Chapter 36: The Truth

The girl nodded. "Yes, we met it a long time ago when we were playing in the forest. Back then, we would give it some food, so it started coming to the village to find us."

Shen Si frowned. "You're so thin yourself, and yet you give your food to a snake?"

"It was just a small snake back then," the girl replied. "It was even thinner than I was."

She looked at them. "I've answered your questions. Now I have to go. Don't come bothering us again."

Yang Liuqing said softly, "What we want to ask isn't why you're keeping a snake."

Yang Liuqing pulled the small booklet from her pocket. "We want to ask what kind of sacrificial ritual was on the page that was torn out of this book."

When the girl saw the booklet, her expression turned cold instantly. Her eyes were filled with disgust. "I don't know what you're talking about. What torn page?"

"Let me change the question then," Yang Liuqing said. "Do you recognize this book?"

"Of course I do," the girl said. "This is our village's ancestral manual for sacrifices."

Liang Dan asked, "Do you know what is recorded in it?"

"No," the girl replied. "This is a book that only the adults in the village are allowed to read."

"What about that woman?"

The girl sneered. "Her? She can't even read."

Liang Dan handed over the textbook she had been carrying on her back. "We found this in her house."

The girl's eyes lit up, and she immediately took the textbook. "This is our textbook! I thought they had all been burned!"

She flipped through it cautiously, her expression changing involuntarily as she reached the later pages.

The girl looked up. "She gathered our textbooks and sewed them together? Why would she do that?"

Liang Dan said, "We suspect she wanted to use your textbooks to learn how to read. And we discovered that a page was torn out of that sacrificial manual. We think perhaps she tore it out after she learned to read."

The girl shook her head, clutching the textbook to her chest. "You're overthinking it. Like the other villagers, she was a staunch supporter of the sacrifices. She wouldn't have torn up a book she considered sacred."

Liang Dan asked, "What is your name?"

The girl looked up at her. "He Yu."

"Is it the 'yu' for rainy day?"

"It's the 'yu' for feather. All birds that can fly have feathers."

After a moment, she added, "My mother gave me this name in secret."

Shen Si asked, "Are all the girls in this village your friends?"

He Yu took a step back, standing behind the large pit. "Yes."

Yang Liuqing asked, "Do you know what those sculptures in the temple mean?"

"Of course I do," He Yu said. "In the past, every time a boy died in the village, Zhang Hua would make several sculptures and offer them in the temple for forty-nine days."

Shen Si asked, "Why are there so many boys in the village who died unjustly?"

He Yu curled the corners of her mouth, revealing a malicious smile. "They were all strangled by their mothers. They wanted to strangle us too, but unfortunately, they didn't have the heart to do it later. What a pity; we don't need that damn sympathy."

"Awoo!"

Not far away, a child's imitation of a wolf howl rang out. He Yu said flatly, "They don't want me to keep talking to you, so please leave. I won't be seeing you out."

He Yu turned to leave, but Liang Dan quickly called out to her, "How exactly did those four girls die?"

He Yu spun around and shouted at Liang Dan, "I hate you pretentious people the most! You already have the book, so why ask questions you already know the answer to?!"

Liang Dan was stunned. "I'm sorry. We went through the book carefully before we came, but we couldn't find the cause of their deaths."

He Yu glared, breathing heavily. She strode over, snatched the booklet from Yang Liuqing's hand, and flipped it open forcefully. "Isn't it right here on the third page—"

He Yu stopped, staring blankly at the booklet in her hands, fixated on the torn-out marks, lost in thought for a long time.

After a while, she gave a mocking laugh. "I truly didn't expect that even someone like her would have a moment of trying for her daughter."

She tossed the booklet into the large pit beside her. The corn covering the pit shifted, and the booklet fell in.

In that second, Liang Dan saw clearly that the pit wasn't filled with corn at all—it was hiding the children.

He Yu looked at Liang Dan. "Usually, this is our home. Today, it was specifically turned into a trap just for you."

Liang Dan's mouth twitched. "That is truly my honor."

The next second, a large group of girls swarmed out from the pit, standing in a line behind He Yu. Among them, the oldest looked to be in her teens, while the youngest was no more than five or six.

The oldest girl held the small booklet, her whole body trembling. She looked up. "Since you want to know the truth so badly, we'll take you to a place where you can find it."

The girls swarmed out of the forest, and the three of them followed cautiously, keeping a distance. Once out of the forest, the girls walked lightly to the riverbank and stood there.

He Yu said, "Have you ever looked closely at this river?"

Shen Si said, "Of course. We've washed vegetables here many times."

Shen Si suddenly widened her eyes. "Those girls... they didn't drown in this river, did they?"

He Yu walked forward, reaching the edge of the river, and stepped firmly into the water.

Liang Dan quickly grabbed her. "What are you doing? We don't have to ask anymore; don't do anything reckless!"

He Yu looked back and smiled faintly. "I'm not trying to end my life. I'm trying to tell you the truth. Let go of me first."

Liang Dan looked into her eyes; they were full of conviction, and she didn't seem to be lying. Liang Dan let go carefully. He Yu strode forward. Her feet entered the water, but instead of sinking as everyone expected, she stepped onto the surface of the water.

She continued to stride forward. After a few steps, she stopped in the middle of the river and shouted to them, "Do you know what's in this river now?"

Shen Si shouted back, "I know! You know light-body techniques!"

Liang Dan's heart sank as a guess surfaced in her mind.

He Yu laughed as she walked back, jumping onto the bank in one leap. "It’s not that I know light-body techniques. It's that when they built the bridge, they drove bridge piers into the river."

Shen Si asked, "Building a bridge does require piers, but what does that have to do with the truth?"

The oldest girl beside them said flatly, "The page that was torn out is about 'living piles'."

Liang Dan took a deep breath, the air stifled in her chest.

He Yu said, "A 'living pile' means that when building large structures, living boys and girls are buried inside. Legend says that these children who are buried alive turn into guardian spirits to protect the buildings."

"When the bridge was built, a boy and a girl were buried under the bridge piers—one at the start of the bridge, and one at the end."