Alone upon the road, Ji En urged his donkey into the night. He turned onto a side path, where silence reigned—too deep, too unnatural, without even the chirp of crickets. Fear crawled up his spine.
A faint firelight flickered ahead. Relieved, he quickened his pace, only to find it came from a ruined temple on a hill. Fresh hoofprints marked the grass.
"Uncle Lan! Is that you?" he called.
A muffled reply came, oddly distant, from the opposite direction.
No matter which way he turned, the landscape twisted upon itself, the ruined temple always looming ten paces ahead. There, Hao Lan, Lin Feng, and Xiao Wei appeared as if from nothing, pale-faced, their horses gone.
"Ji En! Why did you come in? This place is cursed!" Hao Lan's voice shook.
"Inside… there are coffins!" Xiao Wei whispered, terror-struck. "Scratching sounds… and dripping blood!"
Driven by dread yet lured by curiosity, Ji En strode into the temple. In the courtyard, their horses were tethered; a dying fire smoldered. Within the hall lay five coffins.
Heart pounding, Ji En flung open a lid—inside lay Rona, the very girl they had saved!
With a scream, he stumbled back, dragged away by Lin Feng. Hao Lan stared in horror. "She—how can she be here? We left her in Yunyang!"
Lin Feng examined closely. "This body has been dead two days at least."
Which meant the Rona in Yunyang was something else entirely.
One by one, Ji En opened the other coffins: Zhilan, and the old couple—yet their corpses bore no soil, as if never buried.
"What have we brought into the city?" Hao Lan's voice cracked with despair.
Then Xiao Wei pointed: "Why is there an extra coffin?"
The largest coffin trembled.
Ji En, hair bristling, brandished a torch. "Who goes there?!"
The coffin quivered, filling the temple with dread.