“Do you know what that is…” He muttered, laughing as he spoke, “That is the substitute puppet of our Corpse God Lord. Once you see his face, you will never be able to escape for the rest of your life. You will be his slave for all eternity!”
What nonsense… I frowned in fear, suspecting that the driver had gone insane because of me. It was me who caused the trouble, and I couldn’t just leave him here.
“Big Brother, where is your home? I’ll take you home.” I held his arms, not daring to let go, and led him towards my car. Only when we reached the car door did I dare to free one hand to pull the door handle.
At that moment, my hand, which was gripping his arm, was suddenly yanked away with such force that I lost my balance and fell to the ground. I watched as he staggered toward the cliff, just two meters away from the edge of the mountain road. Realizing what he intended to do, I quickly got up, but I slipped once more and fell to the ground. When I looked up, I saw that the driver had already reached the cliff’s edge and jumped. In the blink of an eye, there was no figure on the cliff anymore.
The rainstorm got heavier.
I lay there, unable to recover for a moment, until a loud thunder exploded above my head.
I rushed to the edge of the cliff, but below was a thick fog, making it impossible to see any figures.
This is a mountain road with an ancient forest below, and the altitude is at least a thousand feet. If you fall, your body might never be found, let alone survive.
I grabbed my hair and half-squatted down. My insomnia was so severe that I started having hallucinations. And those hallucinations… actually made someone die.
“Boom”, it’s another thunder. I shuddered and slapped myself twice to force myself to wake up. I have to call the police… no, call the emergency number, maybe the person is not dead and can be saved. I returned to the car, took out my phone, looked at the screen, and froze once again. At that moment, there wasn’t even a signal. I opened the call log, and to my shock, even the call to the police just now wasn’t made
How come there is no signal? Didn’t I receive a message from Xiang Nan before?
Go back… I have to go back to the city.
I struggled to keep my trembling hands steady on the steering wheel, turned my head, and suddenly felt a chill rise from the soles of my feet. I couldn’t even move my hands.
That small truck moved.
At some point, it was blocking the road.
I couldn’t tell if it was just my imagination, but the branches on the puppet in gorgeous clothes in the back of the car seemed thicker than before. And its face… which had originally been facing upwards, had turned around and was now facing me.
I am dreaming, this must be a nightmare.
I was lost in thought, and when I turned around, I saw a bloody face pressed against the windshield, with white eyes bulging out. It was the driver, who had clearly fallen off the cliff just moments ago. He was crawling on the hood of my car, banging his head against the glass, and laughing maniacally: “Hehehe, there’s no way to escape. You’ll be his slave for the rest of your lives!”
“Shhh—”
I stepped on the accelerator, and the car sped away. The tires made a sharp screech as they scraped against the ground, and my body flew off the cliff along with the car.
……
Cold, it was bone-chillingly cold.
Where is this? How did I get here? Didn’t I fall off a cliff? I looked around in a daze. This was a dense forest, with towering and twisted ancient trees covering the sky, letting in mottled red light. I looked up and saw a red moon hanging in the sky through the gaps between the leaves. It was as red as a ghost’s eye, oozing blood and watching people.
“Burning papers into ashes……”
A familiar tune came faintly from not far away. It was my cell phone ringing. I followed the sound and headed southeast. An enormous tree appeared in front of me. Its roots were twisted like a python, covered in moss and vines, exuding a sense of decay and death. Its roots were like those of a banyan tree, but its branches and leaves were like those of a willow tree, hanging down to the ground in strands. At first glance, it looked like a woman with braided hair with her head lowered.
I tried hard to suppress this horrifying association and crawled into the low-hanging branches. I saw a faint light flickering under the tree root and squatted down to feel around.
Suddenly, my fingers grew cold as they brushed against something cold and protruding.
I touched it a few times and felt that the object did not look like a mobile phone. The raised outline felt like… a human face.
I jerked my hand back. I’m a painter, and I’m very familiar with the bones of the human face. The sensation I felt in that moment… I swallowed hard, forcing myself to gather my courage and bent down. There were no faces in the bushes—only my phone, constantly flashing.
