The Black River tributary, the tide, ascension to immortality…
Countless clues were gradually connecting, like a ball of yarn that had rolled apart across the floor.
And after witnessing the Black River tributary here, Xu Muchan seemed to have faintly grasped one loose end.
Assuming that Immortal Village really was connected to the Ouyang family, then they might have been raising these chicken-headed people all along.
Perhaps they wanted to cultivate them like venomous creatures in a gu, deliberately creating deities that could be devoured.
Or perhaps…
they were using them to locate Black River tributaries.
If he thought the worst of it, perhaps both possibilities were true.
At present, records concerning the Black River tributaries should only exist among the Wei family and in the notes left behind by the Wei family’s first ancestor.
But the Black River’s whereabouts were unpredictable, so its tributaries were probably even harder to locate.
The Black River tides, on the other hand, had been discovered many times from the Republican era to the present.
The tide…
The tributary…
Xu Muchan was frowning as he pondered the connection between the two when he suddenly heard a faint sizzling sound coming from the chicken-headed people gathered in a circle.
Immediately afterward, their bodies began melting like snow under the sun.
Bit by bit, they dissolved into viscous black water and seeped into the earth.
Only a few white feathers remained scattered across the ground.
The Black River tributary moving beneath the earth seemed to have been stimulated by something.
It suddenly burst through the ground and sprayed upward.
The tributary was not particularly wide, flowing like a mountain stream as it wound toward the village.
Xu Muchan was about to chase after it when he heard a strange sound from the other side.
It sounded almost like paper rubbing against paper.
The sound was deeply imprinted in his memory.
The moment it rang out, he recognized it.
Xu Muchan did not pursue the tributary.
Instead, he carefully concealed himself among the snowy trees, his black-red eyes scanning the forest through the dog-face mask.
In the snow-white forest, an extremely tall figure was moving rapidly between the trees.
From the front, it looked human.
But from the side, it was only a thin, flat shape.
Its elongated body was nearly two meters tall, and as it moved rapidly through the forest, its thin body swayed back and forth in the wind.
It looked incredibly strange.
The moment Xu Muchan saw its appearance clearly, his expression subtly changed.
It was a paper man.
Back when he had been sold to Leigong Village, Cui Tong had chased him down and captured him while he was trying to escape.
That sight had once been one of the deepest shadows of Xu Muchan’s childhood.
Only later, when he encountered Cui Tong again, did he learn that the paper man was merely a special kind of paper puppet.
But Cui Tong had long since sunk into the shallows of the Black River along with Leigong Village.
Xu Muchan stared fixedly at the paper man’s face.
Although the paper figure kept swaying back and forth, Xu Muchan still recognized it.
It was Ouyang Mu’s face.
How could the Ouyang family know Cui Tong’s secret technique?
Xu Muchan furrowed his brow.
As he recalled everything Cui Tong had done, he suddenly realized that he had overlooked something very important before—
there was a good chance that someone had been giving Cui Tong orders from behind the scenes.
Previously, he had thought that Cui Tong was simply a rogue Taoist who did not follow the proper path.
Yan He’s assessment had supported that conclusion.
And after Cui Tong died, Xu Muchan had stopped investigating the man who had changed the course of his life.
But now that he thought about it carefully, he realized there were many suspicious aspects to Cui Tong.
Just the fact that Cui Tong had bought him and then sold him to Leigong Village, intending to raise him into a new Ghost King, was already deeply strange.
But if Cui Tong had been acting under someone’s orders and had another purpose, then it all made much more sense.
Xu Muchan turned his gaze toward the paper man, which was still searching among the trees.
Fortunately, the chicken-headed people had already merged into the Black River, and the tributary had just departed.
So after searching the snowy forest for quite some time, the paper man found nothing.
It seemed somewhat displeased.
It remained there ominously for a moment before heading back toward the village.
Xu Muchan silently followed behind it.
The paper man headed straight toward the wooden tower.
Tonight, the monster had not appeared.
The entire village was deathly silent.
The wooden tower was no exception.
The paper man cautiously looked around outside the tower for a moment before carefully stepping inside.
It circled the altar once, then went to inspect the murals on the walls of the wooden tower.
It seemed unwilling to leave empty-handed and wanted to find some kind of clue.
Just then—
a very soft “gurgle” came from inside the altar.
Xu Muchan’s eyes narrowed.
His gaze fell upon the altar.
The surface of the altar was bulging slightly.
The paper man had obviously seen it too. It realized the danger and immediately turned to leave.
Xu Muchan watched from the shadows. He casually picked up a small stone, and just as the paper man was about to step out of the wooden tower, he hurled it—
The stone, no bigger than a fingernail, did not have much destructive power. It could not even break through the paper man’s body. But propelled by the force of the throw, it sent the paper man drifting backward, and by sheer coincidence, it fell onto the altar.
The bulging on the surface of the altar became extremely obvious, and the sound of “gurgle, gurgle” rang out without stopping.
The paper man braced itself with one arm and tried to get up, but just as it took a step, a deformed, elongated arm suddenly shot out from inside the altar, clamped tightly around its neck, and forcibly dragged it back.
In the face of the monster, the paper man had no ability to fight back and could only struggle desperately.
But by now, the monster had already crawled halfway out of the altar. More arms reached out and grabbed the paper man, violently tearing it into pieces before stuffing the scraps into its drooling maw.
