The water-friends had just entered the village when a thin mist rose around them.
The fog was not thick.
But in the darkness, the buildings on both sides were reduced to hazy outlines, making them look even more eerie.
"How come there's no signal in this village?"
The livestreamer was a young man of twenty-five or twenty-six named Zhang Ming, a minor streamer on one platform.
How minor was he?
At any rate, during his livestreams, he basically passed the time by talking to himself.
He had originally planned to ride the wave of interest this time, but unexpectedly, there was no network!
"Forget it. I'll record it, edit it, and upload it to a video site."
After muttering a couple of words, Zhang Ming paid it no mind. He followed the others around, searching for the inn.
The road paved with Stone Slabs was uneven, with weeds growing thickly between the cracks.
Dead branches and broken earthen jars were scattered everywhere along the roadside. Some of the jars still held water, which reflected a patch of light when the flashlight passed over them.
The narrow road stretched straight ahead.
As they went deeper, the weeds around them grew thicker, and the houses they passed became increasingly dilapidated.
Some propaganda slogans bearing the marks of a bygone era even appeared on the walls.
"Why does it feel like no one has lived here for ages?" the heavily made-up girl asked curiously as she leaned against the blond-haired young man.
"Hey, that's the countryside for you. It's all run-down and shabby." The blond-haired man did not care. The hand around the girl's waist gradually moved lower without him realizing it.
"Hee-hee." The girl cast him a flirtatious look.
"I feel like something's wrong."
The glasses man, who had been sneaking glances at the girl, suddenly stopped.
He lived nearby and knew Hujia Village well. Yet this road felt unfamiliar to him now.
"What's wrong with it? Don't be so jumpy. With so many of us here, you think a ghost can really pop out?" The blond-haired man shot him a sidelong glance.
"This place looks like Hujia Village, but Hujia Village doesn't have houses this run-down." The glasses man studied his surroundings, looking uncertain.
"Pfft. You mean we traveled through time? What kind of web novel are you spouting here?"
The blond-haired man sneered, then wore a mocking look.
"You're just trying to attract attention. I already got bored of that crap in elementary school."
"Four-eyes, stop peeking at my girlfriend. No matter how much you look, all you can do is go home and play single-player games."
Hearing this, the girl beside him giggled and thrust out her chest. With a coy smile, she said,
"Hee-hee, glasses bro, are they big?"
The glasses man's old face flushed. Looking embarrassed, he immediately tried to deny it.
Just then.
A strange cry suddenly came from the roof beside them.
Then a Shadow Figure darted down and swept past everyone.
"Ah!"
"Holy crap!"
"Oh, fuck!"
The sudden turn of events startled several people in the group into shouting.
The blond-haired man, who was the closest, was especially frightened. His legs went weak, and he stumbled, nearly falling to the ground.
"Damn it, what was that?"
The water-friend holding the flashlight hurriedly shone it in the direction the Shadow Figure had gone.
Could they really have seen a ghost?
Everyone immediately tensed, their eyes fixed on the spot illuminated by the flashlight.
But in the next moment, everyone suddenly breathed a sigh of relief.
There was nothing frightening where the flashlight shone, only a crow standing on the wall and staring straight at them.
"Damn, that scared the hell out of me."
"So it was a crow."
"I thought we'd really seen a ghost."
Seeing that it was only a bird, everyone's taut nerves relaxed, and they laughed and cursed a few times.
"Damn stupid bird. I'll kill you."
Feeling humiliated after nearly being scared out of his wits in front of everyone, the blond-haired man angrily picked up a stone from the ground and hurled it.
"Caw—"
"Caw, caw—"
"Caw, caw, caw—"
Startled, the crow immediately flapped its wings and flew away.
"All right, all right. It's getting late. Let's find that inn quickly. If we still can't find it, everyone can just go home."
The balding man in his thirties yawned and rubbed his forehead.
After his initial excitement had faded, he now felt rather bored and regretted coming out so late at night just to join the commotion.
Wouldn't it be better to sleep at home in his wife's arms?
"Let's go. If we can't find it soon, I'm going home too."
"That streamer is probably an Actor. He isn't even in Hujia Village. We came all this way for nothing."
