Chapter 11 Night of Sacrifice (7)
…
Night arrived early once again, devoid of stars, moon, or candlelight. Only a faint, dim light allowed them to see the shadowy outlines of the forest and mountains beyond the windows.
Drawing the curtains plunged the rooms into near-total darkness.
Zhu Ming sat in a chair, restlessly fanning herself with the three sheets of A4 paper. She leaned back, balancing the chair precariously on its two back legs, rocking back and forth.
After a while, she heard the sound of a door opening next door.
Her hearing wasn’t always poor. She tended to filter out sounds when she wasn’t paying attention, but when she focused, she could hear quite well.
She recognized Yun Zouchuan’s footsteps. She had lived with A-Zou for two years and knew her gait well. That foolish child was going to the basement.
The thought made Zhu Ming’s blood boil. She almost didn’t want to intervene.
Almost. But no matter how foolish, A-Zou was still her responsibility. Zhu Ming shook the papers in her hand, deciding to examine them more closely.
She turned on her flashlight and shone it on the pages.
One page, two pages… the last page…
Crash!
Her makeshift rocking chair tipped over, but Zhu Ming barely noticed. She held the flashlight beam against the third page, revealing faint indentations from the writing on the other side.
Her face hardened as she compared the indentations to the text on the second page. They didn’t match.
She quickly separated the second and third pages, finally finding a small, almost invisible scrap of paper tucked into the crease where they were pinned together.
A page was missing, between the current second and third pages!
A string of curses ran through Zhu Ming’s mind. Suddenly, everything clicked into place. Someone, or something, was deliberately leading them to the basement and the ritual.
But why? What was the purpose of completing the formation? Was there competition between ghosts? No, she needed to look beyond the surface. Ignoring the mysterious, bloodstained instructions, what was the true purpose of this ritual…?
Her gaze fell on the third page in her hand, her fingertip resting on a single word.
Her eyes widened. Grabbing the flashlight, she bolted out the door.
…
“Ready?” Old Xu asked Yun Zouchuan, who stood before the concrete platform. Sensing her nervousness, he added reassuringly, “Don’t worry. We’ll be right beside you. If there’s any danger, we’ll face it together.”
Miss Zhao and Xiao Cheng had arranged the five offerings and lit the red candles. Now it was up to Yun Zouchuan.
She held the three incense sticks, hesitant.
Was that clinging sense of malice truly coming from the ghost? It felt… different. Unsettling.
She had faced danger before with Zhu Ming, but this feeling… it was rare. It wasn’t pure killing intent, but something more akin to being coveted, like a piece of meat being eyed by a predator.
“Hurry up,” Miss Zhao urged. “We’ll miss the time if we wait any longer.”
“Alright.” There was no point overthinking it.
Yun Zouchuan often struggled to understand the complex, hidden intentions and emotions of others. Zhu Ming had taught her to ignore them. The enemy’s motives were irrelevant. If she couldn’t understand them, she shouldn’t try. She should leave such things to others and focus on dealing with the enemy swiftly and decisively.
Since everyone agreed this was the right course of action, and her boss hadn’t explicitly objected, she would do it.
Sensing her unease, Xiao Cheng tried to reassure her. “Everyone’s staying up tonight, waiting for us to break the barrier. Think about it, we could be out of here before the housekeeper knocks. And no one else will die. Isn’t that great?”
Yun Zouchuan smiled, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear. Just as she was about to speak, a sarcastic voice echoed from the basement doorway.
“Really? I don’t believe it.”
It was Zhu Ming again!
Miss Zhao frowned and turned towards the entrance, only to stumble back in fright. The woman’s face, illuminated from below by the flashlight she held under her chin, was pale and ghostly. Was she insane? Didn’t she know that scaring people could be fatal?!
Zhu Ming chuckled darkly and strode into the basement. “What are you looking at?! What if I don’t shine the light on myself and get ambushed by a ghost?! And you! Get out of there! Do you even know what this formation is for? Your mother would come down from the mountain and smack you silly!”
Yun Zouchuan put down the incense sticks, a wave of relief washing over her. Zhu Ming’s arrival meant she had discovered something.
