The Creatures That We Are

Chapter 36: Discrepancy

The dark hair wrapping around Fat Jun threw him into the air before diving down and quickly retracting into the dried well, dragging Fat Jun along.

With tremendous reflex and power, Wang Zikai leapt up, his arm muscles swelling and turning thick and hard as he grabbed onto Fat Jun’s fat torso, letting himself get dragged toward the well with Fat Jun.

Plop. At the last moment, Wang Zikai’s feet found purchase on the wall around the well, keeping him and Fat Jun from falling in.

“Ahhhhhh—” Fat Jun screamed in pain. He was thankful at this moment that he was about a hundred kilos and covered in fat, or his bones would’ve fallen apart under the two great opposing forces.

Unable to drag Fat Jun into the well, the black hair threw him high in the air again. Wang Zikai refused to let go and soared up with him.

Then the black hair swung violently.

Bam! Fat Jun and Wang Zikai slammed into a house on the side, sending broken shards of wood everywhere and making puffs of dirt rise.

The hair hadn’t let go yet. It continued to swing across the ground.

Clink! Bam, bam—bam! Hurled around by the hair, Fat Jun and Wang Zikai rampaged through the ancestral hall like a pendulum, breaking doors and windows as well as the beams. Then they got thrown onto the second floor and broke the finely sculpted railings. In half a minute, the ancestral hall had become a damaged, crumbling ruin.

Fortunately, Wang Zikai had held tight onto Fat Jun from the back and acted like the shell of a turtle, taking the brunt of the impact. Otherwise, Fat Jun would’ve been crippled, if not killed.

Gao Yang and Officer Huang stood at the entrance of the ancestral hall, aiming the handguns without pulling the trigger like idiots. Even if they were equipped with rifles rather than handguns, they could do no damage to the black hair. Among the different firearms, a flamethrower would probably be their best bet.

As it was, they could only rely on Qing Ling, and she knew it. She had already conjured her Tang Dao and lowered her body, waiting for an opening. Soon, her opportunity came. She seized the moment the hair slowed down and charged toward it, unsheathing her blade and making a slash.

Swoosh—

With a flash, thousands of black strands scattered in the air, and a good chunk of the hair wrapping around Fat Jun fell off. Just when everyone thought this would be the end of it, even more black hair rushed out of the well toward Qing Ling.

Startled, Qing Ling swung her weapon to cut it down, but she missed a strand, and it grabbed her wrist. More and more hair followed to tie Qing Ling up. She was soon turned into another human dumpling.

Bang, bang, bang! Gao Yang pulled the trigger, but as expected, the bullets shot through the hair like shooting through water, doing it no damage.

The hair quickly decided to retreat. The different strands yanked at the same time, dragging Fat Jun and Qing Ling toward the well.

With a flip, Qing Ling pushed her feet against the wall of the well with her legs bent, keeping herself outside. Meanwhile, Wang Zikai was still holding onto Fat Jun, his feet the only things preventing them from falling in.

“...Help!” Fat Jun cried out.

Gao Yang and Officer Huang immediately rushed toward them, each holding onto Qing Ling and Wang Zikai.

They painted quite the picture. All five of them were holding onto each other like a twisted group hug or a deformed human with multiple heads and many more arms. It was all they could do to keep themselves from falling into the well while the dense sturdy mess of black hair dragged them down.

From a distance, it would seem as if time had stopped, when in fact the two sides had reached a strange equilibrium.

Gao Yang could swear this was the longest and most difficult tug of war he had ever experienced.

Three seconds passed.

Then five.

Then ten...

The one with the most raw power of them all, Wang Zikai, was losing his grip. “Shit, shit... I can’t do this any longer. I can’t. I’m letting go...”

“Don’t! Don’t let go!” Fat Jun begged. “I don’t wanna die...”

“Sacrificing you so that all four of us live isn’t a bad deal, Fatty. Don’t worry, I’ll avenge you later...”

“Why me...” Fat Jun wailed. “Why aren’t you letting go of Gao Yang? This is his test. I got dragged into this mess...”

“Shut up, moron! I’d rather die...than giving up on my brother...”

Rumble!

Before Wang Zikai could finish, the ground around the well crumbled, and all five of them fell toward the bottom of the pit.

“Ahhhhh—”

Amid the chaos and cries, Gao Yang’s vision went dark.

...

[Measuring vital signs...]

