The sun had climbed high in the sky. Misty vapor hung over the basin, veiling the scorching sun in a haze and turning into a fine drizzle.
When people had something to do, time always seemed to fly. Braving the fine, hair-thin rain, Ning Zhe glanced at the time. It was already 11:49 a.m., nearly lunchtime.
He had lost track of how many families' offerings to the Snake God he had eaten. The stomach that had once been stuffed full no longer felt painfully bloated, as if none of the food he'd eaten had ever existed.
"About time." Ning Zhe slipped his phone back into his pocket, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath.
There was nothing more he could do. Before long, the people of He Family Village would start preparing lunch. Whether his attempt to figure out the village's rules would get anywhere depended on the next decisive few dozen minutes.
"Let's go. Back to the ancestral hall." With the silent Feng Yushu beside him, Ning Zhe walked through the busy streets and alleys toward the ancestral hall.
At night, He Family Village was deserted, giving it a lonely, deathly stillness. By day, it was the complete opposite. Walking along its bluestone-paved streets, Ning Zhe saw shop after shop open for business, lights glowing inside. There were medicinal herbs from the traditional Chinese medicine shops, toys for children, vegetable vendors pushing handcarts, and the constant clamor of the Miscellaneous Tavern. The whole village brimmed with noisy life.
Yet the bustling scene did nothing to dispel the worry and fear in Feng Yushu's heart. Every person walking the streets, regardless of sex, height, or build, had their face covered by a square of old, yellow paper. Their expressions and features were hidden.
Each person's paper bore a different inscription, but they all had one thing in common: each was a person's name, and every name began with "He."
Everyone in He Family Village had pasted a piece of yellow paper bearing their name over their face, yet carried on with life despite having their eyes, ears, nose, and mouth concealed.
The faceless villagers moved with extreme slowness, their joints turning stiffly and awkwardly. They looked like old cars in desperate need of repair, making their way down the street with a backward glance every few steps, imitating the bustling prosperity that had once filled the place. The more normal their daily lives seemed, the more unsettling and inexplicable they became.
The feeling wasn't deadly, but it was deeply oppressive and unpleasant, as if something were about to happen at any moment, yet never did.
The fine, hair-thin rain slanted down as the two of them made their way back to the ancestral hall.
Feng Yushu stood at the entrance and peered inside. The ancestral hall was still the same, and the Snake God was still the same statue, but something seemed different.
"Do you see it?" Ning Zhe asked softly.
"See what?" Feng Yushu asked, puzzled.
"The Snake God." Ning Zhe gently brushed the raindrops from his shoulder and walked into the ancestral hall. Looking up at the Snake God on the Lotus Platform, he said, "The Snake God doesn't look the same as before."
Feng Yushu took a closer look. Sure enough, the Snake God before them was indeed different. The decay and rot on its body had become more pronounced, and a thick layer of mold had collected at the roots of its scales. Milky-white fungal strands grew unchecked... It looked like an old person on the verge of death, with only one last, feeble breath left, yet somehow still clinging to life.
"The Snake God's condition has gotten worse." Feng Yushu looked at Ning Zhe and asked softly, "Is it because of you...?"
"Who knows?" Ning Zhe shrugged, lazily leaning his shoulder against the pillar to the Snake God's left as he watched the time on his phone.
He could feel it. That decisive moment was almost upon them.
Waiting for results after finishing a task always felt like the longest part. It was like the score tally after a game, even though it went by quickly; players still wished it would go faster and faster.
No one knew how long the silence lasted, until wisps of cooking smoke began to rise from the houses of He Family Village.
Ning Zhe knew that "something" had happened.
As if in a trance, he raised his head and looked at the Snake God statue on the Lotus Platform. Its figure still seemed to soar, apparently no different from a few minutes earlier. But when Ning Zhe looked closely, he noticed something unusual:
—the Snake God's right eye had gone blind, too.
Within just a few minutes, milky-white fungal strands had filled the Snake God's wooden right eye socket. The Snake God was completely blind.
"Did it work...?"
The thought had barely formed when Ning Zhe's vision went black. Without warning, he lost all sense of the world around him.
He felt an ink-dark mass of darkness envelop his mind. There wasn't a glimmer of light in sight. He had plenty of words to describe the darkness: vast, immense, deep, boundless, magnificent... And yet none of them were quite right.
In the deep, silent darkness, Ning Zhe heard an Unusual Voice.
The faint sound was as soft as wind drifting from afar, or like the drizzle falling outside the ancestral hall. Each raindrop was a crisp, clear word.
If the villagers gathered to worship the Snake God had previously chanted a jumble of complicated, strange-sounding sacrificial words that made no sense, then the voice now echoing in Ning Zhe's mind was more like a poised opera singer softly humming a tune to her beloved. Its melody was lilting and graceful, carrying a faint sorrow:
[Longing for you, I sigh and sigh, tears filling my eyes.]
[Holding you in my heart, I hope and hope, mist veiling my window.]
[Thinking of you, day after day, our fate in bloom throughout my room.]
The faint humming drifted into his ears, making his vision swim.
Amid the misty clouds, Ning Zhe hazily glimpsed an open window. Fine rain drifted outside, and inside sat a charming young woman.
She wore a loose, deep-red gown that could not hide her shapely figure. Leaning lazily by the window, she gazed out at the fine rain. Her smooth, pale hands were even more lustrous than the jade bangles at her wrists. Her face, featureless and as white as snow, bore a touch of red plum blossom: her lips, delicate and vivid, held a trace of faint, lingering melancholy.
Her vivid red lips parted and closed as she hummed a wistful, lilting tune. She seemed like a wronged young wife curled in her husband's arms, pouting as she complained, her rosy little mouth full of grievances, yet her eyes and brows held nothing but a gentle warmth, abundant like water.
[All I ask is that you come; I don't ask if you'll return.]
[All I do is for you; I don't hear your sorrow...]
Her gentle gaze fell on Ning Zhe, sending a chill through him.
She had no features at all. So why did he feel her gaze so clearly upon him?
Ning Zhe awoke from the vision, drenched in cold sweat. Before him stood the same timeworn, dilapidated ancestral hall, with the gravely ill Snake God enshrined on the Lotus Platform. Feng Yushu was crouched beside him, her face full of worry as she anxiously held his shoulder.
"Ning Zhe, what's wrong?"
"I..." Ning Zhe closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. "I think I just saw something. Or someone. I'm sure I saw it, but I've forgotten... I just can't remember."
Ning Zhe had only just woken, and his mind was still hazy. He felt he'd received some very important information, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't recall what it was. Only a sorrowful tune still echoed in his mind, its subtle tenderness as gentle as water, and just as deadly:
[All I ask is that you come; I don't ask if you'll return.]
[All I do is for you; I don't hear your sorrow...]
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