"As the inner room's door opened, the woman let out a piercing scream. Old Fisherman was gone, and the house, which had been fairly tidy before, had been transformed beyond recognition. Everything inside was soaking wet. Black, putrid mud covered the floor, giving off a pungent stench of decay. Most importantly, the bed... the bed where Old Fisherman had slept was covered in water plants—the Beauty Fragrance unique to Spring God Lake!"
"With several younger relatives supporting her, the woman managed not to faint. Before she could catch her breath, another group of people arrived. At the front was a short, slightly stooped old man, who stumbled along with someone's help. The moment he saw the woman, he grew agitated. He said he had followed the lakeshore all the way there."
The old man turned and pointed at the ground in the courtyard. A strange, enormous track marked the dirt, as if a gigantic snake had slithered across it.
"These are tracks left by a boat scraping the bottom. The boat that smashed through your door last night was a boat!" The old man's excitement was plain, his chest heaving. "I just followed the tracks. They led all the way to a secluded spot by the lake. That boat... that boat came out of the lake last night and went to your house!"
It had been a rule in the fishing village for years that no one rowed boats at night. And what kind of boat could travel over land? The bizarre scene sent a chill through everyone present.
Remembering what Old Fisherman had said the night before, the three younger men who had stayed at his house were even more terrified. An eerie, unthinkable scene formed in everyone's minds: in the dead of night, a wooden boat drifted out