Chapter 21: A person is the sum total of all social relations

“How could it be…” Feng Yu’s legs went weak; she collapsed onto the ground, her will shattered by the horrific scene before her, just as it had been when Gu Yunqing died.

Pure violent death or poisoning wouldn’t have terrified her this much, because those were traceable, avoidable through action—but in this village, the rules were invisible, silent; unless you broke them yourself or witnessed someone else breaking them, they remained forever hidden in some unobservable corner, never revealing themselves.

When punishment is unknowable, its threat becomes immeasurable. The deepest fears of traditional Chinese people are two: the unknown, and guilt.

Feng Yu felt like a blindfolded person walking a tightrope high above the ground, each step trembling, as if treading on thin ice; she couldn’t predict what would happen when she placed her next foot down, forced to grope forward slowly toward the vague direction of her memory, every step potentially leading to death.

But at this moment, one person seemed utterly oblivious to the surrounding darkness and uncertainty—his eyes were not blindfolded, his steps casual, as if strolling through a courtyard, mastering everything with ease.

Ning Zhe arrived before Feng Yu, who sat slumped on the ground, and extended his hand.

“Come with me,” he said, covering her trembling vision with his palm: “Don’t look back, or you’ll die.”

“Okay…” Feng Yu gripped Ning Zhe’s wrist and struggled to her feet, leaving the ancestral hall with him, under the silent gaze of the Snake God behind them.

Feng Yu noticed that the “Ye Miaozhu” who had appeared in the ancestral hall had vanished—the moment she reached out to flip the almanac again, Ye Miaozhu’s body dissolved, like smoke scattered by the wind, or a sand heap crushed by the tide, leaving not a trace.

“That was a ghost,” Ning Zhe said. “Ye Miaozhu’s identity was stolen by a ghost. What we just saw was it using the knife to kill.”

Behind them, in the ancestral hall, a crisp wind swept through the corridor, rustling the open page of the almanac like a withered butterfly, fluttering stubbornly without returning to its place—as if urging the two to turn back and behold tomorrow’s fate. Ning Zhe dared not look back; he pulled Feng Yu forward, hurrying away.

After leaving the ancestral hall, Feng Yu’s nerves finally settled. She fixed her gaze on Ning Zhe’s profile and asked, voice trembling: “Why? What exactly happened? How could Ye Miaozhu…?”

“Calm down. You’re speaking incoherently,” Ning Zhe said. “Surviving in this environment demands immense pressure and strong mental resilience. Lose control of your emotions, panic, flail around like a headless fly—and you’ll give the ghost its opening.”

“So stay calm, Auntie. You’ll get killed.”

Feng Yu shook her head violently, gripping Ning Zhe’s wrist tighter: “Even if you say that… how am I supposed to know how to avoid being killed by the ghost? I don’t even know how it steals people’s identities.”

When you don’t know which direction the bullet will come from, every dodge you make looks ridiculous to the sniper.

“How does the ghost steal a person’s identity? That depends on how you define ‘identity’ and ‘person.’”

Ning Zhe’s tone relaxed suddenly as he walked on: “Auntie, what do you think your ‘identity’ is?”

“Me?” Feng Yu paused, then replied: “I’m my husband’s wife, my daughter’s mother, my parents’ daughter… which one exactly are you referring to?”

“All of them,” Ning Zhe said. “A person is the sum of all social relations. To everyone who knows you, your image is different.”

“To your husband, you’re a dignified wife; to your daughter, a gentle mother; to your parents, a daughter who’s married out; to your schoolteacher, you’re the parent of some student; to the mall clerk, you’re a wealthy customer… and so on. Which of these is you? The answer: all of them.”

“All the different images of you held by those who know you—when overlapped—form your complete self.”

Ning Zhe continued, shifting tone: “I don’t know if you understand this—but the ghost didn’t replace the complete Xie Sining. It replaced the Xie Sining that Zhang Yangxu knew. When the real Xie Sining died by the river, ‘the Xie Sining Zhang Yangxu knew’ was supplanted. This version matched Zhang Yangxu’s legal consultant perfectly in appearance and speech, with no flaw—but it couldn’t answer Zhang Yangxu’s highly technical legal questions, because its identity was incomplete.”

“It was only ‘the Xie Sining Zhang Yangxu recognized,’ not the complete Xie Sining herself.”

“How could the version Zhang Yangxu recognized know answers he himself didn’t know?”

“But logically, it should have known… so the moment Zhang Yangxu posed a reasonable question it couldn’t answer, the ghost’s rule locked up.”

As he spoke, Ning Zhe arrived with Feng Yu at a house far from the southern street where the ancestral hall stood. The chimney smoke on its roof had gone out; the people inside were eating breakfast.

Feng Yu slowly digested Ning Zhe’s earlier words, then heard him add: “So, Auntie, now that you understand that—why do you think the ghost pretending to be Xie Sining called you while you were returning to the ancestral hall?”

At these words, Feng Yu froze. Ning Zhe’s words shot through her mind like an electric current, unlocking the critical connection.

After hesitating, she ventured: “Was it… to steal the identity of ‘the Xie Sining that Feng Yu knows’?”

“Correct,” Ning Zhe gave his aunt a thumbs-up. “That’s the answer to the riddle.”

In He Family Village, there are two rules, corresponding to two riddles:

【Riddle 1: Why did the Snake God go mad?】

【Riddle 2: How does the ghost impersonate someone’s identity?】

The answer to Riddle 2 now lay before Feng Yu.

“Just as the Snake God only punishes you when you break a taboo, the ghost can only steal a specific identity when a specific condition is triggered—and that condition is ‘recognition.’”

Ning Zhe stepped forward, leaning his shoulder against the exterior wall of the house, and said: “When you saw the caller ID on your phone and believed the ghost calling you was Xie Sining, it became Xie Sining.”

“When Zhang Yangxu, hiding beside the willow tree, heard footsteps crunching fallen leaves and believed the ghost approaching him was Xie Sining returning from the toilet, it became Xie Sining.”

The more people who knew Xie Sining fell into this cognitive error—believing the ghost in human skin was Xie Sining—the more complete its impersonation became.

Complete enough, even to deceive the Snake God.

“That is the ghost’s rule.”

(End of Chapter)