Nine Nights Owl Song

The Dark Pavilion's new recruit training camp is not in Luoyang, nor in any other city.

It is located in the Cangwu Mountains, thousands of miles to the north.

Ah Jiu followed Ghost Hand for more than twenty days.

They passed through the south gate of Luoyang City and headed west along the official road. After several days, they turned onto a mountain road and traveled for more than ten days, crossing three mountain ranges and two major rivers, finally arriving at a deep forest shrouded in thick fog.

Cangwu Mountain.

As its name suggests, the mountain is covered with dark black boulders and ancient trees that block out the sky. Sunlight can hardly penetrate the forest, and the ground is always covered with a layer of rotting leaves, which feel soft and spongy underfoot, like stepping on the corpse of something.

The air was filled with a damp, musty smell and a faint odor of blood.

Ajiu stood at the foot of the mountain, looking up at the ridge swallowed by thick fog, without saying a word.

"Scared?" Ghost Hand stood behind her, his voice tinged with amusement.

"No," Ajiu said.

She was indeed not afraid.

She was simply smelling the bloody odor—faint, but persistent, as if the mountain had absorbed too much blood, seeping into the soil and the cracks in the rocks, and it just wouldn't dissipate.

Ghost Hand noticed her movement, and the corners of his mouth turned up slightly.

"Let's go," he said.

"From today onwards, you are a prospective trainee of the Dark Pavilion. How long you live depends on your own abilities."

The training camp was built in a valley deep in the Cangwu Mountains.

It was called a campsite, but it was really just a simple shack built of wood and stone, surrounded by a fence made of sharpened wooden stakes. Outside the fence was a dense primeval forest, and inside the fence was muddy yellow earth and an omnipresent musty smell.

When Ajiu arrived, there were already forty-seven children in the camp.

The oldest looked to be twelve or thirteen, and the youngest was about the same age as A-Jiu, around six or seven. There were boys and girls, tall and short, fat and thin, but the only thing they had in common was that their eyes lacked the look of children.

There was no innocence, no curiosity, and no fear.

All that remained was vigilance, indifference, and scrutiny of all living things around them.

Like a group of wild animals locked in the same cage, they sized each other up, weighed each other, and calculated each other's worth.

The moment Ajiu stepped into the camp, dozens of eyes fell on her.

She neither flinched nor showed any fear.

She simply lowered her head, clutching her meager bag of luggage, and walked to a shed in the far corner of the fence. She found a secluded spot, put her things down, and sat down.

He didn't look at anyone once throughout the entire process.

No one spoke to her.

After Ghost Hand brought Ah Jiu there, he disappeared. He was replaced by a burly, bald man with a face full of scars; everyone called him "The Butcher."

The butcher stood in the open space in the center of the camp, arms crossed, his gaze sweeping over the forty-eight children in front of him.

"You forty-eight are selected from all over Daliang this year." His voice was rough and harsh, like two stones rubbing against each other. "Two more will be sent over, making a total of fifty."

He paused, then grinned, revealing two rows of uneven, yellow teeth.

Of the fifty, only five survived.

No one speaks.

Nobody asked "why".

These children were informed of the rules before they were brought in. Those who have survived to this point have already passed the first round of screening and will not show weakness at this crucial moment.

The butcher seemed satisfied with the children's reaction, nodded, and continued, "The training lasts a year. There's an elimination round every month, and elimination means death. The last five remaining are the Dark Pavilion's newest assassins. Those who don't survive to the end stay in these mountains as fertilizer."

After he finished speaking, he turned around and pointed to the dark forest outside the camp.

"The first lesson begins tonight. After dark, all of you will enter the forest and are not allowed to come out before dawn. There are wolves, leopards, poisonous snakes, and the 'fertilizer' from the last round that wasn't collected. Those who come out alive will have passed the first test."

He glanced at the sky; the sun had already set behind the mountain ridge, and the light in the valley was visibly dimming.

"It'll be dark in half an hour," the butcher said. "Those who want to live can start preparing now."

As soon as he finished speaking, all forty-eight children moved at the same time.

