Shen Xitang opened his eyes and held half a moldy sweet potato in his hand. Her husband, Zhou Demao, was picking up food stamps and whispered to Jiang Xuemei, "That woman is so easy to deceive. She divided the house into equal parts and it's all yours." She touched the mini refrigerator in her pocket - the size of a palm, which contained last night's frozen dough, and a yellow charm of unknown origin. Under the old locust tree at the back of the village, the crack in the ruins grew another three inches. Shadow Evil crawled out following the smell of guilt, and its first target was her heart. When Zhou Demao led someone to snatch her last half bag of white noodles, the refrigerator automatically popped open and the ice pick pierced his palm. Before the blood even hit the ground, Shadow Fiend shrieked and retracted into the gap. Huo Xiao dragged his lame leg and leaned behind the haystack, wiped the jade bracelet he took back from the market, and stuffed it into her window sill. It is engraved with the lines of the intangible cultural heritage map, and every knife is a seal. The first Suzhou embroidery screen she repaired silenced rumors in the village. There is an additional line of words on the cold storage layer of the refrigerator: "Countdown to sacrifice: Huo Xiao, seven days."
The ashes in the stove were completely cold.
Shen Nian stared at the empty pot. Half of the vegetable leaves were stuck to the bottom of the pot, which had dried up, and the edges were raised like a mocking mouth.
She reached out and touched the stove, but there was no trace of warmth left.
Fang Cuiping's voice came from the main room, with a deliberately crisp voice: "Oh Captain Zhou, it's not that we are mean, some people have lost their way on their own, who is to blame?"
Shen Nian's fingers paused on the edge of the stove for two seconds.
Then she slowly withdrew her hand and rubbed it on her trouser legs - there was a greasy layer of black ash on it that couldn't be rubbed off.
There was the sound of clinking bowls and chopsticks in the main room, someone whispered something, and then
