Xue Liangliang spoke up first. "Xiaoyuan, is there something marked on the three of us that isn't on you?"
Li Zhuiyuan nodded. "Right now, all three of your physiognomies look terrible. It means you're going through a bout of severe misfortune. While fortunes and feng shui are never an exact science, at the very least it proves you've gotten tangled up with something unclean. I thought I should be the same as you, but curiously, I'm not."
"Binbin, give me your notebook and pen."
"Here, Brother Liang."
Xue Liangliang flipped open to a clean page and drew a square box. Along the top and bottom edges, he sketched two little figures each, representing the four of them. Finally, on the left side of the box, he drew a door.
"We'll use process of elimination. After getting off the train, we went to eat together, and then we got into Zhu Yang's truck. During that entire time, Xiaoyuan was never separated from us, and we only interacted with three outsiders: Zhu Yang, and the master and apprentice at the repair shop. So we can rule out that whole stretch. We have to look further back."
Tan Wenbin asked, "Why can't we look further forward? What about the night we spent in the truck?"
"Because things were already in motion by then. The time of Zhu Yang's disappearance can be considered a marker. Besides, if Xiaoyuan says the three of us are suffering from bad luck, does getting our tire punctured by nails count? If it does, we can pull the timeline even further back, which perfectly covers the period when all four of us were together in the truck. You get it now?"
"I think... I get it."
"Then we can narrow it down to the train."
"But there were so many people on the train!"
Xue Liangliang shook his head. "Actually, not that many, because we spent most of our time in our soft sleeper compartment. That compartment was an entirely clean zone, since Xiaoyuan is fine. On top of that, I remember clearly that the three of us never left it together as a group. So it can only be an intersection of something each of us encountered separately when we went out on our own."
"Then should we each recount our trips out of the compartment? Does using the bathroom count?"
"Let Runsheng go first." Xue Liangliang pointed at Runsheng. "Right after boarding, you went to smoke a stick of incense. If I remember correctly, you never went back out for another smoke after that, right?"
Runsheng scratched his head, thinking hard before answering, "I... think so?"
Xue Liangliang frowned slightly, then decisively raised a hand. "I remember correctly. You only went out to smoke once, because halfway through the trip I asked you why you hadn't gone out again. You said the incense you brought this time was of better quality and meant to be eaten as food, so you couldn't waste it smoking whenever your mouth was bored."
"I..." Runsheng looked a bit dazed. "I think I did say that."
"What's wrong with you?" Tan Wenbin reached over and felt Runsheng's forehead. "No fever..."
Li Zhuiyuan watched Runsheng in silence, then turned his gaze back to Xue Liangliang.
Xue Liangliang continued, "On the train, every time Xiaoyuan went to use the bathroom from the top bunk, Runsheng went with him, so that path can be ruled out. That means the only chance you had to come into contact with something unclean was when you went out to smoke right after boarding. Now, tell us about the people and things you saw that time. No, let's narrow it down even further: who did you interact with? It could be physical contact or just an exchange. Start with that."
Runsheng wracked his memory and stumbled through his explanation.
When he mentioned giving candy to a little girl who was crying to her grandmother that she was hungry, Xue Liangliang and Tan Wenbin both raised their hands to signal him to stop.
Xue Liangliang said, "I gave her a boxed meal."
Tan Wenbin said, "I gave her a portion of breakfast."
Li Zhuiyuan looked at the two of them. "Describe that old grandmother's clothes in detail."
After hearing their descriptions, Li Zhuiyuan pursed his lips and said, "We've found it. When I saw that old woman, there was no little girl beside her. Sitting next to her was an ash urn wrapped in cloth."
Strictly speaking, Xue Liangliang's process of elimination was far from rigorous and had plenty of holes, but it followed a common pragmatist mindset: overlook the fringe cases first, attempt to rule out issues across the broadest scope possible, and only if nothing turned up would he dig into the fringes.
Xue Liangliang closed the notebook and said, "It's that little girl. Xiaoyuan can walk the yin path and has real ability, so she didn't dare let him see her—or rather, Xiaoyuan isn't easily deceived by spectral tricks."
Tan Wenbin said in bewilderment, "But we clearly all gave her food! Why would she harm us? Isn't that repaying kindness with malice?"
Xue Liangliang looked toward Li Zhuiyuan.
