Chapter 189: The One Outside the Door

The Well-Coiling Bone had arrived.

Her footsteps were audible outside the door. They were not loud—faint and drifting, even—yet in the dead silence of the night, they rang out with piercing clarity.

With the blood door between them, there was no telling where the Well-Coiling Bone had wandered. Strangely, her footsteps drifted far away one moment and drew right up close the next. She did not walk like a human at all; with every step that fell, there was no knowing where the next would land.

The unruly vagabond's expression changed the instant he heard the steps outside. His hand froze on his dagger, and he looked as though he wished he could stop his own heartbeat.

Inside the room, the others wore different expressions.

The old man had not spoken a word from the start. The boy sat quietly, leaving the building blocks in his hands untouched. The biggest variable should have been the fool, yet he had stayed in this room for so long without being thrown out, which meant he normally kept quiet and did not make a racket. Qin Zhuguang did not seem to care much about what was happening outside; she had already set down her schoolbag and started on her Chinese homework.

Her pen touched the paper lightly, not making a sound.

Only the candle burned in the room.

The vagabond made no move to blow it out. Light, perhaps, did not draw the Well-Coiling Bone.

The next moment, the footsteps outside the blood door stopped at the house across from theirs.

Gao Tian remembered that five people should be hiding in that house: four men—the youngest seventeen or eighteen, the oldest in his seventies—and a middle-aged woman.

Silence hung outside for a moment. Then a low, shrill woman's laugh rang out.

The sound of a wooden door being kicked to splinters followed.

By the sound of it, the Well-Coiling Bone had already stormed into the house across the way. The screams of the men and the woman tore through the night, and in the chaos, someone shouted, "Use that Supernatural Item on her!"

The noise cut off abruptly. Outside the house, every sound went still.

The sounds of the men fighting, the woman's weeping and screaming, the crunch of the wooden door being crushed, and that sharp, eerie voice that sounded half like crying and half like laughter—

All of it vanished together.

Blood Door Village sank back into dead silence.

Before long, those strange footsteps, drifting near and far, began wandering through the village again.

In the candlelight, the vagabond looked taut with nerves, fine beads of cold sweat forming on his forehead.

The people in the house across the way had survived in Blood Door Village for a long time. They had strictly followed the taboos and rules, sealing their blood door tight every single time. Why had the Well-Coiling Bone still kicked the door open, broken in, and slaughtered them all?

What had they done wrong?

Judging by the vagabond's face, he had no clear idea either.

Right now, all they could do was stall for as long as they could. If they held out until dawn, the ghost that had crawled out from the bottom of the well would leave on its own.

Because of the deaths in the house across the way, another small wisp of Ghost Luck rose above Gao Tian's head. He took out his Luck Jar and stored the luck away.

Qin Zhuguang was still doing her homework, which meant the situation outside was not that serious yet.

On the whole, the strange footsteps were gradually moving away from Gao Tian's house, heading toward other parts of Blood Door Village.

Now and then they paused in front of a few houses, followed by the sound of knocking.

This Well-Coiling Bone was surprisingly polite, even knowing to ask permission from the people inside before coming in.

The owners of the other houses were no fools, of course. They had refused to open their doors even for newcomers like Gao Tian, let alone for this ghost.

The footsteps lingered briefly before each house; when the blood door stayed shut, she drifted on toward the next one.

As the thing's footsteps faded into the distance until they were nearly inaudible, the expressions of the other four in the house barely changed. The vagabond reached up to wipe the cold sweat blurring his eyes, veins bulging on the back of the hand that gripped his dagger.

If it came to the worst and not even the blood door could stop the thing outside from breaking in, he still had his pride as a ghost hunter. He would never sit around waiting to die.

"Whether I'm trapped here for ten years or twenty, I'm going to find a way out.

"There's no way I'm dying some pointless death in this godforsaken place. Fuck, what a joke."

The vagabond muttered to himself in a voice barely above a breath. Even though the footsteps were already far away, he still did not dare make a sound.

Just then, the blood door suddenly shook. Something standing outside was pounding hard on it, signaling to be let in.

What was going on? The Well-Coiling Bone had clearly walked far away already.

At this hour, who else besides a ghost could be moving around outside the houses of Blood Door Village?

The pounding grew heavier and heavier until the furniture and the tea table inside the house began to rattle. The vagabond was at a loss, having no idea what rule he could possibly have triggered. Even Qin Zhuguang, who had been writing her homework, slowly raised her head and turned her shining eyes toward the door.

