Xue Meng wanted to ask more questions but thought better of it. He just nodded while thinking what this colleague actually was, who he trusted totally.

Before he came to a conclusion, they had already returned to Secretary Huang’s home.

Secretary Huang was surprised by their return.” Why are you back? Did you leave something here?”

As he cursed his hypocrisy in his head, Xue Meng forced a smile.” Uncle, our car just broke down and our phone lost signal, we couldn’t contact our colleagues for help….”

Secretary Huang pretended to be concerned and inquired for more details. Then he said.” Oh, our village has a three-wheeled vehicle that could take you out of here. But now it is very dark and this vehicle is too slow. It is not safe to travel on unlit unpaved roads. Why not stay here for the night? Your colleagues will come here tomorrow morning? They can take you back tomorrow.”

Xue Meng thought to himself that when my reinforcements come here, you have a lot of explanations to do. But for now, he had to act like he was happy to accept his arrangement.

Secretary Huang arranged a room for them on the west side of his house. In this room, beds had already been made for them, obviously before their return.

Fully aware of their host’s trickery, they expressed their thanks and settled here for the night.

Now the sky outside had turned dark. Checking the time, Xue Meng saw it barely passed six. Now it was June, the daylight hours were long; usually, the sky should turn dark grey only after seven. But when he looked outside, the whole village was shrouded in darkness. Not a single light had been turned on.

He trembled and tried to move close to Jiang Lan with his blanket.

But to his surprise, he saw a hint of excitement in Jiang Lan’s eyes. He paused, and then he said hesitantly.” Am I wrong? I think you are excited?”

“Oh, is it that obvious?” Jiang Lan looked at him with an innocent look and touched his face.

“Yes.”

Xue Meng mumbled to himself.” I know you are a master, who wouldn’t be afraid under this circumstance. But is it too much to feel excited?”

Now I don’t feel safe around you.

Jiang Lan let out a little cough, and his excitement disappeared from his face. He looked out the window again and returned to his bed fully dressed.” Let’s sleep.”

Xue Meng put his wrench under his pillow and his knife in his pants pocket. But he didn’t feel like sleeping. Besides, there was a big paper lantern hanging outside their window.

“Shouldn’t they remove that lantern?” Xue Meng felt a sense of insecurity with this lantern hanging there in the darkness. It might serve as a beacon that would guide something here.

Jiang Lan kept his eyes closed while saying.” I have checked this lantern. Some tea leaves are in it. The same tea leaves we drank during the day.”

He called these stuff tea leaves, but he didn’t know what these stuff were actually.

But Jiang Lan was sure about one thing, that the scent of this stuff would attract something here. They had already drunk it during the day, so the smell of this stuff was left in their bodies. The lantern wouldn’t make much difference.

Perhaps Secretary Huang put the lantern there to ensure that their positions were marked adequately to the things lurking in the darkness.

Xue Meng fell into silence after that.

Jiang Lan lied on the outside with two hands crossing over his belly, pretending to be asleep. But he was actually thinking whatever those things are, they had better taste good.

******

In dead silence, the darkness outside seemed to leak into their room. Only the lantern under their roof provided a little illumination.

Suddenly a string of shrill dog barking sounds came from outside, breaking the silence of the night.

Xue Meng whispered.” I didn’t see a dog in the village.”

During the day, they hadn’t seen a single dog in the village.

“En. That thing is coming…..”

Jiang Lan opened his eyes and covered Xue Meng’s mouth.” From now on, don’t talk and don’t walk outside. Just stay here until I ask you to come out. Remember?”

Xue Meng nodded.

The shrill dogs barking sounds began to ebb away and were mingled with the sound of dogs whimpering submission.

Then the barking stopped all of a sudden and was replaced by the piercing sound of infants crying.

Under the dim light, they could see vaguely the shape of something passing by their windows. Following closely, a gust of wind shook the windows and brought down the lantern, turning off the only light source.

Now their room was plunged into total darkness.

And the piercing sound of infant crying moved closer.

Xue Meng lied down on the bed, feeling his body turned into stone. Staring unblinkingly in the direction of the window, he saw a faint light flashing across the darkness.

Then, a red light appeared.

But this red light seemed to be a little strange, blinking occasionally.

Besides, where did this light come from at a time like this?

Xue Meng went into panic mode, but he couldn’t move his eyes away from this light. The more he stared at it, the more he felt that this was not a light, but a red eye……as big as a lantern……he couldn’t imagine the size of that thing with an eye like this.

Beads of sweat broke out on his back. Xue Meng was frozen by terror, trembling uncontrollably.

But he still opened his eyes and saw that red eye blinked, replaced by another eye.

This thing was observing them.

Realizing this, Xue Meng didn’t even dare to breathe heavily. Now the infant crying stopped. In the dead silence, he could even hear the sound of his heart beating.

He felt Jiang Lan patted his head and got up.

