Second Brother, Don't Get on That Bus!

The hunched Old Fisherman, his patterned rain cape, the two buckets of water he drank—insisting on raw water, not boiled—along with the discarded Fish Basket and Straw Sandals, and the Old Turtle swimming away.

The answer was already obvious.

Jiang Yue was good at noticing details. From the start, he had found the strange rain cape, faintly marked with patterns, that the Old Fisherman wore rather odd.

Once he saw the patterns on the back of the Old Turtle swimming away, Jiang Yue immediately understood what had happened.

Those dozens of characters had most likely been left by the Old Turtle using the two buckets of water, right?

Others borrowed a flower to offer to the Buddha.

Had the Old Turtle borrowed water to deliver a message?

But—

A turtle transforming into human form and speaking human words—was this still the ordinary world he had known? Even if today was Qingming Festival, this was still far too astounding.

When they returned to the old house, nothing inside was missing or out of place, but the water-written characters in the hallway, which had originally been quite vivid, had vanished inexplicably.

It was as if someone had dried them instantly with a blow dryer. Not a trace remained.

Now that he knew how the characters had appeared, Jiang Yue no longer dwelled on how they had disappeared.

After all that back and forth, the food had gone cold. Luckily, the brothers were already about seventy or eighty percent full.

To curry favor with Jiang Yue, San Gou eagerly began clearing away the dishes and chopsticks.

Before long, San Gou had tidied everything inside and out. It was clear that, as a guest in someone else's home—even if it was his aunt's—San Gou must have taken on plenty of chores. With such a keen eye for what needed doing, he'd never suffer wherever he went.

Jiang Yue was happy to let him do the work. Leaning back in the wicker chair, he mulled over everything that had happened that day.

Ever since returning to Panshi Ridge yesterday, Jiang Yue had felt that something was off.

He couldn't put his finger on exactly what.

Taken together, today's events could practically fill a book of ghost stories.

His birth mother appearing in a dream, the photo frame falling, the Flowery Skirt Woman's Shadow, the Spirit Money catching fire, Tangtou searching for his head, the battle between the tiger and dragon, the Vermilion Bird broken spine...

And now the Old Turtle had delivered a message.

White Tiger fighting Azure Dragon, heaven and earth torn open. Vermilion Bird's Spine Broken, troubles abound in the human world...

The meaning of these twenty characters was easy enough to understand at face value, but when it came to the details, Jiang Yue felt his lack of knowledge limited his imagination.

He simply couldn't understand how, in this bright and peaceful world, a huge hole could be torn open. And what kind of trouble could follow?

A war?

An earthquake?

Or a plague, some disease, another natural disaster?

It was beyond the limits of Jiang Yue's imagination. He'd never written online novels, after all. His imagination wasn't big enough to make any logical deductions.

But—

Where trouble lurks, trouble follows. Don't stay long.

That was plain as day. The meaning couldn't be clearer. Was this a warning for the two brothers to leave? To leave Panshi Ridge?

But why?

That was what Jiang Yue found so unsettling!

There had to be something wrong that they hadn't noticed yet—and that something might be the reason the Old Turtle had warned him to leave.

Jiang Yue felt like he was on the verge of losing it.

Several times, while San Gou wasn't looking, he pinched himself hard. The stinging pain reminded him that this really wasn't a dream.

"Second Brother, don't you think there's something strange about our village?" Jiang Yue was fretting when San Gou dragged over a chair and sidled up to him, speaking in a mysterious tone.

He sat down astride the chair, facing its back, and rested his arms on top of it, propping up his chin.

"What do you mean?" Jiang Yue's thoughts stirred.

San Gou might be a bit thickheaded, but the kid had an unusual way of thinking, and he was far more observant than most people his age. Maybe he could pick up on something from his perspective?

"There are hardly any people in the village this year. Isn't that weird? I came back this morning and walked all the way into the village without seeing a single person. In past years, even when it rained on Qingming, how could you walk all the way to Mount Dajin to sweep the graves without running into a few groups of people? All day today, apart from you, Second Brother, I only ran into that old fisherman—and he was from out of town."

Panshi Ridge had originally been a small mountain village, tucked away in a remote location. For decades, it had only had twenty or thirty households. Over the past twenty years, the number of original residents had steadily dwindled, and nearly everyone who could move away had done so.

Strictly speaking, even Jiang Yue wasn't a local. He was a city dweller returning to his hometown.

