Chapter 1

Bu Youming's story begins when his father, Bu Huangquan, brought back a dead man from the Huangquan Eye (Yellow Springs Eye) in the mountains.

Although Bu Youming had already left the village at the foot of the mountain, the story of the Bu family was still circulating in the village.

When we arrived at the village, every household had closed their doors, and the entire village was so quiet that there wasn't even the sound of a dog barking. It was eerily silent.

I looked at my watch. "It's only a little after eight o'clock. Shouldn't this be the time when people in the countryside are visiting each other?"

There aren't many entertainment options in the countryside. Around seven or eight o'clock in the evening, families would usually finish dinner and visit each other to chat or play mahjong.

Although the village was lit, there was no sound of talking in the houses, which was clearly abnormal.

Nie Xiaochun said, "The village has been like this since the incident at Bu Youming's house."

"After Bu Huangquan brought that dead man back to the village, first the couplets and the character 'Fu' (good fortune) in the village all fell off overnight. No matter how hard they tried, they couldn't stick them back up."

"Then, all the dogs in the village were scared to death."

"Later, although Bu Youming left, the village still couldn't put up Spring Festival couplets or raise dogs."

Couplets and the 'Fu' character are barriers to ward off ghosts. If ghosts want to enter a house, they must first deal with these two things.

Dogs can see things that ordinary people cannot. It is said that pure white dogs can even injure ghosts, because Erlang Shen's (a Chinese God) celestial dog, Xiaotianquan, is a pure white Chinese fine-haired dog.

Many people think that Xiaotianquan is a black dog, but that is not the case. That's just how Xiaotianquan is depicted in modern film and television works. In the Song Dynasty's "Erlang Searching the Mountains," the Yuan Dynasty's zaju operas, and the Ming Dynasty Jiajing era's "Erlang Precious Scroll," Xiaotianquan is always a white dog.

The fact that the village couldn't put up couplets or raise dogs meant that the person Bu Huangquan brought into the village had not left.

But since Bu Youming had made a name for himself in the martial world, wouldn't he come back to check on this place?

I asked Nie Xiaochun, "Where is Bu Youming's house?"

"It's not far ahead!" Nie Xiaochun led me to the entrance of a courtyard, then stopped in surprise. "Bu Youming said his house was here! Where's the house?"

The place Nie Xiaochun led me to was just a courtyard. The inside of the courtyard was as clean as if it had been bulldozed, with nothing but a flat, empty space. There wasn't even a tile to be seen.

Ye Yang reached out and pressed on the ground. "There are dead people buried here. You two go find out about the house. Lin Zhao and I will stay here and see what's hidden here."

After Ye Yang and Lin Zhao stepped into the courtyard, the courtyard gate slammed shut.

I peeked into the courtyard through the crack in the gate and saw Ye Yang and Lin Zhao standing safe and sound in the empty courtyard. Feeling relieved, I turned and led Nie Xiaochun towards the nearest house.

I had only knocked on the door twice when I heard someone in the courtyard curse impatiently, "Are you trying to die! Don't you know you can't knock on doors in the middle of the night!"

I stood outside and shouted, "I'm here from the county, looking for your village chief on official business. My phone's dead, and I can't contact him. Can you tell me where to find him?"

When the person inside heard that we were from the government, their attitude improved a bit, but they still didn't come out. "Go straight to the end of this road, and the third house counting back from the end is the village chief's house."

"Thank you!" I was about to turn around when I heard someone slowly say, "But don't count wrong. If you count wrong, you might not be able to come back."

The villager who had spoken to me earlier was clearly still inside the house.

But the person who said, "Don't count wrong," was right next to the wall, talking to me.

The voice was as if someone was standing inside, pressed against the base of the wall, watching us walk forward, and talking to us.

I gave Nie Xiaochun a look, then pressed myself against the wall and started walking forward, tapping the wall as I went.

Walking and tapping on a wall is a taboo on a night walk.

Especially a wall that goes on and on without any breaks in between.

When you knock on the outside, someone will be listening on the inside.

If the other person just listens, that's fine, but if the person inside starts knocking along with you, then you're in trouble, because that means the other person has caught up with you.

This is no different from "you call him out" or "he calls you in."

Moreover, the person on the outside can't go anywhere else; they can only move forward along the wall.

In this world, there's no wall that doesn't come to an end. When you reach the end of that wall, the two of you will meet.

I was deliberately knocking on the wall to call out to the other person.

Sure enough, someone inside the wall was responding to my knocking. After I walked a few steps forward, the knocking inside stopped abruptly. I took another step forward, and the sound started up again.

But this time, the sound was noticeably heavier than before.

Had the person knocking on the wall inside changed?

Probably!

The place where the sound had stopped was right at the wall between two houses.

I had already passed one house.

Could it be that every household had a ghost standing in the courtyard?

Three or five more steps forward, and I'd be at that house's door.

If I knocked on the door, would it open?