Since all these rules and superstitions are outdated, what's wrong with me indulging in some me

After darkness completely enveloped the room, only the heavy breathing of the two people remained.

Park Bo-soo nervously gripped a short knife, sat against the wall, and stared intently at the crack in the door.

Yamamoto Ichiro was relatively calmer. He sat cross-legged on the earthen bed, holding a string of prayer beads in his hand and gripping an unsheathed long sword tightly in his left.

However, the nights in the village are clearly not easy to get through peacefully.

At first, there was the sound of the wind, then faint sobs and the scratching of nails swept past outside, seemingly not lingering long at their door.

Park Bo-soo breathed a slight sigh of relief, but Yamamoto Ichiro's fingers, which were twirling the prayer beads, paused slightly. He felt a tightness in his chest, as if something was pressing down on him.

"Mr. Park..."

Yamamoto Ichiro tried to wake Park Bo-soo, but received no response even after calling out several times.

Park Bo-soo looked as if he were asleep, with his eyes closed.

Yamamoto Ichiro took a deep breath, feeling increasingly short of breath.

Could it be... that it's gotten dirty from something?

The moment that thought crossed my mind, something unexpected happened!

Without warning, one of the prayer beads in Yamamoto Ichiro's hand cracked open with a thin crack!

Almost simultaneously, he felt a chilling sensation on the back of his neck, as if someone was breathing on the back of his neck!

"Who?!"

Yamamoto Ichiro suddenly turned around and threw the rosary behind him!

The prayer beads swept across the air, touching nothing. But the chill on the back of his neck suddenly intensified and quickly spread downwards, wrapping around his shoulders and arms!

"Park Bo-soo! There's something here!"

Yamamoto Ichiro let out a low growl and tried to get up from the kang (heated brick bed), but found that his body had become unusually heavy and stiff, as if he were bound by invisible ice chains!

Even more terrifying, the scene before his eyes began to distort and blur. The earthen bed, the walls, everything was shrouded in a layer of gray mist. In the mist, countless tiny, pale arms were vaguely dancing and reaching out to grab him.

Hallucination? Or a real attack?

Yamamoto Ichiro felt he had no ability to resist at all; the oxygen he was breathing was getting less and less, and he was about to suffocate in the next second!

Park Bo-soo sat against the wall with his eyes closed and his breathing even, as if he had truly fallen asleep, showing no reaction to Yamamoto Ichiro's shouts and the strange occurrences outside.

However, beneath his lowered eyelids, his eyes were moving violently.

His heart was pounding, and his palms, gripping the dagger, were drenched in cold sweat, but he forced himself to remain motionless, even deliberately relaxing his muscles.

Pretending to be asleep!

He wasn't asleep at all!

He was awakened the moment Yamamoto Ichiro's rosary cracked and he cried out in alarm; or rather, he never dared to truly fall asleep.

"Yamamoto-kun, I'm sorry..." he murmured silently in his heart, but his body remained motionless.

Just then, the door they were blocking suddenly shook violently!

"Bang!"

It wasn't a knock, but rather as if a huge object was slamming against the door! The door latch groaned under the strain, and the clutter supporting the door shifted!

"Outside...there's some outside too!"

Park Bo-soo's heart nearly jumped out of her throat.

At this critical moment—

"Bang!"

There was another muffled thud, but this time the sound came from outside the door, accompanied by a short, shrill, inhuman scream!

Immediately afterwards, the banging and the chilling scraping sounds outside the door came to an abrupt halt.

The chill in the room receded quickly, like a receding tide.

Yamamoto Ichiro's body went limp, and he collapsed onto the heated brick bed, coughing violently. His eyes regained focus, but were filled with lingering fear. The hallucinations and the cold touch that had plagued him vanished.

Park Bo-soo quickly got up, stood there stunned, holding the knife, at a loss for what to do.

Outside the door, deathly silence returned.

But this deathly silence only lasted a few seconds.

A slightly aged but strong male voice rang out from outside the door; the voice wasn't loud, but it clearly entered the room:

"Are the guests inside alright? There was some unruly 'thing' earlier, I chased it away."

Yamamoto Ichiro and Park Bo-soo exchanged a surprised and uncertain glance.

Villagers? They were rescued?

The voice outside the door continued, its tone calm.

"The village is not peaceful tonight. We apologize for disturbing you, guests. Please take good care of yourselves."

After he finished speaking, footsteps sounded, gradually fading away and disappearing into the alley.

Inside the room, Yamamoto Ichiro slumped on the floor, his clothes already soaked with cold sweat.

The relief of surviving the ordeal was intertwined with deeper doubts.

Did the villagers...save them?

Why?

Although Yamamoto and Park Bo-soo are relatively conservative and cautious, neither of them is dull-witted.

Does this mean that the villagers accepted the "good intentions"?

Is this genuine intention to help them?

Or is there another motive?

Why were the villagers able to appear so quickly? Was it a coincidence, or... were they secretly "watching" them all along?

This night was destined to be long and sleepless for Yamamoto Ichiro.

Inside the room where Lu Changsheng was, the color of the talisman on the door remained stable at a dark red, no longer deepening.

Silence returned outside the door, but the sweet, fishy, ​​and malicious scent that permeated the air remained undiminished.

As dawn broke, the pale light struggled to pierce the thick morning fog, bringing a bleak brightness to the deathly silent village.

Lu Changsheng practically counted down the hours until the second half of the night.

The strange noises outside the door stopped in the latter half of the night, and the nightmare never occurred.

Lu Changsheng slowly opened his eyes. He glanced at Cheng Caijun, who was curled up beside him and had just fallen asleep. Instead of waking him up immediately, he got up, walked to the door, and listened intently.

There was silence outside. He carefully opened the door. The wooden door creaked softly and slowly opened a crack.

The expected swarms of poisonous insects did not appear; the area outside the door was empty.

Lu Changsheng breathed a slight sigh of relief and opened the door fully. The cool morning breeze rushed in, dispelling the stuffiness inside. He walked into the courtyard, his gaze sweeping around warily.

The doors to the other rooms also opened one after another.

An Zhiyu and Emily were the first to come out, both looking a little tired.

Emily stretched and mumbled something under her breath.

Kevin helped Mark, whose face was still pale but who was clearly in much better spirits, out of the room.

Hearing the door open, Yamamoto Ichiro and Park Bo-soo also came out. Yamamoto looked terrible, with dark circles under his eyes and lingering fear in his gaze. Park Bo-soo, on the other hand, cautiously looked around.

Just then, with a creak, the door to the last room opened.

Everyone was taken aback and looked over.

Isn't that the room of the big black man?

The door opened, revealing a gaunt, bloodless face.

A long-haired man named Ivan suddenly walked out of the room!

He was still dressed in black, with long hair flowing down his back and his face as pale as paper.

What's even more striking is that the dark red, menacing wound on the side of his neck has faded considerably, its edges have narrowed, leaving only a thin, light red mark, as if it had healed almost completely overnight!