discovered that the lights were actually white lanterns, each hanging from a tall bamboo pole. Beside the bamboo poles stood one house or stall after another. Occasionally, someone whose features could not be made out would pass beneath a lantern, stop to look through the goods on display, and then, after some haggling, leave with something in hand.
It was just that the sky was too dark. The lanterns served only to illuminate the way, making it impossible to see clearly what the stalls were selling.
Like a bird that had been locked up for too long, Xu Muchan excitedly tugged Wei Xilou along, quickening his pace as they headed toward the nearest stall.
“Customer, what would you like?” The shopkeeper raised his head. Perhaps because of the dim lighting, his chubby face actually looked somewhat like a pig’s face.
Xu Muchan froze slightly and had not yet had time to answer when the previously enthusiastic shopkeeper suddenly changed expression. With a snort, he shrieked accusingly, “Are you from the Huang family?”
Those words immediately drew everyone’s attention nearby. Whether they were doing business or shopping, every single one of them turned toward Xu Muchan and Wei Xilou, their eyes flashing with fear and disgust.
“People from the Huang family!”
“Looks like the Huang family’s new bride!”
“The Huang family actually dares to come out!”
In an instant, everyone stood up and began surrounding Xu Muchan and Wei Xilou from all sides.
Xu Muchan looked around. The more he looked at these people, the stranger they seemed. Those faces did not look human at all. They looked more like the faces of animals that had been forcibly pressed onto human heads—grotesque and nauseating.
Xu Muchan vaguely realized that something was wrong. He quietly tugged at Wei Xilou’s sleeve and whispered, “Have they been possessed by ghosts too?”
There were no willow branches here. His husband might not have a suitable weapon, and there were simply too many of these ghostly entities. Worried, Xu Muchan said, “Should we run back?”
Wei Xilou reassuringly squeezed his hand and swept a glance over the gradually approaching crowd.
“The Huang family’s main gate is open. From today onward, you are free to come and go.”
“The main gate is open?”
“Really?”
“He couldn’t be trying to trick us, could he?”
“We’ll know if we go take a look.”
In an instant, everyone’s attention shifted away from the two of them, and they surged toward the Huang family residence.
Watching the enormous crowd, Xu Muchan worriedly asked, “What are they going into the residence for? Mother and Little Sister are still inside. They won’t be in danger, will they?”
Wei Xilou smiled and led him forward by the hand.
“Before today, they couldn’t get in. A-Chan doesn’t need to worry.”
There was something strange about those words. They couldn’t get in before today, but what about after today?
Xu Muchan frowned as he pondered it, feeling that everything was filled with strangeness.
The old residence, the people inside it, those animal-faced stall owners outside… even his husband, who was holding his hand right now, was strange.
Perhaps there were simply too many questions weighing on him. Xu Muchan could not help blurting out, “Where exactly is this place?”
Wei Xilou led him to a stall. He lowered his eyes to look at him and thought for a moment before saying, “If you really want to put it into words, this is part of the Blood Basin Realm of Suffering, the legendary boundary between Yin and Yang. But there’s actually a more accurate name for this place—the Black River Shoals.”
Xu Muchan stared at him blankly. Whether it was the Blood Basin Realm of Suffering, the boundary between Yin and Yang, or the Black River Shoals, every one of those terms was completely unfamiliar to him.
“I don’t understand.”
Xu Muchan furrowed his brows, struggling to organize his thoughts.
“What are the Black River Shoals? Aren’t we in Huangshi Town?”
Huangshi Town was the name of the town where the Huang family was located.
“The Black River periodically enters flood season. The time and location of each flood cannot be predicted, but there is one thing that is certain: when the Yin energy in a place becomes too dense, it may trigger a flood in the Black River. During flood season, the Black River changes course, completely submerging and devouring everything in its path. The areas swallowed by the Black River disappear overnight. In reality, they become part of the Black River Shoals. The Huang family, as well as Huangshi Town, are places like that.”
The more Xu Muchan listened, the more confused he became. But Wei Xilou stopped explaining at this point and instead said to the stall owner, “One bowl of Moon-Yin Water.”
