The Grim Reaper's Banquet (2) Part 1

Although they had sped up, the heavy rain still began to fall before they reached the village.

Raindrops the size of beans pelted against the glass windows, blurring the view ahead. The dirt road under the wheels grew even muddier. For safety, Song Qingluo had to slow down. Their destination, which they had planned to reach by noon, was now delayed until evening.

Along the way, Lin Banxia observed the surrounding scenery. As they ventured deeper into the mountain forest, their surroundings became more desolate. Through the thick curtain of rain, Lin Banxia saw no buildings, only one or two lonely graves by the roadside occasionally.

The two in the back seat were already drowsy. Lin Banxia, afraid that Song Qingluo would be too tired from driving, didn't dare to rest and sat beside him, chatting. Unfortunately, Song Qingluo was a man of few words, so most of the time, it was Lin Banxia who did the talking. He recounted some incidents he had encountered at work, like the time a body was smashed to pieces after jumping off a building, and a careless new employee missed a piece, causing the family to make a huge fuss for a long time after they found out. Or the time a man went drag racing with his mistress, and since neither of them wore a seatbelt, they were flung right out of the driver's cabin. The man landed on the mistress's body, and the impact was so violent that their corpses were stuck together and couldn't be separated. When the man's wife found out, she was furious and just buried them together somewhere random, without even holding a funeral...

The stories were endless; Lin Banxia picked the more memorable ones to tell.

Song Qingluo just listened, occasionally chiming in to ask Lin Banxia how long he had been doing this job.

“A few years,” Lin Banxia said. “I’ve been doing it ever since I graduated, never changed.”

Song Qingluo said, “Never thought of changing jobs?”

Lin Banxia smiled. “Nope, this one’s pretty good.”

Song Qingluo glanced at him but didn't ask why.

As they spoke, the scenery before them changed. The lush trees outside the car gradually grew shorter, and the view opened up. After their car entered a wide, flat area, Song Qingluo stopped the car.

The rain had lessened slightly. Lin Banxia and the others put on their raincoats inside the car before getting out.

Just as he got out of the car, Lin Banxia noticed a stone tablet by the side of the road. On it were three bright red characters: Sanshui Village.

This must be the name of the village. As Lin Banxia was looking down at the tablet, a cry of surprise came from beside him.

“What’s that?!” Mou Xinsi’s tone was filled with shock.

Lin Banxia followed her gaze and saw a dead tree that had fallen to the ground not far away. The tree looked ancient; its trunk was so thick that two adults with outstretched arms couldn't encircle it. Most of its roots were broken, not cleanly cut, but severely torn.

“There seems to be something pinned under the tree,” He Huai'an said. He had good eyesight and spotted the abnormality at a glance.

Song Qingluo strode towards the tree, with Lin Banxia following closely behind.

When the four of them reached the tree, they could finally see clearly what was pinned underneath. It was an SUV, its front completely crushed by the heavy trunk. It was impossible to tell if anyone was inside.

The moment He Huai'an saw the car, he had a bad feeling. After finding the deformed license plate, his face turned pale, and he stammered, “Isn’t... isn’t this the car the four of them were driving last time?”

Mou Xinsi said, “Are you serious?”

He Huai'an said, “Of course I am, I remember this license plate number!!! Are they inside the car?”

Lin Banxia squatted down beside the car and observed it carefully. He frowned and said, “...Are you sure this is your companions’ car?” He couldn’t quite bear it, his voice dropping. “In the driver’s cabin... there seems to be a body. From the looks of it, it’s been there for some days.”

He Huai'an and Mou Xinsi froze simultaneously.

After all, Lin Banxia was in this line of work. Although he couldn’t perform a professional autopsy, he had some experience with the state of corpses. This body had already begun to decompose. Based on the current weather conditions, it had been at least three or four days, which, he estimated, was about the same time their companions who came here lost contact with them.

Song Qingluo, wearing a raincoat and rain boots, didn't forget to hold an umbrella. He seemed to hate getting wet and did his best to keep himself dry. He said softly, “There’s more than just this one.”

Lin Banxia turned to look at him.

Song Qingluo pointed.