Li Zhuiyuan attempted to analyze it. "Applying the social morals of the living to that sort of unclean thing doesn't work. And taking a step back, the girl might not have intended to harm you, but her actions ended up causing you harm anyway."
Tan Wenbin pointed at his own face, then at Xue Liangliang and Runsheng. "Then what does she want? Because we gave her food, she wants us to keep giving?"
Xue Liangliang asked, "Xiaoyuan, I remember you once resolved this kind of thing by setting up an offering table. Can we do that this time too?"
Tan Wenbin slapped his thigh. "Our luggage, food, and water are all back in the truck, and now the truck is gone! Where are we going to get offerings? We do have incense, though."
Xue Liangliang said, "There are plenty of things hanging out to dry around the outskirts of the village. To resolve our immediate crisis, I can take the risk of running back in alone to grab some things for an offering table. I'll leave behind some money."
Li Zhuiyuan said, "No. If she were merely a starving ghost, she would bring people bad luck, but it wouldn't be this violent. A hungry ghost wants food, not to drain the pond to catch the fish. At most, she would cling to you—unless..."
"Unless what?"
"Unless what that little girl meant by 'hungry' is that she wants your lifespans."
The three of them fell silent at his words.
Li Zhuiyuan continued, "Only an intense, desperate desire for your deaths would produce a physiognomy of fading embers like this."
Tan Wenbin threw his hands up. "Isn't she already inside an ash urn, reduced to ashes? She died long ago—what does she need lifespan for?"
Xue Liangliang said, "Her grandmother is old, and her grandmother might be on the verge of death. She isn't asking for herself; she's asking for her grandmother."
Li Zhuiyuan looked at Xue Liangliang again, and then at Runsheng, who was struggling hard to follow along with the train of thought.
Tan Wenbin cursed, "That actually makes sense! Damn, kids are terrifying! If I could go back to that train and run into her again, I'd dump her ashes down the toilet!" Anyone would feel furious at being marked for death after performing an act of kindness.
Li Zhuiyuan said, "She might not be on the train anymore. She might be clinging to one of you."
Tan Wenbin let out a sharp hiccup.
It was from sheer fright.
Though their current predicament was bizarre, it had only felt like being temporarily unable to leave; they hadn't faced any direct danger yet. Knowing that sort of thing was right beside them felt completely different.
Xue Liangliang immediately asked, "Xiaoyuan, did you see her?"
Li Zhuiyuan shook his head. "I didn't, but I suspect she's attached to one of you. This morning, she was probably on you, Brother Liang."
"On me?"
"Because there's a huge difference between how you're acting now and how you were acting earlier. Earlier, you were visibly flustered, your thinking wasn't clear, and the questions you asked were very basic."
Xue Liangliang pointed at his own nose. "Was I like that?"
"The person it happens to usually doesn't notice. I've experienced something similar before." Li Zhuiyuan had experienced his Great-Grandpa's blessing of good fortune; bad luck was likely much the same.
"If she was on me before, then right now she's..." Xue Liangliang trailed off, his eyes shifting toward Runsheng.
Clearly, he had noticed Runsheng's odd state earlier.
Tan Wenbin finally caught on as well. Although Runsheng was usually a man of few words and seemed slow and simple, he was actually quite attentive, especially when it came to memory. In the past, whenever Xiaoyuan gave him a string of locations and instructions, he could remember every detail and carry it out perfectly. But just now, Runsheng had seemed utterly wooden, wracking his brains just to recall a simple thing.
"On me?" Runsheng raised his hands and began patting himself down. "Where is she?"
Runsheng quickly pulled out a paper talisman and slapped it onto his forehead. He peeled it off, only to find the color hadn't changed. "Xiaoyuan, there's nothing."
"She shouldn't be a dead-flipper."
"Then what do we do?" Runsheng clenched his fists. "If she's on me, I won't follow you guys. You three try running out—maybe you can escape."
He paused, then pointed at Xue Liangliang and Tan Wenbin. "Or you two stay here with me, and let Xiaoyuan run out alone. Xiaoyuan is clean. The reason he couldn't get out earlier was probably because of our influence."
Xue Liangliang and Tan Wenbin both nodded, clearly in agreement with this plan.
Li Zhuiyuan rejected the idea. "We can't do that. I don't think that little girl has the power to orchestrate something on this scale. What we've entered right now is likely an isolated eerie domain. Normally, one shouldn't be able to enter it, and it would be difficult even if you tried on purpose. But because she followed us, we were guided and triggered into entering. Therefore, chances are that whether she's with us or not, none of us can leave here easily."
