Ye Huohuo and Fang Fang slowly approached the brightly lit house, inching their way to the window and then cautiously peering inside.
It was better not to look, but the moment Ye Huohuo did, she almost bit her tongue.
This wasn't a house where people lived; it was a veritable hell on earth.
Through the window where Ye Huohuo and the others were peeking, a table was placed right by the window, and on it rested a human head.
It was a woman's head, her long hair spread across the table. Her half-decayed face was turned towards the window, her eyelids cut away to reveal two cloudy eyeballs that stared fixedly outward.
As Ye Huohuo looked, her gaze met those two eyeballs. It felt as if the head had seen her and was about to pounce, biting her nose.
Even though Ye Huohuo was brave, she was terrified. She squeezed her thigh hard, forcing back a scream that was already at her lips.
She quickly crouched down, sitting on the ground outside the window, gasping for air. The image of those two staring eyeballs kept flashing before her eyes.
Fang Fang, having seen more of the world, was only startled by the dead head, not reacting as intensely as Ye Huohuo.
She lowered herself and leaned closer to Ye Huohuo, "What's wrong, little girl? Can't take it already! Let me tell you, there are more than a dozen similar tables inside, each with a human head on it. Want to take a look?" she said mockingly.
Ye Huohuo hated being looked down upon the most. Gritting her teeth, she rubbed her face with her hands and let out a long sigh. She lowered her voice and said, "Who's afraid of whom, you little pup? I just wasn't mentally prepared and was startled by that head popping out."
As she spoke, she started to get up to look inside, but Fang Fang grabbed her arm, stopping her. "There's someone inside. No need to look further. It won't be good if he finds us."
"Someone's inside?" Ye Huohuo's already quiet voice became even lower. "Then why are we still talking here? What if they hear us? We'll be alerting them."
"It's fine, they're deaf!" Fang Fang wasn't nervous at all.
"Deaf? You can tell that?" Ye Huohuo was surprised by Fang Fang's high cultivation, to be able to tell if someone was deaf. This was an incredible skill.
"Of course, I can't tell. I just saw them using sign language!" Fang Fang rolled her eyes at her.
"Them? There's more than one person inside?"
"Yes, two! They seem to be talking about a ritual that's about to begin!" Fang Fang said as she pondered. "One of them is half-blocked from view, so I can only guess."
"You know sign language too? You really impress me." Ye Huohuo's admiration was genuine.
"How many years have you lived? If you lived for a thousand years like me, you'd learn things out of boredom. My previous body was deaf-mute, which gave me a whole new experience.
I originally wanted to choose a blind person for this body, but time was tight then, and I didn't find a beautiful blind person. So, I had to make do with this body for now." Fang Fang spoke about entering other people's bodies as naturally as eating or drinking.
"The way you say it, I even want to experience being aé… (mei - enchantress), to feel different lives. It's a kind of experience too."
"Sleeping with several men every day, do you like that?" Fang Fang had a hint of self-mockery in her eyes, a bitter smile on her face. "Being a é… has its sorrows. You can't sleep with the man you like, or you'll harm him. The men you can sleep with are those you don't like.
Sleeping with a man you don't like isn't enjoyment; it's torture. But you have to do it, or you'll vanish into thin air. So, do you really think these thousand years have been easy?"
Ye Huohuo sighed along with her, "The affairs of the world are like this; nothing is perfect."
"However, your boyfriend is very strange. He's unaffected by my charm. The last time I encountered someone like that was a hundred years ago. Is it because my charm in this body isn't enough?" Fang Fang seemed to be talking to herself.
But Ye Huohuo heard it clearly. Li Mohan, who had been pushed to the back of her mind, surfaced again.
"Why are you suddenly mentioning him?"
"What, you don't like him? Then I'll make my move. He's so good-looking and can resist my charm. I'm very interested in such a rare find," Fang Fang said with a smile.
"No, you can't touch him!" Ye Huohuo, in her haste, couldn't control her voice. The words rang out in the quiet night like a thunderclap.
As soon as Ye Huohuo spoke, she regretted it. She quickly looked around, and only when she confirmed no one was coming did she breathe a sigh of relief.
"Feeling heartache? You said you didn't care!" Fang Fang was very relaxed and didn't seem bothered by Ye Huohuo's outburst.
"You absolutely must not touch him. He's incredibly lucky. If you touch him, you might suffer a backlash!" Ye Huohuo said very seriously, afraid Fang Fang wouldn't understand the danger.
Fang Fang, however, had a knowing expression. "Alright, we'll talk about touching him later. We have important matters to attend to now! I wonder what kind of ritual they're about to perform. See if you can glean anything."
Only then did Ye Huohuo take several more deep breaths, slowly stand up, and look inside the house.
Although she had prepared herself mentally this time, seeing the half-decayed woman's head still made her extremely uncomfortable. She had to bite her lip tightly to prevent herself from spitting it out.
She stood up a little higher, and then, looking over the head, she saw the scene inside the room.
As Fang Fang had said, more than a dozen long tables were placed around the room, perfectly filling the space of the tens of square meters. Each table had a woman's head.
However, the freshness of these heads varied. Some were fresher, not yet decaying, their features still discernible. Others were almost reduced to bare bones, with only hair remaining on the skulls.
But all these women's heads had their eyelids cut off, forcibly creating the appearance of dying with eyes wide open.
Ye Huohuo's scalp tingled, and her hair stood on end. She felt that she had seen many dead people before, but this eerie scene was a first for her.
How many people had died? If each head represented one person, that was at least a dozen women.
"How did they get these heads?" Fang Fang asked. "Where could they steal so many heads from? It's not like a hundred years ago. Cremation is common now, and it's not easy to dig up graves to find bodies."
Ye Huohuo nodded in agreement, "Yes, where did they get these heads? It wouldn't be..."
Before Ye Huohuo could finish her sentence, a chill ran down her spine.