Chapter 1: The Almanac

The 23rd day of the fourth lunar month, Mangzhong.

Rain fell outside; Ning Zhe entered the shrine dedicated to the Snake God, opened the old almanac nailed to the deity’s tongue, and checked today’s auspicious and inauspicious omens: [Auspicious:]

[Inauspicious: Travel, Burial, Mourning, Sacrifice]

“Inauspicious to travel… So today’s rule is not to leave the house?” Ning Zhe studied the almanac before him, committing its contents to memory.

The almanac’s contents were key to surviving in this isolated mountain village.

The village was called Hejia Village, situated at the center of a basin surrounded by mountains, cut off from the outside world. A river split the entire village into east and west halves, connected by three arched bridges.

All villagers worshipped the Snake God, each household displaying his portrait. The Snake God was depicted as a massive jade serpent with two curved, elongated horns; a wooden statue carved from camphor root stood enshrined at the southern end of the village in the ancestral shrine, flanked by ancestral tablets—the very place where Ning Zhe now stood.

A worn almanac was nailed to the Snake God’s tongue; each night at midnight, every villager came to the shrine to turn a page, check today’s omens, and only then could they sleep in peace.

According to villagers, the auspicious and inauspicious days on the almanac were divine revelations from the Snake God.

Each day’s “auspicious” and “inauspicious” items were random; knowing them allowed one to avoid misfortune and seek fortune—doing what was auspicious brought good luck, while violating an inauspicious taboo brought bad luck; repeated violations led to catastrophic misfortune, and those who broke too many taboos died suddenly and mysteriously.

Ning Zhe had experienced this firsthand.

When he first entered the village yesterday, unaware of the rules, he inadvertently violated the taboos of “seeing strangers” and “exterminating insects,” causing him misfortune all day:

He tripped on cracks in the stone path, was struck on the back of the head by a falling roof tile as he passed under an eave, and just as he tried to step outside, torrential rain began to pour… He barely endured until midnight; the isolated mountain village was about to welcome a new day. Ning Zhe waited at the shrine’s entrance, and the moment midnight struck, he immediately turned the almanac to check today’s omens.

Ning Zhe confirmed the almanac’s contents once more:

[Auspicious:]

[Inauspicious: Travel, Burial, Mourning, Sacrifice]

“Burial, mourning, and sacrifice are clear enough—but what exactly does ‘travel’ mean? Does it refer to leaving the village, or simply stepping outside any building into the open air? Also…”

Ning Zhe felt puzzled; his gaze shifted slightly upward, landing on the blank space after the word “Auspicious”:

“Why is there nothing listed under ‘Auspicious’?”

Is everything inauspicious today?

As he pondered, faint footsteps sounded outside the shrine—someone from the village had come to check the almanac. Ning Zhe stepped away from the lotus pedestal bearing the Snake God statue and moved toward the shrine’s side door, preparing to leave.

The villagers of Hejia Village were not ordinary people; if possible, Ning Zhe preferred to avoid them.

But the candlelight behind him flickered slightly, and as he reached the side doorframe, he hesitated. Without knowing the exact meaning of the “travel” taboo, he dared not venture out—yesterday had been bad enough.

“Midnight has passed; today’s omens have been updated. If merely leaving one’s house and moving within the village counts as ‘travel,’ then every villager who came here to check the almanac has already broken the taboo.” Ning Zhe thought.

The Snake God is merciful; first-time offenders who act in ignorance suffer only minor misfortunes, not death. That meant—if he observed whether the villagers arriving here suffered misfortune, he could roughly determine whether they had violated the “travel” taboo.

With this in mind, Ning Zhe did not leave immediately. He sidestepped to a black-painted pillar beside the wall, draped with a deep crimson old silk curtain; the dim candlelight beneath it swayed faintly. Ning Zhe hid behind the curtain, watching the shrine’s main entrance through the gaps in the candlelight.

Muffled, heavy footsteps mixed with the patter of rain; a pair of white sneakers stepped through puddles on the street and arrived at the shrine’s entrance.

“...” Ning Zhe stared fixedly at the figure entering from outside, his pupils contracting slightly in shock.

It was a muscular young man, under thirty, wearing a simple tank top and loose running pants suitable for exercise; his thick arms and sneakers clearly marked him as someone who trained regularly. Yet this ordinary attire sent a chill down Ning Zhe’s spine.

