Chapter 27

26, Bone Thumb Ring, Ao Duoji

Night fell.

Zhou Chang lay on a crude wooden bed.

Thick bedding pressed down on him, his body trembling faintly beneath it.

Thin, pale-translucent threads sealed the corpse’s mouth and nose, preventing any sound; from its brow, strands of Zhou Chang’s blood-mental threads now moved methodically—some withdrawing from its husk, others reinserting into it.

—Zhou Chang was reorganizing the blood-mental threads within him.

Following the corpse’s vascular layout, he wound each thread around its major blood vessels.

His accumulated ordinary mental threads that day were insufficient to pierce the corpse’s flesh, so he temporarily used them to cover its surface, mouth, and nose, suppressing its frantic struggles.

Since returning home today, he had sought every opportunity to approach Miss Bai.

Perhaps because Miss Bai’s emotions had been unusually volatile today, he gathered a considerable number of mental threads—enough, from today’s haul alone, to cover both arms and the front of his chest.

Mental threads were his only reliance; naturally, he tended to them carefully.

Zhou Chang’s initial plan was to replace the corpse’s entire vascular network with mental threads; as the threads absorbed the delusion mycelia and grew stronger, he intended to twist them into steel cables to replace the corpse’s bones—and ultimately fill its flesh entirely with mental threads!

Amid the corpse’s trembling, Zhou Chang wound all his blood-mental threads around the vessels of his body.

He extended his arms from beneath the covers, flexing each joint.

—Even without activating the ordinary mental threads covering his skin, his control over this husk had significantly improved through this “mental-thread vascular network.”

When he returned from the distillery, he could barely make the husk walk; now he was confident he moved no differently than a living man!

“Looks like I didn’t take the wrong path…”

Zhou Chang smiled. The feedback from this husk confirmed he had made the right move—replacing his body’s vascular network with blood-mental threads.

He moved his limbs for a while, then his gaze fell upon the red cord around his right wrist—

Zhou Chang suddenly realized something, pulled his arm back, and fumbled beneath his pillow until he pulled out a cylindrical object thicker than a thumb and over a knuckle tall.

The cylinder was made of bone, hollow, polished into the shape of a thumb ring.

Its surface was stained yellowish from fire and crisscrossed with black, crackle patterns.

Among these cracks were seven manually carved holes.

The seven holes were not fully pierced; when Zhou Chang gazed at them, he felt a strange sensation—as if his gaze was being “absorbed” by the seven holes.

This bone thumb ring shared the same origin as the mental threads.

It was a burial artifact he had taken from the coffin before Yinsheng Laomu’s grave.

Originally, the red cord showed no interest in the delusion mycelia in the wine cellar, so he could not accumulate its power there.

But when he left the cellar and passed through the distillery’s entrance hall, he saw many sealed jars of wine.

So while the overseer was talking with Yang Rui and his apprentice, he sent the red cord into those jars and drank deeply, filling it with power.

This allowed him to drag the coffin of a deceased man named Zhou Chang.

From the coffin, he retrieved this bone thumb ring.

The red cord then fell silent, its next activation unknown.

The seven holes in the thumb ring, crisscrossed by cracks, ceased absorbing Zhou Chang’s gaze.

The seven holes were black and gleaming.

Zhou Chang leaned close, saw nothing unusual, but heard a desolate wind howling.

“Whaa—”

The desolate wind emerged sequentially from the seven holes, carrying a boy’s young, frantic cry.

“Ao Duoji!” the first hole cried.

“Ao Bai Ma!” the second hole called out another dog’s name.

“Qiu Yang Qie!”

“Dun Zhu, Dun Zhu!”

“A Deng!”

“Ao Niu, Da Niu!”

“Hu! Hu! Hu!”

Zhou Chang listened to the voices from the seven holes, his expression changing.

This bone thumb ring seemed infused with the “thoughts” of a boy named Zhou Chang—his thoughts trapped in the seven holes, endlessly calling out the names of his seven beloved pets, or perhaps seven companions.

But what use was this bone thumb ring to him?

Zhou Chang turned the thought over in his mind; the holes gradually fell silent, the boy’s cries ceased, and all returned to stillness.

He waited a while, sensed no further anomalies from the ring, then slipped it onto his left thumb, closed his eyes, and prepared to sleep.

Just as he was drifting off, a whimpering sound of a puppy begging for food reached his ears.

“Hnng, hnng~”

Zhou Chang snapped his eyes open and pressed his ear close to the seven holes of the ring.

The whimpering vanished.

…

“Whaa…”

The wind outside sounded bitterly cold; staying inside made one feel safer.

Bai Xiue curled up beside an oil lamp, softly humming a childhood nursery rhyme she once heard, translucent pale threads weaving through tiny insects, peeling off their shells intact.

One by one, the insect shells stitched together in her palm—first imperceptibly, then growing to the size of a fingernail, continuing to assemble and expand.

She worked with meticulous care, her face lit with joy, never feeling fatigue.

Beside her lay layers of rat pelts, cloth woven from bird feathers, and insect shells.

“Born to be a servant!”

At that moment, “Paper Face” reappeared on half her cheek, sneering at her.

The alluring, affectionate face now brimmed with revulsion.

Bai Xiue sighed, set down her needlework, and stared blankly at the flickering flame before her. After a long silence, she hesitated: “I… I just want to repay them.”

“Repay?”

“Have we ever owed them anything?”

“Without us, they’d have died long ago in that mass grave!” Paper Face feigned astonishment.

Bai Xiue lowered her head, saying nothing.

As Paper Face said, she and the Zhou family’s grandfather and grandson owed each other nothing—how could she possibly repay them?

Where did this desire to repay even come from?

Perhaps because here, she could feel like a real person.

“Worthless girl!”

Seeing Bai Xiue’s expression, Paper Face’s revulsion deepened.

Suddenly, her expression turned grave. “Your dead husband has come for you.”

Crash!

No sooner had Paper Face spoken than the paper-covered window, tightly latched with bolts, was ripped open by a vicious wind!

Icy, chilling wind flooded Bai Xiue’s bedroom in an instant!

The sense of safety vanished completely.