Man is the Sum of All Social Relations

"How could this be..." Feng Yushu's legs went weak, and she collapsed onto the ground. The horrific scene unfolding before her eyes shattered her will, just as it had when Gu Yunqing died.

In truth, simple death by violence or poisoning would not have terrified her to this extent, because those have traceable patterns and can be avoided through action. However, in this village, the rules are intangible and silent. Unless you break one yourself or witness someone else doing so, the rules remain silently operating in some unobservable corner, never revealing themselves.

When the law is unknowable, its power is immeasurable. The deepest fears of traditional Chinese people are twofold: first, the unknown; second, guilt.

Feng Yushu felt like a blindfolded person walking a tightrope high above the ground. Every step was taken with trepidation, as if walking on thin ice. She could not judge what the result of her next step would be, so she could only rely on her senses to move slowly in the general direction she remembered. Every step could be death.

But at this moment, there was one person who seemed to completely ignore the surrounding darkness and the unknown. His eyes were not covered, his gait was as casual as a stroll in a garden, and he held everything under his control.

Ning Zhe arrived before the collapsed Feng Yushu and reached out a hand to her.

"Follow me," he said, using his palm to block her trembling line of sight. "Don't look back, or you will die."

"Okay..." Feng Yushu grabbed Ning Zhe's wrist, struggled to climb to her feet, and left the Ancestral Hall with him, under the watchful gaze of the Snake God behind them.

Feng Yushu noticed that the "Ye Miaozhu" who had appeared in the Ancestral Hall earlier had vanished. The moment she had reached out her hand to flip the Almanac open again, the body of "Ye Miaozhu" had dissipated like a wisp of smoke blown away by the wind, or a sandcastle crushed by the tide, leaving not even a trace behind.

"That was a ghost," Ning Zhe said. "Ye Miaozhu's identity was stolen by the ghost. What we just saw was it using a borrowed knife to kill."

In the Ancestral Hall behind them, a cold wind blew through the hall, making the opened page of the Almanac rustle. It fluttered like a Withered Leaf Butterfly, refusing to settle back into place, as if urging the two of them to turn back and catch a glimpse of tomorrow's Heavenly Secrets. Ning Zhe did not dare to look back, pulling Feng Yushu along as they walked quickly away.

After leaving the Ancestral Hall, Feng Yushu's mood finally calmed down. She stared fixedly at Ning Zhe's profile and asked in a trembling voice, "Why? What exactly happened? Ye Miaozhu, how could she..."

"Calm down, you're becoming incoherent," Ning Zhe said. "Surviving in this kind of environment requires bearing immense pressure and possessing strong psychological fortitude. Once you fail to manage your emotions, acting in desperation and running around like a headless fly will only give the ghost an opportunity."

"So stay calm, or you will be killed, Aunt."

Feng Yushu shook her head repeatedly, gripping Ning Zhe's wrist even tighter. "Even if you say that... how am I supposed to know how to avoid being killed by the ghost? I don't even know what method it uses to steal a person's identity."

When you don't know from which direction a bullet will fly, all your dodging movements look ridiculous in the eyes of a sniper.

"What method does the ghost use to steal a person's identity? That depends on your definition of 'identity' and 'person'."

Ning Zhe's tone suddenly relaxed, and he said while walking, "Aunt, what do you think your 'identity' is?"

"Me?" Feng Yushu thought for a moment and said, "I am my husband's wife, my daughter's mother, my parents' daughter... which one are you referring to specifically?"

"All of them," Ning Zhe said. "A person is the sum of all their social relationships. In the eyes of everyone who knows you, your image is different."

"In your husband's eyes, you are a dignified wife; in your daughter's eyes, you are a gentle mother; in your parents' eyes, you are a daughter who has married out; in the eyes of school teachers, you are a student's parent; in the eyes of a mall clerk, you are a wealthy customer... and so on. Which of these identities is you? The answer is, all of them."

"Only when the different images of you in the minds of everyone who knows you overlap do they constitute the complete you."

Ning Zhe said this, then changed the subject. "I don't know if you can understand this explanation—what was replaced by the ghost back then wasn't the complete Xie Sining, but the Xie Sining that Zhang Yangxu knew."

"When the real Xie Sining died by the river, the 'Xie Sining known by Zhang Yangxu' was replaced. The image of this Xie Sining was exactly the same as the legal consultant Zhang Yangxu knew, with no flaws in speech or behavior, but it could not answer the highly professional legal questions Zhang Yangxu posed because its identity was incomplete."

"It was only 'the Xie Sining in Zhang Yangxu's cognition,' not the complete Xie Sining herself."

"If Zhang Yangxu himself didn't know the answer to a question, how could the Xie Sining in his cognition know it?"

"But logically, it should have known... so the moment Zhang Yangxu threw out a reasonable question it couldn't answer, the rules of 'Xie Sining' locked up."

As he spoke, Ning Zhe arrived with Feng Yushu in front of a residential house some distance away from South Street, where the Ancestral Hall was located. The cooking smoke on the roof of this house had already died out, and the people inside were eating breakfast.

Feng Yushu chewed over Ning Zhe's words carefully, then heard him continue: "So Aunt, why do you think the ghost disguised as Xie Sining called you on the way back to the Ancestral Hall?"

As soon as these words were spoken, Feng Yushu froze. Ning Zhe's words passed through her brain like a jolt of electricity, connecting that crucial node.

She hesitated for a long time before tentatively saying, "Was it... to steal the identity of 'the Xie Sining known by Feng Yushu'?"

"Correct answer," Ning Zhe gave Aunt a thumbs up. "This is the answer to the puzzle."

There are two rules in He Family Village, corresponding to two puzzles:

[Puzzle 1: Why did the Snake God go mad?]

[Puzzle 2: How does the ghost impersonate others' identities?]

The answer to Puzzle 2 was already laid out before Feng Yushu.

"Just as the Snake God only can and will punish you when you break a taboo, the ghost can only steal a specific identity when certain specific conditions are met, and that condition is 'cognition'."

Ning Zhe stepped forward, leaning his shoulder against the outer wall of the house, and said:

"When you saw the caller ID on your phone screen and thought the ghost calling you was Xie Sining, it really was."

"When Zhang Yangxu, hiding by the Willow Tree, heard footsteps on the fallen leaves and thought the ghost walking toward him was Xie Sining returning from the restroom, it really was."

The more people who knew Xie Sining developed a cognitive error, believing the ghost in human skin was Xie Sining, the more complete the Xie Sining it played became.

Complete to a certain degree, it could even deceive the Snake God.

"This is the rule of this ghost."