Agitated, Tan Wenbin shouted, "Then what do we do?! What do we do?! What do we do?!"
Li Zhuiyuan and Xue Liangliang glanced at Tan Wenbin simultaneously, then quickly looked away.
Runsheng was about to speak when Li Zhuiyuan cut him off. "Brother Runsheng, don't talk. Just sit here and hold my hand. I'll try using a corpse retriever's method to see if I can break her grip on you."
Runsheng nodded vigorously and reached out to grasp Li Zhuiyuan's hand.
Li Zhuiyuan slid his hand out and took hold of Runsheng's hand instead. The boy's fingertips were already red from pressing into ink paste earlier. With his other hand, Li Zhuiyuan flipped over the luopan resting before him, opened the compartment underneath, and pinched a bit of white powder between his fingertips.
Because they had been traveling on public transit, heavy gear like the Yellow River shovel had been inconvenient to carry, but they had brought along every small item they could. The luopan originally belonged to Ding Dalin and had built-in grooves beneath it. Li Zhuiyuan had previously owned a folding fan designed with various compartments to hold powders for different uses. That fan was somewhat impractical; in ancient times, walking around with a folding fan was normal, but in modern times it drew unwanted attention. So Li Zhuiyuan had transferred all the special powders he might need into the space under the luopan, since Runsheng would carry the luopan on him no matter what.
"Brother Runsheng, get ready. We're starting."
Runsheng nodded hard again, obediently staying quiet.
Li Zhuiyuan closed his eyes. Just before stepping onto the yin path, he abruptly let go of Runsheng's hand and grabbed Tan Wenbin's instead.
He successfully walked the yin path!
In Li Zhuiyuan's vision, the other three vanished. Standing before him was a little girl in red, her hand gripped in his. When he had walked the yin path earlier, he had leaned against Runsheng, but the girl hadn't been on Runsheng at that moment, which was how she had slipped past his spiritual probe. Just now, however, Runsheng had clearly recovered his mental agility, while Tan Wenbin had displayed an uncharacteristic emotional outburst. It stood to reason that she had overheard their conversation and shifted from Runsheng to Tan Wenbin.
Evidently, when it came to scheming, she was no match for living people.
Xue Liangliang and Li Zhuiyuan had already realized it, but had deliberately kept quiet.
"Big brother, I'm so hungry," the girl pleaded, a bashful, shy look on her face.
She truly was quite adorable and easily stirred pity; no wonder Xue Liangliang, Runsheng, and Tan Wenbin had all helped her. Unfortunately for her, Li Zhuiyuan possessed no such superfluous sentiment. Perhaps she had sensed this from the start, which was why she hadn't targeted this younger boy.
Li Zhuiyuan raised his other hand and struck toward her.
In reality, Li Zhuiyuan remained seated without moving an inch, yet the white powder between his fingertips lifted without a breeze, drifting toward Tan Wenbin—more precisely, toward the nape of Tan Wenbin's neck.
Tan Wenbin's nose tickled, and he nearly sneezed. Soon after, he felt an icy chill on his neck, as if a large block of ice had been pressed against it, followed by a searing pain. Caught between ice and fire, he felt as though a large swath of his skin was about to peel away.
On the yin path, Li Zhuiyuan saw the girl let out a piercing shriek.
*Smack!*
She fled, her figure growing fainter as she ran into the distance.
Li Zhuiyuan looked down at what remained in his grip: a section of the girl's arm, dripping with blood like a bleeding lotus root. He found himself in an awkward spot. He wasn't sure whether he ought to give chase; he had never fought on the yin path before, nor did he know how to fight there. Was he supposed to run after her, tear into her with his bare teeth, and kill her? But what counted as killing her? Her arm was torn off in his hand, yet she still wasn't "dead." Or should he try using the methods from Wei Zhengdao's black notebook to control her? Yet she didn't seem to be a dead-flipper either; her body had already been reduced to ashes.
While he hesitated, the window passed. As the girl ran farther away, her silhouette grew thinner until it vanished completely.
This wasn't a bad outcome either; he had driven her away. No wonder people called it "exorcising ghosts." Something like this would be tricky even for a specialist, let alone someone like him working outside his field. Would she be able to return to the ash urn now, or would she become a wandering spirit and eventually dissipate? If she dissipated, so be it; she had brought it on herself.