Even so, there should still have been some elderly people who'd stayed behind.

And with elderly people still living there, how could their children and descendants not come back to visit on a day like Qingming Festival?

The people of Panshi Ridge had always taken the tradition of sweeping ancestral graves on Qingming seriously. There was no reason they shouldn't have seen a single person.

The more Jiang Yue thought about it, the more uneasy he felt.

Thinking back carefully, from the time he returned to Panshi Ridge yesterday evening until now, he really hadn't seen a single person. He hadn't even heard a dog bark.

The people of Panshi Ridge had branched out generation after generation. Even if they were scattered across the country, surely at least a few would come home to sweep the graves on Qingming?

And it was still debatable whether that old fish seller had even been human.

So...

Where was everyone?

Once he started thinking about the details, it really was terrifying.

The road by the courtyard gate wasn't the village's main road, but people still used it often. Yet in all that time, apart from the footprints left by San Gou and himself, there wasn't a single other fresh footprint!

And the mountain path from Nine Li Pavilion to Mount Dajin was overgrown with brambles, with no sign that it had been cleared. In other words, at least before they went up, no one from the village had gone to Mount Dajin to sweep the graves!

That was clearly abnormal!

After all, for generations, the people of Panshi Ridge had buried their dead on Mount Dajin, except for those who died far from home or were too wicked to be buried in the ancestral graveyard.

It was no exaggeration to say that the ancestors of Panshi Ridge sleeping on Mount Dajin outnumbered the village's current population several times over.

And on Qingming, not a single person had gone to Mount Dajin to sweep the graves?

Wasn't that eerie?

Wasn't that bizarre?

As his thoughts wandered into darker territory, Jiang Yue shivered.

"San Gou, come on. We're going back to Star City."

They left the leftovers behind, stuffed a few clothes into their backpacks, and traveled light.

Jiang Yue also carefully tucked the family portrait into his backpack.

The old house had a sturdy lock on the door, though it would only keep out honest folk, not thieves.

Of course, apart from some bulky old furniture, pots and bowls, and a few hundred coal briquettes, there wasn't anything in the old house worth stealing.

There was obviously no direct bus from Panshi Ridge to the city. They would have to walk six or seven li to the west side of Mount Dajin, where a two-lane mountain road ran and a roadside bus stop had been built.

Calling it a bus stop was generous. There was only one bus a day, setting out from the town more than twenty kilometers away at two in the afternoon and passing this so-called stop on the west side of Mount Dajin at around half past two. Usually, it didn't pick up passengers along the way, though once in a while a few people would hop on.

The two brothers were just such passengers.

The bus would reach the stop on the west side of Mount Dajin at around half past two. They had plenty of time to get there.

The brothers hurried to the stop, arriving fifteen minutes before half past two.

The stop was primitive: a road sign stood at the side, and a long stone slab had been set up for people to sit on. It offered no shelter from wind or rain. On a rainy day like this, it was useless.

Though it was a rural bus, it was punctual.

Seeing someone signal, the bus driver tapped the brakes and stopped.

"Star City. Twenty-five each."

The driver didn't even turn his head. He had the typical expression of a long-distance bus driver.

Jiang Yue hadn't expected a luxurious VIP experience on a rural bus. The driver's attitude wouldn't affect his ride. And after the nightmare of a day he'd had, seeing a bus full of living people was a comfort.

Without thinking much of it, Jiang Yue lifted his foot to climb aboard.

He had just put one foot on the bus when San Gou grabbed him from behind and held on tight.

"Second Brother, maybe we should wait for another bus."

San Gou, who usually did whatever he pleased, looked a little pale. There was even a hint of fear in his eyes.

Though the bus driver hadn't even glanced at them, his ears were sharp. Hearing San Gou suggest waiting for another bus, he assumed they thought the fare was too high and grew impatient.

With a sharp bang, he slammed the door, stepped on the gas, and drove off.

"Idiot! There's only one bus a day. Wait for another one? It'll still be my bus tomorrow. Let's see how many days you can wait."

Jiang Yue hadn't expected the bus driver to be so arrogant, driving off the moment someone disagreed with him.

"San Gou, didn't you know there's only one bus a day?"

San Gou mumbled nothing, looking dazed.

"Are you feeling sick?"

San Gou shook his head. "Second Brother, we can't get on that bus."