Doors and Illness

After discussing it, all four agreed they should wait a little longer in the Ancestral Hall. If there were any other living people in He Family Village who knew about the "taboos," they would surely come to the Ancestral Hall to look through the Almanac and check the day's fortunes.

They didn't know what had happened that night, but every family in He Family Village had shut its doors and windows. Not a single person had come to the Ancestral Hall to check the day's fortunes.

It was very strange, and strange things meant the presence of the uncanny.

"Do you have any ideas?" Zhang Yangxu asked while they waited.

"No." Ning Zhe shook his head. "The people of the He Family come to the Ancestral Hall every night at midnight to look through the Almanac, but they haven't come today. Either they no longer care about averting bad luck, or they have some other way of learning the day's fortunes. Or maybe... there's some kind of danger in the Ancestral Hall tonight, and they're afraid to come."

"Oh?" Zhang Yangxu sounded curious. "You think that's possible?"

"I don't know. It's just a guess." Ning Zhe spread his hands.

"D-danger?" The moment she heard that there might be danger in the Ancestral Hall, Feng Yushu's face went white. She had always been a devout Buddhist, and after witnessing the Snake God's uncanny power with her own eyes in He Family Village, she had grown even more apprehensive, treading carefully with every step.

Feng Yushu glanced nervously at the memorial tablets and the Snake God statue on the Lotus Platform, then looked toward Ning Zhe for help. "How about we go outside and wait? Staying here in front of the Snake God for so long... wouldn't that be disrespectful?"

"I think so too." Ning Zhe agreed, turning to Zhang Yangxu and Xie Sining. "What do you think?"

"That makes sense. The Ancestral Hall isn't somewhere outsiders should enter, let alone stay for long." Xie Sining agreed. "Director Zhang, should we go outside?"

Zhang Yangxu gave Ning Zhe a quiet look, then nodded. "Let's go."

The four left the Lotus Platform where the Snake God was enshrined and waited beneath the eaves outside the Ancestral Hall's main entrance.

There wasn't much to talk about among a group of strangers, so Xie Sining suggested they share how they had each ended up in He Family Village. Perhaps they could find something they had in common, or a clue to getting out.

Feng Yushu spoke first. "Yesterday... no, it must have been the day before. My husband, daughter, and I were staying at a hotel in Ancient Tablet Town. Since he had a habit of working alone at night, we booked three rooms, one for each of us."

"At around seven in the evening, I made some coffee to take to my husband's room... But when I opened his door and stepped across the threshold, I didn't find myself in a hotel room. I was standing in a narrow alley paved with flagstones."

Feng Yushu spoke with lingering fear. "The stainless steel doorknob in my hand had turned into an old brass latch. Behind me was a low house built of stone and roofed with tiles. It was completely empty inside... as if I'd just come out through that door."

Zhang Yangxu nodded slightly. "My experience was much the same. My car was parked at a Gas Station outside Ancient Tablet Town. The driver had gone to the restroom, and I asked Sining to buy me a pack of cigarettes, but she didn't come back for a long time. She wouldn't reply to my messages, so I had no choice but to get out of the car and look for her. The instant I opened the car door and stepped out, I arrived here."

Xie Sining continued, "I bought the cigarettes Director Zhang wanted at the Gas Station's convenience store. But when I pushed open the door and left, the concrete pavement beneath my feet had already become the stone-paved street of He Family Village."

"I'll make mine quick." Ning Zhe nodded. "I returned to my hometown and opened the front door of my old house. Then I was here."

Zhang Yangxu's gaze sharpened as he considered this.

Was it a coincidence, or was it inevitable? Whether it was the front door of an old house, a hotel room door, a glass storefront door... or even a car door, the four of them had all arrived in He Family Village through a door, despite their different circumstances.

Ning Zhe's expression remained calm as he thought, Too bad Lin Zhiyuan is already dead. Otherwise, I could have asked him how he got here. Did he come through a door too?

Suddenly, a shadow appeared at the edge of Ning Zhe's vision, then vanished in an instant.

"There's someone in the alley across the street. He's trying to run." Ning Zhe immediately pulled out his phone, switched on the Flashlight, and aimed it at the alley opposite them.

A phone's built-in Flashlight didn't illuminate very far. Ning Zhe was only using it to convey the shadow's location to the others as quickly and directly as possible. Describing it in words would have taken too long and risked confusion.

But strangely, the black figure that had just been trying to run stopped when it saw the Flashlight in Ning Zhe's hand.

The person took a couple of steps toward them. Then a spot of white light appeared in his hand. He had a Flashlight too.

"Thank goodness, they're alive." Feng Yushu finally let out a breath. Her heart had nearly leaped out of her chest.

When they got closer, they saw there was more than one person in the alley across the street. There were two of them, a young man and a young woman. They both looked quite young, perhaps university students.

"Hello, my name is Gu Yunqing." The young man introduced himself, then gestured to the young woman beside him. "This is my senior. We're both students at Qinzhou Medical University."

"My name is Ye Miaozhu." Gu Yunqing's senior introduced herself. "Were you also brought here by accident?"

Ning Zhe nodded.

After talking for a while, they exchanged information and identification documents. Gu Yunqing and Ye Miaozhu showed them their internship certificates.

Both Gu Yunqing and Ye Miaozhu were medical interns. Qinzhou Medical University had a tradition of sending students to small clinics in remote areas to gain experience, much like a rural teaching program. Their internship placement was the designated medical station in Ancient Tablet Town.

Just like Ning Zhe and the others, Gu Yunqing and Ye Miaozhu had arrived here after opening the doors of the Clinic and the pharmacy, respectively.

"So it really is connected to doors." Ning Zhe's theory seemed even more plausible now. "If we all entered He Family Village through a door, does that mean there's a door hidden somewhere in this village that can take us out of this Weird World and back to reality?"

"I'm not sure, but it's possible." Zhang Yangxu agreed with his theory.

Zhang Yangxu then asked Ye Miaozhu, "You must know about the day's fortunes and the taboos. But why didn't you go into the Ancestral Hall to look through the Almanac? Why were you hiding in the alley across the street?"

Ye Miaozhu shook her head. "We didn't dare go in."

Gu Yunqing added, "The people of the He Family usually come to the Ancestral Hall every day, right on time, to look through the Almanac and check the day's fortunes. But none of them came today. Do you know why?"

"Why?" Feng Yushu asked hurriedly.

Gu Yunqing took a deep breath. "I overheard two very elderly villagers talking... They said the Snake God was ill, and today was the day it would have an attack."