Chapter 6

Coughing Up Blood

Grandma performed with great dedication on stage, while Chao Musheng was busy snapping photos and recording videos on his phone, thoroughly absorbed in the task. The person sitting beside him cheerfully shifted to give him a better angle for shooting.

A television camera operator spotted an unusually handsome young man in the crowd and couldn't help letting the lens linger on him for several extra seconds.

Noticing that he'd been photographing the stage nonstop, after the current performance ended, the reporter made a point of approaching him: "Excuse me, sorry to bother you — you've been taking photos this whole time. Do you really enjoy this program?"

Chao Musheng nodded and launched into effusive praise for the camera, complimenting not only the program and its performers, but working his way through every level of leadership and every department responsible for the event.

His praise was so sincere, and he was so extraordinarily good-looking, that the television crew found themselves nodding along the entire time.

This enthusiastic audience member really knows how to charm people — handsome, with a pleasant way of speaking. He just didn't look much like an ordinary villager.

After wrapping up that interview, the reporter moved on to others, but found herself feeling vaguely deflated. Her gaze swept the surroundings and landed on a little girl in a pretty princess dress.

"Hello there, little one."

"Hello, reporter sister." Faced with the camera, the little girl was equal parts curious and shy.

"Would you mind if sister asked you a few questions?" The female reporter crouched down in front of the girl and held out the microphone.

The little girl asked curiously, "Sister, if I do this interview, will my teacher be able to see me on TV?"

"She will," the reporter said, laughing at the child's innocent question. "Everyone will be able to see you on TV."

"Then go ahead and ask." The little girl tugged self-consciously at one of her small braids, clasped her hands behind her back, and did her best to look like a well-behaved child for the cameras.

The reporter asked the girl a few questions about the Dragon Boat Festival. Some she answered correctly; others she answered with wild imagination — but however she responded, it all came across as charmingly innocent.

"Last question: what do you want to be when you grow up?"

"I want to be someone like Brother Shengsheng!" The mention of this particular brother sent the little girl into an animated flurry of gestures. "Brother Shengsheng is super amazing — he can do everything!"

Though she had no idea who this "Brother Shengsheng" was, the reporter had no desire to be the kind of adult who killed children's joy: "May your wish come true."

"Mm-hm!" The little girl nodded vigorously, beaming a smile that showed every small tooth. "Thank you, sister!"

When she grew up, she'd definitely become as tall and as amazing as Brother Shengsheng!

*

"Grandma." When Chao Musheng found his grandmother backstage, she was taking group photos with several of her dance partners. The moment the old ladies spotted him, they thrust their phones into his hands and insisted he photograph them.

The elderly men nearby breathed a collective sigh of relief. Young people have the energy for it — they can handle the criticism.

After cooperating through every pose the old ladies demanded, they reviewed the results and heaped praise on Chao Musheng.

"You take such wonderful photos — a top student through and through."

"Ay, Musheng made me look ten years younger!"

"It's because you're all young to begin with, grandmas." A few words from Chao Musheng and the old ladies were beaming.

Amid the envious looks from everyone around her, Grandma lifted her chin with great satisfaction.

"Grandma, let me get you some water." Chao Musheng unscrewed the lid of her thermos, found it empty, and turned to go fetch some from the service station.

"Bihua, your grandson is so filial," one of the dance partners sighed. "My two grandchildren — come the holidays, you can't find hide nor hair of them."

"Musheng's parents are busy with work. The child grew up with Bihua, so of course the bond runs deeper than most grandchildren." Another partner joined in: "Bihua and her husband didn't want to follow their daughter to the capital, so every long holiday, that boy comes back to keep them company."

"Bihua, didn't you say just the other day that Musheng was going traveling with friends this Dragon Boat Festival and wouldn't be coming back? What changed?"

"Young people are impulsive — he suddenly announced he was craving his grandfather's braised chicken, and back he came, dragging a whole pile of gifts with him. Not a care in the world about the trouble."

Grandma smiled until the lines around her eyes softened: "If the child is willing to come home, we grandparents have nothing but joy."

Everyone listening was filled with a mixture of envy and longing — each of them wishing Chao Musheng were their own grandchild.