Li Zhuiyuan closed his eyes, let his consciousness surface, and soon stepped off the yin path.
When he opened his eyes again, he saw that Runsheng, Xue Liangliang, and Tan Wenbin each had a paper talisman stuck to themselves.
Li Zhuiyuan said, "Those talismans are useless."
Runsheng retorted, "They worked! She transferred from me to Binbin just now, which is why mine didn't change color."
Evidently, everyone had figured out the situation, as the back of Tan Wenbin's neck was bruised a deep purplish-black and still aching fiercely.
"*Hsss*... She actually snuck onto me! Damn it!"
Xue Liangliang teased him while examining the injury, "Chances are she was hanging from your neck for most of the trip."
"Fuck, that explains it! No wonder I couldn't memorize my English vocabulary—I forgot every word the second I read it!"
Li Zhuiyuan said, "She's been driven off. She probably won't come back, and even if she does, we'll just drive her off again."
With that, Li Zhuiyuan glanced down at his hand. The severed arm was nowhere to be seen, nor could it exist in reality. Even so, he picked up some dry leaves from the ground and rubbed his palms clean. He observed the trio's physiognomies once more. While their complexions couldn't return to normal all at once, the deep darkness from before had lightened considerably.
"Now we need to consider how to leave this place." Xue Liangliang pointed toward the village. "If we can't find any other way to break this, I can only suspect the key to getting out is inside the village."
"There are people in the village. I saw them, but I don't know if they're living."
Runsheng said, "If we're going in, let's do it now, while I'm not too hungry and still have strength."
"Give me a bit more time. Let me think of another way."
Li Zhuiyuan picked up the luopan, stood up, and began observing the feng shui. Xue Liangliang stayed close behind him, while Runsheng massaged the back of Tan Wenbin's neck.
"Gently, gently! It hurts!"
"Pain means it's blocked; unblock it and it won't hurt."
Li Zhuiyuan didn't wander far. He gazed toward the village, then toward the dirt path, and then looked down to adjust the luopan. In truth, he was close to giving up. If there were another way, he would have used it already; this was merely a final struggle, because he genuinely didn't want to enter that village.
"Xiaoyuan, I really think we can try what I suggested—go in and see."
"Brother Liang, your personal experience was an exception. The only reason you got out last time was because someone applied pressure to Baijia Town from the outside."
"Xiaoyuan, you misunderstand me. What I mean is, since we want to go out and can't, does that mean going in equals getting out? That it works in reverse?"
Li Zhuiyuan realized he truly had misunderstood Brother Liang. At the same time, he felt that a Brother Liang free from the little girl's influence was genuinely useful.
"If we want to test it, we can split into two groups. One group stays in place while the other runs along a specific route, observing and recording. For instance, running around corners or in circles, to see in what manner they return to the starting point."
"No, we can't split up."
"Then..."
"I'd rather we charge into the village together."
"All right, Xiaoyuan. You call the shots."
Li Zhuiyuan studied the feng shui a bit longer, but in the end could see nothing more. He could only say, "Everyone check your pockets. See if there are any snacks or candy left, and give them all to Brother Runsheng."
There was a little food, but barely enough to fill the cracks between Runsheng's teeth. Runsheng lit ten incense sticks, chewed them all down, and then pulled up a handful of grass and tree leaves, chewing and swallowing them together. It was an excessively savage sight, but he was doing it to make his stomach feel full. In truth, incense was like a seasoning to him; he couldn't draw much energy from it, and what little he gained probably wasn't enough to digest the sticks themselves. Even so, his belly visibly swelled.
"Xiaoyuan, I'm ready!"
"Let's go. Into the village, before it gets dark."
Staying put was the more intuitive human choice, but there was only tree bark and leaves here, no real food. Lingering would only wear them down until they were waiting for death.
The four of them reached the village entrance and halted in unison, having caught the sound of activity.
Tan Wenbin asked, "What's that sound?"
"So chaotic... it sounds close, yet so far away." Xue Liangliang looked in every direction, but heard only noise without seeing a single clue.
Li Zhuiyuan's ears twitched faintly. He said, "Gongs, drums, suonas, and chanting scriptures. It sounds like someone performing an exorcism ritual."
Li Zhuiyuan paced around the village entrance. He looked down at his feet—this spot was the epicenter of the sound. Looking further ahead, he saw a pair of faint footprints appear in the dirt.
"Step back, watch out!"
