When Grandma reached out her hand, Gan Tang instinctively tilted his head to avoid it. Even he himself couldn’t explain why.
His heart pounded wildly in his chest, and he subconsciously shrank behind Yu Huai.
Yes—it was because he didn’t want Grandma to see him like this.
Gan Tang quickly gave himself a reasonable explanation.
It was only after seeing Grandma that he suddenly realized just how disheveled he must have looked.
If she asked him about the blood all over his body, he wouldn’t even know how to answer.
But to his surprise, the grandmother who had always doted on him didn’t ask a single question—
As if she hadn’t noticed anything unusual about him at all.
Something about her state felt off.
Gan Tang had seen elderly people suffering from Alzheimer’s before, and right now, Grandma’s expression bore an eerie resemblance to theirs.
A sharp pang clenched his chest.
He tried to convince himself that things weren’t that bad. After all, just last night, Grandma had still seemed normal…
But then—
That image flashed through his mind again.
The tiny white speck that had wriggled ever so slightly in Grandma’s ear.
Had he really only seen stray strands of her disheveled white hair?
Or… had he instinctively ignored the horrifying truth, deceiving himself all along?
An ice-cold fear surged through him.
Thankfully, before long, Grandma’s gaze seemed to regain some focus.
But when she looked at Gan Tang, her expression remained distant, and her dry lips repeated the same words over and over—
Run.
We have to run.
Gan Tang hesitated, glancing at Yu Huai before turning his eyes back to Grandma. He licked his lips and forced himself to speak.
“Grandma, we should find the village chief first. We have to tell him—if we don’t do something, the entire village will—”
Before he could finish, Grandma trembled and cut him off.
Her bony finger pointed toward the ladder leading to the courtyard gate.
Her expression was neither crying nor smiling, yet somehow both at once.
“Good child… Tang Tang is a good child…”
She mumbled, her murky tears slipping down her face.
“But it’s useless,” she added. “Just look. Look, and you’ll understand. There’s no smoke.”
Her voice was scattered and rambling.
“No smoke in any of the houses.
“It’s already mealtime, but not a single home… not a single wisp of smoke anywhere…
“They’re all dead.
“The worms ate them.
“The worms don’t know people need to eat.
“They don’t cook.”
Her voice was hoarse and full of sorrow.
Gan Tang’s pupils shrank in an instant.
Just last night, the village had been bustling with life—how could everyone be…?
But when he climbed the ladder and peeked over the wall toward the village—
He saw it.
The entire Fengjing Village was drowning in an unnatural silence, just as Grandma had said.
Despite it being mealtime, aside from his own home, there wasn’t a single house with smoke rising from the chimney.
He strained his ears—
Faint, wet, rubbing sounds echoed from different corners of the village.
Gan Tang felt like he couldn’t breathe.
Escape.
Escape immediately from this mountain village infested with those monsters.
That was the only priority now.
But escaping was easier said than done.
Fengjing Village lay deep within the mountains, with treacherous terrain and poor transportation.
Normally, people relied on motorcycles to travel between the village and town, but the only route out was a steep, narrow mountain road running along a cliffside—dozens of miles long.
Gan Tang simply didn’t have the stamina to carry Grandma that far.
And Yu Huai… he still had a father who couldn’t take care of himself.
Gan Tang had seen the agility of those worm-creatures firsthand.
And he knew better than anyone—on foot, they had no chance of outrunning those terrifying threadworms.
“…I know,” Yu Huai whispered. “That’s why—we should steal Uncle Zhang Er’s car.”
Gan Tang blinked in shock. “Car?”
Yu Huai swallowed hard and nodded.
“Yes. His car. Uncle Zhang Er is always going back and forth between the town and the village, using his electric tricycle to deliver goods.
“If we can steal that—three wheels should be faster than two legs, right?”
He wasn’t wrong.
If they had an electric vehicle, they might actually have a way out.
But that tricycle was Uncle Zhang Er’s prized possession—he always kept it carefully locked in his backyard. Stealing it wouldn’t be easy.
Not to mention, they would have to pull it off without alerting the monstrous creatures lurking in the village.
Gan Tang had no choice. No matter how afraid he was, he had to go with Yu Huai and steal that car.
Their plan was simple.
Or rather—crude.
First, they had Granny take Father Yu to stand guard at the gate near the road. When they stole the vehicle, they would pick them up immediately and escape.
