Chapter 213: A Midnight Knock at the Door

I asked him, “Why did you bring a bowl along?”

He Yu snorted, clearly dissatisfied with my question. “I asked the guesthouse for it yesterday. Can’t you try to eat with a little more care? When you’re out in the field, how can you work if you don’t eat well? It seems I’m the only one worrying about our basic needs. You? You’re completely unreliable.”

Muttering under his breath, he poured a packet of soup base from a vacuum bag into the bowl and added some snow water he had collected on the mountain earlier. Once it was steaming over the fire, he told us to hold out our disposable bowls and ladled it out for us one by one.

Being able to drink hot soup in this weather was incredibly comforting. I was moved nearly to tears. After the soup, He Yu opened a tin of meat and grilled it for us. I ate until I was full to bursting, burping with satisfaction.

Old Qian held his grease-slicked bowl and gave He Yu a thumbs-up. “Young Master He, I truly admire your culinary skills. Some other day, come over to my place and we’ll have a drink. I’ll be your kitchen hand.”

With everyone full and satisfied, we left He Yu to watch the first half of the night. The three of us crawled into our sleeping bags, listening to the agonizing howl of the cold wind outside. Qian Deli had a great deal of trust in us; he fell fast asleep the moment his head hit the ground. I’ve always been a bit of a light sleeper in strange beds, so I lay there staring at the ceiling, exhausted but unable to drift off.

The gale roared outside, and the snow hissed against the wooden walls. In such an unfamiliar environment, I couldn’t fall asleep at all. He Yu sat with his back to us by the fire, smoking one cigarette after another to stay alert. Seeing him there gave me a sense of security.

I pulled my bedding tighter and rolled over, preparing to close my eyes and sleep. But the moment I closed them, the image of that herd of deer kept lingering in my mind.

I suddenly recalled something from my primary school nature classes. Generally speaking, skittish animals like deer don’t actively provoke humans. Yet what we had just seen was a herd standing there together, their eyes fixed intently on us. That wasn’t how normal deer behaved at all. Where had they come from? And why were they standing there watching us?

The more I thought about it, the stranger and more frightening it became. My mind was a mess, while outside, the wind kept whistling away on its own, sounding just like the soundtrack of a horror story I’d watched as a kid.

Just as I was considering getting up to swap shifts with He Yu, Lu Ayao spoke up beside me. His voice was very soft, accompanied by the rustle of the wind outside. “Go to sleep. Stop thinking about it.”

His words made me feel like I had been seen right through, as if the guy had eyes in the back of his head. I pulled the sleeping bag away from my eyes and saw Lu Ayao lying with his back to me. A bit annoyed, I covered my eyes again, rolled over to the other side, and wrapped myself up to sleep.

Eventually, I must have forgotten whatever nonsense I was worrying about and drifted off. Near midnight, I vaguely heard some movement nearby, likely He Yu and Lu Ayao switching shifts. I caught a snippet of it but ignored it; I was too tired and went right back to sleep.

I don’t know how much time passed, but I felt someone gently shaking my sleeping bag. Annoyed at having my sweet dream interrupted, I instinctively pushed the person’s hand away, wrapped my sleeping bag tighter around myself, and tried to keep sleeping. But the person reached out and shook me again, waking me up instantly.

I opened my eyes to total darkness.

Why was the fire out? I wondered, feeling a surge of confusion.

I rubbed my eyes, my vision still blurry, and saw Lu Ayao crouching beside me, shaking me awake. For a moment, I couldn’t grasp what was going on. I looked around; He Yu was still snoring beside me, and Old Qian was curled up like a mouse, fast asleep.

“What’s wrong?” I sat up and pulled on the down jacket Lu Ayao handed me.

Lu Ayao made a gesture for silence and pointed toward the door. He looked extremely alert, already clutching his whip and Kukri in his hands. I was very familiar with this state of his, and it jolted me halfway to full wakefulness. I scrambled out of my sleeping bag and crouched down beside him.

I could understand most of his hand signals, but what he was indicating now seemed strange. Was he saying someone had been following us and was finally moving in now that we’d stopped?

