Shrouded in fog, Fukou was as silent as a tomb. The atmosphere hung heavy as lead, like a coffin overturned above the town.
Amid the thick fog, the Night Watchman poured a mouthful of liquor down his throat to warm himself. Only then did he pick up his clapper again and resume calling the watches.
His voice could not penetrate the fog at all.
In households that kept chickens and dogs, not even the animals dared make a sound.
The more silent it became, the more the Night Watchman panicked.
The Night Watchman knew very well that something was terribly wrong.
He was not afraid of charred corpses appearing in the street. When you called the watches at night, what was a corpse?
What frightened him was the scenery around him changing.
For someone calling the watches at night, the greatest danger was straying onto the wrong path. On an ordinary wrong path, you could simply turn back, but if the Night Watchman took the wrong road at midnight, he might truly never return.
That was why, when a child lost their soul, the Night Watchman would sometimes attend the soul-calling ritual.
They knew.
In the darkness of night, the road beneath your feet was not always meant for you.
Now the Night Watchman recalled that ancestral warning. His hands were frozen stiff, yet he walked swiftly, not daring to pause for even a moment.
In the distance, the lights that had yet to go out were so obscured by fog that he could barely see them.
He did not head toward those lights.
He did not trust his eyes.
He trusted only his memory.
The faster he walked, the more echoes came from behind him.
As he walked down the street, the Night Watchman gradually stopped hearing anything else.