Rules of Horror: Survival Begins in the Haunted Harem - Chapter 53

In all his years, Jiang Yanzhou had never seen a demon before.

So many demons.

His entire body shook with fear. Both hands clutched his mother’s clothes.

“Mother, where are my brothers? Where are my sisters? Mother, I’m scared.”

His mother faltered for one step, then ran even faster toward the inner rooms.

Behind them came his father’s roar, the flare of exploding talismans, the shrieks of demons, and the sound of flesh being torn apart.

Jiang Yanzhou was still struggling desperately when his mother pushed him into the hidden passage.

“Mother! Father is still outside!”

“Listen to me.”

His mother crouched and cupped his face in both hands, wiping the tears from his cheeks with her thumbs.

Her fingers trembled, but not a single tear fell. Her eyes were gentle, filled with a love reluctant to let him go.

“Yanzhou, listen to your mother.”

She pulled a jade pendant from inside her clothes and pressed it into his hand.

The pendant was warm with her body heat.

A design was carved into it. His father wore an identical pendant.

It was the Jiang family crest.

“Yanzhou, you must live.”

His mother’s voice was soft, but every word tore through Jiang Yanzhou’s heart.

“Only the living have a future. You must find the seeds of plants and trees, bring them back, and plant them in this land. You must protect the people and free them from living beneath the shadow of demons.”

She squeezed his hand.

“Do not disgrace the Jiang family name.”

“No, Mother! I want you! I want Father! I don’t want the pendant!”

Jiang Yanzhou lunged forward and tried to grab the hem of her clothes.

He threw the jade pendant to the ground. He wanted only his mother. He wanted his family.

“Go!”

His mother smiled at him and shoved him back.

The mechanism activated. The entrance to the passage began to close.

Jiang Yanzhou fell to the floor. He watched the stone slab cover his mother’s face inch by inch, watched the corner of her mouth curve upward.

Mother was smiling.

That was the last time he ever saw her smile.

The stone slab closed.

Darkness swallowed everything.

“Mother!”

Jiang Yanzhou pounded, kicked, and screamed inside the passage.

He screamed his voice raw. He beat his palms bloody. He kicked until his toes broke. No one answered.

“Mother! Mother! I don’t want this! I want my mother!”

He did not know how much time passed.

One day? Two? Three?

There was no light in the passage. No sound. Nothing at all.

Only the jade pendant in his hand remained warm, like a heart that would never stop beating.

Jiang Yanzhou seemed to have no tears left. Clutching the pendant, he began searching for another exit.

He had to find his mother and father. His brothers who laughed at him. His sisters who fed him cake.

The passage’s other exit lay inside an inconspicuous grave mound near the town gate.

Jiang Yanzhou’s fingers were covered in blood. When he crawled out through the mound, the light stabbed his eyes until he could barely open them.

Then he saw the street and sank to his knees.

The town was gone.

Houses had collapsed. Blood covered the streets, and bodies lay everywhere in disarray.

Some he knew. Some he did not.

The demons were long gone. The sky remained gray. The rift that had once appeared overhead now seemed like nothing more than a shared illusion from that day.

Jiang Yanzhou followed the street toward home.

He found Tiezhu.

Tiezhu lay beneath the dirt slope, his eyes wide open. A massive hole gaped in his chest, everything inside it gone.

Half a flatbread remained clutched in his hand. Jiang Yanzhou had tasted it before. It was rock-hard, coarse enough to scrape his throat.

Jiang Yanzhou stood beside Tiezhu for a long time. Then he crouched, took the half-flatbread from his hand, and tucked it inside his clothes.

When he passed the school, he found Erya.

Erya lay facedown over the schoolteacher’s threshold, her head hanging inside, her neck twisted at an impossible angle.

She still held a handkerchief. Jiang Yanzhou had given it to her as their betrothal token when he promised they would marry.

Jiang Yanzhou crouched and closed Erya’s eyes.

“Erya…”

He picked up the handkerchief and tucked it into her clothes.

Jiang Yanzhou did not stop. He walked on and found Gousheng.

Gousheng was so small that Jiang Yanzhou almost failed to recognize him.

He had been crushed beneath a fallen wall. Only one hand showed, as thin as a monkey’s paw.

Jiang Yanzhou did not dig him out.

He continued toward home, one step at a time.

Why had his parents not come to open the door? Had they forgotten him?

Why had they not buried the townspeople? Were they too busy?

With every step he took, another familiar person lay on the ground, never to rise again.

At last, he reached his home.

Half the courtyard wall had fallen, and half the house with it.

Ashes from talismans covered the ground, along with shards of swords, and his brothers… his sisters.

“Brother… Brother, get up!”

He walked over and numbly pieced his brother’s severed body together, placing the parts to one side.

Then he went to find his sister’s body.

“Sister, you always cared so much about looking pretty.”

He looked at her body, half her head missing, but made no deliberate effort to find his parents’ corpses.

As long as he did not see their bodies, perhaps they were still alive.

Night turned to day, then day to night again.

Every member of the Jiang family lay inside the main house, including his mother and father.

He stood in the middle of the courtyard for a very long time.

Staring at the paving stones dyed red with blood, he found a flint and threw a torch into the main house.

He sank to his knees and buried his face in his hands.

“Father! Mother! Brothers! Sisters! Ahhh!”

Jiang Yanzhou’s howl broke from him. His hysterical sobs echoed over the deserted town.

Only the owls circled thick and black overhead.

After taking care of the Jiang family, Jiang Yanzhou returned to the streets.

Everywhere he went, he startled flocks of owls into flight.

Some bolder owls ignored him and continued feasting.

“Get away! Get away from her!”

Jiang Yanzhou drove the owls from Erya’s neck.

At last, the entire town became a sea of fire.

Jiang Yanzhou stared blankly at the flames. He could no longer cry.

No tears came. No sound emerged. It felt as though something had split him down the middle.

One half screamed. The other was utterly still.

He took out the jade pendant.

It was still warm.

He held it up and studied the design by the light of the burning town.

The Jiang family crest.

His father had worn one. His mother had worn one. His had hung around his neck from the day he was born, until his mother put it away and promised to return it when he grew older.

He suddenly remembered her final words.

“Only the living have a future. You must find the seeds of plants and trees, bring them back, and plant them in this land.”

He lowered his head and looked at his hands.

But I truly cannot go on living.

Mother…

I’m so scared. Will you and Father wait for me?

He walked step by step toward the flames, only to stop at the edge.

The scorching heat burned his face.

Jiang Yanzhou looked down at his hands.

They were a boy’s hands, every nail split, packed with dirt and blood.

These were not her hands.

They were Jiang Yanzhou’s.

No.

Jiang Yanzhou was not her.

She was… Xie Nuange.

“When the tide comes in upon the Qiantang River, only today do I know who I am.”

Her consciousness surged back like the tide.

She was Xie Nuange.

She had entered the main hall, surrendered her token, and been pulled into the Divine Path—into this memory.

“The Divine Path…”

Jiang Yanzhou.

Xie Nuange tightened her grip on the jade pendant.

“Is this the deity’s memory?”

She raised her head and looked at the gray sky, the gray earth, and the town engulfed in flames.

Find a seed. Bring it back to this land. Complete the mission.

Xie Nuange wiped away the tear that rolled from the corner of her eye.