The stall owner was an old man. His aged face resembled dried orange peel, but even so, Xu Muchan could still make out the nonhuman features on his face. His forehead was high and protruding, his eye sockets deeply sunken, while his mouth jutted forward. Most striking of all were those eyes that glimmered in the darkness, making him look like a monkey pretending to be human.
Those gleaming eyes sized the two of them up before the stall owner asked in a strange tone, “What are you going to trade for it?”
Wei Xilou said, “The Huang family’s young master.”
The offer was clearly extremely tempting. The old man’s eyes flashed repeatedly as he turned around and carefully ladled a bowl of water from the small bucket behind him. He poured it into a little bowl of indeterminate material and handed it to Wei Xilou.
Wei Xilou brought the little bowl to Xu Muchan’s lips.
“Drink this.”
The water in the bowl was black and viscous, its surface shimmering with tiny specks of light, as though a moon were reflected within it. It looked extremely strange.
Xu Muchan frowned in resistance. “What is this?”
Seeing that he was actually unwilling to drink it, the stall owner gave a mocking snort.
“This is good stuff. If I weren’t enemies with that pig, you couldn’t easily trade for such a big bowl. The water here is normally sold by the cup.”
He pointed toward the little white cups beside him.
The cup really was tiny, only about one-sixth the size of the little bowl.
Xu Muchan frowned and continued hesitating, but Wei Xilou suddenly gripped his chin. Before he could react, Wei Xilou fed the water into his mouth.
Xu Muchan instinctively swallowed. The viscous liquid slid down his throat and entered his body, a chill spreading through all four limbs and his entire body.
After that, Wei Xilou no longer needed to force him to drink. Xu Muchan’s gaze gradually went blank, and he eagerly grabbed Wei Xilou’s hand with both hands, gulping down all the remaining liquid.
The stall owner let out a strange chuckle.
“Feeding a dead man as though he were alive. How unusual, how truly unusual!”
Wei Xilou shot him a sharp look and handed over a wooden token.
“From now on, send one bowl to this place every month.”
The stall owner’s eyes widened. At once, that monkey-like face turned fierce.
“One bowl every month? You’re trying to take my life!”
Wei Xilou said, “The payment will satisfy you.”
The old man’s gleaming eyes rolled around.
“What payment? I need to see the goods first before I can think about it.”
But before he could bargain any further, Wei Xilou’s expression darkened.
Countless pale arms emerged from the ground and dragged the monkey-faced old man downward.
Half of his body had already been pulled beneath the ground when the monkey-faced old man realized that this was someone he could not afford to provoke. He immediately begged for mercy.
“I’ll send it! I’ll send it! Great God, please spare my life!”
Only after seeing him agree and accept the wooden token did Wei Xilou look satisfied. The pale arms disappeared in an instant, and the monkey-faced stall owner scrambled and crawled his way back out of the ground.
Wei Xilou turned his gaze toward Xu Muchan.
He saw Xu Muchan still sticking out his tongue to lick the remaining liquid from the bottom of the bowl. His gloomy expression instantly brightened, and he smiled as he gently patted Xu Muchan’s cheek.
“A-Chan?”
Xu Muchan raised his eyes. The black pupils that had completely filled his eyes gradually shrank back to their normal size, and the confusion in his expression slowly cleared.
A blush rose across his snow-white face—not from embarrassment, but from anger.
“Big Brother!”
Finally regaining his senses, Xu Muchan remembered all the foolish things he had just done. His thin face instantly flushed red with embarrassment. He glared angrily at Wei Xilou, then turned around and strode away.
Wei Xilou did not feel that he had done anything wrong at all. Seeing Xu Muchan storming off, he even asked, “What’s wrong with A-Chan?”
Xu Muchan gritted his teeth in anger and turned back to glare at him again before quickening his pace even more.
Wei Xilou was left behind, but he did not mind. Thinking about how this trip had not only unexpectedly recovered part of what he had lost, but had also led him to discover Moon-Yin Water, he felt that they had already gained plenty. The remaining stalls were probably selling nothing but inferior goods. If A-Chan did not want to look, then there was no need to make him.