A breathless woman's voice rang out in urgent gasps from beyond the blood door: "I—I'm Aunt Huang—from the house up ahead—our blood door—was broken through—by the Well-Coiling Bone—everyone in the house—was killed—I—I took my child—and barely managed—to run out—

"Please—open the door—have a heart—take the two of us in, mother and child—it doesn't matter—if I die—I still have a child—put my child—inside—I beg you—I'm not lying to you—if I'm lying—may I die a horrible death—

"Good people—are rewarded—she's only a child—let her in—open the door—I beg you—I'll do anything!"

Her voice was desolate and full of endless pleading, accompanied by a girl's heart-wrenching sobs. Just hearing it was enough to stir anyone's pity. As the woman's pounding grew more frantic, it was clear the situation was critical—if the door did not open the next instant, mother and daughter would both be killed.

Inside the room, not a single person was moved by the cries for help to go open the door.

The old man, the boy, and the fool were lost in their own worlds to begin with. Their presence was practically zero.

Gao Tian did not move. The vagabond had warned them earlier that the Well-Coiling Bone would try everything conceivable to trick the people behind a blood door into opening it.

If an entire house had been breached, how could anyone have escaped? The excuse was far too clumsy.

Besides, when they first entered the village, not a single house besides the vagabond's had been willing to take him and Qin Zhuguang in. Even if the people outside really were survivors from another house, what right did they have to expect Gao Tian to repay coldness with kindness?

The vagabond was even less likely to open the door. He had survived in Blood Door Village for a good while by strictly obeying this rule: after nine o'clock, even if his own mother was knocking outside, he could not answer.

The pounding outside gradually weakened. After a long while, only a powerless whimper remained.

There was no telling whether the mother and daughter had been killed, or whether the Well-Coiling Bone, having failed to fool anyone inside, had turned around to look for her next victim.

Once that brief scare passed, the people in the room breathed a slight sigh of relief, feeling they had made it through the ordeal.

Then a low, hoarse male voice—one Gao Tian knew all too well—sounded abruptly outside the blood door: "Gao Tian, it's me."

At the sound of that voice, the blood froze in Gao Tian's veins.

It was Shen Nian.

It was Shen Nian's voice.

Was Shen Nian standing at the door?

No—there was a 99% chance this was another of the Well-Coiling Bone's disguises. She really would stop at nothing to trick them into opening this blood door.

Still standing outside, Shen Nian's voice went on speaking to itself: "I know you won't believe me. Because you know the Well-Coiling Bone disguises itself as all kinds of voices to trick the people behind the door into opening up.

"Showing up outside your door at this hour is way too much of a coincidence. A lot happened to me in Blood Door Village, and I can't explain it all to you right now. But coincidences happen—I'm going to die out here tonight, and running into you before I die must be fate.

"I only have one request. I can die here, but my son can't. I'm begging you, open this blood door and let my son inside, at least so he can make it safely through tonight and leave the Inner World alive.

"Even if you think I'm the Well-Coiling Bone, or whatever else, I don't care. I'm only begging you to save my child."

This routine again?

Using women and children to play on their sympathy.

The vagabond was right. Tonight, even if his own mother were knocking outside the house, he could not pay it any mind.

At the door, Shen Nian spoke his piece in a near-pleading voice. Seeing that no one inside was answering after a long wait, he did not press the matter, turning to walk away.

That was pretty much Shen Nian's style, too. He was not the sort of man to cling shamelessly and beg.

Unconsciously, Gao Tian's gaze traveled down the blood door to the gap at the bottom.

Through the two-finger-wide gap, in the pale moonlight outside, he could just make out a pair of deep red embroidered shoes standing there.

That settled it.

Even that less-than-one-percent possibility vanished like smoke.

Even if by some fluke Shen Nian had found his way to Gao Tian's door in the dead of night to knock and beg bitterly—

There was no way he would have shown up wearing a pair of tiny embroidered shoes for bound feet.

The thing in the embroidered shoes waiting outside had not left at all. She was simply waiting to see if some fool inside the house would actually be baited into opening the door and letting her in.

Gao Tian almost laughed at himself. He had known full well it could not be Shen Nian, yet he still had to look and make sure.

Talk about taking off his pants just to fart.

Right then, a cold gust of wind blew from nowhere, raising goosebumps all over Gao Tian's body. His head cooled a little, too.

Wait.

A gap under the door?

A two-finger-wide gap, wide enough to see that pair of feet outside and the embroidered shoes on them.

No, something was wrong.

What the vagabond had said earlier was clearly to "shut the blood door tight, completely cutting it off from the outside."

"Tight."

Had this so-called gap under the door been there from the start?

When had it appeared?