"Writing red characters on white paper—how unusual." Ning Zhe propped his chin on one hand, watching with keen interest as the bald old man's brush danced across the page, finishing the couplet.
Several villagers who had been waiting nearby immediately stepped forward—four men and one woman. Two men lifted the first half of the couplet while the other two carried the second half, and the woman bore the horizontal inscription alone. All five proceeded toward the ancestral hall gate to paste up the freshly written couplet.
Ning Zhe had grown up in the countryside. Every Dragon Boat Festival or Mid-Autumn Festival, respected elders in the village would pen couplets—sometimes gifting them to households or pasting them on the Dragon King temple by the river—so scenes like this were nothing out of the ordinary.
But traditional couplets and Spring Festival couplets are almost always written in ink on red paper. Ning Zhe had never before seen white paper with red characters; it struck him as eerie.
All the more so because of the couplet's content:
First line: "At the Ba-Snake altar, pearls and jade together attest to the ancestors."
Second line: "Before the Lotus Hall, descendants add incense in unison."
Horizontal inscription: "A Legacy That Flows Far and Wide."
"This doesn't read like auspicious festival couplets praising the Snake God," Ning Zhe murmured as he watched the old man wash his brush in a copper basin. "It simply states a fact: the He family's descendants offer pearls and jade at the Ba-Snake altar and incense before the Lotus Hall to honor their ancestors."
The "Lotus Hall" must refer to this very ancestral hall, and the "Ba-Snake altar" was likely the round table bearing the wood-carved Snake God statue.
The couplet's wording was vague, its purpose mysterious. Could it be that these villagers had gathered at dawn not for a festival but to curry favor with the Snake God?
Stranger still, the He family's ancestral hall was in disrepair—dusty corners festooned with cobwebs, a few missing roof tiles left unrepaired for who knew how long, so that rain leaked inside. Ning Zhe suspected the ancestral tablets and the Snake God sculpture must be molding.
Yet despite its decrepitude, this hall was the grandest building on the street—taller and wider than the rest, with two extra pillars. Its original builders clearly cared about its stature.
After pasting up the couplet, the villagers knelt once more before the hall and intoned the sacrificial prayer in low, solemn voices. This large-scale communal ritual continued until the sun rose fully—at 6:28 AM, the crowd finally dispersed.
Ning Zhe watched the people file away in silence, lost in thought. Feng Yushu wisely stayed quiet; the calm, devout, orderly rite had unnerved her in ways she couldn't articulate.
"Hey, Auntie, didn't you notice something odd?" Ning Zhe suddenly asked.
"Hmm…what seems odd to you?" Feng Yushu replied hesitantly—she had felt nothing amiss in the ceremony.
Ning Zhe pointed to the street where villagers were leaving in neat ranks. "From gathering to dispersal, they moved with uncanny coordination. For such a large crowd, there was neither jostling nor haste—each person followed some unknown order. Honestly, my high-school military drill with classmates wasn't this disciplined."
These villagers' discipline and synchronized movements rivaled those of an army. "It was as if they were all one person," Ning Zhe added abruptly.
"One person?" Feng Yushu didn't follow.
Her question went unanswered when her thigh began to buzz—her phone was ringing. She hurriedly fished it from her dress. Seeing the caller ID, her face froze.
Caller ID: 林志远 (Lin Zhiyuan)
"No way…" Her lips trembled and her shoulders hunched. Her hands shook as if she held a vengeful spirit's skull. She wanted to discard the scorching hot phone immediately.
But Ning Zhe stopped her.
"Stay calm." He gripped her ice-cold wrist and swiped to hang up the call.
"Ning Zhe…" Her panic eased at his touch, as if she'd found an anchor. She let him take the phone and asked anxiously, "What's going on? Lin Zhiyuan is dead—how could he be calling me?"
How could a corpse know her number?
"You know the dead don't normally move. Why assume it's Lin Zhiyuan himself calling?" Ning Zhe replied. "Maybe someone else is using his phone."
Just like Xie Sining—the one found dead in the river—had her phone used posthumously.
Feng Yushu bit her lip. After a moment's fear, she steadied herself. She grasped Ning Zhe's meaning, though the implication—that some spirit was dialing her—was far more horrifying than a resurrected corpse.
"Was it that ghost calling me?" she whispered.
"Maybe," Ning Zhe said noncommittally. "Who knows?"
After the crowd had dispersed, Ning Zhe led Feng Yushu off the roof of the ancestral hall and back to the ground.
Meanwhile, between 6:00 and 7:00 AM in the central district of Hejia Village, an ancient mansion bearing the plaque "He Residence" stood silent. A middle-aged man in a suit strolled among the empty flowerbeds. A damp lock of hair flopped over his brow. Zhang Yangxu plucked the floppy strand—deprived of gel—and tucked it back. He listened intently for footsteps outside the courtyard wall: the returning villagers who had gone to "offer sacrifices."
The approach of footsteps meant his time was running out.
"Ye Miaozhu is so emotional—was all my effort to find her even worthwhile?" he asked himself.
Just then, his coat pocket buzzed. Zhang Yangxu pulled out his phone. The caller ID read: Gu Yunqing.
Chapters in advance there: patreon.com/Thaniel_a_goodchild