"I heard quite a few livestreams are prerecorded. I bet the footage of entering Hujia Village was recorded in advance."
Everyone chattered among themselves, and most of them had already lost interest.
"By the way, buddy, didn't you seem to notice something just now?"
Someone patted the glasses man on the back and asked curiously.
"Nothing. I must have seen wrong."
The glasses man glanced at the blond-haired man. After being ridiculed just now, he did not feel like speaking.
After sending away the person who had asked him, the glasses man quietly moved to the very middle of the group, avoiding the edges.
Hujia Village was neither particularly small nor particularly large.
The group soon reached the end of the village.
There was an empty lot here, with a lone red-brick, tile-roofed house standing in the middle.
Beyond it, only a narrow woodland path leading to who knew where remained.
Everyone looked around curiously and discovered that the tile-roofed house was extremely strange. It did not have any windows.
Moreover, the doorway was extraordinarily tall—about four meters high and three meters wide. It stood open like a huge mouth, its interior pitch-black and impossible to see into.
"That's it?"
"So this is the end?"
"What about the inn you promised? What about the ghosts you promised?"
"We came all this way for nothing."
"I must have been crazy to come here in the middle of the night."
Having reached the end without finding the inn, everyone began to complain.
"Damn streamer, how dare he trick me? I'm going to flame him in his livestream later." The blond-haired man cursed, picked up a stone, and viciously threw it at the brick house.
The stone traced an arc through the air and landed accurately inside the doorway.
"Forget it, forget it. Let's go home and sleep."
"There's nothing to do here."
The water-friends shook their heads and prepared to head back and flame the streamer.
Tonight had been a complete waste of time!
Zhang Ming shook his head as well and began thinking about how to edit the video he had filmed.
Just as he turned around with his phone, his face suddenly stiffened.
"Holy shit!"
He shouted and jumped straight up. The selfie stick in his hand wobbled and nearly fell to the ground.
"What happened? What happened? What now?"
Zhang Ming's sudden reaction startled the others. They all stopped and looked at him.
Zhang Ming's face was pale. He pointed at the house opposite them and stammered,
"That house... There's someone inside that house. There's an old man!"
Everyone looked suspiciously at the pitch-black doorway.
"No way... There's someone in this house?"
In the dead of night, in a strange, abandoned house with a wide-open black doorway,
many of them felt their hearts jerk inexplicably.
Although there were many of them, this kind of environment inevitably made their minds run wild.
"I'll go take a look."
Just then, a young man wearing white canvas shoes stepped out from the group.
He seemed very brave. Holding a flashlight, he walked straight over and shone it inside the house.
Inside the doorway of the red-brick, tile-roofed house was a hall containing a wooden chair and an Eight Immortals Table.
A framed photograph sat on the Eight Immortals Table. Inside was a black-and-white memorial portrait.
The young man turned around and said, "You must have seen wrong. There's no one here."
As he spoke, he stepped into the house and ran his hand over the table. His entire hand came away covered in dust.
"You probably mistook this memorial portrait for a person."
He picked up the memorial portrait and shone his flashlight on it for everyone to see.
"Don't be so jumpy. It's all in your heads."
The young man chuckled, a hint of arrogance in his voice.
"I've seen quite a few people online recently claiming they encountered ghosts. This streamer livestreams himself seeing ghosts every day, so I originally came here to expose him."
"I studied psychology in college. I've never believed in ghosts."
However, while the young man was speaking,
everyone standing outside suddenly widened their eyes. Then, extreme terror appeared on their faces.
They saw a hunched old man slowly emerge from the shadows behind the young man and silently sit down on the chair in front of the Eight Immortals Table.
The old man looked exactly like the portrait in the memorial photograph.
The air suddenly fell silent.
"Ah!"
"Oh, my god!"
In the next moment, screams erupted everywhere. Terrified out of their wits, everyone turned and ran, wishing their parents had given them two extra legs.
"Hey, you..."
Seeing this, the young man immediately sensed that something was wrong.
Just as he was about to turn around, a stiff hand landed on his shoulder.
"Creak."
"Creak."
"Bang—"
With a soft sound,
the door that had originally stood open
closed.
Before you continue