The village committee's old water dispenser was energy-efficient but agonizingly slow to boil. Chao Musheng stood beside it for quite a while before the water finally came to a boil.

Nearby, a few elderly men were speaking in lowered voices — words like "thief," "haunting," and "strange business" drifting over.

"The footsteps were light, but based on my years of experience as a scout, someone definitely snuck in and did something while we weren't looking."

"So it's really not a ghost?"

"Nonsense. There's no such thing."

"It's too strange though — even if it were a thief, why would they come to the village committee? The most valuable thing in here is those two old computers that take three minutes just to boot up..."

"Then it must be a ghost. I just saw a computer turn itself on."

"I already said — there are no such things as ghosts."

Chao Musheng filled the thermos and glanced over at the three men speaking.

One was a veteran who had seen real combat, and who loved nothing better than wandering aimlessly around the village. Another was a retired schoolteacher whose hobby was practicing calligraphy at the village committee activity center. The third was the village's well-known duangong — a folk ritual specialist who spent his free time reading people's feng shui and calculating their fortunes from the eight characters of their birth.

"Just before the program started, as I was walking into the village committee, I felt something bump into me," the ritual specialist said, pushing back against the veteran's assessment. "If it wasn't a ghost, then who bumped me?"

The two were on the verge of arguing when the retired teacher hurried in to mediate — with no particular success.

Listening to the three of them bicker, Chao Musheng glanced toward the village committee's back door. When he'd brought the tourists through that door earlier, he'd had a similar sensation of bumping into something.

He delivered the water to his grandmother and, seeing her deep in conversation with her friends with no time for him, made a tactful exit.

"Musheng, perfect timing." Sister Ling flagged him down and deposited a large crate of bottled water into his arms. "Come on — walk with me to hand out water to the staff on duty."

Chao Musheng resigned himself to his fate and followed Sister Ling, making trip after trip.

"Take a break." Sister Ling's face was flushed scarlet from the heat. She tossed him a bottle, twisted the cap off her own, and drained half of it in one go. "Lucky the rain last night didn't get any heavier, otherwise all the prep work would've been for nothing."

"I've had this uneasy feeling for the past few days," Sister Ling said, fanning herself with her hand. "The night before last I even dreamed that right before the event started, the two mountains behind the village came crashing down." She sighed. "After this, I'm not organizing any more large-scale events for the rest of the year. It's exhausting."

Chao Musheng stood on his toes to pluck two leaves from a branch and use them to fan her: "You've probably just been under too much pressure lately. That's why you're having nightmares."

"What nightmares?" Officer Xiao Lin returned from a patrol with his colleague, spotted the familiar face of Chao Musheng, and joined them in the shade of the tree.

"Sister Ling dreamed the mountain collapsed," Chao Musheng said, bending down to retrieve two bottles of water for Xiao Lin and his colleague.

"Kunlun Enterprises water — I'm impressed," Xiao Lin's colleague remarked with admiration. "Your event must have a generous budget."

"Kunlun Enterprises' agricultural support division knew we were putting on this folk performance and offered to sponsor us with water, free of charge." Sister Ling smiled as she explained. "We reached out to them on a whim, not really expecting anything — and the very next day they agreed to sponsor us."

"A company that bothers to set up a dedicated agricultural support division — that's a company with a conscience," the colleague said approvingly. "No wonder they've grown so large."

Xiao Lin had stopped paying attention to his colleague's conversation with Sister Ling. He stared fixedly at the two mountains in the distance, then slowly raised a hand and pointed at them: "The mountains that collapsed in the dream... were those two?"

Sister Ling nodded. "They're the closest mountains to the village — those two are really the only candidates."

Xiao Lin pressed a hand to his head. A throbbing pain pulsed through his temples in waves.

"Xiao Lin, what's wrong?!" His colleague reached out to steady him.

Xiao Lin shook his head and thumped the side of his skull.

Something hazy flickered through his mind. He looked up and saw Chao Musheng, and felt with a vague certainty that there was something he had forgotten.

