Diary

Xiao Ran leaned against the window, watching Niu Wazi swing his ax and smash the puppet in front of him until flesh and blood flew everywhere. The image of Niu Wazi's innocent, guileless face from earlier flashed through his mind. "I want to go to school too, meet more good friends, and play with them..." A chill rose from the depths of his heart.

Then he thought of the other villagers, who had surrounded him with such warm, kindly expressions. Now, all at once, those faces seemed to have changed. Their friendly smiles had twisted into something monstrous.

Goosebumps rose uncontrollably along his arms.

"I can leave, but you can't. You're just like that bitch—nothing but a filthy whore who deserves to die. You both want to escape. She's the one who ruined us, made us less than human! I'll look like this for the rest of my life, without even a single hair growing on me. You all deserve to die!"

Like a madman, Niu Wazi swung his ax and hacked the person-shaped puppet in front of him into pieces. What made Xiao Ran's scalp prickle even more was that the severed limbs kept writhing on the ground in agony.

Only after he'd chopped the puppet into a heap of bloody mush did Niu Wazi finally lower his ax, satisfied.

He nodded contentedly, stuck out his tongue at the puppet reduced to a mangled heap, then hummed a tune as he walked out. He was already thinking about how many friends he could make once they escaped this hellhole. Remembering the mouthwatering scent of fresh blood and flesh on Xiao Ran, he couldn't help swallowing.

But just as Niu Wazi was dreaming of a bright future, he'd barely poked his head out of the cellar entrance when he heard a whoosh. A moment later, something struck him with a loud THUNK! His vision spun, and he lost consciousness.

Xiao Ran watched Niu Wazi tumble down the stairs and tossed aside the brick in his hand.

He soon noticed something on one side of Niu Wazi's face. So he went into the basement, walked over to the fallen boy, crouched down, and gently tugged at the split skin on his face.

With a RIIIP, a scrap peeled off Niu Wazi's face. Xiao Ran examined it, then stared at the boy lying on the ground with a strange expression. "Paper mache?"

That wasn't quite right. Under the layer of paper on Niu Wazi's face, there was still blood and flesh—but the flesh was as ugly and rotten as discarded pig lymph nodes at a butcher's stall. White maggots crawled among it.

Anyone else would have thrown up at the sight.

Xiao Ran, however, was already used to it. He even eagerly peeled back the paper on Niu Wazi's face to examine it more closely.

"Just as Old Woman said, they're all living people. They've simply been trapped here so long that their flesh has rotted away."

"Niu Wazi must have been trapped here since he was very young. His mind grew, but his body stayed like a child's. Over time, his nature became completely twisted."

"But this paper skin is very well made. Stuck to the face, it looks just like real human skin. No wonder the villagers' faces all seemed so pale. I thought it was because they never saw the sun."

"No wonder their smiles always seemed to be missing something. After all, they're wearing paper faces. The details are bound to look stiff when they smile."

He turned to look at the puppet nearby and understood at once. Like Niu Wazi, it had a layer of wooden casing over its body. Its heavy weight left it at Niu Wazi's mercy.

"Ooh! Pretty clothes!"

Xiao Ran heard a voice and turned around. At some point, the woman in white had followed him inside.

She was kneeling in front of a trunk, pulling out the clothes one by one and holding them up against herself.

Xiao Ran walked over and saw that most of the clothes were women's, and every piece was stained with blood. A few were clearly made for children.

His brow furrowed tightly.

It seemed the puppet behind him wasn't the only one who had died in this cellar.

"Ah!!"

The woman suddenly shrieked and crawled five or six meters away, then curled up in a corner, covering her head with both hands. "A ghost! A ghost! Don't hurt me! I don't know anything! I don't know anything!"

At her reaction, Xiao Ran glanced back at the trunk. A glint flickered in his clear black eyes, but he stared for a long time and still couldn't see any ghost.

He went over to the trunk and looked inside. Only one outfit remained.

Its style seemed completely out of place in the village. It looked like the school uniform worn by the girls in Romance in the Rain: a top and skirt made of blue-green fabric. It was old, but the color hadn't faded.

Compared with the other clothes, this blue-and-white fabric was clearly high quality.

How could a garment like this have ended up in this shabby village?

Xiao Ran noticed that something seemed to be in one of the pockets. He took it out and found a diary.

The diary had yellowed pages that were coming loose, but a name had been written on it in neat handwriting.

[Yang Xuan]

"This is her diary, so... were these clothes hers too?"

Seeing the name reminded Xiao Ran of the story Old Woman had told him that morning—the tale of the woman who'd slept with countless men, poisoned her husband, and become an evil ghost after death.

