"My child, it's time to eat."
Huang Shaodiao's gentle call came from outside the door.
Zhou Yang, lying in bed pretending to be asleep, had not yet lifted the quilt when the door was flung open with brute force.
Huang Shaodiao's figure crowded the doorway. A loving smile still hung on her face, but her mung-bean eyes were already rolling about, scanning the room.
Zhou Yang got up from bed then, looking at Huang Shaodiao in surprise and calling out, "Mother."
His heart was calm, however.
He had deliberately left the door unlatched, counting on Huang Shaodiao only maintaining a superficial "filial piety and maternal love" with him. Leaving this door allowed her the opportunity to inspect. If ghosts had "suspicions," his actions now were dispelling those suspicions. If ghosts had no suspicions either way, Zhou Yang not bolting the door was testing whether Huang Shaodiao's family had truly given up spying on him. The facts showed that the ghost's probing of him, a living person, existed at all times.
It would never disappear.
"Eat, my child.
"Mother has made you extra food."
Huang Shaodiao placed the small table from her arms onto the empty space before Zhou Yang's bed. She turned her head ninety degrees and said to Zhou Yang, who sat by the bed wearing shoes, with a beaming smile.
"Thank you for bringing me food, Mother. You go eat now; I can manage here myself." Zhou Yang's heart raced, but he replied without changing expression.
His gaze swept over the dinner on the small table.
A bowl of rice more than double the usual amount.
A bowl of grease, yellow-tinged white.
A plate of raw pig lungs.
A plate of bright red blood clots.
Three dishes—both portion and quantity were indeed more "sumptuous" than usual.
Huang Shaodiao stood by the bed without moving, looking at Zhou Yang with an increasingly gentle expression. "Heigou says you eat too little and look thin. Mother will stay here and watch you, watching you eat well.
"Eat well, my child."
She intended to supervise Zhou Yang finishing the meal.
Zhou Yang frowned inwardly. This Heigou consciously opposed him everywhere, a style completely different from the ghosts of Guancun.
He suspected Zhou Heigou was a living person like himself.
In such an environment, a person who bore you hostility could sometimes be more terrifying than a ghost.
However, assuming Zhou Heigou was a living person, Old Dog actually allowed him to go to the fields outside the village—this showed his standing with the "Zhou family" was far higher than Zhou Yang's.
Was Heigou naturally favored by the Zhou family, or had he used some special method to gain their trust?
Zhou Yang knelt at the small table.
He felt Huang Shaodiao's gaze behind him, landing directly on the back of his head and his back, making his skin crawl.
Huang Shaodiao was resolute, and he could find no excuse to persuade her to leave.
Looking down at the sumptuous dishes on the table, a strange odor quietly drifted from the dishes into Zhou Yang's nostrils, spontaneously arousing disgust and resistance.
Cold, rotting.
Zhou Yang suddenly formed an intuitive impression of these dishes.
Just as people cannot eat tables, chairs, and benches, most of these dishes were not on the menu of a normal person like Zhou Yang.
But he lifted the bowl of rice, took up his chopsticks, forced himself to pick up a piece of raw pig lung, and placed it on the rice.
With the rice—the only thing he could swallow—he stuffed the bloody pig lung into his mouth—
With that bite, Zhou Yang's pupils trembled!
Cloyingly sweet, fishy fragrant!
Smooth and tender!
From this bite of raw pig lung mixed with rice, Zhou Yang actually tasted a rare delicacy, vastly different from the disgust and resistance he felt observing the food. Now every pore on his body urged him to take another bite, and another!
Saliva unconsciously filled his mouth.
He swallowed his saliva, suddenly realizing that his longing for the food on the table did not come from himself, but from his skin, which had learned "Ghost Breath"...
Then, Zhou Yang scooped up a chopsticksful of raw blood, taken from who knew what animal, perhaps not even animal in origin, and still sent it into his mouth mixed with the rice—
So delicious it made him tremble!
Every fine hair on his body stood up excitedly from the stimulation of this deliciousness!
He pushed the entire plate of raw blood into the bowl, wielding his chopsticks rapidly, and more than half the bowl of rice was wolfed down.
Then the plate of pig lungs and the small bowl of grease were also eaten one after another.
After clearing away these dishes, Zhou Yang suddenly felt a long-absent sense of fullness!
He couldn't help but let out a satisfied burp!
So full!
Since coming to Guancun, he had rarely eaten a full meal!
But after this satisfied burp, Zhou Yang rubbed his belly and suddenly realized his stomach was still empty, containing only a small amount of food. The blood clots, lung lobes, and grease he had eaten had simply vanished...
"What's going on?" he thought.
Then Huang Shaodiao came from behind and asked Zhou Yang with a smile, "Full, my child?"
"I'm full, thank you, Mother.
"I'll clear these things. You go eat quickly."
Zhou Yang put on a respectful and filial appearance, clearing the bowls and plates from the low table, carrying them to the woodshed to wash clean, and arranging them neatly by category.
