The Iron Door

Qian Xin pointed at Song Qingzhang and complained, "He actually just said the bride might be a man... mmph!"

Song Qingzhang quickly reached out and covered his mouth.

Li Xian gave Song Qingzhang a puzzled look, then turned to address the others.

"But now isn't the time to talk about that."

"I have the key to the iron door. I need to search inside before the Village Chief notices. I need you to keep watch for me."

Everyone stared at the key Li Xian produced, stunned.

Qian Xin said, "You stole the key while moving a corpse?! Wait... just hurry up and go!"

Zhao Fengyi had clearly realized how urgent the situation was, too, and quickly assigned the others to watch the villagers' movements from the entrance.

Li Xian wasted no time heading deeper into the corridor.

Meanwhile, the tentacles that had been lurking restlessly in the corner saw that the situation had been defused and quietly withdrew.

Li Xian took out the key and opened the iron door. A powerful, pungent smell of baijiu hit him, making him frown.

He stepped into the room and looked around. There wasn't a single window, and a faint musty odor mingled with the sharp smell of liquor. The room's only light came from a dim lamp on a wooden table.

On the table lay a small figure carved from wood. He couldn't tell what kind of wood it was, but it had a reddish tint.

The figure was only palm-sized. It had been split in two at the waist and tossed carelessly onto the table.

Li Xian tried fitting the upper and lower halves together. The broken edges matched perfectly.

The carving was very crude, but its outline was recognizably female. There was also a red spot on its ankle.

Li Xian rubbed it with his finger. The bright red mark seemed to have seeped into the wood and stubbornly refused to budge.

...What could this be?

Li Xian put the figure back on the table and opened the drawers beneath it. One held files, carving knives, and similar tools, with wood shavings scattered around them. The other held two notebooks.

He picked up the first. Its pages were new and showed little sign of handling. It looked as though someone had only recently started using it.

He opened it to the first page, where the words were plainly written:

"It didn't work. As expected, a substitute made of wood isn't effective enough."

"What about a person? It should work if I use a person."

"There's no one related to her by blood... then I'll have to settle for the next best thing: someone close to her and around the same age. That should ensure the best possible results..."

"Good thing I kept Li Xiaojuan around. She'll come in handy this time."

Only the first page of the notebook contained any writing, and that amounted to just a few sentences. The rest was blank.

He focused on analyzing the few lines the Village Chief had written.

The wood presumably referred to the little figure he had just seen.

It hadn't worked well as a "substitute," so the Village Chief had chosen him instead...

A substitute for whom? And what could it be used for?

Li Xian looked at the broken figure on the table. Suddenly struck by a thought, he picked it up and sniffed it.

A familiar scent reached his nose.

Baijiu mixed with the metallic tang of blood.

It smelled just like the wedding wine he had drunk.

The wooden figure had been soaked in it.

Li Xian's hand instinctively went to his neck, and he hissed in pain.

He had forgotten that he had been strangled there.

Holding his hand loosely around his neck, Li Xian suddenly remembered the marks he had glimpsed when Shen Xiaomei left that night.

Could it be...?

Li Xian's brow furrowed deeply. The answer that had occurred to him was chilling.

Was he a living "voodoo doll"?

That would explain what the Village Chief had written. He had originally intended to use wood as a substitute, but when it failed to harm Shen Xiaomei, he had turned his attention to a living person-Li Xian himself.

At that thought, Li Xian suddenly crouched down and rolled up his trouser leg.

On the inside of his ankle was a red spot identical to the one on the Wooden Figurines.

"So that's it..."

Having confirmed his suspicion, he closed the notebook and picked up the other one in the drawer.

This notebook was only palm-sized. Its leather cover was worn, and its pages had yellowed slightly. It looked as though it had been in use for a long time.

Li Xian opened it, and rows of handwriting met his eyes.

Everything written inside was a person's name.

Without exception, the names were unfamiliar. They didn't seem to belong to villagers, and he had never heard anyone in the village mention them.

This "register" filled nearly half the notebook. Leafing through it, Li Xian noticed that every name had either been circled or crossed out.

Only a few names had been circled, perhaps one or two per page. He didn't know what that meant.

He scanned the pages one by one until a particular name suddenly caught his eye-

It was the only name that had been circled and then crossed out.

Shen Xiaomei.

Just as Li Xian was about to examine the notebook more closely, Song Qingzhang's voice came from outside the door.

"Hurry up! The Village Chief is coming back!"

Li Xian quickly closed the notebooks and returned them to their original positions. Then, as though something had occurred to him, he strode over to the Village Chief's bed and lifted the curtain concealing the space beneath it.

Wooden blocks of various sizes were piled under the bed.

The Village Chief was walking much faster than usual. Although Zhao Fengyi and the others did their best to stall him at the entrance, he paid almost no attention to what they said and walked past them into the house.

Li Xian's room was the farthest away. There was no longer enough time for him to hide in it, and the Village Chief's footsteps were drawing closer. Any moment now, he would round the corner.

It's over.

That guy's dead.

That was what Qian Xin thought.