Chapter 16: Caller ID

“Writing red characters on white paper—how peculiar.” Ning Zhe propped his chin on one hand, watching the bald old man finish writing the couplet with swift, fluid strokes.

Several villagers who had been waiting nearby immediately stepped forward—four men and one woman. The men paired off, each pair lifting one scroll, while the woman carried the horizontal banner alone. The five of them walked together toward the ancestral hall’s entrance, clearly intending to paste up the newly written couplet.

Ning Zhe had grown up in the countryside, and during major festivals like Dragon Boat or Mid-Autumn, respected elders would always write a few couplets—either giving them directly to villagers or pasting them on the Dragon King Temple by the river. He was used to such scenes.

But traditional couplets and Spring Festival scrolls were always written in ink on red paper. This was the first time Ning Zhe had ever seen white paper with red characters—and it looked deeply unsettling.

Especially the content of this couplet:

Upper scroll: 【Ba She’s Altar Bears Pearls and Jade as Proof of Ancestors】

Lower scroll: 【Before Lotus Hall, Descendants Together Offer Incense】

Horizontal banner: 【Origin Deep, Flow Endless】

“This couplet doesn’t look like anything for a festive occasion. There’s no praise for the Snake God in the words. Both scrolls and the horizontal banner merely state a single fact,” Ning Zhe murmured softly as he watched the bald old man wash his hands in a bronze basin. “The descendants of He family offer incense before Lotus Hall, present pearls and jade at Ba She’s altar—to prove their ancestry?”

Lotus Hall, unsurprisingly, referred to this ancestral hall. Ba She’s altar… probably meant the round table where the wooden carving of the Snake God was enshrined.

A baffling couplet, vague wording, utterly unclear intent. Was the whole village skipping breakfast just to curry favor with the Snake God?

Come to think of it, maybe they were.

Besides this, the village’s oddities went far beyond this.

Generally, the more backward and isolated a region, the more traditional and conservative its customs, the stronger its clan consciousness, and the more it valued such symbolic displays of face.

But He Family’s ancestral hall was dilapidated—long-neglected, shabby to the point of humiliation. Spiderwebs clung to the corners, two or three roof tiles had fallen off, untouched for who knew how long. When it rained outside, it drizzled inside. Ning Zhe suspected the ancestral tablets and the Snake God statue, kept in such a place, would soon mold.

Yet despite this, the hall remained the most imposing structure in the neighborhood—at least in scale. It stood taller, had two extra pillars. Clearly, it had been built with great care. All surrounding houses were shorter, none as spacious.

After pasting the couplet, the crowd before the hall knelt again, repeating the ritual chant in low voices, over and over. This large-scale collective worship continued until the sun rose high, reaching 06:28 a.m., when the gathered villagers finally began to disperse.

Watching the crowd thin out, Ning Zhe said nothing, sinking into silent thought.

Feng Yu remained quiet, not daring to interrupt. The calm, devout, orderly collective ritual had shaken her deeply, leaving an inexplicable sense of unease.

“Hey, Auntie, haven’t you noticed something strange?” Ning Zhe suddenly asked.

“Hmm… what exactly seems off?” Feng Yu hesitated. In truth, she felt nothing about the ritual had ever felt right from the start.

Ning Zhe pointed toward the street, where villagers were leaving one by one: “From gathering to dispersing, these people showed an unnatural level of coordination. Such a massive crowd, yet not a single bump, no shoving. Everyone strictly followed some order I don’t understand. Honestly, even my high school classmates during military training weren’t this disciplined.”

And these villagers didn’t just have discipline—their coordination and uniformity rivaled that of an army.

“It’s as if everyone was one single person,” Ning Zhe suddenly said, out of nowhere. “One person?” Feng Yu didn’t understand.

As she puzzled over this, a buzzing vibration suddenly came from her thigh—her phone was ringing.

Feng Yu quickly fished it out from under her skirt, glanced down—and her already wary expression froze.

Caller ID: 【Lin Zhiyuan】

“How is this possible…” Feng Yu’s lips trembled slightly, her shoulders hunched. Her hands shook as if clutching not a phone, but the skull of a vengeful ghost come to claim her life—she wanted to hurl it away at once.

But Ning Zhe stopped her.

“Calm down.” Ning Zhe gripped Feng Yu’s icy wrist, slid his finger across the vibrating screen, and hung up the call.

“Ning Zhe…” Feng Yu’s panic eased significantly, as if she’d finally found a pillar to lean on. She let him take the phone from her trembling hands and asked anxiously: “What’s going on? Ning Zhe, Lin Zhiyuan is dead—why is he calling me?”

How could a dead man even know her number? “You know dead people don’t move—so why assume it’s Lin Zhiyuan himself calling?” Ning Zhe countered. “Maybe someone else is using his phone to call you.”

Like when Xie Sining, already dead in the river, had done the same.

Feng Yu bit her lip. After a brief moment of panic, she regained her composure. She understood Ning Zhe’s implication well enough—but the possibility he hinted at might be even more terrifying, more unbearable, than Lin Zhiyuan rising from the grave.

“Is it the ghost calling me?” Feng Yu whispered.

Ning Zhe gave no answer: “Maybe. Who knows?”

After the crowd dispersed, Ning Zhe led Feng Yu down from the ancestral hall’s roof and back to ground level.

Meanwhile, between 6 and 7 a.m., in the center of He Village, inside the ancient mansion bearing the sign “He Mansion,” a middle-aged man in a suit walked through empty flowerbeds.

A strand of damp, half-dry hair fell across his forehead, itching slightly. Zhang Yangxu brushed it back with a flick of his hand, listening intently to footsteps beyond the wall—the returning villagers, having finished their “worship.”

Footsteps meant his time was running out.

“Ye Miaozhu is too emotional. Is it even worth all this effort to find her?” Zhang Yangxu asked himself.

As he hesitated, his coat pocket suddenly vibrated.

He pulled out his phone, glanced down—the caller ID read: 【Gu Yunqing】

(End of Chapter)