"Meow, meow," the white cat leaped onto the low table, knocking over a teacup with a thud that sent it shattering onto the floor.

Granny Fan, who had been resting with her eyes closed, started.

She quickly calculated the omens.

Bad!

Granny Fan shut the door and bolted it from the inside, her expression grave.

Granny Fan chanted an incantation and burned a talisman; the ashes all fell onto a second teacup. She then smeared the tea mixed with the talisman ash onto the white cat's eyes. Afterward, she forced all the tea down the cat’s throat. Finally, she placed the cat on the windowsill.

Thump, thump, heavy knocking sounded from outside the door.

Granny Fan did not open it. She waved a hand toward the white cat, and the cat leaped out the window.

Smack! The door was blasted open by a gust of chilling, eerie wind.

A powerful gale.

Granny Fan couldn't keep her footing.

She was forced deeper into the room by the Yin wind.

A figure materialized outside the broken doorway.

"Hanba!" Granny Fan exclaimed, utterly shocked...

It was another foggy morning, and Young Master Liu opened his front door to find the world submerged in white mist. Due to the fog, the surroundings felt unusually still; insects had vanished, and the birds were silent, lacking their usual clamor. Over the past two days, the clinic doctor had visited several times, yet could not heal Village Chief Tian’s wound, which had instead left him unconscious. At this point, Tian Guoqiang had also returned; since his mother was looking after him at home, and finding him troublesome, he had come over to stay with Young Master Liu. Old Man Liu and his wife were out opportunistically trading grain, so Young Master Liu was glad to have company.

"Huh? What is that smell?" Young Master Liu was stretching when a foul odor suddenly reached him, something strangely metallic, like the scent of blood. He instantly grew tense, scanning the surroundings warily, but there was nothing but a blinding expanse of white.

"Tian Guoqiang."

...

"Tian Guoqiang, you good-for-nothing scoundrel, get out here for me!"

"What’s all the racket? Do you even want people to survive this early in the morning?" Tian Guoqiang stumbled out of the bedroom, still groggy, turning to grab his drinking mug to rinse his mouth.

Young Master Liu wouldn't let him leave. He immediately stepped forward, grabbing Tian Guoqiang’s arm, and said with a serious look, "Stop sleeping. Did you smell anything?" That scent was getting stronger, and Young Master Liu felt a rising panic, sensing something highly unusual was about to happen.

Tian Guoqiang stretched languidly, not bothering with pretense. "What smell? I think, brother, you’re just too jumpy. What’s the saying again? Ah, yes, a jumpy bird."

"Can’t you take anything seriously, you fool?" Young Master Liu was getting angry. This jerk always treated his words as background noise, showing no real brotherly concern.

Seeing Young Master Liu’s anger, Tian Guoqiang dropped his joking demeanor and took a deliberate sniff.

"Hmm, there is a smell." Tian Guoqiang replied. This time he wasn't pretending; he truly smelled it, though the odor felt utterly foreign and somewhat sickening.

"You smell it now? Can’t you focus when you do things?" Young Master Liu sneered with petty satisfaction.

"Da Shao, what is this smell?" The more Tian Guoqiang sniffed, the more wrong it felt; his chest tightened uncomfortably, and he felt a powerful urge to retch.

"It's fresh blood," Young Master Liu stated. Having grown up in the countryside, she was familiar with slaughtering chickens and ducks during festivals, so she naturally knew the scent of blood. At first, she had been puzzled, but recalling that familiar sensation, she instantly judged it to be the smell of blood. At the same time, she found it odd—she hadn't killed any fowl recently, so where was this strong smell coming from?

"Blood?" Tian Guoqiang frowned. Where in the world would fresh blood come from?

"Let's go look," Young Master Liu said, immediately walking toward the exit.

Tian Guoqiang, never one to shy away from trouble, followed Young Master Liu carelessly. The fog was incredibly thick now, visibility less than two meters. For safety, they kept close together to guard against sudden incidents. The metallic stench of blood made Young Master Liu’s chest feel tight; he desperately wanted to leave and breathe fresh air. But after everything that had happened lately, he had become increasingly cautious, determined to find the source of the smell, or he wouldn’t rest easy.

They hadn't gone far before they saw the source of the atrocity. Around the perimeter of the house, the ground was stained with pools of vivid red blood. Dewdrops on the surface made the sight shockingly stark. Even Tian Guoqiang’s expression turned grim. Was this intentional, or some cruel prank?

"Guoqiang..." Young Master Liu looked at Tian Guoqiang meaningfully, his face etched with suspicion.

Seeing himself suspected, Tian Guoqiang quickly protested, "I didn't do this. Brother, you know I almost throw up whenever I see blood, so..." Tian Guoqiang was telling the truth; he had a lifelong aversion to blood and would panic at the sight of even a little. Otherwise, his expression wouldn't be so grave right now.

