Leaving aside the feasibility of the girls’ escape plan—
As for the plan itself, they intended to abandon ship and swim to the shore after leaving the Cow Immortal’s cave, but now Yun Mingyue and Ye Tian had become Falling-Flower Cave Maidens. All their thoughts and desires revolved around becoming brides to the Cave God.
They sang and danced, gazing dreamily at the cave, their souls seemingly trapped, wracked with pain, yet able only to keep dancing.
Before Yun Mingyue and Ye Tian were taken away by their respective parents, Jiang Yan saw the tangled, knotted complexity of their desires.
Above their heads, various faces would flicker into view; it seemed as if their souls were shackled, in torment, but forced to keep dancing.
After everyone watched the two girls leave, no one was in any mood for swimming. They all went back to the school.
Lan Lin pulled out the answer sheet that needed to be filled in.
[Before the ritual begins, please write your answers on this page—
1. Who am I among the seven?
2. Why am I in such pain?]
“Any ideas for the first question?” she asked.
Zhang Du shrugged. “I feel like you could write anyone’s name, or just put them all down.”
Mint Candy chimed in as well. “I thought, after the cattle-rearing class, things would get easier. The spirit even gave us this question sheet… The energy field can’t force us to stay, so it has to give a path to clear, but it’s rare for it to be this direct. I thought the spirit was lowering the difficulty for us, but now it’s clear that’s not the case at all—”
Her tone lengthened with distress: “I’m so muddled—everyone has had it hard, but everyone has had happiness, too. Some gave up fighting, some were forced to. And each suffered in their own way. I still have no idea who the spirit is, much less why she’s in such pain!”
Shen Huanhuan offered a soothing smile. “Don’t worry, we have more than a day left.”
“Sister Jiang Yan and I discussed it. Since the spirit gave up on rule-based killing, that means she’s sure we can’t guess the answer. She believes that even if we see the whole story, we still won’t get it right, so she didn’t bother with elaborate rules this time.”
“So let’s focus less on the story as a whole, and more on the details. Maybe we’ll spot something strange there.”
Jiang Yan lounged comfortably, watching Shen Huanhuan.
After Shen Huanhuan spoke, she glanced at Jiang Yan’s relaxed posture and curved her eyes into a smile. “Sister Jiang Yan, do you have any guesses?”
Everyone turned toward Jiang Yan, eyes full of anticipation.
[These puppy-dog eyes are killing me.]
[Jiang Yan: Aren’t we different teams? So why are you all looking at me like I’m your captain?]
[Sister Yan: Just slacking off now, don’t bother cueing me.]
Jiang Yan: “Go through the motions first.”
So Shen Huanhuan copied Jiang Yan’s usual style and said: “Let’s summarize what we know.”
She took the lead: “The underlying logic of this energy field is rules-based horror. To survive, you have to find a loophole in the rules, which means the spirit lived in a world full of restrictions, always struggling to survive between the lines.”
Lan Lin nodded. “That fits every girl here.”
She pondered a moment, then added: “The cattle-rearing class had two goals, as designed by the spirit: first, to test if we’d be good mothers; second, to see if we respect the faith in the calves—at least outwardly.”
“In that class, the chicks and lambs represented children in a family. The unloved ones would envy the others and also hate their mother, but both chicks and lambs were food for the calf. That’s what the spirit hoped for, what she desired: that if there must be a sacrifice, the mother would give both children, so she could not hate her mother and would always be remembered by her. We satisfied that desire, so we cleared the cattle-rearing class.”
“As for the calves in the class…” Lan Lin thought, then said, “They represent faith. Only those who believe in the Cow Immortal can attend Wuhai Girls’ School; previous rules stressed the Cow Immortal’s sacred status.”
“But based on what we’ve seen, none of these girls actually believes in the Cow Immortal; in fact, they’re dying because of it. I’ve never understood why this energy field needs a cattle-rearing class.”
She said, “Honestly, if I died because of a groundless sacrifice, I’d hate the Cow Immortal. In that extreme state, I’d torment everything bovine in my energy field, not feed it.”
Chat scrolled with agreement:
[Yes, exactly! Lan Lin nailed what’s been feeling weird all along.]
[Yeah, right from the start this energy field has seemed off—maybe that’s why.]
