The scene in the main hall was eerily familiar. Tables, benches, cups, and bowls—everything that could be split or chopped lay in pieces. The golden treasure that Wang Jue himself had placed in the coffin was long gone, leaving only a pile of splintered wood. Gui Fang squatted in the corner, clutching her head, her eyes wide with terror, her whole body trembling uncontrollably.

Wang Jue covered the distance to Gui Fang in two swift strides, prying open her eyelids with his fingers. She was like a wooden doll, offering no reaction beyond the shaking.

"Severe shock! Let's go out and look." He had just minutes ago disagreed with me accompanying him to the ancestral hall, and now he was determined to investigate. The usually wise and composed psychiatrist seemed to have returned.

I followed his long, purposeful stride out of the house. The path was a mess of destruction. We followed the trail of cleaving until we reached the ancestral hall, where a river of blood had already pooled.

Inside and out, the hall was filled with bodies strewn haphazardly—some decapitated, some missing arms, some severed at the waist, none showing signs of life, yet all still warm to the touch. The sight was utterly gruesome, far surpassing the horror I had witnessed the night we captured Scarface.

Curiously, apart from the dead, there wasn't a single jiangshi to be seen, not even the Jin Bao'er who had crawled out of the coffin. Just then, Wang Jue suddenly yanked me behind the ancestral hall door. I froze for a moment, bewildered by the sudden action, before the truly horrifying scene unfolded.

The corpses lying on the ground began to stir with soft, rustling sounds. Those with complete bodies slowly pulled themselves up, feeling around on the ground for their heads, hands, and feet. The incomplete ones shuffled and moved, their upper and lower halves searching for each other, rejoining automatically upon contact. In moments, the scattered limbs vanished, replaced by a group of zombies with vacant stares standing silently in the yard.

Huddled behind the door, I felt a profound numbness spread through my body. If I could shed this skin and flee back to Xiangcheng, I would certainly outrun Wang Jue.

Just as I felt I could bear no more, a rhythmic tapping of footsteps sounded outside. Peeking through a crack in the door, I saw a woman shaped like a perfect sphere enter, stop before the zombies, and wave a hand at them. One by one, the jiangshi turned, straightened their backs, and followed the 'Round-Ball' woman out of the hall. As she turned to leave, I saw her face.

It was Bai Huaqian! As expected, this was all a scheme orchestrated by Li Xiaohao, one who would stop at nothing, slaughtering living beings to obtain what he desired.

As soon as the zombies left the hall, I stumbled backward, collapsing onto the ground. Wang Jue, too, was visibly tense and drenched in sweat. If we hadn't managed to hold our silence just then, who knew if Bai Huaqian would have turned us into jiangshi as well.

"What do we do now?" I asked Wang Jue, my voice tight with lingering fear.

He paused in deep thought, then spoke, "The situation appears to be this: Li Xiaoshu is at Quiet Mountain, and Li Xiaohao is raising zombies in Quiet Village, most likely to confront Li Xiaoshu and steal the album from him. We have two options: either we follow the zombies to Quiet Mountain, observe developments, find your sister, and rescue her; or we return to question the other villagers and venture to Quiet Mountain ourselves to rescue your sister from Li Xiaoshu. The first plan is fast, but the risk is immense; we could be attacked by the zombies and lose our lives. The second plan is slow, but questioning the elders in the village might reveal more about Quiet Mountain, perhaps even a method to deal with the jiangshi. I lean toward the more conservative approach—where there’s life, there’s hope."

I nodded, deeply agreeing with his reasoning. We picked ourselves up from the floor and retraced our steps back to Gui Fang's house.

The old man and Gui Zhi were already awake, the grandmother and grandson huddled together on the threshold of the main hall, looking utterly desolate.