One hour earlier.
When the broadcast sounded at two in the morning, Zhang Ming had not yet gone to sleep.
Although he already sensed his impending fate, he still rose dutifully at the announcement, and, as instructed, carefully fed the bran from his sack to the ewe.
He continued until both handfuls of bran had been fed.
“Still hungry?”
The ewe shook her head with a curiously human gesture. Zhang Ming smiled and stroked her gently.
Time seemed to slow now, and all around was silent. Lowering his head, he observed the ewe closely.
When he first adopted her, the ewe bore his daughter’s face only at the back of her head. At that time, she was constantly giving birth to lambs. He could not accept his daughter in such a state. She was only twelve, just starting middle school. Even knowing for certain that his daughter was dead, it was unbearable to see her face upon an ewe, turned into a birthing machine.
So he had adopted her without hesitation.
Yet now, as time passed, not only the back of the ewe’s head but also her entire face was growing ever more like his daughter’s. The horns had vanished, the jutting muzzle gradually receded, her features grew flat, her eyes were clear, and soft pink lips appeared on the sheep’s face.
It would not be long before the ewe’s head fully became his daughter’s.
But he would not live to see that day.
Zhang Ming managed a bitter smile, then grabbed a handful of bran to feed the chicks. Their beaks pecked sharply at his palm, but Zhang Ming seemed unfazed, turning his gaze back to the ewe.
Sensing his attention, the ewe curled her lips in a smile.
Though the expression was strange, her eyes were oddly gentle.
My daughter never smiled this way, Zhang Ming thought.
She was always lively and restless, fond of contradicting him, insisting that even children had independent personalities and freedom, always doing things she thought “cool,” like picking up all sorts of slang or sneaking off to pierce her ears. Zhang Ming had been angry—because she feared a proper shop would refuse her, she’d gone to a street stall, where hygiene was poor, and she developed an infection as soon as she got home.
“I have to apologize to you,” Zhang Ming said.
“I shouldn’t have lost my temper with you that day. I just thought that street stall was far too unsafe…” He glanced quickly at the ceiling, forcing down a surge of emotion, then looked the ewe in the eye. “If anyone before you had been ill, you’d have caught it.”
“I’m calm now, I’ve thought it through. What you did was wrong, but that’s because I never taught you anything about hygiene. I was always too strict. The stricter I was, the more rebellious you became. I shouldn’t have shouted at you that day, shouldn’t have sent you out to reflect. I didn’t expect you would really run away—to the city outskirts—and never come back.”
Zhang Ming slumped onto his cot. He was neither tall nor strong; his skin was deeply tanned from years of labor in the sun—anyone would have seen only an ordinary middle-aged man.
Sensing his grief, the ewe approached and laid her head tenderly on his knee.
After a few minutes, the man shook out his bedding, dusted it off, then lifted the ewe onto the bed.
“You’re all grown now. After kindergarten, you never clung to me again… Tonight is our last night together, just father and daughter.”
“Go on and sleep.”
With that, the man switched off the lamp in the stable and lay down on the bed.
All around fell utterly black.
With thoughts and worries weighing on his mind, sleep would not come. He found himself—in spite of his fear—growing curious about how exactly he would meet his end.
No one knows by what split second fate or accident will take them.
But he knew.
It would be within the next few hours.
That formidable-looking woman had forbade everyone from feeding the young, for they would quickly grow. Nor were they to express fondness, as the human heart is no instrument of perfect measure. No one could be entirely impartial, and a hint of favoritism would provoke resentment.
They would grow up, they would hate, and then the person would die.
He was even more exceptional. Rather than a lamb, he had adopted a grown ewe; she was already mature, with little room to grow. And he utterly failed at hiding his bias for her; the chicks’ hatred was palpable, almost boring right through his spine.
His thoughts drifted as his eyes drooped shut.
Terrifying as this place was, exhaustion prevailed; it had been far too long since he’d rested. His mind grew heavier, his body sinking ever deeper into sleep’s darkness.
Just as he was slipping into deep slumber, his eyes were suddenly suffused with red—a clear light shining onto his lids.
His eyelids fluttered. Slowly, he opened his eyes.
But the red illumination was not dazzling. All he saw was a world suffused with crimson. If it needed describing, it was as if the entire world had turned blood red. At first, he thought he was dreaming, and closed his eyes, intent on more sleep. But feeling the cold hardness of the bed beneath him, a sudden realization struck: he remembered where he was.
At once, all sleep vanished.
Zhang Ming studied the redness before his eyes, glancing about. The sheaves of wheat in the corner had vanished—or rather, the entire corner was gone, replaced by nothing but a pure, vivid red. Around the edges, he saw a layer of downy, hair-like fibers. He frowned, peered intently, and thought he glimpsed something new.
—That little black speck that appears on a yolk after an egg has been fertilized.
