Lunar April 23, 1:22 a.m.
After receiving the call, Gu Yunqing and Ye Miaozhu arrived at the arched bridge downstream and quietly waited for Ning Zhe and Feng Yushu.
Ye Miaozhu leaned against the stone railing, resting one hand on Gu Yunqing's shoulder as she looked down at the call log on his phone. It was short—only two minutes. Feng Yushu had made the call, but Ning Zhe had done the talking.
Ning Zhe had given them three brief pieces of information.
1: Xie Sining was dead. Her body was in this river, and the cause of death was unknown.
2: Something that might not even be human had taken Xie Sining's place and was following Zhang Yangxu. Its motive was unknown.
3: That thing had used Xie Sining's phone to call Feng Yushu.
Ning Zhe believed that the thing had called Feng Yushu from Xie Sining's phone for some unknown, secret purpose. Their chance discovery of Xie Sining's actual body in the river had happened to keep the impostor's strange actions from achieving their intended effect.
If it achieved its goal, something terrifying might happen.
"This is all a little too coincidental." Ye Miaozhu pressed her lips to Gu Yunqing's ear and spoke softly.
Gu Yunqing's ear twitched. In the same hushed voice, he asked, "What do you mean?"
"According to Ning Zhe, the ghost impersonating Xie Sining had just called Feng Yushu when they found the real Xie Sining's body floating in the river." Ye Miaozhu spoke gently. "Don't you think that's too much of a coincidence?"
"It certainly is." Gu Yunqing lifted his head and pointed with his chin at a sunken hole in the bridge deck. "This spot collapsed just as Ning Zhe was crossing. He almost fell through and died."
Ye Miaozhu nodded. "Right. Feng Yushu said Ning Zhe had unwittingly broken a taboo, which was why he'd had such bad luck."
"But I don't think it was bad luck," Gu Yunqing said. "Think about it. If the bridge hadn't collapsed and Ning Zhe and Feng Yushu had crossed normally, then Feng Yushu would have received the call from the fake Xie Sining on her way back to the Ancestral Hall. Would they still have found the body in the river?"
"...Hard to say, but probably not."
"Exactly." Gu Yunqing hissed softly. "If the bridge hadn't collapsed, Ning Zhe probably wouldn't have found Xie Sining's body. He wouldn't have learned the truth—that she was dead—or realized that something had taken her place..."
As Gu Yunqing spoke, his tone grew darker. "Rather than bad luck brought on by breaking a taboo, I'd say Ning Zhe's misstep was heaven warning him about danger ahead."
"But there's no heaven in He Family Village." Ye Miaozhu's expression turned grave. "There's only the Snake God."
"Right. Only the Snake God. So maybe it was the Snake God helping him. But why would it help him?" Gu Yunqing turned off his phone screen, slipped it into his pocket, and lowered his voice. "Feng Yushu said Ning Zhe had accidentally broken a taboo and that was why he'd had bad luck. But did she tell you which taboo he'd broken?"
Travel? Burial? Funerals? Or worship? They had no idea.
"This village is strange, and so are the people in it," Ye Miaozhu said softly.
"So if we want to get out alive, we need to stay twelve times more alert about everything," Gu Yunqing said, sharing her concern.
They waited by the bridge a little longer. Two figures appeared on the street in the distance. Ning Zhe and Feng Yushu had finally arrived.
"You're really late," Gu Yunqing said with a smile as he greeted Ning Zhe.
"Couldn't help it. I broke a taboo today, so I didn't dare run too fast." Ning Zhe pulled a long face, looking troubled. "I have no idea what I did to break it. I was so unlucky I almost fell to my death just crossing a bridge."
"You don't know which taboo you broke?" Ye Miaozhu grew concerned. "Then we'll have to be careful too. And... are you sure retrieving Xie Sining's body won't break another taboo?"
Burials, funerals—those things all had to do with the dead.
"It's possible, but we still have to retrieve her," Ning Zhe said calmly.
Ye Miaozhu had nothing to say.
Indeed, Xie Sining's death was an important lead if they wanted to lift the fog surrounding He Family Village. Even if it came with some danger, that was better than wandering around like headless flies.
"Let's go. The current isn't strong, but it's been a while. Her body should have drifted quite far by now."
With that, Ning Zhe led the way off the bridge and hurried downstream along the riverbank. The other three followed.
As Ning Zhe had said, the river running through He Family Village flowed slowly—so slowly it was almost unnaturally sluggish. Rows of willows lined both banks, their green leaves falling onto the water like stickers and drifting downstream at a crawl.
The four ran along the river, keeping their eyes on the water. They could see the pale moon reflected on its surface and round pebbles covering the riverbed below.
"Found her."
After walking a long way, Ning Zhe finally spotted Xie Sining, washed up on a sloping stretch of bluestone downstream. This was where the village women of He Family Village did their laundry. Xie Sining's pale, waterlogged body lay sprawled on the ground like a discarded garment.
They hurried over. Without needing to say a word, Gu Yunqing and Ye Miaozhu began examining the body, one lifting it while the other unfastened Xie Sining's clothes.
"She's been in the water a long time. Her body's completely cold, so we can't estimate when she died."
"No open wounds, no signs of blunt-force trauma, and no bruises. We can rule out death from external injuries."
"No internal bleeding. Most likely not an internal injury."
"There's no significant fluid in her lungs. She didn't drown. She was already dead when someone dumped her in the river."
"We haven't found any signs of poisoning. For now, we can rule it out, but without proper testing equipment, we can't be certain."
The more they examined her, the deeper Gu Yunqing and Ye Miaozhu's confusion grew.
"No external injuries, no drowning, and no signs of poisoning. We can't find a cause of death, inside or out." Ye Miaozhu's expression turned increasingly grave as she bit her lip. "It's almost as if... she suffered a sudden, unexpected death—or died from brain failure."
Gu Yunqing held Xie Sining by the shoulders and looked up at Ning Zhe, who was deep in thought. Then he turned to the rippling river. The pale moon floated on its surface, and the slow current reflected his own troubled face.
"What happened? How did Xie Sining die...?"
Gu Yunqing clenched his teeth slightly. The bewildering situation sent a chill through him. He tried desperately not to think about supernatural horrors, but it was clear that He Family Village was a place that defied ordinary logic.
"How did Xie Sining die?" Ning Zhe folded his arms. He understood that the answer might reveal a vital secret—a secret that could determine whether he survived here.
Just as everyone was lost in thought, a sudden splash shattered the riverbank's silence beneath the moonlight.
A warm, fresh corpse slipped off the bluestone slope where people did their laundry and plunged headfirst into the rushing river, sending up a spray of pale water.
Gu Yunqing was dead.
"...What kind of joke is this?" Ning Zhe froze.
Had the ghost that took Xie Sining's place killed Gu Yunqing? If so, how had it done it?
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