Chapter 193: Opening the Well

The Well-Coiling Bone was at the bottom of the well, and so was Shen Nian.

Honestly, getting Gao Tian to hold back and not tear the well apart was a bit difficult.

Gao Tian asked, "Did any of you see what was at the bottom of this well before? I want to tear it down. Who's for it, and who's against it?"

At his words, the expressions of the crowd that had followed them from Blood Door Village drastically changed.

"Brother, don't joke about this," someone urged.

"The Well-Coiling Bone is right down there. Do you have any idea what will happen if you open it?" another added.

Even if they had respected Gao Tian before, this concerned everyone's life and death.

Defying him might not result in death, but if whatever was at the bottom of the well was let out, they would definitely die today.

Even Yin Jiu uncharacteristically voiced his opposition. "The well might be the only thing suppressing what's down there. That is the rule between us and her. Daytime is when the living can move about. If you tear this well down, you'll completely enrage her, and the rules will no longer apply."

Gao Tian shot back, "So if you follow the rules with the Well-Coiling Bone, you won't die? That family across the street hid obediently behind their Blood Gate last night, so why did they die? Who in this village doesn't know to hide behind the Blood Gates at night? Yet people die every single evening. These so-called rules are bullshit. Does the Well-Coiling Bone even acknowledge them?"

The others fell silent.

They couldn't beat him in a fight, and they couldn't win an argument against him either.

Gao Tian walked up to Yin Jiu, looking him straight in the eyes. "Didn't you swear last night that whether it took ten or twenty years, you would absolutely leave this place? So what is this now? How many fingers do you have left? When the next night falls, how many more can you afford to chop off? When you run out of your own fingers and the Well-Coiling Bone comes for you, what will you do? Chop off someone else's? And when everyone's fingers are gone and the Well-Coiling Bone builds a resistance to it, what then? Are you just going to cower in your house and wait for death?"

"As long as we survive, taking it one day at a time is enough," Yin Jiu replied calmly. "Can you guarantee you'll find the truth if you open the bottom of that well? If it were only my life on the line, I'd gladly make that bet. But with so many elderly and weak people here, I have no right to gamble with their lives."

"Living every night in Blood Door Village is a gamble too," Gao Tian pointed out. "Before we arrived at your house, how many people were staying there with you?"

"Besides me, eight," Yin Jiu answered. "Half are dead now, and that's considered a low number for Blood Door Village."

"That's why I have to try," Gao Tian said, "even if there is only a one-percent chance at the bottom of this well. It's the only way to save everyone."

He turned his head, his gaze sweeping over everyone present.

Most of them looked away, not daring to meet his eyes, though a few—like Yin Jiu and the large fat man—held his gaze.

"I won't force all of you to agree with my point of view," Gao Tian said. "Even ants cling to life, and taking it one day at a time is human nature. I don't need any of you to stay. You can all go back and hide behind your Blood Gates. Just pretend that night has fallen early and the Well-Coiling Bone is about to climb out. I'll take responsibility for opening the well alone. If I find any clues, I'll share them with everyone. And if something goes wrong, the Well-Coiling Bone will kill me first when she crawls out."

Hearing that they were free to leave, the majority of the crowd acted as if they had just received a pardon. Without a second thought, they turned and left.

This was the best possible outcome. They could hide behind their Blood Gates and let this powerful expert and his little cousin investigate the truth.

If he succeeded, the whole village would benefit. If he died, the rest of them would already be safely tucked away behind their Blood Gates—it would just be another night.

Either way, they had nothing to lose.

Of course, a very small number chose to stay.

The large fat man clamped a hand on Gao Tian's shoulder. "I'll stay with you, Brother Gao Tian," he said. "Back in the outside world, I used to lick blood off the edge of a blade for a living. I don't know how my guts shrank the longer I stayed here. How many more years do we have to be trapped in this broken village, waiting for fate to judge us every night? I've had enough of these days. Anyone in this village brave enough to seek the truth died a long time ago. The rest of us are nothing but a bunch of cowardly mice. Including me, of course. Your words reminded me of who I used to be. Even if I die today, I'll accept it. I have a right to know the truth about Blood Door Village."

Yin Jiu also stood his ground. "Since you're opening the well, I'll stay too. Let me accompany you on this journey."

"Who said I was staying?" Gao Tian asked.

Yin Jiu and the fat man froze. "What? Aren't you—"

With a thought from Gao Tian, the Wind Attendant Buddha appeared out of thin air beside the well. "Let it stay and dig. We'll head back to Blood Door Village together and wait for the results."

Even if they dug up the slumbering Well-Coiling Bone and provoked its wrath from being woken up, the one digging the well was the Wind Attendant Buddha. What did that have to do with Gao Tian?

From now on, he could just send a new Wind Attendant Buddha to dig the well every day. The Well-Coiling Bone raided Blood Door Village every night, refusing to let the villagers sleep.

So he would dig the well every day, refusing to let the Well-Coiling Bone rest either.

The only flaw was that the Wind Attendant Buddha didn't have much of a strength boost. Digging through a solidly packed well would probably take more than a day.

Qin Zhuguang, who had been silent all along, fixed her gaze on the Wind Attendant Buddha. A Light Cat radiating a bright, pure glow slowly landed on its neck, gently wrapping around the Wind Attendant Buddha like a sparkling scarf.