The more Zhang Ming stared, the more he became convinced. He gazed at it in confusion for over ten seconds. As if drawn, he almost reached out to touch this “egg”—and in that instant, the red vanished.
Darkness returned.
Before he could process what had happened, the red reappeared.
This time, the “egg” swiveled from side to side, as if it had seen something thrilling.
At this sight, a blinding realization flashed through Zhang Ming’s mind—he suddenly understood.
It was no egg; it was a pupil.
A pair of red eyes was hovering no more than a centimeter from his own. Wherever he looked, they rolled to follow, blocking his view.
“Daddy, why are you trembling?”
The thing above him spoke.
But Zhang Ming knew this was not his daughter.
Outside, moonlight bled dimly through the window, and Zhang Ming glimpsed the monstrous shadow of a chicken stretching across the wall, its form so twisted and massive it nearly filled the room.
It thrust its head toward his bed, opening its beak to reveal rows of needle-like teeth. “Daddy, why are you afraid?”
“Don’t you love me anymore?”
Zhang Ming shook more violently. He was simply an ordinary man. The fetid saliva from the chicken’s jaws dripped onto his face, and he instinctively tried to edge away.
At that moment, the ewe at his side rose to her feet.
She uttered a gentle, comforting bleat, then shielded the man behind her, rearing up to lash out at the giant chicken with her forehooves.
But her attack was pitifully ineffective.
The difference in their sizes and strength was astronomical.
With effortless ease, the giant chicken snapped the ewe’s foreleg and chewed it with relish.
The sound of bones cracking was horrifically sharp; blood mixed with saliva dripped onto the bed. The creature gazed hungrily at both man and ewe.
Staggering from blood loss, the ewe still forced herself upright, pushing the man toward safety with her hind legs, urging him to hide.
The giant chicken seemed amused, watching, but the more it observed the scene, the angrier it became:
“If you loved me, I would protect you this way too. Even though that love would make me weak, I would still protect you!”
“Why don’t you love me?!”
“Why don’t you love me?!!”
The chicken seized the ewe by the nape and bit down hard. A foul spray of blood gushed forth. Zhang Ming saw his daughter’s face swinging helplessly in the chicken’s mouth, and, tears flooding his eyes, he flung himself desperately at the monster.
But the giant chicken didn’t budge.
With contempt, it spat the ewe from its jaws, tossing her into the air. Zhang Ming scrambled to catch her as she crashed down, clutching her face to his own.
“Daddy will always love you,” he murmured.
Watching the obstinate man, the chicken seemed to swell ever larger. Furious, it opened its bloody maw and bit into both their heads.
Crunch, crunch—
The skin-crawling sound rang through the night, like someone chewing pig cartilage.
With their heads bitten off, scalding blood from the man’s severed arteries sprayed across the walls. Droplets left smears where they ran down. The giant chicken crushed both human and ewe heads in its mouth, then licked its lips.
Its face was radiant with pleasure—pure revenge.
Minutes later, the chicken shrank back to normal size. Having devoured both man and sheep, it had grown from chick to adult. It leapt onto the bed, curling up in the spot where Zhang Ming had lain.
“What’s so special about them? Why wouldn’t you love me…?”
“You deserved this…”
As the adult chicken muttered, two faces gradually surfaced on the back of its head—one Zhang Ming’s, one the ewe’s. No sooner had they appeared than they began to tear at each other, fighting for territory.
The man devoured the ewe’s eyes; the ewe chewed away the man’s cheeks.
After a struggle, the man prevailed.
With only half a face remaining, he expressionlessly gnawed the sheep face that so resembled his daughter’s.
*
Shen Huanhuan recounted all of this to Jiang Yan.
Jiang Yan pondered for a long time.
Softly, Shen Huanhuan said, “The man probably never realized at the moment of death…”
“He didn’t know that his dearest ewe had eaten his daughter. If she hadn’t devoured his daughter, the ewe’s nape would never have borne the girl’s face…”
Jiang Yan nodded slowly.
At that moment, several comments scrolled across the livestream:
[Even if he had known, could he bear to kill that ewe himself?]
[How could he not bear it??]
[It had his daughter’s face. However much pain the ewe felt dying, that face would reflect it in agony.]
[…]
But the man was already dead. Any further debate was useless.
Now the clouds masking the moon drifted away, letting silver light into the room. A venomous snake as thick as a man’s arm appeared on the window ledge.
A few lambs’ eyes gleamed—they dashed frantically to the window. Without so much as looking up, Jiang Yan flicked her hand: the black-and-white striped snake went instantly stiff, dead beyond all rescue.
The lambs: “………”
This was the seventh snake Jiang Yan had killed that night.
While listening to Shen Huanhuan’s story, she’d been interrupted by more than one snake slithering into the stable, as well as the arrival of red-and-black venomous insects, crawling in piles from the corners.
At first, Jiang Yan refrained from intervening, quietly observing what the venomous insects would do.