[Status: alive]

[Injury: light]

[Warning: You have entered an unknown area. Analysis unavailable. Luck points acquisition increased to two times.]

[System hidden.]

[Beep—]

Gao Yang slowly opened his eyes. The sky was bright, and the sunlight blinding.

He covered his eyes with a hand and was hit with the smell of soil and moldy moss. He slowly sat up, moving his arms. His body was working fine.

The first he spotted was Qing Ling. She had taken off her sport jacket and was wearing only a sleeveless black shirt that accentuated her attractiveness. With her head lowered, she was bandaging her injured right arm by biting onto one end of the bandage. She looked like Lara Croft from the game Tomb Raider 9.

“Are you...alright?” asked Gao Yang.

Qing Ling looked up at him, silently telling him to give her a hand.

Gao Yang hurriedly took the bandage from between her teeth and tied it up for her.

“Where are the others?” asked Gao Yang.

“I don’t know. I just woke up.”

Gao Yang finished bandaging Qing Ling’s arm. Finally, his eyes had adjusted to the bright sunlight. He looked around and almost jumped.

Isn’t this the Gu Family’s Village?

They were lying at the entrance of the village, and it seemed to be noon. Something was wrong. Could he be dreaming?

Gao Yang pinched Qing Ling’s cheek. This isn’t a dream, I don’t think. I can’t make up this pleasant hand-feel on my own.

Qing Ling glared at him. “What?”

“Checking if I could replicate your Talent,” Gao Yang said calmly while keeping an eye on Qing Ling’s reaction. Whew, she didn’t suspect anything. “I can’t do it yet, which means I haven’t been unconscious for more than twelve hours.”

After a pause, he said, “And we’re probably not in heaven.”

Qing Ling raised an eyebrow. “You think you’re going to heaven after death?”

“I mean...probably?” Gao Yang wasn’t exactly confident.

Honk, honk, honk... From behind them came the sound of a goose honking.

Gao Yang thought he had heard wrong, but when he turned around, there was a big white goose behind them.

It waddled past him, and just when he was about to say something, a swarm of geese rushed past him and Qing Ling, bringing a cacophony of honking noises with them.

After more than ten seconds, the army of geese were gone, leaving Gao Yang and Qing Ling covered in feathers.

“Are you from the city?” an old man asked. He was short, lithe, and tanned. Topless, he was dressed in only a black linen pants, his bare feet covered in calluses and black mud. In his hand was a long bamboo stick, and he had a pipe in his mouth.

People?! What’s going on?

Gao Yang was still reeling from the shock, while Qing Ling had already shot to her feet, ready to strike should something call for it.

“You came to offer condolences?” the old man asked.

“Yeah...” Gao Yang picked himself up too and kept his response purposefully vague.

“Go to the ancestral hall. Whenever someone dies in the village, a troupe would put on a performance there.” The old man took the pipe out of his mouth and pointed at the building on top of the hill, at the edge of the village. “There. That’s the place.”

Gao Yang looked over. Outside the ancestral hall, a stage made of soil had been set up with a makeshift tent. Below it were more than ten tables for the funeral reception, and at the entrance were a dozen or more white flower wreaths. The altar was probably set up in the courtyard inside the ancestral hall. They could vaguely hear the sound of traditional opera being performed.

“Okay, thank you,” Gao Yang responded accordingly.

The old man sighed. “Huazi[1] and his family died terribly. All five people, cut up overnight... I live right next door, yet I didn’t hear anything. When morning came, everyone was shocked out of our minds. The yards, the farms, on top of the trees and the roofs...the broken limbs are scattered everywhere, and Huazi’s head was placed on...”

The old man didn’t continue. He unconsciously glanced toward the stone stele at his feet, on which was the character ‘Gu’. There was a large stain of dried blood at the top.

“Heaven has no mercy!” He let out a long sigh and left while herding his geese.

Gao Yang spotted the discrepancy immediately. He turned to Qing Ling. “You noticed too?”

Qing Ling nodded. “When we arrived, the stone stele was broken.”

Although he wasn’t a hundred percent sure, Gao Yang had come to a tentative conclusion. “This isn’t the Gu Family’s Village we arrived at.”

1. In China, it was common to call someone by attaching ‘zi’ to the last character of their name to show familiarity. Another way is to have the last character of the name appended to ‘Ah’. Someone called Huihua can thus be nicknamed ‘Huazi’ or ‘Ah-Hua’. ?