The middle-aged man lay collapsed in the courtyard.
By the time Wu Letong and the others arrived, many villagers had already rushed over after hearing the commotion. The yard was packed tight with people.
Their faces carried an unsettling mixture of fanatic excitement. They whispered among themselves, as if what lay before them was some rare, thrilling spectacle.
Wu Letong forced his way to the front and took one look. His heart sank.
The middle-aged man lay face-up on the ground. He was already dead.
Before dying, he had clearly endured tremendous pain and torment. His body was drenched in cold sweat, his expression frozen in terror. His wide-open eyes were bloodshot, filled with shock and disbelief.
No one knew what he had seen in his final moments to leave him in such a state.
His right leg had been severed cleanly at the knee, exposing raw red flesh and pale bone.
Moving upward, on the abdomen of his black clothing was a dark triangular stain, as if it had been soaked with water. But when the edge of the clothing was lifted, it revealed a grotesque wound.
The stain wasn’t from water — It was blood.
No one knew how long he had been dead, only that the blood had already drained away. His intestines pressed against the triangular opening, slowly spilling out. The air was thick with a strange, overpowering stench of blood.
The newcomers were all ordinary people. Seeing such a scene for the first time, they felt nauseous, their stomachs churning, nearly vomiting up everything they had eaten the night before.
Ji Xiu followed closely behind, his gaze falling on the wound in the man’s abdomen. His eyes narrowed slightly.
Others couldn’t tell at a glance, but he recognized immediately how that wound had been made.
When the man met his end, his right leg was already gone. He had collapsed on the ground, the attacker standing before him, driving the tip of a foot straight into his abdomen. The force had been immense, tearing open the abdominal cavity and plunging deep into the flesh.
Of course, no ordinary person could do such a thing. Only a ghost could.
Ji Xiu felt a subtle unease in his heart.
A voice behind him interrupted his thoughts. Ji Xiu snapped back to reality and raised a hand, stopping Lu Zhizhen and Huang Wenli behind him.
“Stay back. Don’t look.”
“What? Boss?” Huang Wenli didn’t understand at first. Curious, she craned her neck to peek.
Then the smell of blood reached her nose. Lu Zhizhen tugged at her sleeve.
Only then did it dawn on her —
The middle-aged man… was probably dead.
Her pupils shrank. Her face was drained of color. She immediately withdrew her head and hid behind Lu Zhizhen.
After all, she was only fifteen this year. Born into wealth, pampered all her life, her biggest worry had been her parents having another child and fearing they would stop loving her. She had even threatened suicide to make them abort the unborn baby — only to end up in this game.
Raised in the city, sheltered at home — She had never even seen a chicken slaughtered.
Let alone a dead body.
And in this game, the man’s death was almost certainly too horrifying to witness.
Just imagining it made her heart go cold. She stayed obediently behind Lu Zhizhen, no longer daring to look around.
Ji Xiu had already been kind by stopping them. He had no time to care about their feelings. Seeing that they had backed off, he silently stepped away, his gaze sweeping through the crowd, searching for the figure that was most likely present.
The man’s death — without question — had been his doing.
After scanning twice, Ji Xiu’s gaze fixed on someone.
Found him.
He raised an eyebrow in that person’s direction.
In a corner of the courtyard, Ji Chunsheng froze mid-step. Meeting Ji Xiu’s stern gaze, he hesitated, then obediently walked over.
“…Dad, did you need me for something?”
Ji Xiu had originally intended to question him, but hearing that soft “Dad,” he couldn’t help but feel a bit helpless — and a little soft-hearted.
Such a well-behaved child. If he hadn’t truly been provoked, who would kill someone for no reason?
Ji Xiu glanced at the corpse, then at his son’s innocent, obedient expression. After weighing it in his heart, he decisively chose his own.
He neither scolded Ji Chunsheng nor mentioned the man’s death. He simply ruffled the boy’s hair, his tone casual, as though they had merely run into each other during an evening stroll.
“Ji Chunsheng, why are you wandering around this late instead of sleeping? Do you still want to go hunting with me tomorrow?”
Ji Chunsheng froze, then quickly put on a pitiful, pleading expression. “I do! I do! Dad, don’t leave me behind.”
“Then hurry back and sleep,” Ji Xiu said sternly. After a moment, he added, “And from now on, you’re not allowed to wander around this late at night.”
Wang Qiuyue attacked people at night. Ji Chunsheng was killed at night. This mother and son both favored the dark hours.
If their routine could be changed, at least during the night, Wu Letong’s group might survive.
Ji Xiu didn’t care much about Wu Letong and the others, but too much killing by ghosts would attract control. He didn’t want that to happen.
Still, changing a night owl’s habits was never easy.
Ji Chunsheng hesitated, struggling. His gaze swept over the villagers and players. A flicker of reluctance passed through his eyes.
Ji Xiu raised a brow. “Hm?”
Ji Chunsheng drooped. “…Alright. I won’t go out at night anymore.”
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