Chapter 44: The Living Set Out on the Road

The driver looked surprised, glancing around at the ground nearby. Because they were inside the vehicle, they could not see what was on the ground. Everyone else was also puzzled; the driver went to deal with a dog, so just shooing it away would suffice. What on earth was he doing?

The bare-chested brawny man sitting in the front could no longer sit still. He opened the car door and stepped out. To be fair, this man was indeed quite sturdy—standing around one meter seventy-eight, but with a very thick build. He had already been seated when they arrived, so his robust physique hadn't been obvious.

"What's going on? Got bitten by a dog?" he asked as he walked over. Then, remarkably, he also came to an abrupt halt.

"Good grief, what is this!" he gasped in astonishment.

This completely piqued the curiosity of everyone left in the vehicle. With two grown men having gone down, why were they both acting like this? Was a single dog really that terrifying?

The two young women also curiously stepped out.

Erpang turned his head to look at me, "Tiangang, everyone's gone down. Should we go take a look too?" Naturally, he listened to me. But right now, I was listening to the female corpse.

I looked over at the female corpse and saw that she was sitting bolt upright with her eyes tightly closed. Her body was probably too stiff for her to climb down, or perhaps she had already fallen asleep. I nodded to Erpang, and he too slowly got out of the car.

Before getting out, I caught a glimpse of her towering bosom, upon which something was actually glistening. Was that... my drool from sleeping? A sudden wave of embarrassment washed over me. Taking advantage of the fact that the female corpse didn't know she'd been drooled on, I'd better hurry down before she woke up and hit me again.

Once outside, the surroundings were wide open, and a gust of wind swept past, instantly clearing my head quite a bit.

As soon as I stepped out, I heard murmurs coming from ahead.

"Who did this? This is way too cruel! Total perverts!"

"Yeah, you'd need a heart of stone to do something like this. They're monsters!"

Hearing their discussion, I curiously walked over. People were crowded around the front, but I noticed a few tiny red dots on either side of the road. They were very small, and their light was extremely faint. I stepped forward and pushed Erpang's bulky body aside.

What met my eyes was truly shocking.

Lying right on the ground was a black dog nearly a meter long, huddled motionless. Upon closer inspection, the dog's eye sockets were completely empty!

I immediately leaned in closer and took a few steps forward.

"Holy shit!" I gasped, a chill running down my spine as goosebumps erupted all over my skin.

The inside of this black dog was hollow! Only its skin and fur were left lying here like an empty shell, and at a quick glance, anyone would have thought it was just a dead black dog.

I immediately looked to the side. Beside this hollow dog skin sat two washbasins—one on the left, one on the right. They were the kind of sturdy, brightly patterned iron basins commonly used in villages that could last for many years.

The basin on the left contained a pile of tiny white bones, much smaller than human bones. What made people curse them as perverted was not that these were weathered, aged bones; rather, they were fresh. Adhered to the bones were still plenty of skin tissue and red flesh, as if the meat hadn't been stripped away cleanly. Dark red blood still stained the bones. Just looking at it sent a shiver through anyone.

Checking the basin on the right, it also held something—not bones, but huge chunks of bright red flesh! Equally fresh, the meat was nearly submerged in half a basin of blood.

Combining the three elements—the dog skin, the freshly stripped bones, and the bloody flesh—how could it not be terrifying? Even Erpang, a kid born into a family that traded in wild game, furrowed his brow deeply.

"If you're going to kill it, just kill it. Did you have to butcher it with such cruelty? Absolutely no humanity!" Erpang muttered in disgust.

The driver turned to the crowd and said, "Why does this feel like some kind of sacrificial offering? Can we even move past this?"

The burly man nearby patted his belly and said, "You're way too superstitious. What sacrifice? This is just some psycho abusing a dog. We can just shove it to the side of the road and be on our way."

However, the two middle-aged women disagreed and quickly echoed the driver's sentiment.

"No way! This clearly looks like a sacrifice to the mountain god, which means accidents happen here all the time. Someone knowledgeable is performing a ritual!"

"That's right! You better not mess with it recklessly. If we anger the mountain god, it won't just be us getting into trouble on this road; others will too!"

The two women chimed in, back and forth, expressing their views.

As for the two female students, they kept far away and didn't even dare to look.

The burly man immediately retorted, "Since you two are so superstitious, fine, we won't move it. But there are ravines on both sides of the road—how are we supposed to get past? You want him to fly the car right over it?"

Hearing this, the two women immediately came up with a countermeasure.

"Why are you so thick-headed? In this situation, there's no way we can press on. We should just turn back and take the road tomorrow!"

"Exactly, we were just heading into town to buy clothes anyway; it's not like we're in a rush."

The burly man scratched his head. "True. Though I don't believe in this stuff, I'm not in a rush either—I'm just heading to town to meet someone."

Seeing everyone around them agreeing, the driver, who was already superstitious to begin with, immediately said, "Well, since everyone says so, let's head back. There's no need to court bad luck..."

"No!"

The short-haired girl who had been standing further away suddenly grew anxious.

"We have to leave today! Tomorrow morning, a television station is coming to our school to select candidates, and we've waited far too long for this. We absolutely cannot miss it."

Seeing her insistence, the middle-aged women immediately tried to persuade her with well-meaning advice.

"Oh, young lady, don't be so willful. If you miss this opportunity, you can wait for another, but if you lose your life, what good is getting chosen by a TV station?"

"Exactly! You're still so young, you shouldn't mess around like this!"

Yet the short-haired girl was dead set on her decision. She looked directly at the older woman and declared, "Living out here in these mountain ravines has no meaning anyway. Even if I die, I'll die in the city. Start the car right now, or else refund my money!"

Hearing the word "refund," the driver found himself in a difficult spot. After all, they had already traveled halfway. Once they reached the highway, it wouldn't take much longer to reach the city. But turning back now meant refunding the whole carload of passengers, and his back-and-forth trip would waste a significant amount of gas money.

In an instant, the atmosphere froze. Going back was no good, and pressing forward was no good either.

Erpang and I stood off to the side, scratching our heads. He asked, "Tiangang, what do you think we should do? This is our first time heading into town and we run into something like this. Should we just go back too?"

While Erpang used to possess a reckless streak—much like the burly man, disbelieving in superstitions and fearing nothing—after going up the mountain with me once, he wasn't nearly as obstinate anymore.

I frowned deeply, looking around the surroundings and then raising my gaze to observe the stellar constellations in the night sky.

This dog business was definitely fishy, but it wasn't any sacrifice to a mountain god like the women claimed. Even though this road was carved through the mountains, a true mountain god would reside where the foliage was thickest—how could anyone perform a ritual right on the middle of the road?

I felt like I had seen this before in a book, somewhere near the beginning. I had studied it when I was about twelve years old, and now parts of it had slipped my mind.

Just as I was furrowing my brow in thought, a cold, clear voice came from behind me.

"Facing south towards the north, the living take to the road!"