Suddenly, a scream rang out from the direction of the large tent. The enormous, grotesque face above it abruptly lifted, then, with its eight wildly flailing arms, strode toward the source of the scream.
The scream instantly turned into a horrific scream, so shrill and distorted that Ke Xun couldn't immediately discern who had uttered it.
The giant shadow's arms converged before it, its body blocking Ke Xun's view. The scream twisted and tore in front of it, quickly fading into silence. Just as Ke Xun was preparing to wait for it to turn back, it strode step by step to Zhou Bin and Qin Ci's tent, bent down, and stretched out its arm. In the next instant, it had pulled a person out of the tent.
The person cried out something, then was gripped by the giant hand, and a sharp, shrill scream rang out again, chilling everyone to the bone.
Ke Xun was still stunned when he suddenly saw a figure flash past outside the tent. Before he could react, the curtain of his tent was flung open, and someone quickly squeezed in.
To be precise, there were two people: Qin Ci, carrying the unconscious Zhao Dan on his back.
"How—" Ke Xun began to speak, but Qin Ci covered his mouth to stop him, quickly placing Zhao Dan beside him before lying down himself.
Ke Xun was completely bewildered, lying there utterly confused. He heard Zhou Bin's screams quickly fade into the air, and the giant shadow turned again, walking step by step towards the tent.
Ke Xun looked up and saw its enormous form standing above, its six arms waving in the air, the other two arms each carrying something still dripping thick streams of blood.
The giant shadow bent down, the arms carrying the objects casually draping them over the tent roof. The two objects, reflected in the pale snow, were clearly defined.
They were two complete, fresh skeletons.
Uncongealed blood and what appeared to be internal organs or bits of flesh clung to the skeletons, slowly sliding down the curve of the tent roof.
Ke Xun stared at it, clenching the stone fragment in his hand, thinking that he would definitely stab it in the eyes before he died.
Before dawn, the giant shadow, carrying its offerings for the night, left the ground.
Ke Xun sat up and looked at Qin Ci.
Qin Ci looked somewhat haggard, pinched his brow, and said in a low voice, "I don't know what happened. Logically speaking, Zhou Bin prepared the most offerings, but last night, that thing still chose our tent... When Zhou Bin saw that the thing was going to capture him, he asked me to bring Zhao Dan to find you... Perhaps, he also held onto a last hope for Zhao Dan. Seeing that the offerings he prepared had no effect, he asked the three of us to form a group, hoping to avoid the thing's slaughter."
Ke Xun looked at the still unconscious Zhao Dan, then looked up at the crimson skull bloodstain left on the top of the tent. The skull's head, with its two empty eye sockets, seemed to be staring at Zhao Dan in its depths.
"At least he's good to his girlfriend." Ke Xun withdrew his gaze, stood up, and was about to leave when the tent flap was lifted from the outside. Mu Yiran strode in with a dark expression. Ke Xun's lips curled into a smile as he was about to greet him when he was punched in the face. He staggered back two steps and collapsed onto the blanket, looking up at Mu Yiran with blood streaming from his nose.
"There won't be a next time." Mu Yiran gave him a cold stare, turned, and walked out of the tent.
Ke Xun wiped his nose with the back of his hand, slumped on the blanket, and took a few breaths. Then he turned to Qin Ci and smiled, "Guess why he beat me up."
Qin Ci sat next to him, rubbing his temples. "I think it's because you knocked him unconscious yesterday without his permission."
Ke Xun chuckled, his chest heaving. "Oh, I thought it was a violent manifestation of 'worry'."
Coming out of the tent, Ke Xun saw Mu Yiran covering two corpses curled up on the ground not far away with two blankets.
"Curled up" wasn't quite accurate. The two corpses looked more like rubber figures that had been deflated, limp and crumpled into a ball.
In the tent where Mu Yiran and Wei Dong were, the curtain was half-open, vaguely revealing half of the pale face of the person huddled inside, knees drawn up to their chest – it was Sha Liu.
When Wei Dong woke up, Zhao Dan also awoke from her unconsciousness, her heart-wrenching cries echoing between the tents. The usually timid Zhao Dan clung to Zhou Bin's skeletal corpse, refusing to leave no matter who tried to pull her away.
"Why?!" Wei Dong, his eyes red and fists clenched, asked Ke Xun and Mu Yiran.
"Didn't we gather all the offerings? Why were we still killed?" Geng's father asked, his voice trembling.
Qin Ci frowned deeply. "Something must be wrong. We might have made a mistake, or forgotten something."
"Five Wisdom Dews, Five Tribute Meat, Dom, Libation Wine, Offering Bowls, Lamp, Gala, Dangka," Sha Liu adjusted her glasses, her lips bloodless. "We've prepared everything, even more varieties. Why...why..."
No one answered her. Everyone was plunged into unprecedented confusion, helplessness, and fear.
"I remember now," Sha Liu's bloodshot eyes suddenly widened. "The book says that these offerings to the wrathful demon must be placed on the skin of a little boy's corpse! Because the skin of a little boy can suppress the demons that try to disrupt the ritual—is that why we failed?"