Xu Muchan heard the short, shrill scream coming from inside the wooden tower. Only then did he leave, satisfied.
He returned to the house from earlier. Wei Xilou was still lying on the bed in exactly the same position, showing no sign of waking.
Xu Muchan took off the dog-face mask, frowned, and put it over Wei Xilou’s face, muttering softly, “Brother, where exactly did you go?”
The unconscious man on the bed gave no response.
A little dejected, Xu Muchan removed the dog-face mask and put it away. Then he lay down beside Wei Xilou. After lying there for a while, he turned onto his side and rested his forehead against Wei Xilou’s arm. Only then did he stop moving.
A long while later, dawn finally broke.
Xu Muchan pretended to sleep for a while, but the sound of the skylight beside him opening startled him awake. He took Wei Xilou out of the wooden house.
No one had been hurt that night.
The dark clouds hanging over everyone’s heads finally seemed to disperse a little. Jin Qingqing said, “It looks like that monster didn’t come out last night.”
“Did you hear knocking? I didn’t hear a thing all night.”
Chai Ming and the others shook their heads as well. “Neither did we.”
Xu Muchan shook his head too, his gaze unobtrusively sweeping toward Ouyang Mu.
Ouyang Mu’s face was somewhat pale. He seemed distracted and hadn’t heard Jin Qingqing.
It was only when Jin Qingqing asked again, puzzled, that he came back to himself and shook his head. “I didn’t hear it either.”
Everyone therefore assumed that the monster had not come out last night, and a trace of relief appeared on their faces.
Chai Ming said, “If the monster still doesn’t come out tonight, let’s go out and take a look. The days are getting shorter and shorter. We’ve been unable to find a way out, perhaps because we got it wrong from the beginning. Maybe the key is nighttime.”
Everyone else strongly agreed with the suggestion. After thinking about it, Xu Muchan agreed as well. Remembering the altar inside the wooden tower, he considered his words before saying, “I think the altar is the key. We could try smashing it before the monster comes out. Maybe that will let us go back.”
After seeing those chicken-headed people and the Black River tributary in the forest last night, he had immediately thought of the corpses of chicken-headed people piled on the altar of the ruined temple in the real world.
Those chicken-headed people had most likely summoned the Black River through self-sacrifice, thereby creating this ghost domain. And whether in the real world or the ghost domain, there happened to be an altar like this.
This altar was very likely a passage connecting the two worlds.
There was simply some information he could not tell Jin Qingqing and the others, so all he could do was make the suggestion.
Fortunately, no one had any better ideas now. They could only take a desperate gamble and agree to Xu Muchan’s proposal, deciding to go to the wooden tower before nightfall.
Ouyang Mu, however, gave Xu Muchan a meaningful look. “Student Xu, are you that certain that breaking the altar will let us go back?”
Xu Muchan met his gaze, his expression harmless. “I’m not certain. But we don’t have any better options, so we can only try it first.”
Ouyang Mu narrowed his eyes, then suddenly changed the subject. “Have you finished using my compass?”
“Ah… If you hadn’t mentioned it, I would’ve almost forgotten.”
Xu Muchan took the compass from his pocket and handed it back to him with a smile. “Thanks. I tried it last night and found that the compass really didn’t react at all. But it looks somewhat different from the compass Daoist Yan He used. It might not actually be broken. Maybe it has some other function—we just don’t know how to use it.”
Ouyang Mu’s eyes flickered. He glanced at Xu Muchan again before taking the compass and putting it away.
Xu Muchan looked at him with concern. “Mr. Ouyang, are you feeling unwell? You look a little pale.”
Ouyang Mu forced a smile. “I am feeling a little unwell. I haven’t dared sleep much for several nights in a row. If I keep going like this, I don’t think I’ll be able to hold out.”
The others all showed agreement when they heard this.
Jin Qingqing said, “Since we have a plan now, let’s not run around during the day. We should get some proper rest and eat something, then prepare for tonight.”
She took out the remaining food and divided it among them. After everyone ate, they each found a place to rest.
Today, Immortal Village seemed to have returned to its former peaceful state. The chicken-headed people busied themselves under the sunlight, looking carefree and content, as though this really were an isolated paradise untouched by the outside world.
Night soon fell.
The chicken-headed people in the village abruptly disappeared. The lively village fell deathly silent, leaving only the slightly tense sounds of everyone’s breathing.
The group held their breaths and cautiously approached the wooden tower.
According to the usual pattern, the monster should not have appeared yet at this time. They could smash the altar before it came out and search for an exit.
On the way there, Jin Qingqing and the others had casually picked up the hoes that had been leaning against the walls.
They nervously stepped into the wooden tower. Seeing that the altar remained completely still, Xu Muchan was the first to swing his hoe.
The hard metal hoe should have produced a sharp, violent clang when it struck the altar, but in reality, only a dull thud came from the impact.
It was as though the hoe had been driven into a mass of soft flesh.
Xu Muchan’s eyes shifted. He increased his strength and repeatedly dug the hoe back out.
Chunks of the broken edges fell to the ground, revealing the altar’s crimson interior.
Seeing that he had made the first move, Jin Qingqing and the others also began swinging their hoes. Working together, they smashed apart the altar in no time, revealing a large hole beneath it that seemed to lead somewhere unknown.
“There’s a hole.”
Chai Ming crouched at the edge and looked down. He turned back to the others and asked, “Are we going down?”