The Almanac

Lunar April 23, Grain in Ear.

Rain fell outside. Ning Zhe entered the Ancestral Hall, where the Snake God was worshipped, and opened the old Almanac nailed to the Snake God statue's tongue to check the day's fortune:

[Suitable:]

[Not Suitable: Traveling, Burial, Funerals, Sacrifices]

"Traveling is forbidden... Does today's rule mean I can't leave the house?" Ning Zhe studied the Almanac in front of him, committing its contents to memory.

The Almanac's contents were key to surviving in this isolated mountain village.

The village was called He Family Village. It lay in the middle of a basin surrounded on all sides by mountains, cut off from the outside world. A river divided the village into eastern and western halves, connected by three arched bridges.

The people of He Family Village all believed in the Snake God, and every household had an image of it. The Snake God was depicted as a giant azure jade serpent with a pair of long, curved horns. A wooden statue of the Snake God, carved from a camphor tree root, was enshrined in the clan Ancestral Hall at the southern end of the village, surrounded by the memorial tablets of He Family Village's ancestors. It was also where Ning Zhe was now.

An old Almanac was nailed to the Snake God statue's tongue. The most important thing the people of He Family Village did each night at midnight was come to the Ancestral Hall and turn a page to check the day's fortune. Only then could they go to sleep in peace.

According to the villagers, the good and bad fortunes recorded in the Almanac were Heavenly Secrets revealed by the Snake God.

Each day, the Almanac randomly listed what was suitable and what was not. Knowing its contents allowed one to avert bad luck and seek good fortune. Doing what was suitable that day brought good luck, while violating a taboo brought bad luck. Repeated violations brought disaster, and those who broke too many taboos, or committed particularly serious ones, might even die mysteriously.

Ning Zhe knew this from experience.

When he had first arrived in the village yesterday, he hadn't known the rules and had unwittingly violated the day's taboos of "Seeing the Living" and "Removing Insects." As a result, he'd had a miserable day:

He'd tripped over a crack in the stone-paved road. A loose roof tile had fallen and struck the back of his head as he passed beneath the eaves. And just as he was about to leave the house, torrential rain had started falling... He'd barely made it to midnight. The secluded mountain village was about to welcome a new day. Ning Zhe had waited outside the Ancestral Hall, and the moment midnight passed, he'd immediately turned open the Almanac to check the day's fortune.

Ning Zhe checked its contents once more:

[Suitable:]

[Not Suitable: Traveling, Burial, Funerals, Sacrifices]

"Burials, funerals, and sacrifices are easy enough to understand, but what exactly does 'traveling' mean? Does it mean going on a long journey, or does simply leaving a building and going outside count? And..."

Ning Zhe was puzzled. His gaze shifted slightly upward, settling on the blank space after the word "Suitable."

"Why does the Almanac only list what's forbidden, and nothing that's suitable?"

Was nothing suitable today?

As he wondered about this, faint footsteps came from outside the Ancestral Hall. Some villager must have come to check the Almanac. Ning Zhe stepped away from the Lotus Platform where the Snake God statue was enshrined and headed for the side door, preparing to leave.

The villagers of He Family Village were no decent folk. If he could help it, Ning Zhe wanted to avoid dealing with them.

But the candle flames behind him flickered as Ning Zhe reached the side entrance, and he hesitated. He wasn't sure what the taboo against "traveling" meant, and didn't dare leave recklessly. He'd had quite enough bad luck yesterday.

"Midnight has passed, and today's fortune has been refreshed. If 'traveling' includes simply leaving the house and moving around the village, then the villagers who left home to come check the Almanac at the Ancestral Hall have already broken the taboo." Ning Zhe thought.

The Snake God was merciful. When the ignorant violated a taboo for the first time, they would only suffer some minor bad luck, not lose their lives. In other words, if Ning Zhe watched to see whether the villagers who came to the Ancestral Hall had bad luck, he should be able to roughly determine whether they had violated the "traveling" taboo.

With that in mind, Ning Zhe didn't hurry to leave. He moved sideways to a pillar against the wall. It was pitch-black, with a dark red, aged silk curtain hanging from it. A dim candle stand swayed faintly beneath the curtain. Ning Zhe hid behind it and watched the Ancestral Hall's main entrance through a gap in the candlelight.

Soft, muffled footsteps mingled with the patter of rain. A pair of white sneakers splashed through a puddle in the street and reached the Ancestral Hall.

"..." Ning Zhe stared fixedly at the figure walking in from outside, his pupils contracting slightly in shock.

The man was young and muscular, and looked to be under thirty. He wore a simple tank top and loose shorts suited for running. His sturdy arms and sneakers made it clear he was someone who loved to work out. Yet this utterly ordinary outfit made Ning Zhe's blood run cold.

