Zhang Yangxu

While moving the body, Ning Zhe casually took the phone from the vest-wearing man's pocket. A hundred-yuan bill was tucked inside its black case, but there were no ID cards, driver's license, or other documents that could confirm his identity.

Ning Zhe didn't know the vest-wearing man's lock-screen password, so he used the man's corpse's fingerprint to unlock the screen. The first thing he did after unlocking it was open the system settings and set the auto-lock to "Never." Only then did he start looking through the man's phone.

-- About three hours after death, the faint bioelectricity in a person's cells completely disappears. At that point, phones and other electronic devices can no longer recognize their fingerprints.

The vest-wearing man's WeChat nickname was "AAA Qiaogao Li Fitness Club—Coach Zhiyuan," and his verified name was "Lin*Yuan."

Lin Zhiyuan had a lot of WeChat friends, most of them women labeled "Client" or "Student." In his most recent chat with a female client surnamed Cai, Lin Zhiyuan mentioned that he had to go home soon to visit the elderly, and that a colleague would cover his shifts for a few days.

The woman replied with a "Miss you" sticker.

Looking through his Moments, Ning Zhe saw that Lin Zhiyuan's last post had been made yesterday morning. It read, "The food at the service station is way too expensive. It's both pricey and greasy. One meal takes a whole month of cutting calories to recover from." The attached photo showed an N1 sports coupe parked beside a charging station.

"Lin Zhiyuan was complaining about greasy food at a highway service station yesterday morning, so he must have entered the village sometime after that." Ning Zhe recalled how he'd entered He Family Village. He'd been pulled into this place at seven in the morning, a few hours before Lin Zhiyuan.

After confirming that mobile data was on, Ning Zhe sent the female client surnamed Cai a message: "Are you there?"

A red exclamation mark appeared beside the message. It had failed to send.

"As expected, it failed again." Ning Zhe wasn't surprised.

Looking through the call history and chat screens, he saw that Lin Zhiyuan had called each of his contacts labeled as his parents, girlfriend, and so on several times. He'd even tried the carrier's emergency-call service, but every attempt to contact the outside world had failed.

Ning Zhe wasn't surprised. The same thing had happened to him. Ever since entering He Family Village, he'd completely lost all contact with the outside world. His 4G signal showed full bars, but he couldn't send or receive even a single message.

Most people would probably have felt frustrated in this situation, but Ning Zhe wasn't exactly normal. For reasons he couldn't explain, he exited WeChat and used Lin Zhiyuan's phone to call his own number.

Bzz—bzz—

A vibration buzzed against his thigh. The phone in his pocket was ringing.

Just then, footsteps sounded outside the Ancestral Hall.

Ning Zhe hung up, left Lin Zhiyuan's phone screen on, and slipped it into his coat pocket. Then he focused and listened to the footsteps outside.

When Lin Zhiyuan had entered earlier, the sound of his cushioned sneakers on the Yellow Earth and stone path had been muffled. These footsteps were crisp and loud, hard heels tapping against the ground. There was more than one set of footsteps—two.

Ning Zhe kept his eyes fixed on the entrance. A middle-aged man in a suit walked in, accompanied by a long-haired woman in office attire. A few flecks of yellow mud clung to their finely crafted leather shoes and high heels.

"How could it be him?" Ning Zhe was surprised.

He knew the middle-aged man, though the other man might not know him.

Ning Zhe knew him from the news. His name was Zhang Yangxu, the head of New World Group, Qinzhou's largest real estate developer. Ning Zhe was currently taking time off from school to return to his rural hometown because Zhang Yangxu's company was interested in acquiring land nearby. They planned to develop a new industrial park in his hometown, Ancient Tablet Town, and his family's house was on the company's preliminary demolition list.

But his maternal grandparents couldn't read, so they needed him, a high school student, to take a few days off and come home.

"So Zhang Yangxu was pulled into this place too... Right, I saw on the local news that New World Group executives would be visiting Ancient Tablet Town in the next few days to inspect the site and finalize the land acquisition contract. I didn't expect the president himself to come. The woman with him must be his secretary or assistant."

Drawing on the fragments of information, Ning Zhe pieced together what had happened. "Lin Zhiyuan was pulled in while going home to visit his family. I was pulled in on my way home to help my grandparents look over the demolition contract. And Zhang Yangxu and that woman were pulled in while visiting Ancient Tablet Town to inspect the site?"

Was there some connection between this strange village called He Family Village and his hometown, Ancient Tablet Town?

As he wondered, Ning Zhe watched Zhang Yangxu and the woman in office attire walk up to the Lotus Platform, where the Snake God statue was enshrined.

Zhang Yangxu took out his phone and turned on the flashlight with one hand, while holding down the Almanac pages that were fluttering in the wind with the other. He studied the text carefully. Before long, he was just as puzzled as Lin Zhiyuan had been: the Almanac's contents didn't match the taboo he'd broken yesterday.

He glanced at his phone screen, and his brow immediately furrowed. "The lunar date is the twenty-third day of the fourth month. That's today's entry. Someone's turned the page."

Zhang Yangxu's voice was low, with a slight rasp. He spoke in a calm, serious tone. "Someone's been here."

The woman beside him asked quietly, "A villager?"

Zhang Yangxu shook his head. "We already checked when we arrived. Every door along the street was locked from the inside. Not a single villager has come out tonight."

"Not a villager? Then who...?" The woman's voice was uncertain and confused. "Could there be other people pulled into this place besides us?"

"It's possible." Zhang Yangxu didn't deny it.

"...He just said they checked every door along the street and found them all locked from the inside. If that's the case..." Ning Zhe quickly calculated the time, and a weight lifted from his heart. "It looks like simply leaving a house and walking along the village streets doesn't violate the taboo about going out."

The taboo about going out must have meant something else.

Now that he'd confirmed the day's auspiciousness and inauspiciousness, Ning Zhe had no intention of approaching Zhang Yangxu and the woman. In a place like this, no one could be trusted. The side door of the Ancestral Hall was only a few steps behind the pillar where he was hiding. It was time to leave through it.

Ning Zhe warily watched Zhang Yangxu and the woman discussing things in front of the Snake God statue. With his back to the side door, he quietly retreated, step by step. The cold evening wind poured in through the doorway and chilled his back.

Before he could reach the door, a scream rang out behind him, tinged with sobs.

"Who are you...?"