Dong Xiwen arrived at the inn at the foot of the snow mountain in the evening.
Under the dim sky, the snow mountain was a grayish white, gloomy as a grave at first glance.
He could actually have arrived much earlier, but Qi Si had looked interested in everything. Even under the messenger's increasingly dangerous glare, he had insisted on visiting one shop after another.
As contracted laborers with no personal freedom, Dong Xiwen and another contracted laborer named Zhang Yiyu could only follow along blankly, halfheartedly guessing whether they would be unlucky enough to trigger a death condition.
The young man in a clown mask and bloodstained white shirt was utterly unconcerned about death's arrival. Holding a tape recorder that he had somehow pulled out, he strolled out of the last shop, stood in the middle of the street, and pressed play.
"What Is Gabala?" A strange nursery rhyme solemnly rang out: "Om mani padme hum, om mani padme hum." Under the two men's peculiar stares, the young man smiled. "I heard this song playing in nearly every shop. It's pretty nice, so I recorded it."
Nice? What kind of taste was that? Dong Xiwen clicked his tongue, about to make a sarcastic remark, when he heard footsteps amid the song.
The footsteps rang out softly, drawing closer beneath the cover of the static. They were not far behind him, sounding as though... something had been drawn in by the song.
Dong Xiwen's heart tightened. He turned around and saw a believer wrapped head to toe in burlap kneeling in a bizarre posture as it crept toward him step by step.
The believer's limbs were stiff. Every time it bowed, its neck twisted to an extent no ordinary person could manage, producing strange creaking sounds that inexplicably stirred the