Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The bridal path of Blackstone Village lay on the back mountain.

It was a flight of stone steps bleached white by countless feet, with the gray ash of burnt spirit money still lingering in the crevices. Red strings were tied all over the trees on both sides; when the wind blew, they looked like rows of hanging tongues.

As I walked up with my lantern, the crowd at the village entrance didn’t stop me.

They likely thought that a girl sold into the village couldn’t possibly escape this man-eating place, whether she headed into the mountains at night or ran away during the day. A few half-grown boys followed from a distance, waiting to collect my bones tomorrow morning.

Halfway up the mountain, I deliberately blew out my lantern.

The mountain path plunged into total darkness. The people behind me didn’t dare follow any further, only standing at the bottom of the stone steps and cursing me for being mad. I heard someone say that the Mountain God should be happy this time-I had delivered myself to his door, saving them the cost of the drugs.

Saving the drugs.

I paused.

It turned out that the so-called bridal delivery wasn’t as simple as just entering the mountain. Most of the girls before me had probably been drugged with food or wine, knocked unconscious before being thrown in.

I didn’t look back, continuing further inside by the moonlight.

The further I went, the quieter it became, until even the chirping of insects vanished. When the mountain wind swept through the forest, it carried a heavy dampness, like countless pairs of eyes staring at my back. At the end of the stone steps stood a small, half-collapsed temple. Only the character for “Mountain” remained on the door plaque. A thick layer of dust had accumulated on the offering table, yet fresh red dates and a pig’s head were laid out upon it.

They sacrificed to a god, but they did it to nourish their own courage.

I relit my lantern and was about to go inside to take a look when the ground suddenly gave way beneath my feet.

In that instant, I only had time to grab a withered vine by the temple door, leaving me half-suspended over a slope. The lantern fell, its flame flickering once in the darkness to reveal that what lay below wasn’t a slope at all, but a hollowed-out crevice.

Inside the crevice was a jumbled mess of red cloth, wooden crates, and a hand so pale it seemed to glow.

It was a corpse.

And there was more than one.

My stomach churned, but my grip tightened. Just as the vine was about to snap, a gust of mountain wind swirled up from below, feeling as though someone had given me a forceful shove. I lunged forward and collapsed back onto the temple threshold.

Inside the temple stood a headless stone statue.

Dozens of wooden plaques were scattered before it, all inscribed with women’s names: Liu Chunhe, Chen Xiaoman, Xu Sanniang, Zhao Ah Xia…

Every single plaque felt like a soul that had never made it home.

I had just picked one up when a faint chime of a bell suddenly came from behind the temple.

It wasn’t the wind.

It was a person.

I gripped my hairpin and turned around, catching only a glimpse of a red shadow flashing behind a collapsed wall. I chased after it with my lantern, but my neck suddenly went numb. Someone covered my mouth and nose from behind, their palm smelling of earth and herbs.

“Don’t scream,” the person whispered against my ear. “If you want to live, play dead.”

No sooner had the words been spoken than the sound of barking dogs and men’s footsteps drifted up from the foot of the mountain.

Someone really was coming after me.