The window wasn't closed

"": 200,

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"": """Will you really report Zhang Jun?" Zhang Li's question interrupted Luo Bin's thoughts.

Luo Bin had said he would tell the village chief, but that had actually been a bluff. He knew nothing about the man. He hadn't expected the man to tell the outsiders where he came from.

"Yeah. It's just a matter of mentioning it." Luo Bin nodded.

"You're a good person." Zhu Qianqian ran out from behind the mountain god statue, gratitude in her eyes.

"My name's Zhang Li, and she's Zhu Qianqian." Zhang Li held out his hand.

"Luo Shan." Luo Bin shook Zhang Li's hand, glanced at the woman with the beauty mark beneath her eye, and asked, "What's wrong with her?"

"Gu Yiren isn't feeling very well," Zhu Qianqian answered quietly. A pleading look entered her eyes. "We're members of an archaeological team. A landslide on Cabinet Mountain buried a lot of people. We urgently need a rescue team. Can you help us get our vehicle back and take us out of here?"

"I want to leave just as much as you do," Luo Bin replied. "Everyone in the village knows we can't get out. Haven't you already tried several times?"

Zhang Li said nothing. Sweat beaded on his forehead.

Zhu Qianqian pressed her lips together, lost and uneasy.

"What's making her feel unwell?" Luo Bin was still watching Gu Yiren.

"Yiren had a fright yesterday. It's nothing serious." Zhang Li subtly took half a step sideways, blocking Luo Bin's view.

"I see." Luo Bin nodded.

When Gu Yiren had met his eyes earlier, she hadn't looked frightened. Now, however, there was something strange about her. She hadn't even looked him in the eye once. Luo Bin couldn't very well ask her outright. After all, this concerned his own secret.

The one thing he needed help with was that he had to drink lamp oil to stay normal.

He needed lamp oil.

Or could Gu Yiren have another solution?

"If nothing's wrong, just stay here in the Mountain God Temple. Since you're here, make the best of it. The village chief isn't a bad person, and he hasn't lied." With that, Luo Bin headed out of the Mountain God Temple. No one tried to stop him.

He soon returned to the little wooden hut.

Turning his head, he saw Zhang Li and Zhu Qianqian closing the Mountain God Temple's doors.

Gu Yiren stood quietly behind them. Was she actually looking at him from afar?

The doors closed.

Luo Bin took a deep breath and concentrated.

The closed Mountain God Temple doors opened as though a recording were playing backward, replaying Zhang Li and Zhu Qianqian closing them.

Gu Yiren really was looking at him.

And that wasn't all! Her lips were moving!

Luo Bin used Rewind again, his pupils contracting!

He repeated the process more than a dozen times.

Finally, Luo Bin squeezed his eyes shut. The mental strain had left his head feeling as though it would split.

Huge beads of sweat rolled down his forehead as he murmured, "The window wasn't closed."

He unsteadily sat down beside the table and looked at the hut's nailed-shut window. It hardly counted as a window anymore. The gaps were only as wide as the crack beneath a door. Why would it need closing?

No...

Was she reminding him of that night, when the window hadn't been closed and Xu Kaiguo had slipped in a note asking him to save her?

Half an hour earlier, at the Luo family home.

"Yunling, I'm really sorry for the trouble. This portion is for our Xiao Shan. Take these to the outsiders." Gu Ya was busy at the stove, dividing the food into portions. She put one into a food carrier and the others into a bamboo tray, covering them with a cloth.

There was another person in the kitchen: Zhang Yunling, a villager who knew Gu Ya well. She was in her early twenties, in the bloom of youth, poised and gracious.

Gu Ya had planned to deliver lunch herself, but on her way home from the Mountain God Temple, she had run into the village chief again. He had told her and Luo Feng not to leave home, saying he would stop by shortly.

That was why Gu Ya had called Zhang Yunling over ahead of time to help deliver the food.

"Got it, Auntie Gu." Zhang Yunling's voice was sweet. She stood facing Gu Ya, with her back to the window.

Her hands were behind her back, her slender fingers holding a thin stick of firewood. She slipped it between the wooden slats and nudged the top of the latch. Slowly, the latch lifted, and the tightly shut window opened a tiny crack.