Gan Tang listened to Yu Huai’s crude and almost laughable plan with a pale face. The more he listened, the less reliable it seemed. But at this point, this was the only option before him—there was no other choice.
Before parting ways with Granny, Gan Tang carefully stuffed the pair of scissors in his hand into hers.
As for himself, he asked Yu Huai for the machete that had once been used to dismember a corpse.
The machete hung loosely at Gan Tang’s waist. The boy lowered his head, staring at the blade that had already been sharpened again, his face completely bloodless. But in the end, he still tiptoed behind Yu Huai and followed him toward Uncle Zhang Er’s house.
Uncle Zhang Er’s house, like the rest of the residences in Fengjing Village, was now eerily quiet.
Stepping on Yu Huai’s shoulders, Gan Tang climbed onto the courtyard wall of Uncle Zhang Er’s house and peered down, only to see that the traces of yesterday’s chaos—left by the crowd of onlookers searching for someone—still hadn’t been cleaned up.
There were no signs of movement in the courtyard.
However, after carefully observing for a while, Gan Tang did not see any insect-like creatures resembling “Uncle Zhang Er” himself.
In a corner of the backyard, the three-wheeled motorcycle that Uncle Zhang Er usually used to travel between Fengjing Village and the county sat motionless under a shed, covered by a light blue rain tarp.
Gan Tang’s eyes snapped to it. Though the vehicle wasn’t spacious, it should still be able to fit the four of them…
That thought finally allowed Gan Tang to breathe a little easier.
“Maybe Uncle Zhang Er and the others are also fine.”
He mumbled under his breath, but by then, Yu Huai had already jumped down first.
After landing, Yu Huai crouched low and slipped over to the three-wheeler. Gan Tang watched as he reached under the handlebars, feeling around for a long time, before Yu Huai cursed under his breath.
“Shit, the key isn’t here. It’s probably inside the house.”
Gan Tang, who had also jumped down from the wall, felt his throat go dry when he heard this.
He turned to look at the row of rooms on the other side of the courtyard—one of them should be Uncle Zhang Er’s bedroom. Because of the incident yesterday, the wooden door was still ajar. However, judging by the curtain at the window, it had remained drawn shut since last night.
Even though it was broad daylight, the slightly open door revealed a room that was shrouded in darkness, eerie and foreboding.
If there were any other way, Gan Tang would rather die than step inside that room.
But in the end, he and Yu Huai had no choice but to steel themselves and inch toward the doorway.
Squinting inside for a long time, neither of them saw anything.
Creak—
Pushing the door open, they found the room in disarray. The bed, in particular, was a complete mess, the bedding tangled and strewn about. Faint traces of dried blood could still be seen on the sheets.
The surrounding silence remained unbroken.
“The key should be in the most convenient spot… either in a drawer or a pocket.”
Holding his breath, Gan Tang spoke in a whisper.
The air in the room was thick with a lingering, unsettling metallic scent.
But Gan Tang could no longer tell if it was the odor of old, rotting blood… or if those insects had already been here.
“You check the pockets, and I’ll check the drawers.”
He said.
Without hesitation, Yu Huai went to rummage through Uncle Zhang Er’s wardrobe, while Gan Tang carefully searched the cabinets and drawers in the room.
Uncle Zhang Er didn’t own much, but his belongings were haphazardly strewn about.
Gan Tang searched for a long time. He found two or three packs of betel nuts but never the three-wheeler key he was looking for. His nerves were stretched to the limit, and combined with the stifling heat laced with the scent of rust, large beads of sweat began rolling down his temples.
“Tang Tang, what are you doing?”
Suddenly, a hoarse voice spoke from behind him.
Gan Tang’s hand trembled, and he nearly slammed the drawer shut on his fingers.
With cold sweat dripping down his face, he slowly turned around… only to see that the half-closed door had somehow been pushed open without him noticing.
Hunched over and covered in wrinkles, Granny Zhang stood in the doorway, gripping the doorframe. Her pitch-black eyes stared unblinkingly at them. No one knew how long she had been watching.
Gan Tang’s legs almost gave out—he nearly collapsed onto the floor right then and there.
“Oh dear, be careful.”
Granny Zhang tilted her head slightly, stumbling forward two steps, as if she was about to reach out and steady Gan Tang.
