First blood

"It's enough for one person to turn on the light. We don't know when we can get out. Use your phone's battery sparingly. Remember to turn on the power saving mode." Ning Zhe said, turning on his own flashlight: "Let me do it. I have a power bank with me."

"Okay." Feng Yusu nodded.

The two of them walked through the alley with the help of flashlights. There was the sound of water flowing on the stone pavement under their feet. It was the drainage channel built under the stone slabs.

Just like Zhang Yangxu said, every house in Hejia Village was closed and every window was shut tonight. Ning Zhe walked past several doors and found them all locked. He couldn't open them at all, so he had to stop.

"Well... Ningzhe?" Feng Yusu asked in a low voice.

"Nothing, I just want to ask you something." Ning Zhe said thoughtfully, "Auntie, you said before that you came here after you pushed open the door of the hotel room, and the stainless steel door handle in your hand turned into a copper door latch in an instant, and the door you pushed open also changed from a hotel security door to an old wooden door..."

Feng Yushu nodded repeatedly: "That's right, what do you want to ask?"

"I want to know where the door you opened when you came to Hejia Village is." Ning Zhe said directly: "Let's go there and take a look."

"Ah? Okay." Feng Yusu agreed to his request and walked in front to lead the way.

The ancestral hall dedicated to the snake god is located in the south of Hejia Village. The door that Feng Yusu pushed open when she arrived in Hejia Village is close to the center of the village. Starting from the ancestral hall, she took Ning Zhe all the way north, walking deeper and deeper between the stone and tiled houses.

Along the way, Ning Zhe often tried to knock on the closed doors on the street, but after trying again and again, he never found anything suspicious. In the quiet atmosphere, the two of them walked through the criss-crossing bluestone streets and alleys under the moonlight, and a stone arch bridge appeared in front of them.

Hejia Village is built on the waterside. The entire village is divided into two parts, east and west, by a river flowing from north to south. There are three arch bridges on the river. The one in front of Ning Zhe is the southernmost one.

Walking across the arch bridge to the other side of the river, not far away is the house that Feng Yusu walked out of when she first arrived in Hejia Village.

"It's here." Feng Yusu brought Ning Zhe to the front of the house. Ning Zhe noticed that the door of this room was open outwards. Walking all the way from the ancestral hall, this was the first open door he had seen.

"The house is only one floor, empty inside, with only some scattered straw on the ground. It should be a firewood room or an abandoned cowshed." Ning Zhe closed the door, then opened it again, nothing happened: "Sure enough..."

It turned out to be impossible to find the exit to leave the village so easily.

Feng Yusu looked down at the time. It was 01:10 in the morning.

40 minutes had passed and there was less than an hour left before the one and a half hour meeting time they had agreed on.

"Let's go back and see other places on the way?" Feng Yusu asked.

"This is the only way." Ning Zhe had no better direction.

The two men left the empty house with the door open and walked back along the arch bridge. The dark clouds in the sky had dispersed, and the bright moonlight was shining down. The river water flowing under the bridge was gurgling, crisp and clear.

Ning Zhe held the guardrail on the side of the bridge with one hand and walked forward quickly. Suddenly, his feet felt empty.

"Ningzhe!" Feng Yusu was horrified.

With a crisp sound of stone cracking, Ning Zhe's entire center of gravity was instantly lost, and one leg sank into the collapsed bridge deck. Fortunately, he reacted quickly enough and used both hands to support the bridge deck in time to prevent himself from falling further. The long stone brick he had just stepped on had already broken in the middle and fell into the river under the bridge, causing a huge splash.

"…What a joke…" Ning Zhe frowned, climbed out of the sunken pit, and quickly got off the bridge in two steps, still feeling scared.

Feng Yushu hurried over, shining a flashlight on him: "How are you? Are you hurt? I'm glad you're okay... How could this happen? The stone bridge suddenly collapsed..."

Ning Zhe stood at the bridge head, holding a stone pillar with one hand, and he was also full of doubts.

"What's going on... Why am I so unlucky? And it's such a sudden bad luck?" Thinking back to the thrilling scene just now, Ning Zhe was horrified: "I clearly didn't break any taboos, why am I still unlucky?"

No...Is it really not taboo?

Ning Zhe thought about today's good and bad luck:

[Advisable:]

[Avoid: travel, burial, mourning, sacrifice]

"I'm sure I didn't violate any of the taboos when traveling. Hiding Lin Zhiyuan's body under the altar doesn't count as a 'burial' or a 'funeral', and offering sacrifices to him is even more ridiculous. Who did I offer sacrifices to?"

Ning Zhe's mind was full of thoughts as he quickly recalled everything he had done since midnight, but he did not find any one thing that conflicted with today's lunar calendar.

"I didn't break any taboos, but I still got into trouble for no reason. This doesn't make sense. Could it be that the snake god went crazy and started killing people randomly, and no longer needed to break taboos as an excuse?" This was the only explanation he could give.

But reason told Ning Zhe that this explanation might not be correct.

"No, think about it again, have I really not violated any taboos at all?"

Ning Zhe kept thinking back to the past hour or so, "Traveling... No. Burial, that's very unlikely... Funeral isn't it either, could it be a sacrifice? But have I really done anything that could be considered a 'sacrifice'? Who did I sacrifice to?!"

Feng Yusu looked at Ning Zhe with a worried look on his face. She was in a panic and was terrified by Ning Zhe's inexplicable misfortune.

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"Wait, sacrifice? Yes... That's right, it can only be this way." Suddenly a flash of inspiration flashed through Ning Zhe's mind, and he figured it out: "It was a sacrifice. I sacrificed to the Snake God... I sacrificed Lin Zhiyuan's body to the Snake God."

This made sense of everything, even the fact that they had entered the ancestral hall when the snake god was sick without encountering any danger, was explained.

"Ningzhe? Are you okay?" Feng Yusu asked cautiously.

"It's okay." Ning Zhe sighed and shook his head gently: "I accidentally violated today's taboo, which led to the bad luck just now. Fortunately, I have figured out the reason."

Although the collapse of the bridge just now was dangerous, it was not life-threatening for Ning Zhe. After all, he had only violated a taboo. The Snake God was magnanimous, and this was not a situation in which he would necessarily die.

"I have to be extra careful from now on and never break the taboo again." Ning Zhe said to himself.

Then he raised his head and looked at Feng Yushu: "Let's go, let's go back to the ancestral hall."

"Okay." Feng Yusu nodded repeatedly, but just as she was about to leave, her cell phone rang.

After unlocking the screen, I saw the caller was - Xie Si Ning.

"Why is Xie Si Ning calling?" Feng Yuxu answered the phone with confusion.

Before he could even open his mouth to greet them, Feng Yushu's face suddenly turned extremely pale, and he pointed at the river in front of him and screamed, "Ningzhe! There's something in the river!"

Ning Zhe immediately turned around and looked sideways. In the river that Feng Yusu was pointing at, there was a human-shaped object floating, slowly sinking and floating in the gentle water flow, and slowly drifting downstream.

With the help of the bright moonlight, the two were able to make out the floating body wrapped in a women's suit jacket, as well as the tight skirt and black stockings underneath. One of the high-heeled shoes had been washed away by the water, leaving only two ribbons hanging on the ankle, floating in the air.

"This corpse is...Xie Si Ning?"