Jiang Yan spoke up:
“That’s because the spirit does believe in the Cow Immortal.”
Lan Lin turned to Jiang Yan. “Can you explain your reasoning?”
Yu Renwan answered softly, “Jiang Jiang mentioned this before.”
“The eyes on the calves’ faces weren’t just corrupting people but their own divine nature too. Calves without eyes were pure and sweet, like the Cow Immortal from five hundred years ago, but then things changed. The man-eating Cow Immortal is not the one Taoyuan Village once revered.”
“What the spirit worshipped was the Cow Immortal of five centuries past.”
Jiang Yan shook her head. “That was my guess two days ago—it seemed too simple then.”
She went on calmly, “The spirit never saw the original Cow Immortal. No matter how the villagers described it, what she actually saw was the man-eating one in the cave. It’s hard to feel real faith that way.”
“So I suspect that, during the sacrifice, the spirit actually saw the real Cow Immortal and developed a fleeting, complicated faith.”
“This conflict—faith and hatred tangled—made the spirit’s posthumous energy field so emotionally contradictory; that’s why the story inside is inconsistent.”
Lan Lin grew thoughtful.
After a long pause, she ruffled her blue hair, sounding helpless.
“But we have to answer the questions before the ceremony; we can’t follow her into the cave to see what really happened. If the answer depends on what happened there, then…”
Jiang Yan’s lips twitched into a smile. “Doesn’t matter.”
“I already have my guess. I just want to see one more storyline play out to be sure.”
*
That afternoon, Jiang Yan wandered around the back of the school.
Maybe because police had tightened security on the outskirts of Jiangcheng, no new people had wandered into the energy field these past days.
Granny Zhuang, leaning on her cane, took a walk with Jiang Yan.
The old woman was slow, but Jiang Yan didn’t wait for her. She was certainly older than Granny Zhuang herself—so she wasn’t sentimental about respecting the elderly, simply moving forward on her own.
When she reached the riverbank, she settled onto a stone to rest.
It was several minutes before Granny Zhuang made it over, set her cane aside, and sat on the rock beside her.
They watched the river a while.
In Taoyuan Village, this was a river only men could swim in; if a girl went in, she risked approaching the cave, being chosen by the Cave God, and losing her mind, becoming a Falling-Flower Cave Maiden.
Granny Zhuang had also come out that morning and witnessed everything; she gazed distantly at the cave.
“These poor girls,” she said.
Jiang Yan casually made a sound. After a moment, Granny Zhuang suddenly said, “Something’s happened to Little Wang’s daughter, hasn’t it?”
Jiang Yan raised an eyebrow and looked at her.
Granny Zhuang waved her hand, her kindly face tinged with sadness. “We elders have seen a lot.”
“Any time Little Wang mentions his daughter, your faces all change—especially that white-haired girl. Decades ago, after my home was destroyed in an earthquake, I asked the nurse how my youngest girl was. Those nurses had just the same look.”
“These next few days I’ll tell Little Wang about my own daughter. It took me years to get past it, but in the end, I did.”
Jiang Yan remained silent.
Her task was merely to get as many ordinary people out as possible—she cared little for their psychological well-being.
The sound of the river lapping at shore was soothing.
Wordlessly, the two sat for a while. Granny Zhuang wasn’t bothered by Jiang Yan’s attitude.
Eventually, she patted the smooth stone. “Forgive an old woman for rambling. I heard you all talking at noon. I didn’t catch everything, but I understood some things.”
She didn’t wait for Jiang Yan to reply, simply went on: “When I was young, our village favored boys. In those days, no one cared; many girls were drowned as babies, every household did it. If my own mother hadn’t been sickly and needed me to look after my brother, I’d likely have been killed as well.”
“I saw plenty of little girls drowned, eyes never even opened. The other girls and I would watch; we weren’t angry, some of us even smiled. No one told us it was wrong, no one taught us right from wrong. In our minds, we were alive thanks to the protection of our brothers. If not for our mothers wanting us to care for them, we would have died too, so we were never angry about anyone else’s fate.”
“We saw our lives as lucky happenstance. When another girl died, at most we felt she was unlucky, not born into our home. At those times, I felt secretly proud—happy to have been born right.”
“But honestly, what’s there to be proud of?” Granny Zhuang looked at Jiang Yan. “I only learned better after my parents died and my aunt took me to the city.”
