Chapter 4: The Door and the Illness

After discussion, the four agreed they should wait a little longer in the ancestral hall; if any other living people remained in He Family Village and knew of the taboos, they would surely come to the hall to consult the almanac and check today’s auspiciousness.

Tonight, something strange had happened—every household in He Family Village had shut their doors and barred their windows; not a single family had come to the ancestral hall to check today’s auspiciousness.

This was highly unusual, and the unusual always meant something sinister.

“Do you have any ideas?” Zhang Yangxu asked during the wait.

“No,” Ning Zhe shook his head. “The He family always came to the hall at Zi hour every night to consult the almanac. Today they didn’t come—either they no longer care about avoiding misfortune and seeking good luck, or they have another way to know today’s auspiciousness. Or… there’s some danger inside the hall today, and they’re afraid to come.”

“Oh?” Zhang Yangxu was curious. “Is that so?”

“I don’t know. It’s just a guess,” Ning Zhe said, spreading his hands.

Feng Yu’s face turned pale at the mention of possible danger in the hall; she had always been devoutly Buddhist, and after witnessing the strange phenomena of the Snake God firsthand in He Family Village, she moved through every action with trembling caution.

With lingering fear, Feng Yu glanced at the funeral plaques and the Snake God statue atop the lotus altar, then turned to Ning Zhe with a pleading look and suggested, “Maybe we should leave first and wait outside the hall… Isn’t it disrespectful to linger so long before the Snake God?”

“I think so too,” Ning Zhe agreed, turning his gaze to Zhang Yangxu and Xie Sining. “What do you think?”

“It makes sense. Ancestral halls aren’t meant for outsiders to enter, let alone stay in for long,” Xie Sining agreed. “Zhang Zong, should we go out?”

Zhang Yangxu glanced silently at Ning Zhe, then nodded. “Let’s go.”

The four left the lotus altar where the Snake God was enshrined, stepping out through the hall’s main gate and waiting beneath the eaves.

With nothing to talk about among strangers, Xie Sining suggested they share how each had been drawn into He Family Village, perhaps finding common threads or clues to escape.

Feng Yu spoke first: “Yesterday… no, the day before yesterday, my husband, daughter, and I stayed at a hotel in Guzhen. Since he has the habit of working alone at night, we booked three rooms—one each.”

“Around seven p.m., I brewed some coffee to bring to my husband’s room… but when I opened his door and stepped over the threshold, instead of a hotel room, I found myself in a narrow alley paved with blue stone slabs.”

Feng Yu spoke with lingering dread: “The stainless steel door handle in my hand had turned into an old brass door bolt. Behind me stood a low, tiled, stone-walled house—empty inside—as if I had just stepped out of that door.”

Zhang Yangxu nodded slightly. “Mine was similar. My car was parked at a gas station just outside Guzhen. The driver went to the restroom, and I asked Sining to buy me cigarettes. She didn’t return, didn’t reply to messages, so I opened the car door to look for her. The moment I stepped out, I arrived here.”

Xie Sining continued: “I bought the cigarettes Zhang Zong wanted at the gas station convenience store. But when I pushed open the door and stepped out, the concrete floor beneath my feet was gone—replaced by the stone slabs of He Family Village’s streets.”

“Mine was more direct,” Ning Zhe said. “I returned to my hometown, opened the door of my old house, and arrived here.”

Zhang Yangxu’s gaze sharpened, lost in thought.

Coincidence? Or inevitability? Whether it was the door of the old house, the hotel room, the shop’s glass door… even the car door—each of them had entered He Family Village through a door. Ning Zhe’s expression remained calm, but he thought: “Too bad Lin Zhiyuan is already dead. Otherwise, I could’ve asked how he got here—did he also pass through some door?” Suddenly, a corner of shadow appeared at the edge of Ning Zhe’s vision—gone in an instant.

“Someone’s across the alley. He’s trying to run,” Ning Zhe said without hesitation, pulling out his phone and turning on the flashlight, directing the beam toward a narrow alley across the street.

The phone’s flashlight had limited range; Ning Zhe did this only to instantly convey the black figure’s location to the others—verbal description was too slow and prone to distortion.

But strangely, the black figure that had just been fleeing stopped dead the moment it saw Ning Zhe’s flashlight.

The figure took two steps toward them, then a white light flared from its hand—a flashlight.

“Great, it’s a living person,” Feng Yu sighed in relief; her heart had nearly leapt from her chest.

As they drew closer, they saw not one but two figures in the alley across the street—a young man and woman, both seemingly college students.

“Hello, I’m Gu Yunqing,” the young man introduced himself, then gestured to the woman beside him. “This is my senior, both of us students at Qinzhou Medical University.”

“I’m Ye Miaozhu,” Gu Yunqing’s senior introduced herself. “Are you also people who were accidentally drawn here?”

Ning Zhe nodded.

After exchanging information and identity documents, Gu Yunqing and Ye Miaozhu both showed their internship certificates.

Gu Yunqing and Ye Miaozhu were both intern doctors. Qinzhou Medical University had a tradition of sending students to remote village clinics for internships, similar to teaching in rural areas, and their assigned site was the fixed medical point in Guzhen.

Like Ning Zhe and the other four, Gu Yunqing and Ye Miaozhu had arrived here after opening the door of the clinic and the pharmacy respectively.

“So it really is about doors,” Ning Zhe’s suspicion grew firmer: “If we all entered He Family Village through doors, does that mean somewhere in this village, there’s another door—a door that can take us back to reality?”

“Uncertain, but possible,” Zhang Yangxu acknowledged his guess.

Zhang Yangxu turned to Ye Miaozhu. “You must know about auspiciousness and taboos. Then why didn’t you enter the hall to consult the almanac? Why hide across the street?”

Ye Miaozhu shook her head. “We were afraid to go in.”

Gu Yunqing added: “The He family always came to the hall daily at the same time to check the almanac. But today, not one of them came. Do you know why?”

“Why?” Feng Yu asked quickly.

Gu Yunqing took a deep breath. “I overheard two elderly villagers talking… They said the Snake God is sick. Today is His day of illness.”

(End of Chapter)