Now the red eye stopped blinking.

In the darkness of their room, Xue Meng could vaguely see Jiang Lan walking and realized he was leaving the room.

Now more sounds were coming from outside, like kids laughing.

This was followed by the sound of the door opening and closing. Jiang Lan must have walked out of the door. The red eye blinked and vanished.

The infant crying sound started again. Xue Meng took a few deep breaths to calm down and took out his knife.

After going out of the door, Jiang Lan set up a psychic field to protect the room where Xue Meng stayed. Then, he shifted his attention to those strange birds circling above the village.

It turned out that there was a flock of these strange birds.

The one closest to me stood beside the window and gazed at him with a greedy look. In the open beak, he could see sharp teeth and dripping saliva.

This bird stood more than two meters high. With half extended wings and a bent neck, this bird was obviously the one who had observed them through the windows a moment ago.

Looking at the horns shaped like dead twigs and the singular ugly bird face, Jiang Lan finally calls up this creature’s memories and name from his mind.

“Gu Diao?”

Gu Diao was an ancient magic beast. With two horns and a body shaped like an eagle, this beast made an infant crying sound and fed on human flesh.

These cruel beasts like to travel and hunt in flocks. With their numbers, these beasts once enjoyed quite a reputation in the ancient world. But after the great catastrophe^[1]TL’s note: Explained at the end of Chapter 39, they vanished without a trace.

Today, they chose to turn up at this place unexpectedly. Jiang Lan licked his lip and counted five Gu Diaos here, which made his smile broader.

Suddenly, Jiang Lan’s body transformed into a giant beast with bull horns and black scales. The harmless look when he was in human form was gone. With red eyes filled with blood lust, he now looked powerful and menacing.

Howling with excitement, Jiang Lan leapt up into the night sky and pounced on a circling Gu Diao with great force and precision.  

The wailing infant sounds shattered the darkness, and the blood dropped from the sky like raindrops. 

Seeing the death struggle of their own kind, the rest of Gu Diaos made more high-pitched sounds, but none of them dared to join the fight.

Jiang Lan finished off the prey and swallowed the shattered body. Then he spat out a few feathers with disgust. The meat was juicy enough. Perhaps because he had been living among humans for long, he now felt a little roasting might bring out more flavours after plucking the feathers off his prey.

While contemplating the cooking recipe, he scanned the rest of Gu Diaos.

These Gu Diaos seemed to be rookies who were just born, not the ancient cunning ones who survived to this day. Otherwise, they would have already fled.

Licking his lip, Jiang Lan pounced on them again…..

*********

Jiang City.

Ying Qiao was playing Dou Dizhu^[2] A popular card game in China with Suan Ni and Jiao Tu.

After they grew tired of playing Gkart^[3]TL’s note: A multiplayer online kart racing game, they were now obsessed with Dou Dizhu.

But these two brothers were rookie players, and most of their happy beans^[4] A virtual currency used in the card games developed by Tencent were gambled away. After accumulating some happy beans through daily login rewards, they resumed their card playing without their fifth brother keeping a tight rein on their screen time.

Ying Qiao was forced to stay in this tiny flat. The thought of having to stay here for a week depressed him.

Then a string of game over sound effects interrupted his thoughts.

Jiao Tu held the iPad, and Suan Ni leaned against his brother’s arm. They said in a serious tone.

“We have only two thousand happy beans now.”

“Yes, We can’t afford to lose again.”

Hearing this, Ying Qiao knew they suffered another devastating defeat and decided to lend a hand.

With Ying Qiao’s participation, they quickly recovered all the happy beans they lost in the previous matches. After that, Ying Qiao thought he should fulfil his big brother’s duty and took away their iPad, asking them to go to bed.

Checking the time, he saw it was already two o’clock in the morning.

…..It is not too late.

After these two little brothers went to bed, Ying Qiao received a call from Cheng Hua, who sounded very anxious.” Which village Jiang Lan went to today? Has he returned yet?”

Ying Qiao furrowed his brow.” The Three Water Village. He should already be back this afternoon. But he didn’t reply to my messages.”

“What’s wrong?”

Previously, he thought Jiang Lan must be too tired to return his messages.

On the other end of the phone, Cheng Hua drew a deep breath.” The Special Human Bureau detected a large area of miasma^[5]TL’s note: means bad air, a kind of poisonous air suddenly appearing in the Three Water Village. This miasma is not normal, perhaps it was ghost miasma formed from the accumulating essence of hatred.”

He added.” A team dispatched to monitor the situation also found the traces of a flock of Gu Diaos nearby.”

In fact, the Special Human Bureau had already detected a small area of miasma in the Three Water Village much earlier. But there were no accompanying victims and more anomalies, so the Bureau deemed the danger containable and didn’t report this to the superior.

They didn’t realize they had misjudged the situation until the sudden outbreak of a large area of ghost miasma and the sighting of a flock of Gu Diaos.