With outsiders present, Cen Zibai’s every action resembled that of a perfectly normal person. Compared to the silent and withdrawn Gan Tang, he appeared much more cheerful and full of sunshine. On the way back to the village, he even managed to exchange a few words with the tense-looking villager from time to time.
Meanwhile, Gan Tang’s gaze was empty, his expression dazed. The hand gripping the flashlight clenched so tightly that his muscles throbbed with pain.
His state drew the villagers’ attention, causing them to glance back at him several times, murmuring in their hearts: What’s wrong with Granny Zhang’s grandson? He doesn’t look quite right…
In contrast, the fear Gan Tang had felt from Cen Zibai earlier, as well as the terrifying images he had seen, suddenly seemed like nothing more than an illusion.
Truthfully, even Gan Tang himself wished it were all just his imagination.
Unfortunately, at this point, he could no longer deceive himself. On the way back to the village, he had deliberately slowed his pace, falling to the very back of the group.
Yet he could still feel an intense gaze fixed on him.
A damp, clammy stare clung to his shoulders and chest, as if a wet tongue were persistently latching onto him, refusing to leave.
Suppressing his discomfort, Gan Tang instinctively glanced at “Cen Zibai” the moment he felt watched. From this angle, all he could see was the back of the boy’s head—his thick, jet-black hair. But in Gan Tang’s mind, that rain-soaked night surfaced again: the way Cen Zibai’s head had caved in against the stone, how the brain matter had seeped onto his fingers—wet and slimy…
[“Heh…”]
For some reason, just as that thought crossed his mind, “Cen Zibai,” walking ahead, let out a perfectly timed chuckle.
Then, the boy turned his head at just the right moment and quickly winked at him.
“Sweetie, don’t fall behind. Uncle Zhang said it’s a chaotic time right now, and the mountains at night are very, very dangerous.”
Hearing “Cen Zibai” deliberately emphasize that word, Gan Tang’s muscles tensed instantly.
He had to force himself to keep walking instead of screaming and bolting into the trees.
And that wasn’t because he was brave—it was simply because, all along the way, he had felt an elusive rustling sound brushing against his ears.
…In the depths of the darkness, countless unseen eyes were silently watching him.
Gan Tang felt like he was about to lose his mind.
The saliva “Cen Zibai” had left on him still carried a faintly fishy stench, as if the scent could seep into his brain through his nasal cavity. It made his mind foggy, his thoughts sluggish.
He followed the group in a daze, barely aware of his surroundings until they reached the village. Only when he saw the brightly lit settlement in the distance did his mind clear a little.
The moment they returned, Gan Tang immediately understood why the village chief had called everyone back—compared to when they left, the fear in the village had grown even more intense.
To say people were panicked and on edge would be an understatement.
Previously, the commotion had mostly come from the immediate neighbors of Uncle Zhang’s house. But now, as Gan Tang looked at the densely packed crowd gathered at the village entrance’s drying yard, he suspected that the entire Fengjing Village had woken up and assembled here.
He couldn’t help but glance up at the sky. The moon hung high—it was already past midnight.
Earlier, when Cen Zibai was chatting with the villagers, he had learned that aside from Uncle Zhang’s family, something else had happened that night. Gan Tang had been too focused on Cen Zibai to pay much attention, but now, seeing this scene, his heart sank.
Amidst the crowd, he immediately spotted his grandmother.
The elderly woman looked as if she had been forcibly dragged out of bed. She stood hunched over, her frail frame appearing even thinner than usual—just a loose layer of wrinkled skin hanging over a fragile skeleton.
Even her eyes were hollow, unfocused, staring blankly ahead… until Gan Tang was led into the village.
Before anyone else even noticed his return, his grandmother’s sharp, icy gaze had already locked onto him.
“Granny Zhang!”
A villager waved toward the old woman.
“We brought your boy back for you! No need to worry anymore, right?”
Seeing his grandmother, Gan Tang instinctively let out a breath of relief. He dashed past Cen Zibai as if escaping and ran straight toward her.
“Gan Tang, come here—”
His grandmother, who usually doted on him the most, spoke in an unusually harsh tone this time.
As soon as he got close, she reached out and forcefully yanked him to her side.
“Hiss—”
He had never imagined that his grandmother still had such strength. Her bony, withered hands clutched his flesh like claws, digging in so hard that he gasped in pain.
“G-Grandma?”
Gan Tang widened his eyes in shock. Just as he was about to ask what was going on, a wailing cry sounded in his ears.
It was an unfamiliar woman, covering her face as she sobbed.
“…What am I supposed to do now? He’s neither alive nor dead, just vanished into thin air… He was still in the house before bed, and now he’s gone in an instant… He was so sick, too—I went to check on him at night, he was burning up so bad he couldn’t even stay conscious, couldn’t eat a bite without throwing up… I even said I’d take him to the town clinic first thing in the morning… But now he’s gone! Someone who couldn’t even get out of bed—how could he just disappear?”
As Gan Tang listened intently, a chilling premonition crept up from the depths of his bones once again—
Besides Uncle Zhang, someone else had gone missing from the small village that night.
Unlike Uncle Zhang, however, the missing man, Zhang Weiguo, was a born-and-raised Fengjing villager. His family had no outsiders—just his wife of many years and their two sons. Their household wasn’t particularly well-off, and the four of them squeezed into the same house, where even the slightest movement could be heard.
Yet, he had vanished without a sound, right under his family’s noses.
By sheer coincidence, if it weren’t for the earlier commotion at Uncle Zhang’s house, this disappearance might not have been noticed until morning.
