Chapter 1 Showdown

Lao Liu Tou's gaze wasn't fixed on the doorway; it was on me.

His expression had changed.

My right hand subtly reached behind me, feeling for Ziye.

Lao Liu Tou's house had two doors – if the main gate hadn't sounded, and someone was standing at the bedroom door, it meant a ghost was knocking.

Lao Liu Tou was about to speak, but I stopped him with a wave. I answered instead, "Uncle Liu is asleep. What do you need?"

The person at the door replied, "Someone in the village has died, but we don't know who. Uncle Liu, everyone's waiting for you to come back!"

My voice deepened as I asked, "Where did he die?"

"Under the big willow tree!" the person said. "Many people are already there, just waiting for Grandfather Liu!"

I looked at Lao Liu Tou, who dipped his finger in the water from the teacup on the table and wrote two words: "Yin land."

He meant that the place where someone died was the easiest place for ghosts to haunt.

I raised my hand, signaling Lao Liu Tou to be ready, and asked again, "When you came in, why didn't the main gate make any noise?"

There's a saying in the art of術道 (Shudao): "When you see something strange, don't ask about it!"

It means that if you see something strange or a strange person late at night, don't ask about it. Those strange things are deliberately shown to you by ghosts. If you pretend not to see them and walk past, you might be fine. But as soon as you ask, you're handing over your life.

It's like when you're going home and see someone standing in the entrance of the building, facing away from you and not moving. If you ignore them and walk quickly, or just don't go home, you'll be fine. But if you walk up and ask, "Why aren't you leaving?"

Who knows what you might see when that person turns around!

By directly questioning the person, I had essentially declared war.

Lao Liu Tou was startled and quickly reached into his pocket.

The person outside said in a thin voice, "Your house doesn't even have a main gate! How could I knock? Open the door and see for yourselves if you don't believe me!"

As soon as the person finished speaking, I heard a dull thud outside – the person had yanked open the main gate!

As I turned my head, the person transformed into a gust of wild, ghostly wind, blowing open the door to the inner room and rushing toward us. An icy wind swept between Lao Liu Tou and me, instantly extinguishing the lamp on the table.

As we both turned around, the windows on one side of the room simultaneously swung open from right to left, and the curtains fell to the ground.

As the open windowpanes swayed in the ghostly wind, my gaze fell on the courtyard gate.

The courtyard gate was indeed gone! It was as if someone had silently dismantled it, leaving only two empty gate piers standing in the courtyard.

As Lao Liu Tou and I exchanged glances, a figure carrying a door panel on their back appeared outside the courtyard wall.

The person deliberately hunched over, carrying the two main doors on their back, and walked step by step from the opening where the gate had been. At the same time, there was a loud thud from the direction of the house door.

The door to the Liu family house had fallen flat on the ground without any warning!

Lao Liu Tou's face turned ashen. "Kid, you should leave! Don't get involved in this. I know you have some skills, but some things can't be meddled with just because you're capable."

I knew what Lao Liu Tou meant!

The ghost outside was demonstrating his power to us. The meaning of "carrying away the main gate but knocking down the house door" was all too clear.

Opening the door meant leaving a path to survival.

Knocking down the door meant that one of us, Lao Liu Tou or me, had to die.

Here, when someone dies, they must first be placed on a door panel and carried outside before being placed in a coffin. The other party throwing a door panel meant they were making us choose who would live and who would die.

Lao Liu Tou straightened his clothes and was about to walk outside, but I stepped out of the house ahead of him and smashed the door panel on the ground into pieces with one kick. "I misunderstood you earlier. Consider this an apology."

"You..." Lao Liu Tou looked at me for a long time before shaking his head. "You! You're a good person, but you shouldn't have gotten involved in this!"

As Lao Liu Tou walked outside, he said, "That kick of yours has essentially cost you your life. If I die here, it's my fate, but what's it to you if you die here!"

I followed Lao Liu Tou without saying a word. He continued to mutter, "We'll see how things go in a moment. If it's not too serious, you should leave as soon as possible! This isn't a good place!"

Lao Liu Tou walked all the way to the center of the village before I saw a willow tree that several people could encircle with their arms.

After Lao Liu Tou parted the crowd, he called out in a trembling voice, "Mr. Li... Mr. Li... come and take a look."

When I saw the corpse on the ground, my expression also changed.

A section of the village's cement road had collapsed, forming an irregular pool of water. The corpse, without a shirt, was stretched out, face down in the middle of the pool, with only its back visible above the water.

The strangest thing was that there was a bloody line, as if scraped by something, running from the corpse's cervical vertebrae down to its waist.

I signaled Lao Liu Tou to step back a few paces, then reached out and grabbed the corpse's ankles, slowly pulling it backward.

The corpse seemed rooted to the spot, lying motionless in the pool.

I stood up and pulled Lao Liu Tou to the side. "The corpse is showing its spine. What do you want to do?"