Rules of Horror: Survival Begins in the Haunted Harem - Chapter 55

Just as Xie Nuange thought they would refuse her shelter, the gate opened.

A hand reached out and swiftly pulled her inside.

Torches burned along the wall, their light flickering across her face.

The defenders gathered around her. One offered water, another flatbread. Someone patted her back and said, “You’re alive. That’s what matters.”

“Rongxi Town… The Jiang family and the entire town are gone?”

Xie Nuange nodded. “I’m the only survivor.”

The defenders fell silent.

One sighed. Another cursed. Someone turned away, shoulders trembling faintly.

They all grieved for Rongxi Town while seeing their own possible fate in its destruction. Which town would be next?

“The Jiang family…”

An old soldier hurried to Xie Nuange and crouched before her, searching her face. “Are you the head of the Jiang family’s son?”

Xie Nuange took out the jade pendant. “Yes. My name is Jiang Yanzhou.”

The pendant glowed softly in the firelight, the design upon it perfectly clear.

The old soldier’s eyes reddened.

“The Jiang family… Every last one of them was loyal and brave.”

His voice caught. “I met your father. When demons surrounded this city that year, he led the force that broke the siege.”

“But this time, the demons attacked too quickly. Before word even reached us…”

Xie Nuange said nothing.

She tucked the pendant back inside her clothes and followed them into the city, biting into the flatbread a soldier had given her.

It was hard and coarse enough to scrape her throat.

It tasted exactly like the half Tiezhu had broken off for her.

She settled in the city.

It was not large, but it was safer than the town.

The walls were high and the garrison strong. Demons could not break in. The city lord was a man in his forties surnamed Zhou, whom everyone called City Lord Zhou.

When he heard she was a member of the Jiang family, he came to see her in person. He asked what had happened to the town and remained silent for a long time after hearing the story.

“Do you want revenge?”

Xie Nuange shook her head. “I want to find the seed.”

City Lord Zhou paused. “The seed?”

“A seed of grass or trees,” Xie Nuange said. “One that can grow into flowers, grass, and trees. My mother said this land can only come alive again once we find it.”

City Lord Zhou studied her for a long time before sighing.

“That seed… I have heard of it.”

Xie Nuange raised her head. She knew an NPC was now giving her a mission that would reveal its location.

“With the crown bone of one demon and its index-finger bone, using the blood of one hundred people as a catalyst, you can make a pointer.”

City Lord Zhou spoke slowly. “The pointer will show you where our colors were taken and where the seed can be found.”

“The blood of a hundred people?”

Xie Nuange frowned.

“You need not kill anyone.”

City Lord Zhou waved a hand. “The city’s people will volunteer one drop each. No lives will be harmed.”

Xie Nuange fell silent, then said, “I’ll do it.”

City Lord Zhou looked at her and shook his head.

“How old are you? Six? Seven?”

“Seven,” Xie Nuange said.

“Thirteen, then.”

City Lord Zhou repeated the number. His gaze rested on her with an emotion that might have been pity, or remembrance.

“At thirteen, your father could already stand on his own. But your grandfather was there to protect him.”

He planted a hand on Xie Nuange’s head. His palm was thick, its weight solid and heavy.

“You’re still young. There is no need to rush. Stay here, study properly, and recover from your injuries.”

“When you are older, when you have the strength to protect yourself, then you can search for the seed.”

Xie Nuange tried to speak, but City Lord Zhou’s hand pressed her head down, refusing to let her look up.

“A child of the Jiang family must not die on the road.”

Xie Nuange said nothing more, because time before her suddenly accelerated.

She became a spectator watching a film at ten or twenty times its normal speed.

She watched Jiang Yanzhou settle in the city. By day, he trained with its defenders. In the evening, he drew talismans. Late at night, he listened to City Lord Zhou’s stories of this land.

Jiang Yanzhou learned quickly. He had the Jiang family’s foundations and Xie Nuange’s mind. With both sets of abilities combined, he learned faster than anyone.

One year. Two. Three…

He turned thirteen.

The banners atop the city walls were replaced again and again. Beyond them, one wave of demons was slain only for another to arrive.

He began accompanying the garrison outside to hunt demons. City Lord Zhou watched him like a tree growing from a crack in stone.

“It is almost time,” he said.

That day, the people of the city assembled in the square. Each came forward and offered blood, pouring it into a great vat.

The blood of one hundred people.

Xie Nuange knelt before the vat. In her hands were two demon-beast bones: a crown bone and an index-finger bone.

Following the method City Lord Zhou had taught her, she submerged them in the blood and silently recited an incantation.

The bones sank, then floated back to the surface.

Once the blood began to boil, the pointer took shape.

A slender bone needle glimmered with ghostly light. It hovered above the mouth of the vat, slowly turned, then stopped.

Pointing north.

On the day she left, Xie Nuange tucked the pointer inside her clothes, strapped the short saber to her back, and took the half-flatbread Tiezhu had broken off for her.

She walked to the city gate.

City Lord Zhou stood there with all the city’s people behind him.

“Keep going north,” City Lord Zhou said. “Cross the Black Mountains, the wasteland, and that sea. The seed lies in the far north, inside the demons’ nest.”

Xie Nuange nodded.

“Take care,” City Lord Zhou said. “We’ll wait for your return!”

The city gate opened.

Xie Nuange walked out without looking back.

The sky was grayer in the north, the earth drier, the wind stronger.

She rode a demon beast for three days and crossed the Black Mountains.

The stone there was black. Not a blade of grass grew.

At night, it was as cold as falling into an ice pit. Curled inside a cave, she took out the half-flatbread.

She ate it bite by bite with snow.

Hard. Coarse. Scraping her throat.

She thought of Tiezhu.

When he broke off that piece for her, he had grinned wide enough to show every white tooth.

“Try it. My mother made it. It’s delicious.”

She thought of Erya.

Erya had taught her from the *Thousand Character Classic*, telling her the heavens were dark and the earth yellow.

But their sky had always been gray. Their earth had always been gray.

She thought of Gousheng.

Xie Nuange’s fingers tightened around the flatbread. She could not bear to eat another bite.

She put it away and closed her eyes.

Xie Nuange did not know how long she traveled. She only felt her clothes grow shorter and shorter on her body.

Eventually, she began hunting demon beasts and wearing their hides as she advanced.

She walked until her shoes wore through, then bound leather around her feet and continued.

She walked until thick calluses covered her soles.

She walked until she almost forgot how to speak. From time to time, she could only summon Mom and talk to her.

At last, she reached the shore. The pointer grew faintly hot against her body, still pointing north.

She studied her reflection in the seawater.

Using her dagger, she carefully trimmed her unruly hair and shaved the stubble from her face.

Xie Nuange did not know how many years had passed here, or how many had passed outside.

“Qingming… bird droppings… obsession…”

She had begun to stammer. After years without speaking, she had almost forgotten how.

The days that followed held nothing but swimming.

An endless expanse of aimless seawater.

All she had to do was cross this sea and enter the forest beyond.

Then she could bring back the seed.