Chapter Eleven: Glutinous Rice

After the gunshots ceased, Lei Aniu, his heart pounding in terror, immediately raised his head and looked toward the end of the pitch-black corridor.

Soon, he saw a mangled mass of flesh—a grotesque ball—roll out of the darkness. It was nothing other than the bloodied and mutilated head of Boss Bang, the enforcer. Under the dim oil lamp, the blood and human fat dripping from the severed head stood out starkly, and terror-stricken, Lei Aniu fled toward the rear of the cabin without a second thought.

In his frantic escape, he ran and shouted hysterically, “A dead man! There’s a dead man!” But on the vast barge, not a single soul responded to his cries.

Yet Lei Aniu could not afford to dwell on this, nor ponder its meaning. Driven purely by instinct, he dashed madly from cabin to cabin, shrieking and pounding on every door. Soon, he found himself stumbling back into his own berth.

But as he burst in, ready to call for help, he froze in disbelief. His fear was now layered with shock and dread.

Inside, the familiar crewmen, laborers, and foreman had vanished, and on the scattered bunks between the decks lay only human-shaped lumps of black, moldy glutinous rice.

Surrounded by the darkened rice, Lei Aniu was at a loss. He didn’t know what had happened, but after observing for a while, he was appalled to discover fresh blood, tattered clothing, and even hair scattered around the rice. Yet he saw none of his companions—not even their bodies. There was nothing left but those black, gray lumps laid out on the bunks in grotesque shapes.

Stunned, Lei Aniu’s mind raced, but he could only arrive at one conclusion: the cabin was haunted.

At this thought, he could no longer stand his ground. Staggering, he ran aimlessly, desperate to find a living soul—anyone who could tell him what was happening.

But he was disappointed.

Lei Aniu searched every cabin on the barge, but all he found were blood-stained bedding and those damned, omnipresent, rapidly spreading lumps of glutinous rice.

The rice that should have been sealed in the granary seemed suddenly alive, scattered everywhere by some unknown force, filling every corner with a suffocating, putrid stench.

He ran wildly, like a refugee fleeing disaster, abandoning all hope of finding his companions and instead avoiding the inexplicable glutinous rice as if it were the plague.

Finally, with nowhere left to go, he locked himself in a narrow, sealed stairwell, clutching a dim, yellow oil lamp, trembling, barely daring to breathe.

In the silence, Lei Aniu remembered the note: “Escape quickly.”

Yet he had nowhere to run.

Regret overwhelmed him; he realized he should have listened to Mister Blueface earlier and fled without hesitation. Who could have known that his brief hesitation would cost him his life?

There is no medicine for regret in this world, and Lei Aniu, trapped in mortal peril, could do nothing but hold his lamp and wait, praying for the goddess to show mercy.

In the growing despair that threatened to swallow him, he clung to hope—perhaps rescue would come, or perhaps the ghost hidden in the rice would forget about this lone sailor.

Yet his luck did not match his hopes. As time passed, his situation only grew more dire.

In the stairwell, his safety lasted only a moment before he suddenly heard a subtle, crisp sound from the direction of the wooden door—like wind blowing through sand.

Startled, Lei Aniu raised his lamp to investigate. The light quickly revealed the source: the door panels.

The sound came from the gaps in the wooden door, where black, moldy glutinous rice pressed in grain by grain.

Haunted by the relentless rice, Lei Aniu screamed in madness, instinctively stripping off his clothes to block the leaking cracks. But it was useless.

The rice seemed possessed, pouring in ever more rapidly as he struggled, eventually erupting through the gaps like a fountain, the earlier soft “sand-leak” sound turning into a thunderous roar, as if a monstrous beast were battering the door for his soul.

With each impact, the already flimsy wooden door shuddered violently, and as the battering intensified, even more rice spilled through the cracks.

At first, Lei Aniu tried to resist, but he soon abandoned all hope amid the surging “soul-locking rice.” No one on the ship had escaped; what could he do? In the end, he would likely end up like the missing crewmen—transformed into moldy, human-shaped rice, leaving only blood and hair behind.

