Yan Tuo’s consciousness wavered, distorted by fluctuating sounds and shifting images. His body was plagued by intermittent discomforts, none fatal but varied in location: the heart, the spleen, and the stomach, as if an unseen hand was toying with his organs. His memory was fragmented—one moment he was in the car, the next he was being carried away, doused in wine, and hearing an unfamiliar male voice suggesting that it would appear more realistic and unobtrusive.
Suddenly, he found himself on a soft cushion, sinking into its depths like a heavyweight. The cold wrapped around him, accompanied by the sharp snip of scissors near his throat. Yan Tuo opened his eyes in shock and grasped at something.
He was in a hotel room. The window was wide open, allowing the night breeze to flow in. Despite the season, the air conditioner was blowing hot air, yet the room was cold, with the air outlet directed at him. He was lying on a couch, a large bath towel spread underneath to catch any blood stains.
Nie Jiuluo’s hand, holding the scissors, was in his grasp. She looked at him with a question, “What, do you still need to keep these tattered clothes on?”
Yan Tuo released her hand, still feeling the lingering softness of her skin. Though the temperature drop brought some relief, his body felt heavy, and his limbs were unsteady. His arms were sore and weak from the previous effort of squeezing her hand.
Nie Jiuluo focused on removing his torn clothes, cutting them off one by one and tossing them into a nearby trash can. After cutting his shirt, she asked, “What about your legs? Any injuries there? Anything on your back?”
Yan Tuo wanted to say “no,” but his memory was hazy. Sometimes, in urgent situations, injuries go unnoticed. Seeing his expression, Nie Jiuluo decided not to rely on his response. She examined his pants, cutting the front of his right thigh to reveal a scratch. She then checked his back, finding no additional injuries.
Nie Jiuluo retrieved a bag of medical supplies delivered by a takeaway service. She pulled out alcohol wipes and started cleaning the wound on his collarbone. The stinging sensation of the wipes made Yan Tuo gasp and shrink away. Nie Jiuluo stopped and said, “You’d better cooperate; I’m not obligated to do this.”
Yan Tuo didn’t reply but stayed still as she continued cleaning. The sensation was uncomfortable, with occasional spasms as his body reacted. By the time Nie Jiuluo finished, the trash can was half-full of bloodied paper towels. She sprinkled anti-bleeding and anti-inflammatory powder on his deeper wounds, then cleaned her hands and went into the bathroom.
Yan Tuo lay quietly, listening to the sound of running water. When Nie Jiuluo returned, she carried a large bath towel soaked in cold water, which she vigorously shook before covering him. The cold was intense, but preferable to the earlier discomfort caused by the rapid blood flow.
Lying there, Yan Tuo’s breathing slowed, and the dim light through the towel occasionally revealed Nie Jiuluo’s figure. She wore the hotel’s cloth slippers, and her footsteps were almost silent on the carpeted floor. After a while, she sat down diagonally across from him, engrossed in her phone.
Nie Jiuluo remarked, “You’re very lucky; tomorrow is sunny. If it were snowing or raining, I wouldn’t know where to start a natural fire.”
Yan Tuo’s mind raced with her words. He recalled that within 24 hours of an injury, one might need to use ‘natural fire’—obtained from the sun or through ancient methods—to prevent complications. If a red thread appeared in the eye, it usually meant the situation was dire. It had been two hours since his injury, leaving him a small window of time.
Yan Tuo asked, “Is it a ground owl?”
Nie Jiuluo confirmed, “Yes, now you understand why I say the ground owl is a beast, not a human, right?”
He inquired further, “Do you have a ground owl?”
Nie Jiuluo corrected him, “Not ‘us,’ don’t count me in. It’s ‘them.’ Since the end of ‘91, people from Banya began walking in the green soil, and every three or five years, they would encounter grasshoppers. Only in the ninth year did they bring out the grasshoppers.”
Nie Jiuluo thought for a moment, recalling that the harvest only came in the ninth year. Her mother, Pei Ke, was taken away, and the journey to Qingyang was interrupted for a while. Jiang Baichuan had then restructured his manpower, following the ancient system and the three branches of “knife, dog, and whip.”
Yan Tuo was surprised to learn that the creature was called a “grasshopper,” resembling locusts. The thought of its appearance still made him feel nauseous. However, his focus shifted back to the timeline.