Everyone quickly moved aside, eyes glued to the spot.
The footprints deepened. Directly facing them, four separate depressions appeared in the soil.
"Brother Runsheng, go!"
"Yeah!"
Runsheng gripped the steel pipe, rushed to the footprints, and swung it wildly, but struck nothing at all. At the same time, no strange change occurred on his body.
"Stop, Brother Runsheng."
Runsheng lowered his arms and steadied his breathing.
Li Zhuiyuan stepped close and crouched down, carefully examining the two depressions set close together.
Xue Liangliang crouched beside him to look. "These are human footprints, probably from boots. But what are these four depressions over here?"
Li Zhuiyuan said, "A table."
"A table?"
"Most likely a table. And those instruments sound like a ceremonial band."
Just as he spoke, Tan Wenbin shouted from the perimeter, "Watch out! Fire!"
A floating fireball appeared above Li Zhuiyuan and Xue Liangliang. It caught Xue Liangliang's clothes and hair; he dodged frantically, slapping hard with his hands to put it out, avoiding injury.
Because Li Zhuiyuan was shorter, the fireball drifted a fair distance above his head, so he didn't dodge. Instead, he tilted his head back, watching the trajectory of the flames. As he watched, his hand traced small motions in the air, as if calculating its path.
Suddenly, the fireball accelerated, tracing a far wider circle than before. Li Zhuiyuan kept his eyes on it while glancing down at the four table leg indentations. In his mind, he recalled his Great-Grandpa's habits during rituals: lighting yellow paper with a candle, waving it before the offering table while chanting scriptures, and invariably carrying the burning paper in a full circle around the table. Just as the paper was about to burn his fingers, he would drop it into a bowl of duck, chicken, or pig blood.
Now, he only needed to wait for the next step.
*Sizzle...*
The fireball plunged downward, snuffed out in an instant without a single spark flying.
Li Zhuiyuan brushed the dirt from his pant legs as he stood up, looking at his three companions. "Right where we're standing, someone is holding a ritual."
Tan Wenbin shrieked, "Ghosts can perform rituals too?! That's turning heaven and earth upside down!"
*Slap!*
Runsheng pulled out a paper talisman and slapped it onto Tan Wenbin's forehead with enough force to send him stumbling back several steps. The talisman did not change color.
Tan Wenbin tugged at his collar, pointing to the talisman already stuck to his neck. "I've already got one here! Couldn't you look first before slapping another one on me?!"
"Who told you to get all hysterical again?"
"I believe Brother Yuan, but the idea of ghosts holding an exorcism ritual is just too unbelievable!"
Xue Liangliang said with a grave expression, "Maybe the ones holding the ritual aren't ghosts."
Tan Wenbin said, "If they aren't ghosts, why can't we see them?"
Li Zhuiyuan said, "Maybe we're the ghosts right now."
Li Zhuiyuan remembered that when he walked the yin path earlier, he had heard angry shouting from the village, cursing whatever beast had smashed in their door.
Tan Wenbin asked, "Bro, who is this ritual for...?"
Li Zhuiyuan nodded. "It's probably for us. This morning, we kicked down two of their doors. Ghosts that can kick down doors must seem ferocious enough to terrify the villagers into hiring an exorcist to hold a ritual."
Still, this Daoist priest or monk they hired didn't seem particularly skilled; with such a meager effect, his real ability was probably on par with his Great-Grandpa's.
Tan Wenbin pinched Runsheng's arm hard. "Does that hurt?"
Runsheng shook his head. "Nope."
Then Runsheng reached out and pinched Tan Wenbin's arm. "Ow, ow, ow, ow! Pain, pain, pain!"
Xue Liangliang walked up to Li Zhuiyuan. "Xiaoyuan, are we ghosts right now?"
"Brother Liang, I don't know either. I've never been a ghost before. Besides, on this subject, you have far more personal experience than I do."
Runsheng chimed in, "Right. You've slept with a ghost."
Xue Liangliang's breath hitched. "She wasn't a dead person, nor was she a ghost. She... didn't seem like a living person either."
Li Zhuiyuan remarked, "Neither human nor ghost fits our current state pretty well."
Xue Liangliang held up a hand, indicating he was thinking. "I often think back to that trip to Baijia Town long ago..."
"Brother Liang, no need to think back that far. You were going there every day just recently."
