Translator: CinderTL
"God knows, it would have been better if he hadn't said anything. The moment he did, I started to panic."
"I know my friend well. He's usually very calm. If he's calling me late at night and saying things like this, the situation must be far worse than I imagined."
"Zhen Liang," my friend said, "I used connections to investigate Xiang Nan's background. She lied to you. She was married before and had a child!"
"Hearing this, I actually felt relieved. So that's what he meant."
"I already knew Xiang Nan had been married once. Of course, she didn't tell me. I found out myself after noticing something strange about her."
"But after I answered, my friend's voice became agitated. He seemed to know what I was thinking and immediately cut me off, saying, 'We're not talking about the same thing!'"
I was completely confused. My friend told me to open my computer and he would send me the information he'd found.
I did as he asked. He sent me a photo, probably taken with a camera. The background was a mud wall, and the photo hung in the center of it.
The photo looked old, at least twenty or thirty years old. Its corners were curling up, and parts of it had yellowed and blurred.
It showed two people, a man and a woman, standing close together.
Judging by their clothing, they were simple villagers.
But as I zoomed in to get a clear look at the woman's face, my heart lurched violently. The woman... was Xiang Nan! My wife, Xiang Nan!
Though she was dressed in plain, rustic clothes, her skin was dull, and she wore a blue coarse cloth outfit with what looked like mud stains on her trousers, and her hairstyle was different, I recognized her instantly. It was Xiang Nan, no doubt about it!
But... how could she possibly be in such a place?
A few seconds later, my friend spoke in a strange tone. "This photo was taken twenty years ago, in a remote mountain village in the western part of the country. I've never even heard of the village's name."
"It's her wedding photo with a local man. And at the time, she wasn't registered as Xiang Nan. Her name was Wang Dongmei."
"Twenty years ago, Xiang Nan was already married to a man. And she looked exactly as she does now—no, she hasn't aged a day in the past two decades."
"Her beauty has been eternally frozen at its peak."
"How is that possible?"
"I immediately thought of Xiang Nan's conversation with Shadow. Shadow said she was already seventy years old. She must have made a deal with that Shadow!"
"Shadow must have helped her maintain her youthful appearance."
There was a moment of silence on the other end of the phone. My friend, Zhen Liang, spoke slowly, hesitating before saying, "I advise you to leave this woman as soon as possible. Never, ever have anything to do with her again."
"After she married the man in the photo, they had a child. In the villagers' eyes, her husband had truly struck gold. But not long after..."
"Not long after, tragedy struck her family. Somehow, the child wandered alone into the mountains, where wild beasts roamed. The villagers, known for their simple kindness, immediately mobilized a search party."
"A group of people carrying torches searched for a day and a night. Finally, behind a secluded tree, they found the child's mutilated remains."
"The body's head was missing, the neck muscles were twisted, and wounds covered the body, clearly left by sharp claws. It looked like a wolf attack."
"Xiang Nan fainted the moment she saw the body. Her husband had to carry her back to the village."
"When she woke up, Xiang Nan was sobbing uncontrollably. The villagers, pitying her, arranged for a woman to care for her. After all, everyone had children, and everyone understood the pain of a mother who had lost her child."
"But among those who had accompanied them to the scene were several experienced hunters. After examining the child's body, they wore puzzled expressions."
"They unanimously agreed that this didn't look like a wolf attack."
"First, though the child's body was severely damaged, it was relatively intact except for the missing head. The internal organs were still present, which didn't fit wolf behavior."
"Moreover, as far as they knew, wolves didn't have a habit of carrying off the heads of their prey."
"And most importantly, there were the wounds on the body."
After the Old Hunter measured them with his hand, his face immediately darkened.
"The claw marks were nearly one and a half times larger than Old Hunter's fully outstretched hand. This couldn't be a wolf—wolves aren't that big!"
"According to Old Hunter's experience, only the largest human bear could possibly make such marks. But this mountain isn't exactly vast, nor is it small. It's not like the deep forests of the Greater Khingan Mountains, and we've never heard of human bears living here."
Someone suggested bringing hunting rifles and searching the mountain. If such a terrifying creature truly existed, it was best to kill it as soon as possible, or at least drive it away. Otherwise, who knew how many more people would suffer.
Hearing this, the oldest hunter in the village stood up, his face grim. "Go if you want," he said, "but I'm not going. With our few rusty rifles, we can barely handle wolves. If we actually encountered a human bear this size, we probably wouldn't even pierce its hide. We'd just enrage it, and it would swat us down one by one, smashing our heads like melons."
Of course, these were just the villagers' speculations. But from that day on, everyone became much more cautious when venturing into the mountains.
Months passed. One day, Xiang Nan's husband went up the mountain and disappeared as well. The villagers organized another search, but this time, they found nothing—neither living nor dead.
They searched for a long time, but no body was ever recovered.
Xiang Nan wept uncontrollably. Everyone pitied her—having just lost her child, she was now a widow. Rumors spread through the village, claiming she had a bad fate and was cursed to kill her husbands.
Shortly after, Xiang Nan, unable to bear the villagers' scornful gazes, left the village. No one knew where she went.
For the next two decades, she never returned, severing all ties with everyone in the village.
After a moment of calm, my friend subtly reminded me that this might not be an isolated incident. He had uncovered some clues suggesting similar disappearances, though they remained unverified.
Concerned for my safety, he had contacted me immediately.
My friend also mentioned that villagers recalled the moon being exceptionally bright the night Xiang Nan's husband and child vanished.
"The day her husband disappeared was October 16th."
"At first, when I heard that date, it didn't strike me as anything unusual. But the more I thought about it, the more something felt off. I seemed to have seen that date somewhere before."
"So I immediately pulled up the files I had from my previous investigation into Xiang Nan, specifically those concerning her first husband."
"I discovered that her first husband had also died on October 16th, though he had fallen from a building rather than gone missing. He died instantly."
Yin Zhenliang, as the person involved, might still have been confused, but Jiang Cheng understood everything perfectly.
Xiang Nan, like himself, had obtained a Gate through unknown means and become its Host.
The Gate had granted her eternal youth, and in return, she had to serve the entity behind it.
Through repeated seduction, she had sacrificed men and children to it.
This was a complex process, requiring adherence to a fixed procedure, like a ritual.
And this ritual had not ended with Xiang Nan's death.
Director Qi was the entity's newly chosen target—or, more precisely, its offering.
(End of the Chapter)
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