Moon-Yin Water was refined from Black River water collected when the Yin energy was at its strongest. At that time, the Black River was at its most active and dangerous. Merely approaching the Black River without being lured in and swallowed by it was already extremely difficult, let alone drawing water from it and refining it.
That monkey-faced old man had probably been lucky enough to obtain some secret method that allowed him to collect and refine the water over a long period of time. Wei Xilou had heard of him before, but the Black River Shoals was not a fixed location. Its whereabouts were elusive and difficult to find, which was why he had previously been forced to seek another method and use Black Taisui as a substitute.
Now that he had Moon-Yin Water, he could save himself a great deal of trouble.
Wei Xilou unhurriedly followed behind Xu Muchan and returned to the Huang residence.
Outside the Huang residence stood a vast sea of paper effigies, clearly all waiting for the main gate to fully open.
Earlier, when Xu Muchan’s mind had been confused, he had only thought these paper effigies looked strange, each of them having a face that resembled an animal’s.
But now that he looked again, they did not merely resemble animals. The animal features had plainly been drawn onto their flat faces.
At this moment, all those strange faces turned toward Xu Muchan in unison, their eyes flashing with an eerie light. Yet when they saw Wei Xilou following behind him, they tacitly parted to form a path for him to pass through.
Xu Muchan did not look closely at these eerie paper effigies. He stepped over the threshold and entered the residence.
As soon as he entered the front courtyard, he heard waves of barking.
Following the sound, Xu Muchan found Wei Yao and Wen Dajiang chasing several paper effigies around and biting them. The paper effigies had been bitten into tatters, yet they kept their heads lowered and shoulders hunched, not daring to fight back. They actually looked somewhat pitiful.
Meanwhile, Wei Yao and Wen Dajiang were practically two vicious hounds. Although they were not very large, they were positively wicked.
Xu Muchan rubbed his temples in exasperation and called out, “Wei Yao! Wen Dajiang! Stop playing. Let’s go inside the residence and look for clues.”
As he spoke, he walked over and picked up the two little dogs, one in each hand.
Wei Yao still seemed reluctant to stop. His four paws kicked in the air as he said in surprise, “Xu Muchan, you remember now?”
Xu Muchan gave a muffled “Mm.”
Wei Yao was completely oblivious to the mood, continuing to chatter away.
“Haha, do you remember what you did earlier? You and Old Ancestor had a wedding ceremony, you know? You guys didn’t have your wedding night, did you?”
“I really don’t want to call you Great-Grandma. That’s way too scary…”
As he spoke, he suddenly felt the surroundings become deathly silent.
“？？？”
Sensing that something was not quite right, Wei Yao tried his best to crane his head upward, only to find Xu Muchan staring at him expressionlessly. On the other side, Wen Dajiang was frantically signaling toward something behind him.
Wei Yao cautiously turned his head and saw another expressionless Old Ancestor.
Holy crap! Why did these two have expressions that were scarier than the other?
Wei Yao cautiously asked, “Did you two have a fight?”
Xu Muchan also saw Wei Xilou coming over, but he had absolutely no desire to acknowledge him. He gave a cold snort and retorted, “Why would I fight with someone I’m not particularly familiar with?”
“……”
Once “not particularly familiar with” had been said, they had definitely had a fight.
Wei Yao shrank his neck and did not dare say another word.
Holding the two dogs, Xu Muchan headed toward the rear courtyard.
“There are still dozens of people locked in the storeroom. We can’t just leave them there. We should find a way to turn them back into humans and send them away. There might be clues in the Huang residence. Let’s go look.”
Wen Dajiang glanced at Old Ancestor, who remained where he was with an unreadable expression, then cautiously raised a paw and suggested, “Um… Old Ancestor should have a way, right?”
Xu Muchan said darkly, “Then go ask him. If you rely on other people for everything, what use are you?”
Wen Dajiang: “……”
Okay, fine. I’ll shut up too.
Although they did not know what had happened, it was obvious that Xu Muchan was in a bad mood. The two dogs did not dare provoke the tiger any further and could only obediently follow him in search of clues.
The Huang residence was enormous, but fortunately, most of the rooms were unoccupied. The places that might contain clues were basically just a few bedrooms and the study.