"What you're saying is nothing but heresy!" Geng's mother couldn't hold back any longer, shouting angrily, tightly protecting her child with her hands. Sha Liu's mention of the little boy made her extremely tense and wary.
"What kind of legitimate sect would use such things as sacrifices?!" Geng's father also angrily rebuked.
Sha Liu glanced silently at the Geng couple and said softly, "Offering oneself to the religion is actually an honor for devout believers.
"I've seen it said that in Ganxiong, people's devotion to the Sataka religion can be so high that even if someone is treating you like a friend one second, drinking and chatting happily, they can readily obey an elder's command to cut off your head the next second.
"The less people have been exposed to science, the greater the influence and control that faith has on them. For them, death is not frightening; life and death are both part of reincarnation, a return to nature. Therefore, they don't see this cruel and bloody method of sacrifice as something terrible and inhumane.
"In other words, in their view, death and rebirth are both divine guidance and gifts; life and death are equal. The body is just a stinking shell, not worth rejoicing over or being reluctant to part with. Many sects even consider torturing the body a way to cultivate the mind and body; the more pain the body suffers, the deeper the cultivation, and the purer the soul."
"So… self-sacrifice might be hard for outsiders to accept and understand, but in a place where the Sakya religion is prevalent, it's probably not surprising at all. They cultivate the soul, the spirit, not the body."
"Get out!" Aunt Geng pointed at Sha Liu's nose and cursed, "I don't care where this is, or what religion or god they believe in, our family doesn't believe in this! Nobody can mess with our family! I don't care where you heard or saw this, if you dare say another word, I'll fight you to the death!"
Sha Liu didn't respond, only lowered her head and adjusted her glasses.
"Now, the most urgent thing," Qin Ci said, "is to find out why Zhou Bin was chosen last night, otherwise the others will also die tonight."
As he spoke, pondering, he said, "Last night, Zhou Bin's tent, my tent, and the tent of Brother Geng's family of three all contained almost all the offerings we had prepared. Even one of the Five Wisdom Dews that Li Ziling possessed, Zhou Bin also got his hands on yesterday. Add to that the other four types of Wisdom Dew he got from Sha Liu, the Five Tribute Meat he obtained himself, and the things he got from the sky burial platform yesterday... He even processed those things according to Sha Liu's instructions. You could say that the offerings in our tent were the most complete. I don't understand why we were the ones chosen."
Brother Geng's father also pondered and said, "Perhaps he violated some taboo. He killed the people in this painting just to obtain human flesh. Yesterday, he even went to steal the corpses from the sky burial platform. This is blasphemy against corpses. Such behavior could very well incur the wrath of both heaven and man, which is why that thing chose him!"
"That's not impossible," Qin Ci pondered, then looked at Ke Xun. "I have another question. Last night, that thing went to Xiao Ke's tent first, which met the first selection criterion. Why didn't it choose Xiao Ke? I don't understand this. Did Xiao Ke notice anything when it looked into the tent?"
"I don't understand either," Ke Xun shrugged. Seeing Mu Yiran's cold gaze sweep over him, he winked innocently at him, quickly averting his gaze before Mu Yiran's face darkened, and looked at Qin Ci. "But I think it actually wanted to drag me out. It stared at me from up there for a long time, like it was observing me. I just don't know why it observed me for so long."
"It might be choosing the quality of this piece of meat," Wei Dong said.
"Then it shouldn't have hesitated even more. Do I need to choose my quality?" Ke Xun said.
"I don't think it will let go of anyone who didn't meet the conditions," Mu Yiran said. "Li Ziling is an example. She and Zhou Bin are the opposite. Zhou Bin met the requirements for the number of people in the tent and collected all the offerings. Li Ziling didn't meet the requirements for the number of people in the tent and didn't have any offerings with her. Both of them were chosen. There's only one explanation for this—the second selection condition that everyone speculated about was wrong. But we can't ignore that Ke Xun is the only one who survived without meeting the first condition."
"So that means," Qin Ci looked at Ke Xun with slight surprise, "that Xiao Ke might be the one who met the conditions for self-preservation?"
Everyone's eyes immediately turned to Ke Xun's face.
Ke Xun looked down at himself: "I don't think I did anything. I didn't even take the Five Wisdom Dew. And last night, I was the only one in the tent. Could it be that there were two souls, a man and a woman, inside me, and they possessed me without my knowledge?"
"What were you doing when that thing was by your tent last night?" Mu Yiran asked him coldly.
"Thinking of you," Ke Xun said.
Seeing Mu Yiran's expression change and he about to raise his hand, Ke Xun quickly stepped aside to avoid the attack: "I misremembered, let me think... um, I think I was cursing it, I even gave it the middle finger—could it be because that gesture was a magical attack on it that it didn't dare to do anything to me?"
"Damn, if you put it that way, how many monsters have I magically harmed since I was a kid?" Wei Dong gave him the middle finger.
"If it weren't for that, I wouldn't know the reason either," Ke
Xun said.
"I have a guess," Mu Yiran suddenly looked at everyone, "about the setting of the death conditions."