Chapter Forty: Burning

The village chief stood up with a shudder. When "Father" attempted to steady him, he waved him off with a gesture of his hand.

He retrieved his dragon-headed cane from behind him and carefully braced it against the ground. His knees cracked audibly as he rose, and every step he took was accompanied by a violent trembling of his entire body.

"Stay here and wait. I will escort them to the village entrance."

With that, the chief looked toward Wu Que and Chen Tianyu. "You two, please follow me."

He shuffled forward tremulously, then suddenly seemed to recall something. He planted his cane firmly and stopped, saying, "Bring the children as well."

This time, the couple offered no resistance. They embraced the two children, wiped the stains from their faces, and placed them into the hands of Wu Que and Chen Tianyu.

The "Kangkangs" were uncharacteristically quiet. They waved goodbye to their parents with docility. Wu Que could feel the small hands holding his; they were ice-cold and slick with fine beads of sweat.

The village chief nodded with satisfaction. "Good. Now, we may depart."

Wu Que and Chen Tianyu led the children, trailing behind the village chief, their minds filled with a whirlwind of thoughts. The chief walked with agonizing slowness, and so they followed at a similarly glacial pace.

Chen Tianyu lowered her head with a bitter smile, speaking as if to Wu Que, or perhaps to herself: "Everything is actually heading in a good direction, isn't it?"

"Hmm..."

Wu Que stepped over the bodies of the catfish, his heart in a state of chaos.

Strictly speaking, this dream-entry mission had proceeded quite smoothly. Two of the three key locations had been unlocked, and the third was imminent. Not only had the four-person dream-entry team suffered no casualties, but the overseer had even become a part of their fighting force. From Rust Lake to the Sick Village, there was no one filled with malice toward them—not even the two old women who had fought Wu Que to the death.

What they were truly facing was merely a dream demon.

The terror of the unknown is always daunting, and after the embellishments of the people in the Sick Village, this fear felt even more palpable to Wu Que. Though he had never seen it, "It" felt like an invisible giant hand, gripping the throats of the dream-menders, suffocating them.

The village chief stepped out of the door, his dragon-headed cane tapping against the floor with a rhythmic "clack, clack."

Outside, many villagers had gathered, and more were converging on the village entrance from all directions. Some had mutated into monsters, while others still retained their normal human forms. They looked at the chief with solemn expressions.

"Heh, the dozens of souls in the Sick Village—you’ve all come."

The chief chuckled softly, and with a "clack, clack," he continued his slow advance.

The villagers parted to clear a path. Once the chief, Wu Que, Chen Tianyu, and the children reached the front of the crowd, the villagers fell into formation behind them, following in silence.

It was midday, and the sun hung so low it felt as if it were pressing against their faces. Waves of heat enveloped the slow-moving procession, stirring up trash from the ground. The sweat on their skin evaporated as soon as it appeared, making the entire village smell even more wretched.

Wu Que held the hand of "Kangkang," gazing at the chief’s back. His vision had blurred from the excessive heat, and in his eyes, the chief’s silhouette appeared thin and elongated, like a twisted fried dough stick in a vat of oil. At a glance, he also resembled Captain Yamamoto Genryusai from the manga "Bleach."

The chief’s body shook violently under the onslaught of the heat, stumbling several times, yet his pace never faltered. The crowd behind him followed in silence, inching forward as if performing some strange, mysterious ritual.

The journey from the chief’s house to the village entrance was only a few miles, yet it took them two hours to complete. The chief stood at the entrance, barely supporting his body with his cane, smiling at the four who were about to embark on their new journey.

His voice sounded incredibly frail, trembling and wet with saliva, yet it possessed a certain narrative grace.

"From the village entrance, head northwest for about seven miles, and you will see Doctor Deng Ming’s clinic."

"I am Xue Fengxiang, chief of the Sick Village. On behalf of all the villagers, I wish you success."

"Thank you." The two bowed to the chief and the dense, deformed crowd behind him, then turned to leave.

Wu Que took a step, then turned his head back to look at the chief. "Chief, if I may be so bold—how long has the Sick Village existed?"

"Not long. Just over two years." The chief shook his head and smiled. "But as long as we have had memory, we have lived in this filthy place. We were branded, and we have always looked like this—like ghosts."

"If I were you, I would not ask that question. Sometimes, the best way to overcome fear is through ignorant fearlessness."

Wu Que smiled bitterly and shook his head. "It is fine. The fear of 'It' is already quite concrete in my heart."

With that, he took the boy's hand, and he and Chen Tianyu walked toward the northwest.

"Very well, it is time for us to act as well," the chief said, smiling as he watched them depart.

As his words faded, those who still maintained normal human forms began gathering firewood, while the hunched dwarves began pouring oil to ignite it.

They had rehearsed their task countless times; before long, they had built a pile of wood taller than a man, covering the entire village entrance.

"Cough, cough, cough..." The foul stench and the rising dust irritated the chief's lungs, making his throat itch uncontrollably. Yet, he raised a hand and shouted with the loudest voice he could muster.

"Villagers, strip off your clothes. Expose the brands on your bodies and look at him!"

The villagers threw their stained, dusty clothes onto the pyre. Standing naked, they tried their best to straighten their hunched backs.

Each of them bore an incredibly hideous scar—a semi-circle. It was not a totem, nor did it have patterns; it looked as if it had truly been burned in with a branding iron, festering and oozing.

"Villagers, this is the second group of outsiders to arrive here. It only confirms our hypothesis!" The chief exhaled the scorching air from his chest and shouted with all his might.

"You, including myself—we have been this way since our earliest memories. We have lived in this poor, filthy village since we could remember. We! We were born with this hideous scar!"

"We did not choose this, nor is it what we wanted."

The chief’s body, already trembling, was struck by a sudden, unnatural gust of wind that blew him onto his backside.

A "crack" was heard—the sound of the chief’s pelvis shattering.

The villagers behind him rushed to help, but the chief waved them off and began to laugh toward the heavens.

When he finished laughing, he gritted his blackened, rotting teeth. He braced his cane on the ground and, using his hands for support, began to crawl upward, inch by inch.

He struggled for a long time until, finally, he stood once more upon the soil of the Sick Village.

His voice was very faint now, like a moth with broken wings, producing only a weak resonance with its remnants. Yet, his eyes remained clear as he spoke.

"Villagers, do you see? Heaven has sent us the wind."

"Heaven... Heaven fears us."

"Light the fire."