“Since I was drawn into Hejia Village, every villager I’ve seen here has looked bizarre—wearing outdated hemp clothing, plowing fields with ox-drawn plows, speaking with heavy Hakka accents… Not a single electric lamp exists on the streets or inside homes.”

“If not for the village’s strange rules and the villagers’ puppet-like stiff movements, I might have suspected I’d traveled back to ancient times.” Yet in this eerie “ancient village,” he had just seen another person dressed in modern clothing.

“Who is he? Is he like me, dragged into this strange place? Are there other living people here besides me?”

Questions flooded Ning Zhe’s mind, but his cautious nature kept him still—he slowed his breathing, suppressed all sound, and watched without blinking as the tank-top man entered the shrine, walked straight to the inner chamber, and stopped before the Snake God statue.

“His target is the almanac too.” Ning Zhe understood.

This tank-top man was likely another outsider, like himself, accidentally drawn into this strange village—perhaps he too had unknowingly broken a taboo. His reason for coming here at night was probably the same as Ning Zhe’s—to consult the almanac and check today’s omens.

The tank-top man stared up at the old almanac nailed to the Snake God’s tongue, his face filled with confusion. Ning Zhe knew what he was puzzled about: “He thinks he’s the first to arrive, that the almanac hasn’t been turned yet, still showing yesterday’s omens. So now he’s confused why today’s taboos don’t match what he broke yesterday.”

But in truth, Ning Zhe had already turned the almanac to today’s page—of course it didn’t match.

The tank-top man hesitated before the statue for a moment, then finally reached out his hand—he was about to turn the almanac.

“Of course. This almanac has no Gregorian dates—it uses the lunar calendar. Modern people accustomed to the Gregorian calendar can’t easily tell whether the date shown is today.” Ning Zhe roughly understood what was happening.

This confusion could be solved instantly by checking a phone—the calendar app on any phone displays both Gregorian and lunar dates. But perhaps because the almanac’s content didn’t match the taboo he’d broken, the dissonance had thrown the man into panic; in extreme tension, he hadn’t thought to check his phone.

When laws are unknown, their power is unfathomable. In this environment, where rules are vague and death is imminent, few can remain rational.

Ning Zhe held his breath, eyes locked on the man’s hand reaching for the almanac: “If today’s almanac is turned again, will it reveal tomorrow’s omens?”

He had no intention of warning the man. Ning Zhe now cared only about one thing: Would the Snake God allow viewing tomorrow’s omens before today’s had passed? The answer came quickly.

The tank-top man’s thick fingers pinched a page of the almanac and flipped it open, preparing to hang the page bearing today’s omens on the nail. But before the page could be secured, less than a second after he turned it, a dull thud echoed through the shrine.

It was the sound of flesh striking the earthen ground—he failed to turn the almanac to tomorrow’s page. His body collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut, motionless on the floor.

“The answer is no.” Ning Zhe murmured to himself.

Though he had not yet examined the corpse, a strange intuition arose in Ning Zhe’s mind—as if someone had whispered it to him.

He felt the man was dead.

A cool evening breeze blew in through the main door; the turned page of the almanac remained suspended, fluttering like a dry leaf in the wind, or a butterfly with deep-yellow wings dancing silently in the still shrine—the words “Tomorrow’s Omens” faintly visible beneath its wings.

Ning Zhe took a deep breath, turned his gaze away from the almanac, but did not leave.

The tank-top man’s death was not due to bad luck—it violated a hidden taboo, separate from the daily “inauspicious” rules.

“A hidden rule beneath the surface rules?” Ning Zhe thought, stepping quickly out from behind the curtain.

A cool breeze blew through the shrine. Ning Zhe swiftly dragged the tank-top man’s corpse away from the Snake God statue and hid it beneath the altar table covered by a crimson tablecloth. A freshly dead body emits no odor yet; hiding it here would not expose it.

Ning Zhe smoothed the tablecloth, stepped away from the altar, and returned to hiding behind the curtain beside the wall.

“There must be other living people in this village besides me and this man—they may also come to the shrine to consult the almanac.”

Ning Zhe was not paralyzed by the grotesque death before him—he still knew exactly what he must do: by observing whether others arriving here suffered misfortune, he might determine the true meaning of the “travel” taboo.

The almanac’s contents were key to surviving in this isolated mountain village.

(End of Chapter)