"Is that true?" Young Master Liu was only teasing the boy, wanting payback for all the times Tian Guoqiang had contradicted him. He certainly knew Tian Guoqiang couldn't have done this.

"It's true, I swear on my integrity."

"Do you even have integrity?"

"You..."

"Forget it." Young Master Liu waved a hand. "I’ll trust you for now."

Circling the house, they found traces of blood everywhere; some had even splattered onto the walls, creating an eerie spectacle. The further they walked, the more unsettled they became, finding the sight increasingly unbelievable. On the left side of the house, a trail of blood led from a small path toward the slope of the opposite hill.

"Da Shao, should we follow it?" Tian Guoqiang asked, pointing at the bloody path, his expression strange.

"Let's go." Young Master Liu would never ignore a clue, so he led the way along the stain.

Ah...

Ah...

With two sharp cries, the two men tumbled into a heap. Young Master Liu was at the bottom, with Tian Guoqiang landing on top of him.

"Damn it, what are you doing?" Tian Guoqiang brushed the dirt off himself, complaining. They had been walking fine until Young Master Liu suddenly collapsed, catching Tian Guoqiang completely off guard, causing him to fall too.

"I—"

"Ahhh!"

Before Young Master Liu could explain, a harrowing scream pierced the air. It was deafening, coming from Tian Guoqiang. After screaming, Tian Guoqiang looked momentarily distressed, then scrambled backward in a panic, running wildly toward the house.

"What the hell was that, making such a fuss?" Now it was Young Master Liu’s turn to be bewildered. However, he had noticed that Tian Guoqiang had been looking down at his feet right before running off, so he looked down at his own feet. The sight sent a shiver down Young Master Liu’s spine. Lying motionless on the ground was a pitch-black earth dog, its body covered in blood. Its throat had been sliced open with a sharp object, its eyes were crimson and bloodshot, and its tongue was lolling out long, as if it had been strangled.

Looking closer, Young Master Liu realized his trouser cuffs were soaked in blood, and one of his shoes was lodged under the dog’s belly. Young Master Liu understood immediately: he had felt something trip him just as he was walking, causing him to fall—it was this dead dog. The fog was so dense that the blood on the black dog had coagulated into a dull, dark color. Since he was so focused on the fresh blood and feeling tense, Young Master Liu hadn't noticed it, leading to his stumble.

"So that’s what it was!" Young Master Liu chuckled toward the direction Tian Guoqiang had fled. When they were children, Young Master Liu had once tricked Tian Guoqiang into trying to catch puppies, only to attract the wrath of the mother dog. The large dog, unwilling to tolerate anyone threatening her young, launched a ferocious retaliation. Young Master Liu, quick on his feet, bolted ahead and escaped unharmed. But Tian Guoqiang suffered; he was chased and bitten all over, emerging covered in blood. If not for a passing villager intervening, they might have been eaten by the dog. Since then, Tian Guoqiang developed an irrational fear of dogs—dead or alive—it gave him the chills, much like Old Man Wu next door suffered from his stroke.

"Hey, what happened to this dog? Why is it dead so horribly?" After his moment of laughter, Young Master Liu began to think seriously. The dog’s gruesome appearance clearly indicated human involvement, but who would commit such a wicked act? And why scatter the dog’s blood around his house?

Young Master Liu considered several possibilities but dismissed them all. Given Tian Guoqiang’s intense fear of dogs, he certainly hadn't done it. The elderly owners of neighboring properties would be lucky if dogs didn't bother them; the idea of them killing a dog, especially at night, was absurd. If it were ghosts, that was even more impossible—ghosts were said to fear dog’s blood, particularly black dog's blood. So, this line of reasoning was largely negated. The only plausible explanation was that a villager did it. But why would a villager target him? Young Master Liu couldn't fathom it. His grandparents held considerable respect in the village, and his parents traded grain in town; he had no enemies locally.

If he had no enemies, then who was responsible?

When Young Master Liu returned home, Tian Guoqiang was gone. Sounds of retching came from the latrine area. He ran over and was amused to find Tian Guoqiang hunched over the edge of the toilet, vomiting violently, looking as though he might expel everything he’d eaten over the last three days.

"Tian Guoqiang, are you alright, buddy?" Young Master Liu patted his back.

"I’m fine," Tian Guoqiang managed a weak smile up at Young Master Liu before gagging again. "Urrrggh..."

"Sigh..." Young Master Liu shook his head helplessly. He genuinely felt sympathy for his friend, who was usually quite brave but had been reduced to this state by a dead dog. Simultaneously, a small sense of triumph bloomed in his chest; during their childhood escapades, Tian Guoqiang was always the one teasing him, but now, he finally had something to tease him about.

The fog gradually lifted, and the sun broke through. Sunlight struck the blood on the ground, making it shine with painful intensity. The heavy stench of gore made even Young Master Liu feel nauseous.