"Ever since I got caught up in He Family Village, every villager I've seen has looked strange. They wear old-fashioned hemp clothes, plow their fields with oxen, and speak with thick Hakka accents... There isn't even a single electric light in the streets or houses."

"If it weren't for the village's bizarre rules and the villagers' stiff, shadow-puppet-like movements, I might have wondered if I'd somehow traveled back to ancient times."

Yet in this strange "ancient village," he had encountered someone dressed in modern clothes.

"Who is he? Did he get pulled into this Weird Place like I did? Is there anyone else alive here besides me?"

Questions crowded Ning Zhe's mind, but his cautious nature kept him from acting rashly. He slowed his breathing and did his best not to make a sound, staring without blinking as the muscular man in the tank top and sneakers entered the Ancestral Hall, walked straight into the inner sanctum, and stopped before the Snake God statue.

"He's here for the Almanac too." Ning Zhe understood.

Like him, the man in the tank top was probably an outsider who had accidentally been pulled into this strange village. He might even have unknowingly violated one of the Snake God's taboos. Perhaps he had come to the Ancestral Hall late at night for the same reason as Ning Zhe—to check the Almanac and see the day's fortune.

The man in the tank top looked up at the old Almanac hanging from the Snake God's tongue, his face puzzled. Ning Zhe knew what he was wondering.

"He thinks he's the first person to arrive at the Ancestral Hall, and that the Almanac hasn't been turned yet—that it's still showing yesterday's page. So he's probably wondering why the Almanac's contents don't match the taboos he violated yesterday."

But Ning Zhe had arrived first and had already turned to today's page. Of course they didn't match.

The man hesitated for a moment in front of the Snake God statue, then reached out toward the Almanac. He was about to turn the page.

"Right. This Almanac doesn't use the Gregorian calendar. It uses the lunar calendar, and modern people used to the Gregorian system would have a hard time telling whether the date shown is today's." Ning Zhe had a good idea of what was happening.

The problem could have been solved by simply checking a phone. Phone manufacturers usually displayed both Gregorian and lunar dates on the calendar screen. But perhaps the discrepancy between the Almanac's contents and the taboos he had actually violated had thrown the man into a panic. In his extreme nervousness, he hadn't managed to calm down enough to think of that.

When the law is unknown, its power is unfathomable. In an environment like this, with elusive rules and death looming at arm's length, few people could stay rational at all times.

Ning Zhe held his breath and stared at the man's hand reaching for the Almanac. "If the Almanac has already been turned to today, will turning it again reveal tomorrow's fortune?"

He had no intention of going out to warn the man. There was only one thing Ning Zhe wanted to know: Would the Snake God allow anyone to check tomorrow's fortune today?

He got his answer soon enough.

The man's short, thick fingers pinched the Almanac and turned a page. He was about to hang the page showing today's fortune back on the nail. But before he could do so, less than a second after he turned the page, a dull thud rang through the Ancestral Hall.

It was the sound of a human body hitting the yellow earth floor. He hadn't managed to turn the Almanac to tomorrow's page. Instead, he collapsed to the ground as if all his strength had left him, and lay motionless.

"Looks like the answer is no," Ning Zhe murmured to himself.

He hadn't actually examined the corpse yet, but an inexplicable premonition came over him, like someone had given him a hint.

He felt that the man was dead.

A cool night breeze drifted in through the main door. The turned page of yellow paper remained suspended, never falling back into place. It fluttered and rustled like a dead leaf in the wind, or a butterfly with dark yellow wings flitting through the silent Ancestral Hall. Beneath its wings, the words "Tomorrow's Fortune" could still be made out.

Ning Zhe took a deep breath and turned his gaze away from the Almanac, but he didn't intend to leave.

The man in the tank top hadn't dropped dead because of bad luck. He had violated some hidden Death Taboo, separate from the taboos listed under "Today's Fortune."

"Something like the Unspoken Rules beneath the rules on the surface?" Ning Zhe wondered as he hurried out from behind the curtain.

A cool draft swept through the Ancestral Hall. With quick, practiced movements, Ning Zhe dragged the man's body away from the Snake God statue and hid it beneath the offering table covered with a bright red cloth. A body that had only just died wouldn't smell for a while. It should be safe there.

Ning Zhe straightened the tablecloth, hurried away from the offering table, and hid once more behind the curtain by the wall.

"Besides me and this man, there should be other living people in this village. They might come to the Ancestral Hall and check the Almanac too."

The strange death he had witnessed hadn't terrified Ning Zhe into losing his nerve. He still knew exactly what he needed to do: by observing whether the other people who came here from outside suffered bad luck, he might be able to work out exactly what the "traveling" taboo meant.

The Almanac's contents were key to surviving in this isolated mountain village.