“These years, I’ve been filled with regret. By the time I understood girls’ lives mattered too, I’d already seen over a dozen little girls die before my eyes.”
“My ears still echo with the laughter of those men standing by as the girls drowned. When they laughed, they’d call their friends to laugh with them.”
“I’m no good with words,” the old woman sighed, “but… child, do you understand?”
Jiang Yan looked sidelong at Granny Zhuang.
After a while, she smiled.
“That’s exactly what I’ve been thinking about.”
“You’ll be able to leave here on your own, Granny Zhuang.”
*
That night, the timeline jumped to after the school holiday.
When Zhou Xiahua returned, she was utterly changed.
Her usual vitality and warmth were gone; her arms and knees were scraped, her clothes dirty and face sooty.
Back in the dorm, she slid down the wall by the door and collapsed, hiding her face in her hands as she wept.
Yu Renwan ran to her and held her, but for a long time, Xiahua didn’t move. Then, at last, she dropped her hands, face streaked with tears.
“Mingyue and Ye Tian don’t recognize me anymore.”
Yu Renwan stayed crouched in place, at a loss for how to comfort her.
Zhou Xiahua choked out, “Yinghuo’s mom found out about the hidden razor blade—her mother guessed she was planning to cut her bindings during the sacrifice, so she slashed Yinghuo’s hands with a butcher’s knife. When I went to their house, her aunt drove me off. I never even saw her.”
She asked Yu Renwan, “Why is it like this?”
“Why us? What unforgivable mistake did we make?”
“We just want to live. Is that really so wicked?”
Tears fell on Yu Renwan’s arm. She didn’t know how to respond—just squatted there and watched Zhou Xiahua cry.
After a while, someone knocked at the dorm door.
Outside, Han Yinghuo’s loud, earthy shout rang out: “Don’t worry, Xiahua! I’m back, tough as ever!”
Xiahua immediately scrambled up, wiping her eyes, and opened the door.
Han Yinghuo held out her hands—wrapped completely in white cloth. As Xiahua’s tears threatened, Han Yinghuo rushed to explain:
“Just the tendon in my right hand was cut, the left is only lightly hurt—no big deal.”
“Really, what a mom, huh? I’ve been her daughter for seventeen years, and she still doesn’t know I’m left-handed, hahaha.”
“There’s a banquet at the headman’s place tonight. Xu Xing says she’s planning to imitate Zhao Yao and steal a boat—she’ll scout around the cave and confirm the route. Don’t worry, we’ll all get out together!”
Jiang Yan watched Han Yinghuo from the doorway.
After a few heartbeats, she approached and touched the left strap of Yinghuo’s backpack, then the right.
Han Yinghuo was puzzled: “What’s up?”
Jiang Yan: “Did your mom make this backpack?”
“No way,” Yinghuo replied. “It was my brother’s castoff.”
“Is your brother left-handed?”
Han Yinghuo thought about it, then shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
Jiang Yan raised her lips in a half smile and nodded.
Han Yinghuo pulled Xiahua away to talk. Jiang Yan watched them go, then pulled out the answer sheet, and a pen from her bag.
Noticing what she was doing, the chat exploded in question marks.
[??]
[????]
[Am I seeing things? She’s answering now??]
[I thought she’d procrastinate till the last second—she’s starting a whole day early?!]
“Jiang Jiang…”
Yu Renwan followed anxiously, but Jiang Yan waved her off, laid the paper flat on the table, and skipped the first question.
She looked straight at the second:
—[Why am I in such pain?]
With a casual flick, Jiang Yan wrote:
[1. Taoyuan Village’s reality is far more complicated than you think. There is no deep-rooted male favoritism—at least, not in this generation. What pains you is how long you’ve tortured yourself with hatred.]
Almost at once, a red [30%] completion mark appeared after the sentence.
Jiang Yan glanced at it, and wrote again:
[2. Your brother is not scum; he is a girl.]
The chat filled with rows of [?]
Everyone was stunned.
As Yu Renwan sucked in a sharp breath, after the second sentence appeared [60%] on the answer progress.
Jiang Yan set down the pen and leisurely put away the paper.
“I’ll write the rest tomorrow. I want to see the final storyline unfold.”