All the windows were covered with wooden slats anyway. Unless someone looked very carefully, they would never notice that this one had been opened.

Zhang Yunling walked over to Gu Ya on her long, slender legs. She took a deep breath over the food carrier and bamboo tray. "That smells wonderful. You're so kind. I remember when I first came to the village, the outsiders went three days without food."

"The village chief still hasn't said we should feed the outsiders. I just thought, one of their companions has already died, so they understand how serious things are. Since I was sending food to Xiao Shan anyway, I might as well give them something to eat too. They're all young people. They're somebody's children, aren't they?" Gu Ya sighed softly.

Zhang Yunling hugged Gu Ya's arm and said admiringly, "You're so kind. It's just that the village chief is a little unreasonable. Something evil has already approached your home for no apparent reason, yet he sent Xiao Shan to watch the outsiders and won't let you or Uncle Luo leave. Does he think staying at your house will scare the evil away? I really don't know what he's thinking."

Gu Ya sighed again. "Yunling, the village chief has his reasons. Everything he does is for the villagers' sake. Off you go."

"Mm-hmm, got it." Zhang Yunling picked up the food carrier, cradled the bamboo tray in her arms, and left the kitchen. She greeted Luo Feng in the courtyard with a sweet "Uncle Luo" before going out through the gate.

The route to the Mountain God Temple happened to take her past the outside of the kitchen.

She glanced at the window, a flicker of struggle and hesitation in her eyes, and murmured, "Do we really have to keep it from them?"

"But they're innocent, aren't they?"

"Mm, I understand what you mean... You're right."

"As long as everyone can leave this place, Luo Shan can leave too. They'll be grateful to me."

This sounded less like Zhang Yunling was talking to herself and more like she was having a conversation with someone.

But she was walking alone along the village road. Where was this second person beside her?

Inside the Mountain God Temple.

Gu Yiren stood before the mountain god statue, her head slightly raised.

"Why didn't you tell Luo Shan what happened last night?" Zhu Qianqian asked quietly. "He's not quite like the other villagers. If he helps us, we might have a chance to get our vehicle back."

"Qianqian, if we came across an artifact that could solve some academic problem, wouldn't you try everything you could to get a closer look at it? Wouldn't you find some way to study it?" Zhang Li answered, shaking his head.

"Everything about this village, everything we've seen and heard, is too terrifying and bizarre. If we tell them about Yiren, what do you think they'll do to her?"

"Then... what can we do?" Zhu Qianqian asked anxiously.

Zhang Li looked at Gu Yiren and took a deep breath, as though he had made up his mind. "Yiren, you have a way, don't you?"

Gu Yiren didn't answer. Instead, she looked to her left, her lovely eyes flickering and a smile on her delicate lips.

Zhang Li's expression shifted slightly. "Yiren, are you all right?" he asked again in a low voice.

Gu Yiren didn't answer him. Instead, she made a shushing gesture toward her left.

There was clearly no one there!

Zhang Li looked utterly horrified.

"Zhang Li... what's wrong with Yiren?" Zhu Qianqian was frightened too.

He didn't answer her. He slowly edged toward the hemp rope on the floor.

Then he suddenly snatched up the rope, looped it around Gu Yiren's chest, dragged her over to a pillar, and tied her tightly to it.

Zhu Qianqian covered her mouth in fright.

"She's having another episode!" Zhang Li said in a trembling voice. His face prickled with goosebumps, and he looked terrified.

"When Yiren had episodes before, in the middle of the night she would turn

on the gas, walk along the edge of the rooftop... She even walked into a river. She never admitted she'd done any of it alone. She insisted someone beside her was calling to her, guiding her to do all those things. At her worst, she looked in the mirror in the middle of the night and combed the air... It frightened my aunt so badly she developed a high fever and convulsions..."

Zhu Qianqian was trembling too, but she said, "Wait... You said that yesterday too, but she clearly told us what was going to happen yesterday. This isn't epilepsy, is it?"

"Could she have seen something we can't? Is that how she knew what would happen?" Zhu Qianqian hurriedly asked in a hushed voice, "Yiren? Am I right?"

"The window wasn't closed..." Gu Yiren's answer had nothing to do with the question. She turned her head and stared at the Mountain God Temple's doors, her gaze filled with desperate longing.