"Officer Lin, are you having heatstroke?" Chao Musheng dug around at the bottom of the crate and produced a vial of Huoxiang Zhengqi liquid — a traditional herbal remedy — inserted a straw, and held it out to him. "Start with one of these."

The pungent, medicinal smell of the Huoxiang Zhengqi liquid jolted Xiao Lin back to full alertness. He grimaced against the nauseating taste: "I'm fine. Just now, passing the village committee entrance, there were a few old men arguing — said your village committee was haunted, that a computer switched on by itself."

"Those old computers glitch all the time when they're on standby — the screens flash on and off for no reason." Sister Ling laughed. "It's broad daylight — where would a ghost come from? And even if there were one, what would it want with the village committee? Surely it isn't here to play online games on those two ancient machines?"

Those two decrepit computers in the office infuriated anyone who used them. Even the most light-fingered thief wouldn't bother giving them a second glance, let alone a ghost.

*

The folk performance came to an end. The players returned to the guesthouse, and before anyone had the chance to say a word, Lone Wolf staggered into the bathroom and vomited up several mouthfuls of blood.

The others were badly shaken. "What happened to you — how did you end up this badly hurt?"

Lone Wolf downed a bottle of health restoration potion and fixed a dark, brooding gaze on Xiao You, who stood in the doorway. "That's a question for your dear companion here."

He still couldn't wrap his head around it. An NPC had casually opened a door — and somehow left him injured this severely.

"Xiao You?" Chubby stared at her in astonishment. "You ambushed him?"

"Nothing to do with me," Xiao You denied.

"We agreed to go gather information together. Why did you come back early?" The male half of the couple spoke up. He thought of the villagers' unsettling eyes as they had watched him hurrying back, and couldn't suppress a shudder.

"I ran into Chao Musheng on the way. He walked me back." Beneath the players' suspicious, calculating stares, Xiao You felt a bone-deep exhaustion. "This instance is unlike anything we've been in before — haven't you noticed? They have their own culture, their own history. They seem... they seem like actual living people. Like a real world."

"Sounds to me like you've had your head turned by a pretty face," Lone Wolf said, laughing despite his injuries, her naïve assessment genuinely amusing him. "Ever since we entered this instance, we've been hobbled at every turn. Our phones can't connect to any network. The call function has been disabled. Every channel through which we might obtain information has been cut off — does that sound like a normal world to you?"

"We know nothing about their world, yet every pair of eyes in the place seems to track our every move." Lone Wolf pressed a hand to his chest and coughed up another mouthful of blood. "This instance is trying to trap us here and wait us out. In the three days we have left, by whatever means necessary — by force, by deception, by elimination — we need to find a way to clear it."

"So what exactly are we supposed to find?" The female partner eyed the fresh blood Lone Wolf had coughed up. "No lead-in, no conclusion, no hints — how are we supposed to strategize? Don't tell me there's actually some great treasure hidden in this village?"

*

"Grandma's precious darling — these photos are better than anything your grandfather has ever taken."

"Sure, sure — Musheng is your precious darling, and I'm just the weeds growing in the ditch out front."

The players: ...Not that kind of treasure.

Lone Wolf drifted to the window and looked out to see Chao Musheng sandwiched between the old couple, the three of them chatting and laughing with easy warmth.

Their eyes met. Chao Musheng gave him a friendly smile.

Lone Wolf pressed a hand against his aching, suffocating chest and yanked the curtains shut in misery.

"Hey — you're coughing up blood again?!"

"Wait." Grandma stopped in her tracks, eyes locked on the curtains that had just snapped closed. "That room is usually only booked for single female guests. Why was there a man standing at that window?!"

"No — I need to get people together and go have a look." Grandma pulled out her phone with a fierce, determined air. "Musheng — go arm yourself!"

She was going to give a proper talking-to to this rotten scoundrel who'd gone sneaking into a young woman's room!

*

Translation notes: "Duangong" (端公) is a type of folk ritual specialist or shaman found in certain regions of China, performing functions like divination, feng shui consultations, and ceremonial rites. "Huoxiang Zhengqi liquid" is a well-known traditional Chinese herbal remedy commonly used for heatstroke, nausea, and digestive complaints — notorious for its extremely strong, unpleasant taste.