Some people picked up stones from the ground, some broke off tree branches and sharpened them into weapons, some looked for places to hide, and some went in groups of two or three.

Ajiu didn't move.

She remained seated in the corner of the shed, her eyes closed, as if dozing.

A few people noticed her, glanced at her, and then looked away. In a place like this, a child who looked the weakest wasn't worth much attention.

it's dark.

The night on Cangwu Mountain came quickly and fiercely, like a huge black cloth falling from the sky, instantly swallowing the entire valley.

A few oil lamps were lit in the camp, their dim light barely illuminating the small area inside the fence, while outside the fence was pitch black.

The butcher stood at the camp gate, holding a lantern in his hand, watching expressionlessly as the children walked out of the fence one by one and disappeared into the darkness.

Of the forty-eight children, forty-seven went out.

One left.

The butcher frowned, his gaze sweeping towards the shack in the corner of the camp.

Ah Jiu came out of the shed.

She carried no weapons, and wasn't even wearing shoes. Barefoot, she walked slowly to the camp entrance.

The butcher looked down at the little girl, who wasn't even as tall as his waist, and asked gruffly, "Why aren't you ready?"

Ajiu raised her head and glanced at him.

"Ready," she said.

"What have you prepared?"

Ajiu didn't answer, but walked straight past him and into the darkness.

The butcher turned around, watching her small figure disappear into the darkness, and thoughtfully touched his bald head.

The moment A-Jiu stepped into the forest, the whole world fell silent.

It wasn't truly quiet—the forest was filled with countless sounds: the rustling of leaves in the wind, the chirping of insects, the low growls of some unknown animal in the distance, and the cracking of dry branches breaking underfoot.

She felt at peace.

The old drunkard had taught her that in dangerous environments, the most deadly thing is not the external threat, but one's own fear. Fear makes you breathe rapidly, rapid breathing makes you reveal your position, and revealing your position is equivalent to death.

Therefore, she cannot let fear get close to her.

She walked through the woods for about the time it takes for an incense stick to burn before finding a huge old banyan tree. The trunk was so thick that it would take three people to encircle it, and the canopy blocked out the sky. The hanging aerial roots were like curtains, dividing the space under the tree into natural hiding places.

Ajiu crawled into the corner where the aerial roots were most dense, squatted down, and curled herself up into a ball.

She didn't look for weapons, she didn't look for food, she didn't do anything unnecessary.

Because she knew that the first test tonight wasn't about who killed the most, but who survived the longest.

In an unfamiliar environment, in the dark, and without knowing how many threats there are, the smartest thing to do is not to run around aimlessly, but to find a safe corner to hide in and get through the most dangerous period with minimal effort.

This is an instinct she developed over four years of fighting for food with stray dogs in an abandoned neighborhood, experiencing countless brushes with death.

She closed her eyes and began to regulate her breathing.

As internal energy circulates, qi flows slowly through the meridians, body temperature drops, heart rate slows, and the whole person blends into the surrounding environment like a stone.

She is waiting.

Wait until dawn.

In the dead of night, the first scream came from the depths of the forest.

Ajiu opened her eyes and listened intently.

The voice was about two hundred feet away from her. It was a boy's voice, sharp and short, as if something had bitten his throat, and he only had time to utter a sound before it was cut off.

Immediately following is the second tone.

Third tone.

Fourth tone.

Screams rose and fell, coming from different directions in the forest. Some were near, some were far. Some only rang out briefly before fading away, while others lasted for more than ten breaths before gradually weakening.

Ah Jiu counted.

The sound rang out twenty-three times, from the first sound to the last sound.

Twenty-three screams.

Twenty-three children were left forever in the forests of Cangwu Mountain on this night.

The remaining twenty-five, including herself, survived the first night.

As dawn broke, Ajiu emerged from the aerial roots of the banyan tree.

She was covered in dew and mud, with a few withered leaves hanging in her hair, and her bare feet were covered in wet mud.

She slowly walked back to the camp.

Along the way, she saw corpses.

A boy's throat was ripped open by something, his eyes wide open, his expression frozen in terror, and the soil beneath him was soaked in blood, turning dark red.

