The sky outside had gradually brightened.
Rote still held the head of a Ghost-faced Monkey in his hand, looking at Su Ziyu with an unfriendly expression. Just as the group was preparing to return the way they came, a rustling sound suddenly came from the dense jungle around them. Leading the group was a one-eyed man who waved his hand to signal the others to stop, saying in a deep voice, "Something's not right. Be careful!"
No sooner had he spoken.
Two dark figures leapt out from the shadows, one pouncing towards the one-eyed man at the front, and the other towards Rote, who was holding the Ghost-faced Monkey head.
There seemed to be a scream from the one-eyed man's side, and Rote reacted swiftly; faced with the sudden attack, he rolled on the ground to dodge it immediately. However, this left Lina, who was standing behind him, exposed to the enemy. It all happened so quickly that Lina seemed unable to react. Su Ziyu, who was just a step behind her, instinctively pulled her back to avoid the attack, pulling so hard that both of them fell to the ground. Then, there was a chaotic clamor, interspersed with the cries of others; splattering blood even hit Su Ziyu's arm.
"Thank you." Lina, regaining her senses, extended her hand to pull Su Ziyu up, then drew the weapon from her waist.
Two larger Ghost-faced Monkeys were wreaking havoc among the crowd. Their ferocious faces showed a trace of madness, and their speed was astonishing. Within ten meters of Su Ziyu, two people were already lying on the ground, their lives or deaths uncertain. Further away, a person's entire face had been clawed apart, a mangled eyeball dangling from the bloody eye socket. It was as if, in that instant, the one-eyed man had suddenly used the person beside him as a human shield. Everyone present reacted quickly, hacking away at the frantic Ghost-faced Monkeys, which were soon dismembered under a flurry of blows.
The battle ended in less than three minutes.
The two Ghost-faced Monkeys were killed. Three people died among them, with six or seven wounded. Everyone's face bore a grim expression, looking as if they had narrowly escaped death.
Su Ziyu, having fallen behind in the group, was uninjured, though the sudden battle had given him a fright.
A mournful wind howled around them. The one-eyed man looked ashen-faced, his expression tense, as if hearing something eerie. He didn't even intend to collect his companions' bodies, urging everyone to leave quickly. Su Ziyu followed the others back, feeling as though, perhaps merely a delusion, a pair of eyes had been watching them all the way. Only after returning to the village did the others breathe a slight sigh of relief. Lina, taking the Ghost-faced Monkey's head, went to see Ken, while the injured went to tend their wounds. Su Ziyu returned to his residence, glancing at the one-eyed man before leaving, feeling that his expression was a bit strange upon returning, looking quite grim.
Dinner was brought over by Lina.
She seemingly treated Su Ziyu better; that evening, the village slaughtered two fat sheep, and she brought over a roasted leg of lamb.
It smelled delicious!
It had been nearly half a month since Su Ziyu had eaten a decent piece of meat.
In the first world, he had been hungry for three whole days, eating a scorpion before being captured by those serpent people. But raw scorpion was truly vile; the serpent people treated him entirely like a slave, their food akin to pig feed. It was only after meeting Lina that he started eating what humans should eat, though there was no richness in it. Today's lamb leg was arguably the best he'd ever eaten in his life.
He missed Sichuan-style lamb hotpot.
As a modern person, he was truly unaccustomed to this era; there wasn't even any toilet paper, forcing him to find leaves every time nature called. He truly didn't understand why the protagonists in those time-travel dramas he watched were so happy.
The food was poor, the clothing was shabby, and life's necessities were extremely scarce.
In the morning, just brushing his teeth required a twig, and nearby was an indigenous person staring at him in astonishment. All his living habits were incompatible with this era. Fortunately, Ken seemed convinced that he was of noble birth, merely thinking Su Ziyu was a bit more meticulous than others.
The night passed without anything of note.
The next morning, when Su Ziyu woke up, he saw Lina's pale and pretty face; her expression seemed a bit terrified. She pulled Su Ziyu up and walked outside.
The village was eerily quiet.
Lina brought him to a place that seemed to be the Blacksmith Shop. Inside were many people, and there was a strong smell of blood. Ken stood at the door with an ugly expression. Su Ziyu could see at a glance yesterday's one-eyed man, dead against the wall in an eerie posture, resembling a peculiar statue. The skin of his face had been peeled away, revealing dark red facial muscles, and his only eye had been gouged out, leaving a bloody socket. A slit had been cut on his forehead, with an eyeball from the Evil God statue perfectly embedded there. The one-eyed man had been dead for some time; the body had turned a bit blue, with dark veins showing beneath the skin's surface and the body's surface covered with many bloody scratches, seemingly self-inflicted.
"No one else came in. He gouged out his own eye."
The atmosphere was chilling. Lina even gripped Su Ziyu's clothing nervously, while others remained silent but looked fearful.
The Blacksmith Shop didn't have many things.
However, Su Ziyu noticed some peculiar instruments of torture, some that seemed to have been used on the one-eyed man. Last night, no one heard any unusual noises, making it unimaginable how one could gouge out their own eye without so much as a scream and, after removing the eye, manage to nail himself to the wall. Judging by the gruesomely tragic state of the corpse, the one-eyed man must have been in extreme agony before death. The room bore signs of a fierce struggle, yet no one had noticed overnight.
"Has his eye been found?" Ken asked with a grim face.
"No," a person beside him shook their head.
There were no signs of anyone else entering the room, yet the one-eyed man's eye was nowhere to be found.
The whole village was somewhat alarmed all day. Ken hastily ordered the one-eyed man's body to be buried, instructing others not to leave the village for a time and forbidding any discussion of the incident. The one-eyed man's body was buried by a group led by Rote, who was apparently the one-eyed man's uncle, and Lina seemed to be Rote's cousin; virtually everyone in the village was somewhat related.
The one-eyed man's death was, indeed, most mysterious.
Everyone who had entered the cave to view the Evil God statue that day felt uneasy, as the manner of the one-eyed man's death inevitably led to thoughts of that statue. In private, who knows what they discussed, but being an outsider, the natives rarely spoke to Su Ziyu.
During the daytime, Ken went out with a few people, not returning until the evening.
Lina stayed with Su Ziyu the entire day, her expression not looking good, occasionally spacing out. Truth be told, Su Ziyu himself was a little scared because the way the one-eyed man died inevitably made one think of supernatural events, a situation he couldn't handle at all.
However, having faced the prospect of death more often recently, he didn't feel overly panic-stricken, at least his thoughts remained clear.
Su Ziyu was also the first to realize that Rote and his group were missing.
The second person to notice this was Ken, who returned only at dusk, having instructed Rote to bury the one-eyed man's body, but by nightfall, none of them had returned.
Beneath the night sky.
It seemed a great fear hung over the village. Ken led a search around the village for Rote and the others, yet they had vanished completely, even the one-eyed man's body was gone. At the graveyard, there was only an empty grave pit, with some bloodstains scattered around. They seemed to have been there, but the people were nowhere in sight.
Everyone felt anxious that night.
Su Ziyu placed his black dagger within easy reach beside his bed, spending the entire night almost sleepless, in a state of half-dreaming and half-awake slumber.
.........