"Oh, right. Yes. So, right now, I think the environment we're in is similar to Baijia Town. It exists at the bottom of the river, yet it doesn't truly exist. Think about it: the Yangtze isn't an ocean; it's not that deep, nor is it that wide. They're going to build a cross-river bridge there in the future. If there were a real, discoverable town sitting down there, it would have been found long ago. When I returned to campus, I checked the library for information..."
"Did you find anything?"
"Nothing. So I went to consult a student club at our university."
"A club?"
"A supernatural phenomenon enthusiasts club. The female president gave a fairly reasonable explanation for what I described. She said it might be a spatial interstice."
"Did she tell you how to leave this spatial interstice, Brother Liang?"
"No. She even suspected the town I spoke of was real, and begged me to take her there to see it."
As if to prove he hadn't been possessed by the little girl again, Tan Wenbin asked a very reasonable question: "Brother Liang, didn't you go into that spatial interstice multiple times? How did you get out?"
Xue Liangliang waved his hand, answering evasively, "Every time, I just came out in a daze."
Tan Wenbin didn't hear clearly. "What did you say?"
Runsheng said, "Every time, he came out thoroughly satisfied."
Xue Liangliang raised his voice. "Every place has a different setup! Baijia Town was under her control; to get in, I only had to jump into the river in that area, and to get out, my head would spin and I'd wake up lying on the bank. Here, I don't think it's controlled. It wasn't man-made, but formed naturally. Otherwise, these villagers wouldn't have been frightened into hiring someone to perform a ritual. Xiaoyuan, let's go in and look around. Places like an ancestral hall or the village well are usually where exits are located."
"All right, let's go."
As the four walked into the village, the sound of instruments started up again behind them, and that fireball reappeared. Everyone looked back, realized a second round of the ritual had begun, and paid it no further mind.
After entering the village, most of the doors were tightly shut, though a few stood open. The houses with open doors were all relatively dilapidated, and neither side of their doorways bore Spring Festival couplets or door god posters.
Tan Wenbin noticed this too and muttered, "During New Year's, my mom always told me to put up couplets and the character for 'good fortune,' and I found it annoying. I was so stupid."
Xue Liangliang echoed, "From now on, I'm pasting them on my dorm door at the construction site too."
The group arrived at the old well in the center of the village. This was a likely landmark for an exit. Without hesitation, Runsheng tied a rope around himself, bit down on his steel pipe, and descended into the well. The others waited patiently by the mouth.
Xue Liangliang asked, "Xiaoyuan, Runsheng has gone under the water. Could he have gotten out?"
Tan Wenbin said, "Don't worry. If the exit really is down there, Runsheng will surface to tell us."
Li Zhuiyuan countered, "If he got out, would he know where the entrance is to come back in?"
"Uh, right... then what do we do? If he really got out, we'd..."
"Brother Binbin, pull the rope up a bit and see if you can pull it taut."
"Okay." Tan Wenbin gathered up the rope from the edge of the well. As he pulled, the line went taut, and he felt a tug from below. "Runsheng is still down there. He just yanked the rope twice himself; I felt it."
Xue Liangliang worried, "He's been down a long time. Nothing happened to him, right?"
Li Zhuiyuan shook his head. "No. Brother Runsheng is an exceptional swimmer."
On that point, Li Zhuiyuan was certain; after all, Brother Runsheng was someone who could grapple with dead-flippers underwater.
"Xiaoyuan, I have another question. How do you explain the corpse fluid in those two houses we entered earlier?"
"Maybe an elderly person was bedridden there with an illness and eventually passed away."
"Then what about the corpse fluid in the wardrobe of the second house? Someone couldn't have been bedridden inside a wardrobe, could they?"
"Maybe something was stored there. Don't some places have the custom of eating placenta?"
Xue Liangliang asked, "Xiaoyuan, how do you manage to stay so calm while giving me explanations that sound so reasonable on the spot?"
Li Zhuiyuan said in a low voice, "Because I don't want to think of things in the worst possible direction."
Xue Liangliang looked puzzled at first, but soon understood and murmured, "Right. That would be too horrifying, especially for Zhu Yang."
"Hey!" Tan Wenbin cried in distress. "Can you two consider my feelings? I'm still listening! Don't skip over things and leave me in the dark!"
Just then, movement came from the well; Runsheng was climbing back up. He scrambled out of the opening and said, "This well is deep. I dove all the way to the bottom, but there's no exit."
"Brother Runsheng, do you need to rest?"