At the end of ’91:
Lin Xirou, known as Aunt Lin, first appeared before Yan Huanshan on September 16, 1992.
The only harvest from walking the green soil was the “grasshoppers.”
After the lame father was interrogated, Xiong Hei had asked Aunt Lin if the old man had revealed anything about her son. Yan Tuo wondered if this implied that the grasshopper was Aunt Lin’s son. If so, Aunt Lin must have been searching for her son after the grasshopper was captured by the Banya people at the end of ’91. However, Yan Tuo dismissed this theory—biologically, grasshoppers and Aunt Lin were too different.
He hesitated, asking, “Can the grasshopper speak?”
Nie Jiuluo considered his question. “No, it’s more likely a doll sounder. When mingling in a crowd, it requires good camouflage—clothes, shoes, masks, and sometimes sound.”
Yan Tuo closed his eyes, realizing why his “uncles” seemed to speak as if recorded. The bath towel was warm now, and Nie Jiuluo lifted it, saying, “My coat is stained with your blood; you’ll need to compensate me for it.”
Yan Tuo responded, “Okay.”
Nie Jiuluo took the bath towel into the bathroom to soak it again. When she returned, she sneezed from the cold air. Yan Tuo suggested, “You could close the windows and turn off the air conditioner. I’m fine now.”
Nie Jiuluo snorted. “Turn it off before bed. The cooling effect is temporary. You still need to stay warm before the fire.”
She changed the topic to something urgent. “There’s someone named Xiong Hei who keeps calling you. Who is he?”
Yan Tuo hesitated. “He was with me today.”
Nie Jiuluo inquired further, “Is he the one who severely injured people?”
Yan Tuo felt a twinge of fear, worried that Nie Jiuluo might be angry. He admitted, “Yes.”
“Why did he leave you behind?” Nie Jiuluo asked.
Yan Tuo explained, “Actually, I went first. He thought I was in the way, so he kicked me out of the car and told me to leave before he could act.”
Nie Jiuluo didn’t understand. “Then why didn’t you leave?”
Yan Tuo struggled to find a decent explanation. “I’ve always been like this. I act on the surface but…”
Nie Jiuluo prompted, “Voyeurism?”
Yan Tuo vaguely admitted, “Sort of.”
“Then why did he leave suddenly without harming anyone else when he was clearly in control?”
Yan Tuo smiled bitterly, admitting, “I took him away. I thought there was a child involved. One person was seriously injured, another couldn’t fight back, and there was a child, so I… Forget it.”
Nie Jiuluo asked, “What excuse did you use to take him away?”
“I said I was ambushed and had an accident in the east,” Yan Tuo replied.
“That’s a good excuse,” Nie Jiuluo said. “Xiong Hei mentioned he had searched everywhere for you.”
“Is Xiong Hei a ghost?” Yan Tuo asked.
“No, I’ve seen him bite off three fingers,” Nie Jiuluo said. “But he’s a ground owl, or more precisely, a variant of the Earth Owl.”
“Ground owls?” Yan Tuo was puzzled.
Nie Jiuluo’s expression remained controlled, but her heart raced. Her tone was calm, though, as she continued, “But there was a dog family in the car. They didn’t notice anything unusual.”
“Unusual smell?” Yan Tuo recalled. “I heard them say they didn’t seem to have a smell.”
Nie Jiuluo’s throat was dry. “Xiong Hei is like a dog’s tooth, which has a smell, but he doesn’t?”
Yan Tuo replied, “Dogtooth is a special case. I heard they mentioned that if it’s not ‘omnivorous,’ it shouldn’t have a smell. But I don’t understand it fully.”
The idea of a special case was unsettling. “How many people around you are like Dogtooth or Xiong Hei?”
Yan Tuo’s answer made her uneasy. “I don’t know. The earliest ones were already in my house before I was born.”
The room fell into silence, broken only by the sound of the wind and the air conditioner. After a while, Nie Jiuluo stood up. “I’ll take a bath. You should rest.”
She took her phone and went into the bathroom.
***
After entering the shower room, Nie Jiuluo turned on the shower head and let the hot water drench herself for more than twenty seconds.
Yan Tuo’s observations were strikingly realistic. Dogtooth and Bear Black diverged significantly from traditional notions of owls—these creatures looked indistinguishable from humans, and the “owl taste” they were known for was conspicuously absent. This explained why the trio that ventured into Nanba’s monkey head lost contact; the dog family’s nose had become a mere ornament, unable to detect the owl’s approach.