She saw the chicks dash to stomp the bugs with eager delight, then quickly gulp down three or five dead carcasses each.
The chicks’ faces immediately grew plumper.
Then Jiang Yan understood.
—A venomous plague of snakes and insects invading the stable, with chicks and lambs rising to defend their master and, with the owner’s tacit approval, killing the pests—those corpses counted as food offered to the chicks and lambs, thus allowing them to grow.
Realizing this, Jiang Yan ensured that neither venomous insect nor snake survived more than three seconds in her vicinity.
[It’s amazing—no matter how many times I see it!]
[Does anyone actually know what Jiang Yan’s psychic ability is?]
[No idea, but it’s surely a top-tier talent.]
[Looks like the kind of ability that’s not easily revealed.]
Jiang Yan was unaware of the discussion concerning her power. Having finished off several more venomous pests with a wave of her hand, she leaned against the wall by the window.
She tried to summarize what she had found.
Given what she had just learned, her earlier deductions were essentially confirmed.
When the man first adopted the ewe, it showed a human face only at the back of its head; by early dawn, the entire head took on human features. In a matter of hours, it would become a sheep with a full human head.
Earlier, while searching for a wok, she had found seventeen people in the second stable from the left, some as chicken-headed men, others as sheep-headed, still others kneeling with hooves emerging.
Thus, there was a clear process in the creation of human-headed chickens and sheep.
—On a particular night, the adopter gets their head bitten off by a “non-favored” chicken or sheep. Their face then appears on the back of an adult chicken or sheep, which in turn lays eggs or gives birth to more chicks or lambs. Once an animal becomes a “human-headed chicken or sheep,” it’s moved to a special stable. Every night, Teacher Wang selects one to be plucked, stewed, and fed to the river ox.
The catalyst for someone becoming a human-headed chicken or sheep was simple—playing favorites with one chick or lamb.
Once a given chick or lamb’s resentment peaked, it would attack the adopter and its rival animal. The favored animal would try to defend the human, but this only aggravated the jealousy, heightening the violence of the attack.
Jiang Yan knew that, once she projected any emotion onto the chickens or lambs, bias was inevitable.
She was no measuring instrument. It was impossible to apply identical patience and equal food perfectly to each animal. So, she simply gave nothing. Or, more precisely—appeared to give everything yet, in truth, withheld it all.
But now, aside from that trap, there was another.
The wandering spirit behind this was constantly creating conditions—trying to force everyone’s chicks and lambs to grow up as quickly as possible.
There were three known ways this could happen:
First, by giving them enough patience and food.
Second, via the content of the song lyrics.
Third, by letting them eat venomous snakes or bugs.
None of these posed a particular problem for Jiang Yan, but for ordinary people, it was a different story.
Take the third method: unless someone is strong and skilled, most people cannot fight off venomous snakes and insects. If they hope the chicks and lambs will protect them, the animals end up feasting on the aftermath of the fight, and so, grow up.
Even if people knew not to let their chicks and lambs grow, for self-preservation, they had little choice but to use them for battle—letting them eat and grow to survive.
Jiang Yan had her own theories about this.
She believed the calves’ food was meant to be the chicks and lambs. If allowed to grow, they’d become too large for the calves to swallow, causing the livestock class to fail.
So she surmised the objective of the class was simple: to have each adopted chick or lamb voluntarily eaten by the little calves.
According to the rules, no one could actively harm the chicks or lambs, nor could they feed the calves directly. Only by letting the calves eat the chicks and lambs of their own accord could the class conclude.
As for how to entice them to do so, Jiang Yan had an idea—though it would be difficult to execute alone, and she would need to consult others.
Finally—and most urgent of all—the livestock class had best end next period.
Teacher Wang had made it abundantly clear: the class had to be completed within three days.
Though time was running short, Uncle Wang had been trapped here for two days already. If they wanted him to live, the class had to end tonight.
With this in mind, Jiang Yan shared her thoughts with Shen Huanhuan.
Shen Huanhuan recapped, “So—the potential death conditions are four: break any rule; show favoritism to an animal; let one grow too large; or fail to complete the class in three days?”
Jiang Yan nodded. “Yes.”
Shen Huanhuan pondered. “We can handle the first three now. But the last one…”
She frowned in concern. “How do we get those calves to take the initiative and eat the chicks and lambs?”
Her faith in Jiang Yan was such that she didn’t even question if this really was the way to complete the class.
Jiang Yan had already given it thought, and replied:
“Since this is rule-based, calf rearing must have specific regulations too—with minute-to-minute feeding times and extremely strict methods. If Teacher Wang is unable to fulfill the requirements, she too will trigger the death condition.”
“So my current plan is to create obstacles.”
Jiang Yan’s tone was calm. “Make it so that Teacher Wang, when unable to manage, will have no choice but to ask us for help.”