A girl was dragged into the bushes, with only half of her body sticking out; her upper body was gone.

Another child was hanging from a tree, his neck strangled by a vine, his tongue lolling out, his face purple, his body swaying gently in the morning breeze.

Ah Jiu walked past the corpses without stopping, without looking at them for long, and without even blinking.

When she returned to the camp, there were already more than a dozen children standing in the open space.

Everyone was covered in dust and dirt, with injuries on their bodies. One boy's left arm was missing below the elbow; the wound was charred black from being branded with a red-hot iron. He stood there, gritting his teeth, his facial muscles twitching incessantly, but he made no sound.

One girl had three deep scratches on her face, stretching from her left eyebrow to her right chin. The skin was torn open, revealing the white bone underneath, and her face was covered in blood.

Several children have not yet returned.

The butcher stood in the open space, with a table next to him, on which were a stack of papers and a pen.

"Report the numbers," he said.

The returning children announced their numbers one by one.

Ajiu's number is forty-eight.

She was the last one to return.

Twenty-five children returned.

Half of them died on the first night.

The butcher wrote down twenty-five numbers on the paper, looked up at the remaining children, and grinned.

"Not bad, twenty-three were eliminated on the first day, more efficient than I expected," he said. "Tomorrow night, we'll continue into the woods. Same rules. That's it."

The children dispersed.

No one spoke, no one cried, and no one sought out their companions to confide in.

Here, companions are a luxury, tears are a death sentence, and survival is the only truth.

Ah Jiu walked back to the shack, sat down in his corner, took out a dry biscuit from his luggage, broke it into small pieces, and chewed slowly.

A boy walked up to her.

It was the boy who had lost his left arm. He looked about eleven or twelve years old and was a whole head taller than her. In his right hand, he held a stone, which was still stained with dried blood; it was unclear whether it was his own or someone else's.

He stood in front of A-Jiu, looking down at her, and pointed with his only remaining right hand at the dry biscuit in her hand: "Give me half."

Ajiu looked up at him, but didn't speak or move.

"I said give me half." The boy's voice was laced with threat. "A little brat like you won't live more than three days. Eating you would be a waste."

Ah Jiu lowered her head and continued chewing her dry biscuit.

The boy's expression changed.

He reached out his right hand to grab Ah Jiu's collar—

Ajiu moved.

Without warning, she lunged forward, slithering under the boy's armpit like a snake, and slapped the half-eaten biscuit hard on his temple.

The boy felt a sudden darkness before his eyes, a buzzing in his head, and he fell to the side.

Before he could react, Ajiu was already straddling his chest, her right index and middle fingers pressed firmly against the hollow of his throat.

Below that spot is his Adam's apple, and a little below that is his trachea. If Ah Jiu pushes his finger forward any further, his Adam's apple will shatter, his trachea will be crushed, and he will suffocate to death within a few dozen breaths.

The boy's pupils suddenly contracted.

He felt the force transmitted from Ajiu's fingers—not strong, but terrifyingly precise, as if measured with a ruler, right at that critical point of "not dying but potentially dying at any moment."

He had seen many methods of murder, but he had never seen such precise control in a seven-year-old child.

"You eat yours." Ah Jiu's voice was very soft, so soft that only the boy could hear it. "I'll eat mine. If you come again, I won't just take pictures of you anymore."

She got up from the boy, picked up the remaining dry biscuits, went back to the corner, and continued chewing.

The boy lay on the ground, panting heavily. The spot on his temple where the biscuit had hit burned, and the cold sensation lingered on the spot on his throat where the knuckles had pressed against it.

He got up, said nothing, and turned to leave.

The other children in the shed who witnessed this scene all looked at Ajiu differently.

It's no longer about looking down on them.

It was a mixture of vigilance and apprehension.

Ah Jiu didn't care.

She finished chewing the last bite of the dry biscuit, licked the crumbs off her fingers, closed her eyes, and began to regulate her breathing.

The old drunkard was right: relying on yourself is better than relying on anyone else.

She will spend her whole life proving this statement.