Gan Tang dodged her hand and braced himself against the desk, steadying his stance.
Only then did Granny Zhang seem relieved. She smiled, lips curling gently. “Ah… just look at you, so careless. Don’t fall now, Tang Tang.”
Her smile was warm and kind.
But as Gan Tang looked at her, his whole body bristled like a startled cat.
Something was definitely wrong with Granny Zhang—any fool standing here could tell that much.
As someone the same age as Granny, Granny Zhang now looked utterly wretched. Last night, Uncle Zhang Er had disappeared, and Uncle Zhang Er had suddenly gone berserk. With her son gone in an instant, Granny Zhang’s hair was now completely disheveled, messy strands of white tangled against her scalp.
She was still wearing what seemed to be the same clothes from last night, now crumpled and wrinkled like a heap of pickled vegetables.
Of course, the most obvious thing was her eyes. Maybe because she had cried for too long, now her eyeballs were completely blood-red, with no trace of white at all.
And yet, despite looking like this, when she saw Gan Tang, she was still all smiles, not even questioning why he was rummaging through her house. She looked as if she were… as if she were completely insane.
Faced with such a Zhang Granny, all the words in Gan Tang’s throat immediately got stuck.
He carefully glanced toward the corner of the room—Yu Huai, who had been searching through the pockets earlier, had wisely hidden himself inside the wardrobe.
And so, at this moment, he was the only one left to face Zhang Granny. A frail old woman, disheveled, with blood-red eyes, staring straight at him.
“…Your grandma sent you to check on me, didn’t she? What a good boy you are, Tang Tang.”
Granny Zhang swayed slightly as she slowly shuffled into her missing son’s room, her lips stretching wider and wider into an increasingly bright smile.
“It’s just that my place is such a mess, I don’t have anything nice to offer you.” As she spoke, the old woman sluggishly reached into her wrinkled pocket. She fumbled around for a long time and, surprisingly, managed to pull out a piece of fruit candy.
“Tang Tang, do you want some candy? It’s really sweet…”
For a brief moment, there was even a trace of pleading in her voice.
However, at this moment, the look in Gan Tang’s eyes as he gazed at her was no different from staring at a ghost.
It truly was “staring at a ghost.”
The hand stretched out toward him had solid wrist bones, broad palms, and unusually long fingers.
No matter the elegant shape of the hand or the smoothness of the skin, neither fit with an elderly woman like Granny Zhang at all.
Not to mention, there were two clear English letters tattooed on the base of the thumb.
【GT】
That was the abbreviation of Gan Tang’s name.
Gan Tang stared at that hand, his entire body trembling uncontrollably.
Even without looking at the dirt and black blood stuck between the fingers, he recognized it instantly.
It was Cen Zibai’s hand.
The very hand he had personally chopped off and thrown into the “Borrowed Flesh Well.”
But why…
Why had Cen Zibai’s hand ended up attached to an unrelated old woman?
Gan Tang’s gaze slowly traveled up that eerily mismatched arm, but what came into view was still Zhang Granny’s face, smiling obsequiously.
Perhaps because she had been smiling for too long, her expression had stiffened unnaturally.
She hadn’t even noticed—
A thin, thread-like worm had wriggled out from beneath her upturned eyelid and now dangled from her cheekbone, swaying gently.
—
Gan Tang’s breath caught for a moment.
“Tang Tang?”
“Zhang Granny’s” arm had now stretched unnaturally long.
The hunched old woman was frail and bony, yet her hand was mere inches away from Gan Tang’s face, just short of touching him.
“…I came to borrow a key,” Gan Tang suddenly said.
He didn’t even flinch from the icy touch of that hand.
“The key to Uncle Zhang Er’s tricycle,” he said stiffly, his voice shaking terribly. “If you give me the key to that tricycle, I will be very, very happy.”
“Granny Zhang froze in place for a long moment.
“It” seemed to be thinking—Gan Tang could even clearly see something writhing beneath the skin at her temple.
After a long silence, “Granny Zhang” finally reached a conclusion.
If giving him the key would make Gan Tang happy…
And “it” wanted to make Gan Tang happy.
—
“…Alright, alright, the key. Here, the key.”
The old woman’s expression was eerily twisted.
Yet, the soft murmur didn’t come from her throat.
The voice came from inside that arm.
