After a moment, the venerable monk finally spoke, "The ritual to open the altar must wait until tomorrow morning. I will stay here tonight."

Tomorrow morning! Hearing those words, the remaining five people froze. Calculating carefully, Hua Jinlan had only 72 hours left, and she was expected to strike the entire village tonight. Yet the ritual wouldn't happen until the following morning—what a terrifying wait that would be!

"Master, can't the ritual be performed immediately?" Xiao Shu asked.

"Everything has its predetermined time, and rituals too require the correct hour. Those who defy heaven perish; those who follow heaven prosper. We must conduct the rite when the ghost’s power is weakest to have any chance of victory. Yin energy is strongest at midnight, so everyone must be extra vigilant tonight." The monk spoke in his flowery, ancient dialect, leaving me utterly bewildered. Thinking it over, the simple takeaway was that they couldn't capture Hua Jinlan’s soul until tomorrow morning; everyone was on their own for the rest of the night.

Old He shook his head, picked up the crumpled shirt from the ground, and shook it open over the dirt. Aside from dark, inky stains, there wasn't a trace of dried blood. He then draped the shirt over his shoulder and walked toward the foot of the mountain without looking back.

The moment he left, panic seized the others. Hua Gu started to step forward to stop him, but the Village Chief grabbed her back firmly.

"Let's split up. Hua Gu and the monk will stay here tonight to keep watch, and the ritual will commence at the first crow of dawn. The rest of us will head to the ancestral hall to prepare everyone to meet that fiend." The Village Chief commanded.

Hua Gu could only return sulkily to the corpse's side, remaining with the monk to stand guard through the night.

And so, Old He led the way, with me, Xiao Shu, and the Village Chief following closely behind. The group hurried down the mountain path.

As we entered the village, the sun was already sinking low. The last rays of twilight spread across the settlement, creating an atmosphere of serene peace, as if it were an idyllic Shangri-La.

We returned to the old woman’s house, intending to tell her everything that had transpired. The Granny, along with Xing’er and Ah Li, were sitting in the courtyard eating. Seeing us arrive, Ah Li rushed to the kitchen to fetch a few pairs of bowls and chopsticks.

The Village Chief was the first to approach the Granny, kneeling on the ground and bowing his head respectfully three times. I was already accustomed to this triple kowtow to the elder woman. Thus, I followed the Chief’s example, dropping to both knees and knocking my head against the floor three times with a thud. Xiao Shu stood stiffly beside me. After finishing, I gently tugged his trouser leg, signaling him to kneel as well. He sighed, took a long moment, and finally dropped to his knees to complete the bows with us.

This instantly caused the Granny’s expression to brighten into a smile, a complete reversal from the look she’d given Xiao Shu that morning. She warmly invited us to sit and eat, and the sensible Ah Li started serving us rice and placing dishes on our plates. It was an atmosphere of such profound tranquility that, had it not been for tonight’s ordeal, I suspect we could have happily continued living this way forever.

Once the meal was finished, we returned to the main topic. The Granny finally asked, "What was the outcome today? Did you find Hua Jinlan’s body?"

"We did," I replied. "After an ordeal, Xiao Shu was brought back from the dead."

Upon hearing those four words—brought back from the dead—an unusual glint appeared in the Granny’s eyes as she scrutinized Xiao Shu from head to toe. So, I recounted everything to her: how I had triggered the mechanism, how Xiao Shu had been pinned to the stone, the dimensional shift, the appearance of the Sea of Undead, and how we used its water to heal him.

Ah Li listened nearby with rapt attention, as if I were merely reciting a tale woven purely from imagination. Of course, she was still young, having never faced trials of life and death; what I described was merely a fleeting shimmer in the long river of her memory.