Chapter 37: 36. The Dog-Faced Woman

36. The Dog-Faced Woman

The thick, gamey stench of blood settled in the air, so dense it could not be dispersed.

Zhou Chang breathed in the smell that made it hard for him to draw air, patted his dull, heavy head, and sat up swaying unsteadily.

His gaze unfocused, he swept it over the rows of skinned dogs hung on iron hooks, searching for the source of the chopping-block sounds.

Past those dogs whose innards and hides had just been stripped, Zhou Chang saw a tall, long-haired figure standing across from him, back turned.

That person faced a wall filthy with grime.

On the wall hung many iron knives glinting with cold light.

On the chopping block before the long-haired figure lay half a dog.

The figure—whose sex could not yet be made out—pressed one hand on the half-dog on the block and, with the other, swung a cleaver again and again, dismembering that half-dog.

A room hung full of skinned dogs, a madman wildly hacking meat, a dim and bitterly cold chamber…

All of this left Zhou Chang vaguely uneasy.

A sense of unknown danger kept warning him.

He swayed as he climbed down from the "bed," and the soles of his feet touched the icy floor—

Zhou Chang instinctively lowered his head to look, and only then realized he was wearing nothing but a pair of shorts.

The plank he had just been lying on was not a real bed either, but a massive chopping block.

On the blackened chopping block, suspicious bloodstains had already dried to black.

In the cracks of the block, the faint remains of rotting, spoiled flesh and bone could be glimpsed.

"Where did my clothes go?"

Zhou Chang's thoughts at the moment came in broken snatches, unable to link together into a complete line of reasoning—whatever he thought of was simply what he thought of.

His gaze searched the surroundings for a circle, and when he once more saw the tall, long-haired figure with its back to him, he suddenly realized—he was still in the middle of some unknown danger; this was no time to be looking for clothes.

Zhou Chang set his steps in motion, his body swaying and drifting, and walked toward the only door in the dim space that gave off light.

Rows of skinned dogs swept past on either side of his body.

From the hollow cavities of the skinned dogs drifted waves of foul stench.

He reached the doorway; below the two steps before the threshold lay a walkway paved with grey bricks, and on either side of the walkway the rooms stood with their doors half-shut, the interiors still dim and murky, their exact scenes impossible to make out.

The eaves on both sides crowded together to squeeze out a single narrow strip of sky, and that sky was pitch black.

Just as Zhou Chang lifted his foot to step over the threshold, his left thumb ached sharply, as though a rat had bitten him in secret; a rush of cold followed it shooting straight up to his forehead, instantly making him a touch clearer-headed.

He heard the sound of wind behind him!

Without thinking, he turned his head at once, and saw—

The tall, long-haired figure, a leather apron draped over its body, "he" held a gleaming sharp knife in one hand and, with the other, pushed aside the skinned dogs hanging on iron hooks that blocked its path forward.

The iron hooks swayed; dog corpses knocked together.

The clatter of iron on iron and the thud of flesh against flesh burst into a single din at once.

From the hollow cavities of those skinned dogs hung upside-down on iron hooks, an illusory, motley feast-qi seeped out.

The feast-qi spread through this dim, blackened room, and in a daze the pale-skinned dog corpses seemed to transform into people—some old, some young, but all wizened and emaciated!

The whole room full of corpses with their cavities cut open, swaying on iron hooks, their hollow remains!

Wave after wave of chill rushing toward the crown of Zhou Chang's head grew more intense!

The tall, long-haired figure, amid the feast-qi filling the whole room, suddenly drew close before Zhou Chang, and only now did Zhou Chang see its face clearly—beneath its mane of long hair, it unmistakably bore a pair of long-lashed eyes.

Below the round, rolling eyes, its nose was pitch black, its mouth long.

—It was a dog's face!

Yet it had grown on a human head!

"Hiss—" The dog-faced woman bared her lips, revealing a mouthful of canine teeth slick with saliva, and a threatening snarl burst from her mouth.

The corners of her mouth kept curling upward, the blood-red gums showing themselves, the skin on either side of her nose bunching together into savage folds!

Looking at that mouthful of foul, canine teeth, Zhou Chang thought of an old acquaintance—Li Xiamei.

Did this dog-faced woman have some connection to Li Xiamei?

Had he been brought here by Paper Face?

Zhou Chang was still turning the thought over when the dog-faced woman opposite had already thrust the sharp knife in her hand straight at him! Straight at his chest!

Whoosh!

Wisps and wisps of blood-red thought-silk drifted down from Zhou Chang's brow, wrapping directly around his entire left arm; his left hand's Hukou opened, and though he had struck out slower than the dog-faced woman, his hand reached the sharp knife in her grip a step faster—

His Hukou clamped tight on the dog-faced woman's knife-wielding wrist, and strand after strand of blood thought-silk, tethered to his spirit, suddenly exerted force!

Twang!

Every strand of thought-silk stretched taut like the limbs of a bow!

From the bone thumb-ring on Zhou Chang's left thumb came the sounds of a hound in pursuit, tearing and biting: "Ha—hiss—

Growl!

Wooo—"

He flipped his wrist, and the dog-faced woman's knife-wielding wrist was wrenched apart by him in an instant!

"Aoo!"

The dog-faced woman shrieked, clutching her broken wrist and retreating at once!

The sharp knife in her hand was also seized by Zhou Chang in his left.

Zhou Chang, knife in hand, advanced step by step on the dog-faced woman.

Wisps of thought-silk drifted with the turning of his thoughts, mobilized, and drifted into the seven thumb-ring Kong Dong on his left thumb; he fed his own spirit, along the thought-silk, into the seven "thoughts" within the thumb-ring Kong Dong.

Those seven thoughts within the thumb-ring Kong Dong likewise fed back to him more "chill."

It made his forehead grow colder and colder, his mind clearer and clearer, but though his mind was now clear, his limbs were always somewhat stiff, not as nimble as before.

—All along this path, he had walked on his tiptoes, his heels never touching the ground.

"Who are you? Why do you want to kill me?"

Zhou Chang pressed forward step by step, his shadow stretching behind him, spreading from beneath his feet all the way to the doorway.

Around that long shadow, at a glance it seemed to be followed by seven dogs.

"So frail and weak, and you still want to become a demon?"

Zhou Chang asked again.

The dog-faced woman growled and whimpered low, as if she could not understand his words, giving no response to his speech at all.

Only, just as she was about to retreat into the corner, Zhou Chang caught in those pitch-black eyes of hers a flash of cunning that vanished in an instant!

"Third Sister! Third Sister!"

A sharp female voice burst from the dog-faced woman's mouth!

At the same moment she opened her mouth to speak, that one intact arm had already lifted a corpse hanging from an iron hook and hurled it straight at Zhou Chang's head!

Zhou Chang watched a human corpse with an empty chest cavity come flying at him; the knife he had already raised suddenly dropped, and he twisted sideways to dodge the corpse!

The next instant, the dog-faced woman grabbed an iron hook and came at him again!

At this point Zhou Chang still did not know what meaning that cry of "Third Sister" held, until the dog-faced woman with her iron hook drew near his body, when he suddenly heard behind him the drifting voice of Paper Face: "Sister, I'm here…"

Hearing that voice, Zhou Chang could almost see the smile on its face at that moment.

That voice was at a distance of mere inches behind Zhou Chang's ear.

As Paper Face spoke, an icy chill swept through Zhou Chang's whole body; he froze on the spot and could not move at all!