It also made sense why grasshoppers shied away from attacking Bear Black—beasts typically avoid killing one another unless absolutely necessary, and smaller creatures instinctively fear larger ones.
The fact that Dogtooth was omnivorous suggested it had once been a part of Xingbazi Township. What, then, was its staple food? The revelation that Dogtooth had been in Yan Tuo’s house even before he was born was disturbing. Yan Tuo’s father had made a fortune in that era; if an Earth Owl had already infiltrated his home then, what kind of black and white dealings had occurred over the years?
Compared to them, Banya’s group seemed like a ragtag army.
Tomorrow, on the eighth, would be a critical day. Nie Jiuluo needed to confirm if they could still proceed with their plans.
She turned off the shower, stepped out of the shower room still wet, wrapped a bath towel around herself, and grabbed her mobile phone. She needed to inform Jiang Baichuan about the recent developments.
She opened the app and saw a message from Jiang Baichuan: “Nie Er, there have been incidents in the past two days. For caution, I will not be attending the appointment on the 8th. I will wait and see for a few days.”
Her fingers trembled slightly as she composed a response. Regardless of the meeting’s outcome, conveying the critical information was imperative.
– “When I left today, I saw Yan Tuo being rescued by his companions.”
– “Also, I overheard that it was the Ground Owl who seriously injured the old knife.”
The message was sent, showing “unread”. Given the chaos of the night—chickens flying, dogs barking, and the old knife being rushed to the hospital—Jiang Baichuan would likely be preoccupied. At least she had managed to relay the crucial information.
Before going to bed, Nie Jiuluo closed the windows and turned off the air conditioner, feeling the cold acutely. She also pulled out wide tape from her bag, intending to use it on Yan Tuo to prevent him from going wild during the night.
Yan Tuo, seeing the tape, guessed it was for him. As Nie Jiuluo began to tie him up, she asked, “Do you want to drink water?”
He shook his head, recalling the symptoms of “rooting and sprouting” and not wanting to provide water that might worsen his condition. Plus, he worried about needing to use the bathroom during the night.
Before turning off the light, Yan Tuo saw Nie Jiuluo propped up against the bed’s headrest, using the hotel’s journal as a cushion and scribbling notes on a long pale gold pad. Almost simultaneously, the lights went out, and stars streaked faint trails in the sky like a meteor.
Yan Tuo closed his eyes and made a wish: that tomorrow’s natural fire would go smoothly, and that he wouldn’t be plagued by the roots and shoots.
Nie Jiuluo was correct; the cooling effect was only temporary. Before the fire began, he felt an internal boil. As he fell asleep, the sensation of a furnace inside him gradually intensified, turning from uncomfortable to excruciating. His blood felt as though it were overheating, causing him to sweat profusely. When he closed his eyes, he saw not darkness but a hot, crimson world with boiling bubbles.
He struggled to endure it. Despite Nie Jiuluo’s less-than-ideal treatment, he felt fortunate to be rescued by her and didn’t want to disturb her sleep.
As his body temperature continued to rise, he experienced vivid hallucinations. He saw gruesome scenes of slaughter, ancient and violent, with human and animal skins wrapped in vines, and bloodshed everywhere. His body twitched with pain, and his sealed mouth made it hard to breathe, his eyes bloodshot and nearly bursting.
He also saw a massive, blood-red sun rolling into darkness, accompanied by a desperate howl. Then came an impenetrable blackness, and pairs of eyes appeared, moving closer and closer. Yan Tuo desperately tried to evade them, breaking the coffee table in the process.
The noise startled him awake for a moment. The coffee table had been moved away from the sofa, and he realized it was his own doing.
A sound came from the head of the bed, and the bedside light was turned on. Nie Jiuluo yawned, grabbed her shoes, and went to the bathroom, likely to relieve herself.
As she passed by the couch, she paused for a moment. Yan Tuo closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep, hoping the noise had been a mere auditory hallucination and that nothing had actually moved.
Nie Jiuluo entered the bathroom. He heard the sounds of the toilet flushing and the faucet running. Shortly after, she emerged, and the light went out again. Nie Jiuluo climbed into bed, lifted the quilt, and settled in. The mattress creaked a few times before everything fell silent once more.
Yan Tuo remained still, feeling that lying there quietly was the best course of action.