Old Woman's story couldn't be trusted. There might be something else in this diary.

With that thought, Xiao Ran opened it and tried to read by the faint light. But after flipping through a few pages, his brow knotted...

"Wake up, wake up!"

Niu Wazi had been in a daze, dreaming that someone was knocking on his head. He heard a voice calling to him, and only then did he slowly come around.

As he groggily opened his eyes, he saw Xiao Ran sitting at the cellar stairs, calling to him.

Niu Wazi instinctively tried to rub his eyes, but when he lifted his hands, they felt strangely heavy. His arms rose with a clatter of chains.

He froze, then looked down and saw that his hands were shackled. His feet were in leg irons too.

"Big Brother... w-what are you doing?"

Niu Wazi looked at Xiao Ran in fear and helplessness. His innocent eyes and childish voice might have made Xiao Ran feel guilty, if he hadn't witnessed everything himself.

Xiao Ran ignored him. Holding the diary in his hands, he stared at its contents, his gaze growing colder by the moment.

"Big Brother, let me go! Otherwise, I'll call for help!"

Niu Wazi struggled, but the chains and leg irons held him fast.

Xiao Ran slowly raised his head, his gaze icy. "So you're the ones who killed her!"

Niu Wazi's eyes filled with terror. He shrieked, "What are you talking about?"

"Am I?" Xiao Ran raised the diary. "It's all written right here. You locked her up here. The things you did to her... which torture device in this place isn't stained with her blood?"

Xiao Ran's words echoed through the cellar. Each question sent Niu Wazi into greater turmoil, and he hurried to explain. "No! No, no! I didn't hurt her. It was Niu San and Brother Tao and the others. They did it, not me. I was still a child back then."

"So you're not a child anymore."

Niu Wazi hadn't expected to give himself away with those words.

He froze and stared blankly up at Xiao Ran. After a moment, the innocence in his eyes slowly gave way to a cruel, vicious glare.

He stared straight at Xiao Ran. "She deserved to die! If it weren't for her, I wouldn't have ended up like this. When she was locked up here, I'd often sit beside her and watch the village men take turns sleeping with her. They pulled out her teeth, blinded her, broke her legs. Even the village dogs could mount her, but I couldn't!"

The more Niu Wazi spoke, the more deranged he became. His already-rotten features seemed to twist together.

"It's all her fault! She did this to me!"

After a while, when Niu Wazi seemed to have calmed down a little, Xiao Ran asked, "So that whole thing about driving out ghosts was a setup too?"

At that, Niu Wazi quickly calmed down instead. He shook his head. "It was real. Old Woman has great powers. We've only survived this long because she protected us."

Then, afraid Xiao Ran wouldn't believe him, he continued, "In their eyes, I was just a child, a little kid without a single hair down there. But after all this time, I started thinking the wrong way. I lost my head for a moment. Big Brother, please, I'm begging you—don't tell my parents. They'd beat me to death if you did."

Xiao Ran nodded. "One last question."

"Have you seen three children from outside the village?"

"Children?"

Niu Wazi looked utterly confused. From the bewilderment in his eyes, Xiao Ran already had his answer. He closed the diary, slipped it into his pocket, and turned to leave.

He didn't believe a word Niu Wazi said. The boy might look like a child, but mentally he was probably older than Xiao Ran.

There was no point wasting more time arguing with him. Besides, Xiao Ran had been gone for a while. The villagers might already be looking for him. It would be bad if they found this place.

After all, the time hadn't yet come to turn against Old Woman and the others.

Xiao Ran left the cellar and saw the woman in white crouching nearby, muttering something he couldn't make out.

He'd wanted to ask her if she knew anything else, but as soon as she saw him approach, she pulled her skirt over her head. "A ghost! A ghost! There's a ghost on you!"

Xiao Ran didn't know what the woman meant by "ghost." Since he couldn't get anything out of her, he had no choice but to give up and head back.

"Damn you! You're all dead! Once I get out, I'll cut off your dick!"

A clatter of chains came from the cellar. At some point, Niu Wazi had gotten hold of a small knife. Gritting his teeth, he slowly cut at his own wrist. His body shuddered with every slice.

Just as his wrist was about to slip free of the shackles, an itch came over his face. He instinctively reached up to scratch it, but his fingers caught on a lock of hair.

Niu Wazi's heart lurched. He jerked his head up and saw a face covered in knife scars bending over him. Eyes like ghostly lanterns deep in an abyss stared straight into his.

"You..."

He screamed, turned around, and raised the dagger to stab. But his attacker was faster. The bloodstained ax was already raised overhead, coming down on his skull...