When I came to, I felt as if I were already inside a dream.
The bells rang rhythmically, their clear chimes echoing through the dry, fresh air, which carried the scent of grass and trees. Yet mixed in was an unpleasant stench of blood and rot.
I was walking forward. A narrow path through the fields stretched ahead, with cooking smoke curling up in the distance and vast farmland on either side.
A flash of blue swept across the corner of my vision.
I stopped, pivoted on my heel, and the bells changed their rhythm slightly.
I also heard a soft, knocking sound. My left hand seemed to be gripping a pole, which tapped the ground with each step.
I crouched and brushed aside the weeds before me. There stood the ugly boundary marker of Crooked-Necked Village.
In the blink of an eye, thoughts exploded in my mind, and for a moment I couldn't make sense of them.
By the time I came to, I was walking again. Only then did I sort out the thoughts that had burst forth in that instant.
The strange boundary marker was deeply abnormal. And that thing was a curse.
What kind of curse?
I had no idea what was happening. My thoughts were linear, devoid of depth or breadth.
People appeared in my field of vision, and I began to hear voices around me.
They wore clothes from an earlier era. Two of them were even dressed in ancient garb. Their necks were all crooked, with one side bulging, and their bodies were deformed.
I heard myself speak. My voice was unfamiliar, and so was the language. The villagers' replies were thick with local accents, and the language itself even sounded like Mandarin spoken with an accent.
It was difficult for us to