Finally, the door was smashed open by the overwhelming force of the rice.

Lei Aniu stared wide-eyed, awaiting his fate.

But to his astonishment, standing outside was not the soul-locking demon or a foul rice monster as he’d imagined.

His rescuer was the blue-faced, tusked man he’d seen that afternoon.

At this moment, the man was as cold and unrestrained as before, his coarse blue robe wrapped tightly around his damp body. The only difference was the gleaming cleaver now in his right hand.

Lei Aniu felt relief. Though he’d always found the man strange—even sinister—he was, at least, human.

Moreover, he probably knew the bloody truth of what was happening and how to escape.

So Lei Aniu, as if seeing the goddess herself, pressed his hands together in supplication. “Grandpa, save me!”

The man said nothing, merely gestured for silence, then seized Lei Aniu, brandishing the gleaming cleaver to clear a path toward the cargo hold’s exit.

Lei Aniu followed closely behind, his heart pounding anew as he witnessed the changes around the cabin.

He saw that, during his time in hiding, the once clean and bright cabin had decayed and grown moldy at an alarming rate.

Between the cabins and corridors, the tung oil-polished boards were crawling with unknown fungi. The crevices that had been spotless minutes ago slowly seeped with gray, moldy rice.

As the aged rice spilled forth, the entire ship seemed to rot before his eyes. The stench of mildew filled his nose and mouth, making it impossible to open his eyes.

It felt as if his ship had become a tomb.

Yet the blue-faced man ignored everything, opening a path with his cleaver. Only when they reached the place where Boss Bang’s body lay severed did he suddenly stop.

Lei Aniu nearly collided with him. Regaining his footing, he looked in the direction the man was staring.

Ahead of them, blocking the only way out, was a huge, pitch-black object.

In the dim light, Lei Aniu raised his lantern and illuminated the obstruction.

He was stunned to find it was nothing other than a giant clay vat used to store glutinous rice, which should have been sealed in the granary.

Seeing the vat “roll out” by itself, Lei Aniu collapsed in terror. The oil lamp slipped from his grasp, spilling onto the floor and burning ever brighter.

In the flickering flames, Lei Aniu saw with horror that the vat, once black and solid as ebony, now bore a crack over five feet long and more than an inch wide.

From the fissure, a stream of black, gray, aged glutinous rice spilled out like water.

Most unbelievable of all, the rice seemed alive, stretching across the floor, first gathering near Boss Bang’s mangled head.

The rice flowed into the head, surging like tentacles, and soon the head shriveled and dried, until nothing was left but a shell covered in mold.

The rice was devouring human flesh.

“Glutinous rice! The rice has turned into a demon!” Lei Aniu screamed hysterically, unable to comprehend the grotesque horror before him.

Yet the blue-faced man remained calm. After a brief contemplation, he stepped back, crouched, and began hacking at the hull with his cleaver.

With each strike, wood chips flew—the man’s strength was astonishing, and his blows had the force to split mountains.

Seeing this, Lei Aniu realized the expert intended to bypass the murderous vat and escape underwater by breaking through the hull.

He was awed by the man’s strength and skill. The hull’s “armor wood” was no ordinary timber; not even an axe could easily break through the triple tung oil and five layers of lacquered red-heart wood.

With renewed hope, Lei Aniu’s confidence soared, and his respect for the mysterious blue-robed man grew boundless.

But just as Lei Aniu thought escape was possible, the cracked vat suddenly changed.

It was as if the rice inside sensed their intention to flee. More rice poured out, and the portion tangled in Boss Bang’s head turned to pursue them, creeping forward slowly, hindered only by the blazing fire in the corridor.

Lei Aniu watched all of this in panic, and hastily patted the man’s shoulder, pointing urgently at the vat.

The man turned, frowned, and after a moment’s observation, exclaimed, “This is bad!”

For he suddenly noticed that the crack in the writhing rice vat was widening, and through the growing fissure, a vague gray-white shadow was beginning to squeeze its way out.