In the end, the three of them found several handwritten books that appeared to be diaries in the study of Young Master Huang’s father.
Although Master Huang had died young, he seemed to have been the only person in the Huang family who still possessed even the slightest bit of conscience. He had secretly recorded everything that had happened to the Huang family and in Huangshi Town.
According to the handwritten records, the Huang family had originally been an extremely ordinary household in Huangshi Town.
Master Huang’s name was Huang Jian. His father had been a failed scholar, and from a young age, Huang Jian had followed his scholar father in learning to read and write. Later, he taught at the school in town. He and his wife had a son and a daughter. Their life was not wealthy, but it was peaceful and stable.
But a sudden, severe drought shattered the Huang family’s peaceful life and destroyed the tranquility of Huangshi Town.
After two consecutive years of severe drought, the farmers could not harvest any grain. They were so hungry that they had to survive by chewing tree bark and digging up roots. In such years, simply being alive and having something to eat was already a blessing. Who would still have the means to send their children to school?
The number of students at the school dwindled, and Huang Jian consequently lost his job as a teacher. The family of four could only tighten their belts and struggle to survive.
According to Huang Jian’s records, after losing his job at the school, the family of four completely lost their source of food. The little grain they had left was quickly eaten up, and the family began following others outside to dig up tree roots to eat.
But the disaster had already lasted for two years. Anything edible had long since been dug up, so the family soon found themselves facing the desperate situation of having no food left at all.
Just as they were starving to the point of barely being alive, his son, Huang Wen, suddenly returned from outside with a dog-face mask.
Huang Jian wrote that he had no idea what material the mask was made from. It looked extremely sinister. But his son Huang Wen was extremely excited at the time. He put the dog-face mask on his face and said that he had been chosen by the gods. From then on, they would never go hungry again and would have endless meat to eat.
At the time, Huang Jian was already so weak from hunger that he barely had the strength to move, so he did not bother with him. He simply thought that his son, like the people outside, had gone crazy from prolonged hunger and was suffering from some sort of delusion.
Until that night, when his son really did drag a live pig back from outside.
The pig was emaciated, with bones protruding from its body, and it was still wailing miserably.
But no matter how skinny the pig was, it was still meat!
Forget meat—even after more than two years, the family had not had a single full meal. Every day, all they had was watery porridge in which you could count every grain of rice.
Now that they saw their son bringing back such a large pig, the entire family went wild with joy. They struggled to get up immediately, slaughtered and cooked the pig that very night, and wolfed down a hearty meal.
Only after they finished eating did Huang Jian remember to ask his son where the pig had come from.
Huang Wen mysteriously took the mask hanging from his waist, placed it over his face, and said with a grin, “Dad, Mom, Little Sister, this mask is really magical. It can turn living people into livestock. From now on, we won’t have to worry about having nothing to eat.”
At the time, Huang Wen was only thirteen or fourteen years old. After enduring more than two years of famine, he felt absolutely no problem with turning living people into livestock and eating them.
Instead, it was Huang Jian who felt frightened.
But looking at his wife and two children, all of them gaunt and yellow from hunger, the instinct to survive overcame his conscience. He did not object. He merely recorded the fear he dared not speak of to his family in his diary.
From that day onward, the Huang family, now with enough strength from eating meat, began working together.
They specifically targeted people who were alone, pretending to be friendly and tricking them into deserted places. Huang Wen would then turn them into livestock, after which they would bring them home, slaughter them, and eat the meat.
But there were not many people who traveled alone, and after having gone hungry for so long, there was hardly any fat on their bodies anyway.
At first, the family had been satisfied simply with having enough to fill their stomachs. Gradually, however, they began complaining that these livestock were not fat enough and were nothing but bones, with barely any fatty meat.
So Huang Wen turned his attention to the wealthy households in town.
At first, they acted secretly and were not discovered. When people in town noticed that some wealthy families had disappeared, they simply assumed that they had fled the famine or gone into hiding.
But as Huang Wen became increasingly bold, fewer and fewer people remained in the town, and everyone finally realized that something was wrong.