Lin Banxia looked where Song Qingluo was pointing and, sure enough, on the trunk not far from the driver's cabin, he saw another strange mark. The trunk seemed to have been damaged by smashing into some living creature, forming an unpleasant stain on its surface. It had been raining for the past few days, and some of the stain had been washed away, but he could still see the remaining fragments of flesh and white bone shards.

“Let’s find a place to stay first,” Song Qingluo said. “We’ll investigate the village after the rain stops.”

“Okay.” He Huai'an nodded.

The four got back in the car and drove a little further into the village along the much wider road. They finally saw a cluster of houses. It was approaching dusk, and because of the rain, the sky had darkened exceptionally early. Specks of light shone from the windows of the houses by the road, but there was still not a single person on the street, as if the entire village was asleep.

Song Qingluo randomly chose a lit house, parked the car beside it, and went up to knock on the door.

Either the sound of the rain was too loud for the person inside to hear, or they were simply unwilling to open the door, but there was no response from within the house.

“What do we do now?” He Huai'an began to worry. He took out his phone, frowned at the faint two bars of signal, but still dialed a number, muttering, “I’ll try making another call, don’t know if it’ll go through.”

Lin Banxia didn't expect He Huai'an's call to connect, but a few seconds later, He Huai'an's eyes lit up. “It went through!”

“Hello, is this the Village Chief? Yes, yes, we’ve sent more people over.” He Huai'an covered the mouthpiece, trying to block out the pattering rain. “We’ve arrived in the village, we’re at the entrance right now—are you coming to get us? Hello? Hello?”

“Damn it, it disconnected again,” He Huai'an cursed.

“But it went through, so he should know we’re here, right?” Mou Xinsi looked at He Huai'an expectantly, hoping things weren't that bad.

“I guess so,” He Huai'an said. “We’ll just have to wait a bit.”

They found a random eave to shelter from the rain and stood underneath, waiting for the Village Chief.

About ten minutes later, a faint light appeared in the thick curtain of rain. Behind the light was a middle-aged man wearing a bamboo hat and a straw cape. His expressionless face was wet with rain. Seeing the four of them, he muttered, “Why are you here again?”

He Huai'an said enthusiastically, “You must be the Village Chief?”

“Didn’t I tell you not to come?” Although the Village Chief had come, his attitude wasn't very good. He complained, “You’ve angered the Mountain God. No matter how many of you come, you’ll just be sending yourselves to your deaths—why bother?!”

He Huai'an's expression became awkward at his words. “How can you say that? Since we dared to come, we must have some way to handle this... We can’t just let people in your village keep dying, can we?”

The Village Chief sneered, “A way to handle this? If you had a way, how did the previous four all die, each one more miserably than the last?!”

Although He Huai'an already had his suspicions, he still felt uneasy hearing this. “All dead?”

The Village Chief said, “All dead.” He turned and led the four in the direction they had come from. “Forget it, forget it. You’re already here, it’s too late to say anything—come with me to the place you’ll be staying.”

The four followed the Village Chief to a small building very close to the village entrance.

Entering the building, the four took off their rain gear, shook off the rainwater, and went inside one by one. Song Qingluo hadn't spoken since meeting the Village Chief. Now, after taking off his raincoat, his hands and face were splattered with some rain. He frowned slightly and was about to wipe it with his sleeve when he saw Lin Banxia hand him a clean tissue.

“You really don’t like water, huh?” Lin Banxia said with a smile.

“Mm,” Song Qingluo grunted softly.

“Then why do you like cola so much?” Lin Banxia asked.

Song Qingluo hesitated for a moment. “Cola is sweet.”

'Don't like water, unless it's sweet.' Lin Banxia couldn’t help but laugh, thinking that Song Qingluo was actually a little cute like this.

Meanwhile, the Village Chief turned and went into the kitchen, bringing out a few bowls of steaming hot ginger soup for the four of them. The soup was placed on the table, but no one dared to touch it.

The Village Chief snorted coldly, pulled out a tobacco pipe from the nearby heated brick bed, and tapped it heavily on the table, shaking out some ash. He said, “You dared to come here? And you don’t dare to drink ginger soup??”

Lin Banxia actually thought he had a point, but since Song Qingluo hadn’t moved, no one dared to reach for the soup.

He Huai'an forced a smile, trying to ease the awkwardness. He said, “Mr. Village Chief, we’d like to understand what exactly has happened.”