But she still grumbled, “My mother doesn’t want to come down from the mountain.”
Old Xu sighed. He didn’t know what to do with this disrespectful young woman. He nudged Xiao Cheng, who said, “The key was so difficult to obtain. In my experience, that means the clues are valuable and related to completing the instance.”
Zhu Ming scoffed. “Sorry, I don’t have any experience. I can’t rely on experience to judge things. I only know that what’s written on this paper has nothing to do with that figurine.”
Xiao Cheng: “…”
Zhu Ming shone her flashlight on the large totem on the wall. “Xiao Cheng said it himself. We’ve all encountered this deity before, which is why we’re in this instance. I don’t know what your encounters were like, but I know this thing is used for fertility rituals. A fertility deity that also exorcises ghosts? Quite the multi-tasker.”
Yun Zouchuan nodded vigorously. “Boss is right!”
Zhu Ming circled the formation, stopping in front of the concrete platform: the bloodstained phone, the rusted watch, and the submerged figurine.
Old Xu scratched his chin. “Young lady, please don’t do anything rash. Even if you don’t participate, we should at least have a backup plan!”
Xiao Cheng sighed, realizing the mission wouldn’t be completed tonight. “Miss Zhu, even if you want to stop us, you should at least give us a reason. It wasn’t easy for us to come out here in the middle of the night.”
“A reason?” Zhu Ming rolled her eyes. “I don’t believe not a single one of you noticed the problem. Tell me, how did Lao Gao die?”
“He went into the pool to get the key and was killed by the water ghost,” Xiao Cheng replied.
“Let’s ignore how the ghost got into his room for now,” Zhu Ming said. “I’ll just ask this: if the basement holds the key to suppressing the ghost, why didn’t she take the key after killing him?”
Xiao Cheng paused. “Maybe she can only kill, not take objects?”
“Really? I don’t believe it.”
Xiao Cheng: “…”
Zhu Ming chuckled coldly. “Has anyone noticed that something is missing from Lao Gao’s room?”
Xiao Cheng shook his head innocently, claiming ignorance.
“The trash,” Zhu Ming said. “All the trash in his room is gone. That means the housekeeper was in his room. The housekeeper is also a ghost. If it can take the trash, why not the key?”
Xiao Cheng: “…Yeah, why?” He was now just echoing her questions.
“Because their goal is to make us complete the ritual!” Zhu Ming declared.
Xiao Cheng: “Huh?!”
Miss Zhao argued, “Maybe the housekeeper and the water ghost are the same entity, with some kind of limitation. Perhaps the key has the aura of the deity, so the ghost can’t touch it.”
“Really? Do you believe that?”
Zhu Ming turned her attention to the three sheets of paper, flipping to the last page. She traced the words with her fingertip, her smile widening, her eyes growing colder. “A-Zou, do you know the meaning of the mountain lily?”
The mountain lily wasn’t as well-known as roses or lotuses. No one could recall its symbolic meaning, especially Yun Zouchuan, who had only been away from the mountain for two years.
Yun Zouchuan shook her head.
“I don’t know the meaning of the mountain lily either,” Zhu Ming said, “but I know the significance of the other four items.” She looked at Old Xu, her voice sharp. “Old man, you’re so knowledgeable, you even know about Maoshan soul-sealing formations. Surely you know this?”
Old Xu coughed. “I do. Pomegranate symbolizes fertility and many children, red dates symbolize early childbirth, willow branches attract ghosts, and water lilies are associated with yin… But the deity itself embodies these attributes, so it’s normal to offer them.”
“Those are the meanings of the offerings. What’s the role of the ‘good woman’?” Zhu Ming tapped the paper. “It can’t be the same, can it? Is it really a deity that descends upon the good woman?”
As she spoke, an answer began to form in their minds.
This was the Night of Sacrifice. The sacrifice was a good woman, but the result wasn’t a blessing, but a… ghost child.
Yun Zouchuan’s flashlight clattered to the floor. Her face paled, then flushed with anger.
Zhu Ming picked up the flashlight and handed it back to her. She knew this was the one thing A-Zou couldn’t tolerate.
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