"Can't rest." Runsheng rubbed his stomach. "I'm already getting hungry."
Li Zhuiyuan pointed toward the ears of corn hanging outside the doorway of a nearby house. "There's food over there."
Runsheng lit up. "Can we eat it?"
"Go ahead. In their eyes, it'll just be another ghost haunting."
Runsheng went over immediately and pulled down a string of corn. Without boiling or roasting, he started munching straight away. Li Zhuiyuan and Xue Liangliang each took an ear as well and took a bite. The texture was terrible, but under the circumstances, everyone ate whatever they could.
Tan Wenbin ran out of a house, calling out, "Eat this, eat this! There's cured meat hanging inside, so I grabbed it!"
Xue Liangliang asked, "There's meat in there?"
"Everything else went moldy, including the dishes on the table, but cured meat doesn't spoil so easily, right? I just took a bite—a bit greasy, but we need to replenish our energy, so who cares. Here, Runsheng."
Runsheng took it and took a huge bite. Then his chewing suddenly slowed. He didn't spit it out; instead, he chewed steadily and swallowed it down.
Tan Wenbin asked, "How is it? Tastes all right, Runsheng?"
Runsheng said, "This is dirty meat."
Li Zhuiyuan and Xue Liangliang were instantly startled.
Tan Wenbin said, "Of course it's dirty! What in there isn't dirty? The whole house is covered in dust! But I slapped the dust off this piece."
Li Zhuiyuan warned him, "Brother Binbin, when Runsheng says 'dirty meat,' he means it's not the meat of livestock."
"If it's not livestock, what kind of meat could it—*hurk—bleaaargh!*"
Runsheng patted Tan Wenbin's back to comfort him. "Don't throw up. It's all energy."
"*Bleaaargh!*"
Li Zhuiyuan said calmly, "Let's go to the ancestral hall."
The four made their way toward the largest building among the houses. Two stone lions stood before its entrance, and an old plaque hung above, though the characters inscribed on it were impossible to read. It wasn't due to years of neglect; rather, as they drew close, they realized a curtain of water was streaming from the eaves of the hall like a small waterfall, obscuring the plaque completely.
"What kind of architectural style is this?" Xue Liangliang looked at Li Zhuiyuan. "Or is what we're seeing invisible in reality?"
"Yes. Water without a source, ground without accumulation. It can't be seen in reality."
Tan Wenbin said excitedly, "Then the exit must be here!"
Because this building was the most unique, displaying an atmospheric phenomenon entirely different from reality, the exit was almost certainly inside.
Xue Liangliang asked, "Xiaoyuan, how does feng shui explain this situation?"
"When ancient emperors built their mausoleums, the greatest taboo was water leakage; it was considered an ill omen. Whenever that happened, the craftsmen and officials in charge were guilty of a capital offense. An ancestral hall is the seat of a village, a surname, and a clan's fortune. For water to pour like a waterfall can only mean one thing:
*Karmic debts flow like water, hidden virtue is sorely lacking;*
*The plaque reveals no name, for the ancestors are ashamed to be seen.*
Brother Runsheng, smash the hall doors."
"All right!"
Runsheng stepped forward and began slamming into the doors with great force. These ancestral hall doors were noticeably sturdier than those of the common houses, but Runsheng was Runsheng after all. Under a succession of heavy kicks, the doors were finally battered open.
The four walked inside, but froze the moment they stepped down from the threshold.
If a waterfall was visible outside the hall, it was only natural that water had pooled inside. Every drop was formed of karmic debt. Yet if it had merely been a flooded pool inside the hall, it wouldn't have shocked them so thoroughly.
The reason was that the pool was densely packed with standing people.
This was the first time since entering the village that the four of them had seen actual people, and so many at that.
Every single one had their eyes closed, faces as pale as paper, gently swaying in the water along with the current. They were all dead.
And standing at the very front—seemingly the latest addition, and the closest to the four of them—was the truck driver, Zhu Yang.
Tan Wenbin said in disbelief, "Zhu Yang... he's dead? But he didn't enter this spatial interstice with us! He should still be in reality right now!"
Li Zhuiyuan said, "Which is why he's dead."
Tan Wenbin swallowed hard. "Wh... why?"
Li Zhuiyuan pointed at the ground beneath their feet, then pointed out past the doors of the ancestral hall, and said, "Because this place... is a village of highway bandits!"
Chapter 59