Furthermore, Lu Ayao had only woken me, leaving He Yu and Qian Deli asleep. This had never happened before. I guessed our current situation was still relatively safe; if it were a dire emergency, Lu Ayao wouldn’t have woken only me.

I put on my shoes, followed Lu Ayao over to the extinguished fire, and whispered, “What is it? Did you hear something?”

He scanned the boarded-up wooden windows, then looked at me seriously. “I heard some unusual movements. It felt strange, so I put out the fire first. But I was afraid I might be overthinking it, so I decided to tell you first.”

Anything that made Lu Ayao this serious was never ordinary. This matter had to be complicated for him to be so conflicted.

I didn’t speak, signaling for him to continue.

“I heard someone tapping on the windows,” Lu Ayao said.

His words sent a chill down my spine. Lu Ayao paused, then added, “They tapped on the side windows a few times first. Less than ten minutes later, they went to the door.”

At first, I didn’t think much of it. It wasn’t uncommon for local villagers to go up the mountain to hunt. But after two seconds of processing, the hair all over my body stood on end.

We were deep in the heart of the forest now. This goddamn place was a desolate wilderness, with not a single household for miles around. What kind of hunter would choose a blizzardy night like this to go up the mountain, let alone knock on a door? Were they just bored out of their mind?

I relaxed my muscles and asked him, “Did you respond then?”

“No. It felt too off. There were only two knocks, and then it went silent,” Lu Ayao said.

Just then, a rustling sound came from the doorway of the cabin. It was the sound of footsteps treading on snow. Immediately after, the knocker on the door was gently tapped.

Tap, tap.

Inside the cabin, Lu Ayao and I quickly swapped positions. He whipped out his whip and blade while I scrambled over to He Yu to wake him. He was sleeping soundly, and just as I shook him awake and he was about to burst out cursing, I clamped my hand over his mouth. I signaled him with my eyes and pointed toward the door.

Once He Yu was fully awake, I went over to shake Old Qian awake too.

By now, the light tapping on the door knocker had turned into knocking directly on the wooden door, stopping and starting in turns.

Thud, thud, thud. Thud, thud, thud.

He Yu grabbed Qian Deli, looking ready to beat him up. He hissed in a low voice, “Well played, Old Qian! We haven’t treated you half bad, and this is how you tip off the Gan Clan? They found us this fast? You’ve been hiding your true colors well, haven’t you?”

“Don’t hit me, please don’t hit me! Young Master He, I’m innocent, I swear I’m innocent! Ever since I came here with you all, I haven’t had any contact with the people back in the Central Plains. If I betrayed you, may lightning strike me dead! It really wasn’t me who sent word!” Qian Deli was practically on his knees before He Yu.

I hurriedly grabbed him and told them both to shut up.

“We’ve been together these past few days. We know exactly how many times he’s used his phone. Don’t talk nonsense,” I said in a low voice.

He Yu pointed at me. “You’re being naive, Xiao Yao. If he really wanted to tip them off, he certainly wouldn’t do it under our noses. Who knows when he might have leaked the message?”

“Young Master, please believe me! I didn’t do it, I really didn’t!”

I calmed down and shook my head, feeling that something was very off. The knocking at the cabin door was still continuing. I asked in a normal voice, “Who is it?”

The knocking didn’t stop, yet no one outside answered me.

He Yu asked me, “Maybe it really is the Gan Clan. Should we open the door?”

Lu Ayao also turned around to look at me.

I stared at the door and said decisively, “No, we can’t open it. Who would be out here in the middle of nowhere? Even if someone tipped them off, they shouldn’t have caught up this fast.”

“What if it’s one of Gan Rong’s top lieutenants? Given the timing, it’s not impossible, is it?” He Yu asked.

The constant knocking was making me feel exceptionally agitated.

Qian Deli edged a few steps toward me from the corner and said weakly, “Uh… I have a foolish idea, though I don’t know if I should say it…”

I walked toward him. “Old Qian, you’ve seen a lot. If you have an idea, speak up.”

Old Qian opened his mouth, trembling. In the second before he spoke, the knocking abruptly stopped, making his next words ring out with eerie clarity.

“What if… whatever is knocking outside isn’t human?”