The Village Chief said, “Dead, all of them dead.” He took a drag from his pipe, his tone icy, speaking of life and death as casually as discussing the weather. “One was bitten to death by insects, one drowned in the water, and two were crushed to death by a falling tree while trying to run. Each death was more miserable than the last. There aren’t many people in the village, we can’t move the tree, we can’t even collect the bodies... It's already like this, what are you still doing here?”

With every sentence he spoke, the faces of He Huai'an and Mou Xinsi grew a shade paler. When he finally said they were all dead, Mou Xinsi had lost all color. She secretly glanced at Lin Banxia, who was sitting beside Song Qingluo, and saw that this new Watcher was completely unfazed. He slowly took out the half-finished bottle of cola from his pocket and took a swig. After drinking, he wiped his mouth and smilingly handed the rest of the bottle to Song Qingluo.

Song Qingluo didn't seem to mind at all, taking it and downing the rest of the cola in one go.

'Wait, downed it in one go?'

If Mou Xinsi remembered correctly, this Watcher named Song Qingluo was notoriously difficult to get along with. A person like that would drink cola that someone else had already drunk from?? Mou Xinsi looked as if she had seen a ghost.

He Huai'an was much calmer than Mou Xinsi. After all, he had already been shocked once in the car on the way here, so now he just gently patted Mou Xinsi's hand, signaling her not to be so obvious with her staring.

Mou Xinsi forced a smile and with difficulty, tore her gaze away, thinking to herself, 'It seems the rumors aren't entirely true.'

No one was willing to touch the ginger soup on the table. The Village Chief picked up a bowl himself and took a big gulp, saying unhappily, “What are you afraid of? That I’ll poison you? If I wanted to kill you, why would I have contacted the outside world? Wouldn’t it be better to just let them obediently wait for death?”

Mou Xinsi opened her mouth, but for a moment, she couldn't think of a rebuttal.

“I advise you to go back tomorrow.” The Village Chief poured another bucket of cold water on them. “I’m afraid this village is done for. If they find out outsiders have come... they’ll probably harm you.”

“What exactly is going on?” He Huai'an said. “Didn’t you just say at the beginning that people in the village started dying? ‘They’? Who are ‘they’?”

The Village Chief said, “The older generation in the village. It’s true, at first it was just people dying. I thought someone was causing trouble back then, but it’s been so long now, I’ve come to understand. It’s really not human; it’s the heavens that are angry.” He took several harsh drags from his pipe, as if to vent his frustration. “The older generation says we’ve offended the Mountain God. As long as enough people die, the Mountain God will calm his anger. The villagers are all a bit scared now, and now a few more outsiders have arrived... How could I have time to entertain you!”

Lin Banxia asked strangely, “How did those two people at the village entrance die?”

The Village Chief glanced at him and said, “Didn’t you see? They were crushed to death by the tree. A huge bolt of lightning struck, and both of them were gone...” He sighed. “To encounter something like that, tell me, how could that have anything to do with humans?”

Lin Banxia fell silent. Being killed by lightning did seem to be beyond human capability, but what the Village Chief said wasn't necessarily true. He could believe sixty or seventy percent of it at most.

“It’s getting late, let’s rest first.” The ever-silent Song Qingluo finally spoke. “Mr. Village Chief, could we borrow a few rooms for the night?”

The Village Chief said, “There are rooms, but they were the ones your people stayed in before. Now they’re all dead. If you don’t mind, you can stay there. Their things are still inside, we haven’t had time to clear them out yet.”

With things said, there was no other choice. The four of them arranged the rooms. As a girl, Mou Xinsi should have had a room to herself, but everyone was afraid something might happen, so she had to make do with He Huai'an. Lin Banxia and Song Qingluo naturally ended up sleeping in the same bed.

Although it was already spring, the weather in the mountains was a bit colder. The Village Chief provided them with thick quilts. After entering the room, Lin Banxia tidied up a bit first.

Song Qingluo, on the other hand, walked around the room and found what seemed to be items left behind by the previous group. It was clear they had left in a great hurry. It was unknown whether they had discovered something or were simply scared, but many things had been left in the room, including a mobile phone. Unfortunately, the phone had a password, and Song Qingluo couldn't open it.