Being so well-behaved made Huang Shaodiao look at him with increasing satisfaction.
Returning to the room, Zhou Yang slid the door bolt home, then suddenly paused at the doorway, motionless.
At that moment, wisps of cold air suddenly surged under his skin, in an instant weaving into a net all over his body!
This yin-cold breath nearly froze his flesh and blood, though his mind remained unaffected.
Relative to his flesh and blood, which were about to freeze stiff, his outer skin instead began to writhe. His skin piled up layer by layer, forming many folds. The yin-cold air that had run rampant under his skin, weaving into a net, was continuously absorbed by this outer skin—absorbing this yin-cold air made his skin feel deeply comfortable.
The whole skin seemed to come alive in an instant!
"I ate ghost food, and in the end cannot digest it.
"But because my skin learned Ghost Breath, it instead absorbs some kind of 'nutrient' from ghost food.
"It digested the ghost food I ate!"
Zhou Yang did not know whether feeding ghost food to his skin carried hidden dangers.
He paid attention to the changes within himself and soon felt the yin-cold air flowing under his skin was all completely absorbed by his outer skin.
His flesh and blood regained vitality, once again closely connected to this outer skin.
Zhou Yang then moved his body, not feeling any obvious change, but the weakness that had long lingered in his body now seemed to have dissipated considerably.
"That weakness was due to long-term hunger in Guancun, insufficient nutritional intake.
"Looking at it now, although I myself still cannot digest ghost food, as long as I fill this skin, it will also nourish me in return with some nutrient, so I won't keep feeling weak?"
One meal could not bring Zhou Yang much change.
He could only make this guess for now.
Zhou Yang sat on the bench and spread his palm.
In his palm, several "Ghost's Mouths" like anthills suddenly gaped open.
The yin-cold ghost breath, constrained by Zhou Yang's Right Thought, was tightly curled in the center of his palm.
His eyes brightened slightly—
He might have verified another use for ghost breath.
When Huang Shaodiao approached him, he clearly sensed these ghost breaths in his palm restlessly eager to move!
Facing a ghost like Huang Shaodiao, Zhou Yang would not recklessly attach ghost breath to her body to experiment.
However, from the restless stirring constantly fed back by the ghost breath, he formed a bold guess in his heart.
If ghost breath were used in conjunction with the "Draft on Making Up Gods and Painting Ghosts," what would happen?
While washing dishes earlier, he had already asked Huang Shaodiao to bring back some pig organs tomorrow.
Once all the various items needed for the first "Opening Door" rite of the "Draft on Making Up Gods and Painting Ghosts" were ready, he would try to open this first door!
Outside the window, the night deepened.
Zhou Yang went out to the outhouse as usual.
When he returned, he casually glanced toward the courtyard corner and saw Zhou Baigou, the Zhou family's eldest son, just as every night, crouching in that corner with eyes closed, feigning sleep.
At the moment Zhou Yang cast his gaze on him, he also opened his eyes.
A pair of pitch-black eyes stared fixedly at Zhou Yang's every move.
Baigou was the Zhou family's watchdog...
Thinking this, Zhou Yang returned to the room, bolted the door, took off his clothes, and got into bed.
He leaned back against the wall, half-lying on the bed, and opened the "Knife-Credit Ledger."
His gaze swept over the first page recording his own history. Zhou Yang was stunned to see that in the Right Thought column, his Right Thought had quietly risen from "5" to "6."
It was because he had repeatedly endured danger and terror before; his Right Thought breakthrough had only been one step away.
He had practiced "Ghost Breath" for a long time that afternoon, ultimately causing the Right Thought breakthrough.
In Zhou Yang's abilities column, the newly added "Ghost Breath" showed no change, and the Right Thought Lock remained on the third layer.
Turning to the second page, Zhou Yang looked at Ding Ling's personal history.
"If I teach Ding Ling 'Ghost Breath' and let her learn the 'Draft on Making Up Gods and Painting Ghosts,' then my Good Deeds would have a use—I could make rubbings of these two abilities Ding Ling learned. Thus, added to my own unceasing practice, my progress in practicing these two abilities would surely far exceed the ordinary.
"Can Ghost Breath be taught to Ding Ling in Daliang Village?"
Zhou Yang did not rush to begin "posting to the account," but weighed things in his mind.
He settled on several questions he most needed to understand and verify after going to Daliang Village.
"First, the flow of time.
"Last time I stayed in Daliang Village for about two or three hours, while on the Guancun side a whole night passed, about four or five hours.
"Could the ratio of time flow between the two be one to two?"
"Second, the question of region.
"The inconsistent flow of time between the two places does not necessarily mean they are not the same world—there might also be a time difference.
"What kind of place is the region they are in? What year and month is it?"
Zhou Yang's gaze fell again on the second page of the book.
Ding Ling's personal history transformed into clumps of ink, wriggling and merging, then forming eight large characters: "You have incurred knife-credit. Post to the account?"
"Post to the account."',
Chapter 18