The village chief had stumbled upon it while counting the men helping with the search—he realized a few familiar faces were missing, particularly those who were usually close with Uncle Zhang. Finding it suspicious, he went knocking on their doors.
What he found was unsettling—those men were either in a daze, their eyes vacant, or bedridden with a high fever, too weak to move.
When he finally knocked on Zhang Weiguo’s door, his wife woke up from the noise, reached out to touch his side of the bed… and found it empty.
“At first, I thought he had wet himself—the bed stank so badly, and it was soaked, completely drenched…”
In the drying yard, the woman wiped her tears as she anxiously recounted the details.
“I figured there was nothing I could do about it, so I started scolding him while getting up to change the bedding… But the floor was wet too, covered in that same foul-smelling water… I changed the sheets and turned on the light to look for him. I was going to tell him that if he needed to pee, he should at least go to the yard—who pees in the house like that? He’s not a dog…”
“But I searched everywhere, and in a house this small, he—such a big man—was just gone…”
…
On any other day, the villagers would have eagerly gathered around to comfort her, probing for more juicy details to gossip about.
But tonight, aside from a few close friends and relatives standing by her side, the rest of the crowd merely exchanged hushed whispers.
The atmosphere was oppressively heavy.
A corpse reanimated during the day, a husband murdered, a man missing at night.
The incidents were happening far too frequently. Even the dullest person could sense the looming storm.
As the village leader, the chief looked visibly overwhelmed.
Rubbing his temples, he listened to the woman’s sobs, asked a few unimportant questions, and then, almost absentmindedly, said, “So… No one else in your house saw your husband?”
The woman hesitated.
“…Someone did, but that’s just the kid talking nonsense.”
Before her words even fully landed, a young boy standing nearby suddenly shrieked.
“I’m NOT talking nonsense!”
His voice was sharp and piercing, instantly drawing everyone’s attention.
Tears streaming down his face, he continued crying, “I saw him! I really saw him! I got up to pee and saw Dad—he was standing in the yard, completely still. I called him, but he didn’t answer, so I went to pull his hand, and then… and then Dad suddenly fell forward! He started crawling, crawling like this, and then he… he climbed along the wall and crawled outside…”
…
At that moment, Gan Tang clearly felt his grandmother’s grip on his hand tighten.
At first, Gan Tang could still endure the pain, but this time, it hurt so much that he nearly screamed.
Just then, a cold hand gently rested on his grandmother’s wrist.
“Grandma, you’re hurting Tang Tang.”
Cen Zibai’s ghostly figure slipped forward, his smile warm as he pried her hand open.
Only then did his grandmother seem to wake from a trance. A heavy breath escaped her throat as she turned, first to look at Cen Zibai, then at Gan Tang.
“I didn’t notice… Tang Tang, I didn’t notice; I’m sorry.”
The old woman spoke incoherently.
It was clear that she was desperately trying to stay calm, but the panic in her cloudy eyes was impossible to hide.
“Oh, it’s nothing! Just a little pain, no need to make such a fuss.”
Gan Tang frowned, swallowed hard, and subtly shifted his position—placing himself between Cen Zibai and his grandmother. Heaven knew how terrified he had been when he saw Cen Zibai reaching for her.
Then, forcing himself to stay composed, he shot a sharp glare at Cen Zibai.
Luckily, Cen Zibai still restrained himself when there were people around.
As soon as Gan Tang glared at him, he immediately let go and even took a small step back, looking somewhat sheepish.
“I… I just thought you seemed a little…”
Gan Tang turned away, ignoring him entirely.
“Grandma, you look so pale. Are you okay?”
The boy moved closer, lowering his voice.
From his posture, it was clear that if he could, he would shield his frail grandmother completely, blocking her from even being seen by Cen Zibai.
Cen Zibai gazed at the slender boy and smiled slightly.
…
Meanwhile, on the other side, his grandmother was still trying to put on a brave front, insisting that she was fine, just hadn’t slept well. But as she spoke, the villagers around them started calling her name directly:
“Granny Zhang? Granny Zhang, you kept saying before that ‘borrowing flesh’ was dangerous, that it couldn’t be done. Ah, if only we had listened to you back then… Tell us, could all of this be because of… because of the ‘borrowing flesh’ ritual?”
While Gan Tang had been distracted, the villagers had already worked themselves into a heated discussion over the strange occurrences in the village. Naturally, their thoughts circled back to the sudden incident at Uncle Zhang’s house… and then, they remembered the ritual—”borrowing flesh.”
Indeed, it was painfully obvious.
Ever since that “borrowing flesh” ritual, the once-peaceful village had been plagued with strange events.
“Borrowing flesh.”
The moment that terrifying phrase was spoken, both Gan Tang and his grandmother stiffened.
Especially Gan Tang—his hand was still resting on her shoulder, and he felt her entire body tremble.
He watched as his grandmother opened her mouth over and over, yet no words came out.
Under the night sky, the frightened villagers failed to notice just how terrifying her expression had become. They continued to press her with anxious questions.
“Granny Zhang, you know so much—tell us, is there any way to fix this?”
“That’s right, Granny Zhang, you’re a kind elder. We can’t just keep losing people one after another, can we?”
“It’s not even just people—ever since that night, even my dog disappeared…”
…
Finally, under Gan Tang’s gaze, his grandmother squeezed out a hoarse response.
“Borrowing flesh…”
Her face twitched involuntarily.
Looking at the villagers before her, a strange expression flickered in her eyes.
“After borrowing flesh… it must, of course, be repaid.”
She said.
