At that moment, I looked around; the Sickle Gang members were sprawled everywhere on the ground.

The severed limbs were gone, and the river of blood had vanished too.

I was astonished that on such a dark night, this woman had ventured alone into the mountains, so I asked, "Sister, what are you doing out here all alone in this black darkness?" "I came looking for my husband." "And who is your husband?" "My husband is the person you burned; I am his wife, Hua Jinlan." The moment I heard the name Hua Jinlan, my eyes lit up instantly.

Wasn't she exactly who I was supposed to find tonight? Had she delivered herself right to my doorstep? "Greetings, Sister," I immediately said to her with utmost politeness, "Someone has been poisoned by your Gu, and I have traveled a thousand li from Wuzhuang to find you." "I know you came for me; they already notified me," she replied, then she began to slowly peel the skin from her face, revealing raw, reddish flesh in the firelight, and tossed the discarded skin towards me.

I dodged aside, and the skin landed on the ground, instantly dissolving into a pool of bubbling, inky black water.

I stared at the mess on the floor in horror, afraid to turn back and look at that disgusting face. "Xiaoyu, you don't recognize your own sister anymore?" Her voice suddenly shifted back to that of my familiar older sister.

I whipped my head around; the person before me indeed had the exact same figure and face as my sister.

A hallucination, a hallucination—it must be a hallucination.

I watched as 'my sister' picked up the Scarface's sickle and began stalking toward me, step by menacing step.

I felt deeply that something was profoundly wrong.

My mind knew my real sister was miles away, yet I was utterly helpless against the provocations of this fake older sister standing before me.

I could only let her advance inch by inch.

She took one step, I shifted back a little.

She advanced again, and I retreated once more.

I kept moving backward until my back hit the rock face of the mountain, unable to retreat any further.

She burst into maniacal laughter, "Let's see if you dare to chop off my head now.

You shouldn't have lived past today; you should have stayed with them during the villa sacrifice.

Look at the misery you’ve brought upon us by escaping." She straightened up and moved close to me, stopping just ten centimeters away, and began tearing the skin from her face bit by bit, deliberately facing me with the side that was a bloody, mangled mess.

My stomach churned violently, and bile rushed up my throat.

Seeing that I was about to vomit, she laughed again, flexing the teeth that had already had their lips ripped away, and snarled, "Look closer—do you recognize me now?" I blinked hard several times, and the bloody, gruesome face vanished, replaced by a visage incredibly familiar.

Narrow eyes, twin horn braids… it was Bai Huajian! It really was Bai Huajian! That chubby face, the one just like Xiao Yueyue's, was swaying right before my eyes.

The withered, skin-and-bones hands that had stabbed me with a dagger were now brandishing the sickle.

I understood everything: this whole sequence of events was a trap set by Li Xiaohao.

No matter how much I circled, I had never escaped his clutches.

Seeking out Hua Jinlan had been a fatal mistake, because the one who placed the Gu on my sister was this Bai Huajian right here; she was clearly allied with Li Xiaohao.

The world spun before my eyes, leaving me dizzy and faint.

Just as I felt I could no longer hold on, Bai Huajian raised the sickle and brought it down hard on my thigh.

Blood immediately surged out in thick gouts from the puncture wound.

The ancients spoke of 'hanging the head to the beam and piercing the thigh with an awl'; truly, pain is a powerful force that compels the mind to stay clear.

A man cannot simply perish at the hands of a female phantom without resistance.

I, too, grabbed my sickle and swung it toward her.

She sidestepped, narrowly dodging the blow.

She leaped aside, flashed me a smile, and said, "I forgot, you're carrying a protective talisman tonight." With that, she vanished instantly into the deep woods, leaving me slumped alone against the tree.

After an unknowable stretch of time, I drifted off into a deep sleep, clutching the sickle tightly.

When I awoke, I found myself lying in a guest room at the village chief's house.