First, they noticed that every member of the Huang family had become plump and robust, looking nothing like people who were starving.
Then they noticed that the smell of meat constantly drifted out of the Huang residence in the middle of the night.
Someone even secretly climbed onto the wall surrounding their house and looked inside, only to discover that the kitchen was filled with hanging strips of dried meat.
The news that the Huang family was eating people spread throughout the town.
The remaining townspeople gathered together and, after discussing the matter, took sickles and rakes and stormed the Huang family’s door to demand an explanation.
When Huang Wen realized that their secret had been exposed, he was not frightened in the slightest.
He shielded his parents and younger sister behind him, put on the dog-face mask, and turned the person leading the disturbance—the one making the biggest commotion—into livestock.
This sinister sorcery frightened everyone else into a stupor, and they immediately scattered and fled.
But Huang Wen did not stop.
Instead, he and his family went from house to house, giving these livestock to the people of the town. They said that everyone was having a difficult time during the famine, and their family could not eat all the livestock themselves, so they were giving some to everyone.
Faced with such a blatant temptation, the townspeople eventually gave in.
Ignoring the livestock’s pleas, they slaughtered them and turned them into fragrant stewed meat, becoming accomplices to the Huang family.
Huang Jian wrote in his diary that from then on, the remaining people in town followed the Huang family’s lead. Huang Wen, who possessed the dog-face mask, became the undisputed ruler of Huangshi Town.
However, there had never been many people in Huangshi Town to begin with, and after so many had died, the population became increasingly sparse. So they began turning their attention to the surrounding villages and towns.
The people in town were responsible for going to the surrounding areas to capture people, while Huang Wen was responsible for turning those people into livestock.
Those who obeyed them could survive and join them. Those who refused were turned into livestock and then distributed to the people below according to their contributions.
In a famine where corpses lay everywhere, Huangshi Town was as lively as if it were celebrating the New Year.
The Huang family occupied the old residence of the wealthiest household in town and continuously expanded and renovated it. With all kinds of belongings plundered from the surrounding areas, they began living a life better than they had ever known.
His wife and two children were extremely satisfied with this life.
But Huang Jian was, after all, a scholar. He knew about propriety, morality, honor, and shame. On the one hand, he could not resist the temptation; on the other, he feared retribution.
Under this mental torment, Huang Jian became sick and died before two years had passed.
Although he had no shortage of food or drink, when he died, his face looked like that of a man in his sixties or seventies.
And only after he died did he discover that death was not the end.
The entire Huangshi Town was shrouded in black energy. The wronged souls of the dead wailed and cried day and night, while he was trapped inside the Huang residence, unable to rest in peace and unable to be reincarnated.
He could only watch helplessly as his wife and children descended into madness.
By the third year, the drought had actually ended. Rain finally fell in the spring, nourishing the cracked earth, and the crops could finally grow again.
But Huangshi Town could never return to what it had once been.
They continued finding ways to capture people from outside. Gradually, Huangshi Town and the surrounding areas became desolate lands where no living person dared to go.
Legend had it that so many people had died during the famine that their wronged souls had transformed into vengeful ghosts that would eat people.
And Huang Wen’s dog-face mask began to change as well.
At first, the dog-face mask could be removed at any time, and Huang Wen only wore it when he needed to use its power.
Later, the mask gradually became harder and harder to remove. Every time he tried to take it off, Huang Wen would suffer unbearable pain.
So he stopped trying to remove it and wore it day and night instead.
In the end, the dog-face mask fused with his face, while his body became increasingly swollen and bloated.
His son became a monster with a dog’s face.
When Huang Jian realized this, he saw an incomparably wide black river surging toward Huangshi Town, like a devastating flood.
In the blink of an eye, the raging waves swallowed the entire town.
The entire Huangshi Town was dragged from the human world into hell by the black river.
But his wife, children, and the people of the town were completely unaware of what had happened. They did not know that they were already living in purgatory.
Their bodies became paper effigies, yet they continued living just as they had when they were alive.
Huang Jian did not describe this part in much detail. He merely glossed over it in a few brief strokes.
At the very end, he wrote:
Perhaps this was retribution.