While carrying the corpse, Ning Zhe casually slipped the man in the tank top's phone out of his pocket. Inside the black phone case was a one-hundred-yuan bill, but no ID card or driver's license to confirm his identity.
Ning Zhe did not know the man's lock-screen password, so he used the corpse's fingerprint to unlock the screen. The first thing he did after unlocking was enter the settings and set auto-lock to "Never," then he began browsing through the man's phone.
—About three hours after death, the faint bioelectric signals in a person's cells disappear completely, at which point electronic devices can no longer recognize their fingerprints.
The tank-top man's WeChat nickname was "AAA Qiaogao Fitness Club – Coach Zhiyuan," and his real-name verification read "Lin * Yuan."
Lin Zhiyuan had many WeChat friends, mostly female users marked as "Client" or "Trainee." In his most recent chat with a female client surnamed Cai, he mentioned that he would be going home to see his elders soon and would have a colleague cover for him for a few days.
She replied with a "Miss you" sticker.
Looking through Moments, Lin Zhiyuan's last post was yesterday morning, complaining that "the service station's meals are too expensive, greasy, and it'll take a month of dieting to recover," accompanied by a photo of an N1 coupé parked next to a charging pile.
"Since Lin Zhiyuan was complaining about greasy food at the highway service station yesterday morning, he must have entered the village at least after that," Ning Zhe recalled that he himself had been dragged here at 7 a.m., a few hours before Lin Zhiyuan.
After confirming that mobile data was on, Ning Zhe sent a "Are you there?" message to the client surnamed Cai.
A red exclamation mark appeared beside the message—sending failed.
"Of course it failed again," Ning Zhe thought, unsurprised.
Reviewing call logs and chat history, he saw that Lin Zhiyuan had called his contacts labeled "Parents" and "Girlfriend" multiple times each, and even tried the carrier's emergency SOS feature, but every attempt to contact the outside world failed.
Ning Zhe was not surprised by this either, for since entering Hejia Village, he too had completely lost all connection with the outside world—4G signal showed full bars, yet no single message could be sent or received.
Most people might feel frustrated in such a situation, but Ning Zhe was not most people. For reasons he could not explain, he exited WeChat and used Lin Zhiyuan's phone to dial his own number.
Vrrr—Vrrr—
A buzzing vibration came from his thigh—his phone was ringing in his pocket.
Footsteps sounded outside the ancestral hall.
Ning Zhe hung up, left Lin Zhiyuan's phone with the screen on in his outer-jacket pocket, and focused on listening to the footsteps.
When Lin Zhiyuan had entered earlier, the air-cushioned sneakers he wore had made a muffled thud against the yellow earth and stone slabs; these footsteps were crisp and loud, the hard shoe-heels tapping the ground—two sets of footsteps.
Ning Zhe fixed his gaze on the door. Entering were a middle-aged man in a suit and a long-haired woman in an office uniform. Their polished leather shoes and high heels were splattered with yellow mud.
"How could it be him?" Ning Zhe was surprised—he recognized the man, though the man likely did not know him.
Ning Zhe had seen this man on the news. His name was Zhang Yangxu, the top executive of "New World" Group, Qinzou's largest real-estate developer. Ning Zhe had returned home from school because Zhang Yangxu's company intended to acquire land nearby—to develop a new park in his hometown of Gubei Town, and his family's house was on the planned demolition list.
Since his grandparents were illiterate, they needed him—a high-school student still in school—to take a few days off to handle the demolition contract back home.
"So Zhang Yangxu has also been dragged here… Of course—on the local TV news I saw that senior executives of New World Group were coming to Gubei Town in the next few days to finalize the land-acquisition contract. I didn't expect the president himself to come. The woman must be Zhang Yangxu's secretary or assistant."
Piecing together the fragmented information, Ning Zhe roughly deduced what had happened: "Lin Zhiyuan was visiting home when he got dragged here. I was on my way to help my grandparents review the demolition contract when I was dragged here. And Zhang Yangxu and that woman were dragged here while inspecting Gubei Town?"
What connection did this strange Hejia Village have with his hometown, Gubei Town?
Puzzled, Ning Zhe watched Zhang Yangxu and the woman in office attire walk up to the lotus pedestal holding the snake-god statue.
Zhang Yangxu took out his phone, switched on its flashlight, and pressed down on the fluttering pages of the yellow Almanac to examine its contents carefully. Soon, he, too, grew puzzled, just as Lin Zhiyuan had: the almanac's entries did not match the taboos he had violated yesterday.
He glanced at his phone's screen, furrowed his brow, and said in a low, hoarse voice: "It's the twenty-third day of the fourth lunar month; that's what today's entry should be. The almanac has been flipped."
"There's been someone here before," he added, his tone calm but serious.
The woman asked softly: "A villager?"
Zhang Yangxu shook his head: "When we arrived, we noticed that every door on this street was locked from the inside—no villager has left tonight."
"Not a villager? Then…?" the woman sounded puzzled and uncertain. "Could there be others trapped here besides us?"
"Quite possibly," Zhang Yangxu did not deny.
"…He just said they walked the street checking all the locked doors. If that's the case?" Ning Zhe did a quick calculation and felt a stone drop in his heart. "It seems that merely leaving one's house and walking the village street does not violate the 'travel' taboo."
Having confirmed today's auspicious and inauspicious events, Ning Zhe had no intention of further contact with Zhang Yangxu and the others. In such an environment, no one was to be trusted. He slunk a few steps back toward the side door of the ancestral hall—just beyond the pillar behind which he was hiding—then paused.
He watched the two figures discussing before the snake-god statue, backing away lightly with the cold evening breeze blowing down his spine.
Before he could reach the door, a blood-curdling scream laced with sobbing erupted from behind him.
"Who are you…?"
Reference Glossary
Snake-god statue – A carved figure representing a local deity associated with snakes, commonly venerated in some rural Chinese folk religions
Yellow Almanac – A traditional Chinese almanac listing daily auspicious and inauspicious activities
Lunar month – The month in the traditional Chinese calendar based on moon phases
"Travel" taboo – A superstition in Chinese folk belief prohibiting certain movements or journeys on inauspicious days determined by the almanac