Gao Tian felt the Wind Attendant Buddha suddenly surge with boundless strength, as if it could tear steel apart with its bare hands. The Light Cat summoned by Qin Zhuguang had multiplied its power by dozens of times.

It seemed it wouldn't take a day after all; the entire well could be excavated within an hour.

Leaving the Wind Attendant Buddha behind to tear apart the wooden boards covering the well, Gao Tian and the others turned and headed back.

"The Well-Coiling Bone is coming! Someone is digging up the well! Everyone, hide behind the Blood Gates!"

With the village bell-ringer's repeated strikes, the warning echoed throughout the entire settlement.

Everyone still outside, completely unaware of what had happened, hurriedly turned and retreated behind their Blood Gates, slamming them shut and locking them tight.

In an instant, the village's dirt paths and fields were completely deserted.

When Gao Tian, Qin Zhuguang, Yin Jiu, and the others passed by the ancestral hall, the red-haired young man was still hanging upside down. He was foaming at the mouth, clearly exhaling more than he was inhaling.

Yin Jiu spoke up, "Brother Gao Tian, do me a favor. The Well-Coiling Bone is about to come out. Leaving him outside like this is basically killing him. This guy is despicable, but his crimes don't warrant death."

Truthfully, Gao Tian didn't really want to let the red-haired youth down.

But he still had to give Yin Jiu some face. Since he had asked, Gao Tian walked over to the red-haired young man, originally intending to cancel the Fishing Ghost's effect.

The red-haired youth rolled his eyes back, struggling to look in Gao Tian's direction.

Even though his breath was faint, he squeezed out the words weakly, one by one. "Once I get down... I'll slaughter all of you... Including... this underage... little bitch..."

His gaze landed on Qin Zhuguang behind Gao Tian, his eyes practically shooting flames.

Murderous intent flared in Gao Tian's heart.

Any intention of letting him off the hook instantly vanished into thin air. "You've got a backbone, buddy," he said. "Then you can just stay here."

He placed a Mirror directly beneath the red-haired youth, then turned and walked away.

This upside-down "salted fish" was the only one left in the entire ancestral hall, waiting to be the very first thing the Well-Coiling Bone saw when it entered the village.

Yin Jiu returned to his house a step ahead of them.

When the Well-Coiling Bone arrived last night, whatever happened had caused the gap at the bottom of his Blood Gate to expand to five fingers high, losing a sizable chunk.

He had no idea what material these Blood Gates were made of, and the other households definitely wouldn't tear down their own Blood Gates to give to him.

There was only one solution left. The house across the street had its Blood Gate smashed open last night, leaving a few fragments behind. He could grab those to patch his own door.

Finding some glue from who knew where, Yin Jiu cut a few intact pieces from the broken boards and glued them together, filling the five-finger gap missing from the bottom of his Blood Gate.

During the repairs, he was forced to see the material stuffed inside the wooden layers of the Blood Gate. His expression grew increasingly grim. "Why is this inner layer completely filled with severed fingers and shattered bones?"

Pieces of bone were wedged inside, catching Yin Jiu's eye as he cut into the wood.

Many of the bones were visibly human at a glance; they couldn't belong to animals.

Some of the bones were extremely small—they even belonged to children.

Yin Jiu looked dreadful. These Blood Gates, which blocked the Well-Coiling Bone, actually contained human body parts inside? Did that mean the blood smeared on the Blood Gates was also made of coagulated human blood?

What kind of twisted logic was this? How could a Blood Gate made of people partially stop the nocturnal Well-Coiling Bone?

On the other side, empowered by the Light Cat, the Wind Attendant Buddha tore away the wooden boards nailed over the well with its bare hands. Its speed as it excavated the sand and gravel beneath was like a machine.

It quickly dug several meters down. Soon, the silhouette of a human head slowly surfaced from the mud at the bottom of the well.

Although the head was rotting, judging by the hairstyle and facial structure, it didn't look like a woman's. It had to be a man's.

Shen Nian.

So he really was buried here after all.

They hadn't seen each other in half a year, yet Shen Nian had still ended up dying in Blood Door Village. This made Gao Tian feel a pang of sorrow.

The Wind Puppet accelerated its digging.

Before long, more than half of Shen Nian's corpse was exposed.

However, his posture before death was rather strange.

Even though he was buried at the bottom of the well under mud and sand, he still stubbornly raised one arm, pointing rigidly straight toward the well wall in the direction outside the village.

A small flower wreath was looped around that raised arm. It looked like an accessory for a woman, or rather, a little girl. A normal middle-aged man would never wear something like this on his arm.

Gao Tian clearly remembered seeing him on the Bus half a year ago. He hadn't been wearing this little flower wreath back then either.

By stubbornly maintaining this posture right up to his death, was Shen Nian trying to leave a hint for those who came after him?

The Wind Attendant Buddha looked up, glancing roughly in the direction Shen Nian's corpse was pointing.

They would have to pass through Blood Door Village and enter the fog outside to understand what Shen Nian was pointing at.

He must have discovered something right before he died. Out of options and unable to act freely, this was the only way he could mark the mysterious location outside the village.

Gao Tian continued digging downward.

Soon, after the entire corpse was excavated, he discovered something new at the bottom of the well.