The cafeteria was located not far from the guesthouse.
Unlike the guesthouse, though, the cafeteria looked… strange.
Normally, cafeterias are open halls where everyone eats together.
But the one in Rain-Praying Village had three levels and several small private rooms for diners.
While getting his food, Ning Qiushui asked the woman serving the meals:
“Auntie, is your cafeteria always divided into these small rooms?”
The woman behind the counter didn’t seem to expect that question. She froze for a while, a flicker of panic in her eyes, before stammering:
“Y-Yes… that’s right.”
“It used to be a big dining hall… but some tourists didn’t like that. Tourism is… well, an important… um, source for the village, so we changed it to this smaller layout.”
Ning Qiushui narrowed his eyes slightly.
“Source? What kind of source?”
The woman looked increasingly uneasy under his sharp gaze. She quickly averted her eyes and replied:
“Just… economic.”
“I think it’s called economic, right…? Ah, I’m just someone who cooks. I don’t really know about this stuff!”
“For questions like that, you’d better ask someone in charge.”
Ning Qiushui nodded slightly and smiled.
“Thank you.”
He carried his food into a small private room on the left side of the first floor.
Bai Xiaoxiao and Liu Chengfeng were already chatting inside.
When they saw Ning Qiushui enter, Liu Chengfeng immediately asked:
“Bro, did you hear someone calling for help outside the window last night?”
Ning Qiushui set down his tray.
“I did.”
“It was that man who died outside, the one calling for help.”
“He ran out from the forest, started clawing at his own neck like crazy, and then… ripped off his own head.”
As Ning Qiushui described it calmly, Liu Chengfeng felt a chill run down his spine.
“H-He ripped off his own head?!”
“How is that even possible?”
Bai Xiaoxiao, calmly picking at her food, said indifferently:
“There’s nothing impossible in the world behind the Blood Gate.”
“I’m sure it wasn’t just Ning Qiushui and me who saw that scene last night.”
“That man kept screaming for a long time even after tearing off his own head.”
“No one went out to save him… and it’s a good thing no one did, who knows what else might’ve happened!”
As Bai Xiaoxiao finished speaking, Liu Chengfeng shuddered violently.
He could picture just how eerie and terrifying that scene must have been!
But these two in front of him… were somehow completely calm?
Bai Xiaoxiao, sure—she was a veteran of the Blood Gate. But this Ning Qiushui… was his mental fortitude even normal?
“So… why did he rip off his own head?”
Liu Chengfeng asked the question cautiously.
There was a moment of silence at the table. Then, Ning Qiushui suddenly pulled a small wooden tablet from his coat and placed it on the table.
“I don’t know exactly why he tore off his head. But I do know… he definitely encountered something unclean in the shrine behind the village.”
The other two stared at the wooden tablet in shock.
It was… a memorial tablet for the dead!
“Bro, this is…”
“Found it on him.”
“Damn! That’s… that’s super unlucky, and you dared to touch it?!”
Ning Qiushui shook his head.
He then took out the blood jade and placed it next to the memorial tablet.
The jade didn’t glow.
“I already checked it. The tablet itself isn’t the problem—the problem lies in the shrine.”
Bai Xiaoxiao picked up the tablet and gently rubbed the name engraved on it with her finger, her eyes glinting.
“Guang Chuan…”
She murmured the name softly, as if recalling something.
Then she brought the tablet close to her nose and sniffed, raising her delicate eyebrows slightly.
“It smells like incense.”
“Definitely something used as an offering to the dead.”
Liu Chengfeng, off to the side, said:
“Let me smell it?”
Bai Xiaoxiao handed the tablet to him.
As Liu Chengfeng leaned in and sniffed, his expression suddenly shifted.
The other two quickly asked:
“What is it? Something wrong?”
Liu Chengfeng looked serious, his voice slightly dry:
“My senior uncle used to be an incense expert… Normally, incense offered to the dead is sandalwood, agarwood, or something like musk or seven-spice blends. Those not only show respect for the dead, but more importantly, they purify and ward off evil.”
“But the scent on this tablet… it’s Huai Wood Yin Incense, the kind used to attract evil!”
“That kind of incense… isn’t even sold in the market. Only real incense masters can craft it using special methods!”
After speaking, he sniffed again to confirm he hadn’t made a mistake.
The three of them fell into silence once more.
They all realized something was deeply wrong with this village—
What was being worshipped in that mountain shrine behind Rain-Praying Village… likely wasn’t a deity at all, but rather… a dead person!
What was even more bizarre…
Someone was actually using spirit-summoning locust wood incense to worship these memorial tablets of the dead!
“I told you, this blood gate you’re in is extremely troublesome…”
A rare look of seriousness appeared between Bai Xiaoxiao’s brows.
“The actual difficulty of this one might be even higher than that of a normal person’s fourth or even fifth gate!”
“But honestly, it makes sense. If it weren’t so full of eerie and convoluted elements, it wouldn’t have produced such a terrifying ghost like the one you encountered in your first blood gate…”
Ning Qiushui recalled something and told the other two about the strange burnt-smelling creature crawling around his room the previous night.
Both of them shook their heads—neither had encountered anything like that.
Even so, Liu Chengfeng’s face turned visibly grim!
The village behind this blood gate… was far too sinister.
“Looks like we’ll need to pick up the pace. There are six days left before the village holds the temple festival. That’s our time limit to find the path to survival. If we don’t find it within those six days… something incredibly horrifying will happen during that festival!”
As Bai Xiaoxiao spoke, a chilling smile curled at the corner of her lips, making the other two shiver involuntarily.
“Alright, Bai-jie, this world behind the blood gate is scary enough already, no need to add your creepy vibes. So where are we going after breakfast?”
Liu Chengfeng raised his hands in surrender.
Bai Xiaoxiao rolled her eyes, set down her chopsticks, and said:
“We’ll start with the closest place.”
“About two li (roughly 1 km) from here, there’s a shrine called Fu’e Shrine—we can check it out first. And along the way… ask the villagers about that guy named Guangchuan.”
“I have a hunch… that this Guangchuan person—this dead man—is a key to unlocking everything!”
The other two agreed.
After the meal, they returned briefly to the guesthouse.
Just like Bai Xiaoxiao said, the headless corpse was gone.
Even the bloodstains on the ground had vanished completely.
As if nothing had happened there at all.
Inside the guesthouse, Hou Kong remained in his room.
But he sat at the desk like a lifeless puppet, repeating only two things—
Drinking water, and answering the phone.
“Ah! Okay! I’ll make the arrangements!”
Glug.
“Ah! Okay! I’ll make the arrangements!”
Glug.
“Ah…”
Just watching this for a while gave all three of them chills down their spines.
Ning Qiushui tried talking to Hou Kong, but no matter what he said, the man only replied with a smiling “Okay.”
Seeing that they couldn’t get anything more out of him, the three had no choice but to leave the guesthouse.
Sunlight fell on their bodies, yet none of them felt the slightest warmth.
“Damn… this place is way too cursed!”
Liu Chengfeng rubbed his arms and cursed under his breath.
Bai Xiaoxiao slung on her backpack and said:
“This is just the beginning—the really creepy stuff is still ahead…”
“Just wait. This gate of yours… has only just started.”
“Let’s hope that when you finally leave it, you don’t end up with some lasting psychological trauma…”
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