I took a peek at the caller ID and grabbed the phone.
“Ming Luo.”
It was Ming Luo calling. A surge of joy filled my heart, and I instinctively pressed the answer button, but my fingers seemed to slide as if across water, never quite reaching the button. The screen grew blurry. At the same time, a chilling thought flashed through my mind, making me feel cold from head to toe.
Ming Luo… wasn’t he dead?
Could it be that he didn’t die and survived the plane crash?
“Plop”, a drop of cold liquid fell on the back of my neck. With a sizzle, the phone screen flashed, and its body exploded.
“The Corpse God Lord is here. As his slave, how dare you call upon others recklessly?”
A string of shrill and chaotic laughter echoed around me. Terrified, I took a step back. Suddenly, I noticed several kneeling figures surrounding me. They were holding small drums, handbells, and cymbals, beating them rhythmically. Their faces were pale, with black eye sockets devoid of eyeballs, yet their mouths twisted into a sinister grin.
“Yiyi[mfn]It’s a tone, possibly mimicking laughter or chanting[/mfn]… Having seen the face of the Corpse God Lord, you are now like us—his servant for all eternity!”
I stepped back and bumped into the tree trunk behind me. My body was ensnared by something flexible. I lowered my eyes and saw several vines creeping up my neck. Suddenly, clusters of bright and unusual red camellia flowers bloomed beneath my underarms.
A pair of pale and slender hands reached out from the flowers and embraced me.
“Rustle…” A strange fragrance penetrated into my nostrils. At the same time, something cold swept across my forehead, swaying and flickering.
It was a row of golden tassels carved into leaf shapes.
Two “click” sounds, like the friction of stiff neck bones, reached my ears.
I slowly raised my head.
Close at hand was a pair of blood-red eyes.
“Ahhhh—”
I screamed and opened my eyes, drenched in cold sweat.
An unfamiliar, strange fragrance lingered in my nose, and smoke filled my eyes, turning into a soft, bright yellow in the dim light. Cyan cloth with strange patterns covered my field of vision, forming an inverted funnel shape… like a tent.
Thinking back to the nightmare I had just experienced, I was still terrified, afraid the ghost might appear from somewhere again. I rubbed my eyes and pinched my face, fearing that I was still trapped in the dream.
I’m not dreaming.
I struggled to stand up and suddenly felt a dull pain in my ribs. Looking down, I realized I was no longer wearing the black jacket I had on when I went out, but instead a linen cross-collared shirt with the ethnic characteristics of southern Jiangsu.
Where’s my cell phone? Where’s my luggage? Where am I?
“Ah Lang!” A clear girl’s voice rang out from nearby. The light grew brighter, the tent was lifted, and a round face peeked out from outside.
At first glance, I was nearly scared all over again.
The girl appeared to be around sixteen or seventeen years old. Her skin tone was slightly dark, as if she were often sleep-deprived, with thick blue-gray shadows under her eyelids. The black part of her pupils was larger than usual, giving her eyes a somewhat eerie look. She wore a blush-colored cross-collar dress, and a long braided pigtail was wrapped around her neck, with a small bell at the end. She seemed to belong to an ethnic minority from southern Jiangsu, though it was unclear which group she belongs to.
“Ah Lang, you’re injured. It was my father who carried you back to the tribe.” The girl blinked her big eyes and spoke in a dialect that sounded like the southern Jiangsu dialect, but it was a little different. I could barely understand what she said. “My father said that you were washed down by the river and got caught on a tree, so you didn’t get swept under the waterfall; otherwise, you would have died. You were unconscious for several days, and we asked the witch physician in the tribe to bring your soul back. Don’t lose it again.” ‘Ah Lang’ is the common dialect in southern Jiangsu, meaning brother and also young man. ‘Ah Die[mfn]fyi, it’s not die xD it’s the pinyin of the word ‘father’ and the girl called her father Ah Die here[/mfn]’ refers to the father—it was the girl’s father who saved me.
“Thank you. I…” I smiled at her gratefully, but the sense of relief I had just felt from surviving the ordeal was overshadowed by a heavy weight in my chest. The driver who jumped off the cliff… wait, if I had fallen into the river, would he have had a chance to survive as well? Ignoring the dull pain in my ribs, I quickly sat up and said, “Little sister, has your father found anyone else near where I was found?”
The little girl’s expression suddenly changed, and she stared at me. Her already large eyes seemed to grow even bigger, giving me an unsettling feeling.
“What-what’s wrong? That person…”
“Shh!” She put her index finger on her lips, as if I had asked something taboo, and a layer of annoyance appeared on her round face. “Father said that he made a big mistake, no soul to retrieve!”
I was stunned. So, the driver was from their tribe? He made a mistake… what mistake? What does it mean to have no soul to retrieve? Is that person still alive? If he is still alive, I should go see him and pay for his medical expenses… “He…” Seeing that I wanted to ask more questions, the girl covered my mouth with her little hand, stared at me, and shook her head: “If you ask again, I will tell my father.”
Looking into those large eyes, whose black pupils almost filled the entire eye sockets, my throat tightened. I swallowed, temporarily holding back all the questions swirling in my mind.
I gently took her hand away: “Alright, I won’t ask about him anymore. Where is your… father? I want to thank him in person, is that fine?”
“Father,” The girl stroked her pigtails and glance around. “Father has gone to the forest behind the mountain to worship the gods. I don’t know if he will come back tonight. If you want to thank him, just wait for him to come back.”
I nodded and asked her without hope, “By the way, little sister, did your father find my cell phone?”
“Cell phone?” The girl tilted her head, seeming to be very unfamiliar with this term.
She didn’t even know what a cell phone was, did she? I looked at her in disbelief and said, “It’s just… this big, rectangular thing that can communicate with the outside world.”
The girl shook her head in confusion.
This is bad…
I stuck my head out of the tent. The girl’s home was built from uncut stones, with doors, windows, and a roof made of wood. It was weathered, with visible signs of years of exposure to the wind and frost. The red and blue patterns had been deeply ingrained into the wood’s texture, and the color had darkened over time. What looked strange was that the door of the house was very low, as if it was specially for children to enter and exit. Adults had to bend over to pass through. There was also a tassel curtain made of copper wind chimes hanging in front of the door. This reminded me of the ancient legends about the “Low Gate” and “Rising Corpses” in Southern Jiangsu.
It is said that such a low door was built with wind chimes hung on it to prevent people from turning into jiangshi[mfn]Jiangshi refers to Chinese hopping vampires.[/mfn] after death and invading houses at night to eat people.
The pair of blood-red eyes from the nightmare appeared before me, sending a chill through my body and giving me goosebumps.
Weird things, weird things, they are all fake.
I tried to calm myself, and my gaze wandered to the center of the house. The floor there was covered with a felt rug made from animal skins. On the rug sat a small square low table, with a copper kettle, small bowls, and a flower-shaped incense burner releasing wisps of white smoke. Clearly, the fragrance I had just smelled came from this.
There were no modern technological amenities in this house. It felt like a primitive village, isolated from the outside world… and there are indeed many such mountain villages in the Southern Jiangsu Mountains.A few years ago, I visited a small village for sketching. An old villager taught me the Southern Jiangsu dialect at that time. I remember that while most people didn’t have a telephone at home, the village chief had one in his house.
“Little sister, can you take me to your village chief’s house?” I asked.
“Village chief?” The girl looked at me in confusion.
“That’s the one who’s in charge here,” I changed the name, “The tribe leader?”
“The tribe leader has also gone to the forest in the back mountain to worship the gods. Wait for him to come back.” The girl pulled me to sit at the low table on the felt carpet and poured me a cup of milk tea.
The rich aroma of milk filled the air, awakening the hunger in my stomach. It was only then that I realized just how starving I was.
“Ah Lang, drink more,” the girl said with a smile, “This is deer milk that my father prepared specially for you. It tastes really good.”
