Chapter 211: A Mountain Suspended, A River Submerged (25)
Although, according to Liu Ming, the village chief’s house often hosted guests and had good conditions, in Yan Shixun’s eyes, this place was far from being considered “well-equipped.” The room only had the most basic furniture—there wasn’t a single item beyond the bare minimum.
From the very end of the corridor to the room they entered, every room with an unlocked door had the same layout: one bed placed directly in the center, with nothing else around. It was so bare that it felt like…
A mourning hall.
In the country, there was no custom of placing a bed in the center of a room. Only coffins were arranged in the middle of a house.
Moreover, the room had a door directly facing a window, and the window directly faced the bed. Outside, the door was positioned to directly face another door. This kind of layout went against both feng shui and common living habits.
The mountain wind was cold, and living in such a drafty place didn’t just affect one’s peace of mind—it could also easily cause physical illness.
This house hadn’t been designed for the living from the very beginning.
And yet Liu Ming could still point at such a house and claim the conditions were “good”…
Clearly, Liu Ming knew that no matter the condition of the house, they would still end up staying here, so he didn’t even bother coming up with a proper excuse. His casual remark didn’t worry about being exposed.
Just like Liu Ming didn’t care whether their own words sounded like lies.
Yan Shixun had a feeling that both sides knew the other was lying, but neither of them cared.
Liu Ming wanted to keep them in the village—more than that, he had deliberately led them to the village chief’s house.
And as for Yan Shixun, he was here to investigate exactly what was happening upstream in Longevity Village that was affecting the downstream area—and what had caused the guide to remain so deeply fearful even until death.
Even if he knew there was something wrong, he still had to step in.
Seeing the gloom in Yan Shixun’s expression, Nan Tian suddenly felt a chill run down his spine. It was as if wind was seeping in from every crack and corner of the room.
Nan Tian swallowed nervously and silently asked Yan Shixun: Brother Yan, should we leave now?
Yan Shixun pulled himself out of his thoughts and shook his head slightly: What Liu Ming said about the festival tomorrow—I need to see for myself what it really is. At the very least, we have to wait until tomorrow before we can leave.
Yan Shixun also felt a bit helpless about Nan Tian’s unexpected arrival.
He had deliberately left the rest of the crew in the downstream part of Longevity Village to avoid any danger befalling them while he conducted his investigation. If anything happened, he wouldn’t be able to protect them.
But unexpectedly, Nan Tian was here anyway.
And what Nan Tian had described about his journey to the upstream part of Longevity Village only made Yan Shixun more alert.
He realized that the problems in Longevity Village had existed for a long time. They weren’t something that had emerged recently. That meant if he continued delving deeper, there could be even greater dangers hidden in places he couldn’t yet see.
Yan Shixun wanted to send Nan Tian away, to keep him from getting dragged into this and getting hurt. But up to this point, he hadn’t yet found a way to leave the village.
So, even though he felt helpless, he had no choice but to keep Nan Tian close and watch over him.
As for tomorrow’s festival…
Before Yan Shixun could ask, he suddenly noticed that Nan Tian’s expression had grown anxious. Ever since he mentioned waiting for tomorrow’s festival, Nan Tian had been sneaking glances at the doorway—intentionally or not.
It was as if he was afraid that something might suddenly rush in from outside.
Yan Shixun frowned and silently asked: You know something about the festival here?
He knew that Nan Tian was someone who feared ghosts. For him to react like this, he must already know something—and believe that there might really be something supernatural waiting just outside the door.
Nan Tian’s reaction came precisely after Yan Shixun mentioned the festival.
That timing stirred suspicion in Yan Shixun’s heart.
Since Nan Tian’s hometown was nearby and he had encountered ghosts as a child, it was very likely he knew something about what went on in the surrounding mountains.
Back when they were in Family Tomb Village, Nan Tian had taken the opportunity to tell a ghost story during their group chat, and through that, he had shared his own childhood experience with ghosts. Ever since then, Yan Shixun had kept an eye on him.
After all, not everyone went through something like that.
Normally, even if a person with low yang energy ran into something unclean, it would only be a brief encounter. Once their yang energy recovered, the ghosts would instinctively avoid them out of fear of being burned or hurt.
But Nan Tian had clearly said he continued to dream about his ghost encounter even after he became an adult.
That could only mean one thing—
The ghostly energy and karmic entanglement had been clinging to Nan Tian all this time, not just on the surface, but deep within his soul.
That explained why no matter how many temples or Taoist temples he visited, he never got any answers.
Because this was no longer just a physical or mental problem—it was something rooted in his very soul.
This realization puzzled Yan Shixun.
Even if Nan Tian had faced one of the most dangerous ghost encounters—being lured at a fork in the road during a time when mass deaths in the village created heavy yin energy—and had almost been taken to the underworld as a child, that was still something from the past.
So many years had passed. The debts of that time should’ve been settled by now.
Besides, Nan Tian hadn’t encountered any ghosts since then. His fear was more of a psychological scar from childhood, which also suggested his current fortune and spiritual state were fine.
And yet, that nightmare from long ago still haunted Nan Tian, even guiding him back to this place…
That made Yan Shixun begin to question Nan Tian’s old village—and Nan Tian’s grandmother.
According to what Nan Tian overheard from his parents, everyone in that village, including his grandmother, had died. Over the years, he hadn’t heard a single word about the village. His parents never spoke of it again, treating the subject like a taboo.
It was as if the moment they told Nan Tian the truth, he would die.
After Nan Tian became an adult and entered the entertainment industry, he once tried to drive back to his childhood village by relying on his vague memories.
But it was far from easy.
That region in the south, covered by the vast Ten Thousand Great Mountains, had endless layers of forest. With every step deeper into the mountains, the danger multiplied. Even professional expeditions equipped with the best gear could easily lose their way—let alone someone like Nan Tian, an untrained celebrity.
Besides, when his grandmother had taken him out of the mountains back then, he’d been too young to remember much. His memory of the route was faint at best.
Now, over twenty years later, the once-small boy had grown into a man. Time had changed everything. The path they once took had long been swallowed by thick undergrowth. Even landmarks he might’ve used to orient himself were no longer there.
Nan Tian had wandered helplessly around the Nanming Mountains, only to leave disappointed.
Later, he had asked people he knew to help investigate what became of the village. But the village had never even had an official name. It was deep in the mountains, and with the years that had passed, it never entered any modern digital records.
Finding it again was nearly impossible.
Nan Tian couldn’t let it go, but he also understood—he might never be able to return to the place that held all the memories of his childhood.
Yet to Yan Shixun, that just made everything more suspicious.
If Nan Tian’s parents were telling the truth—that the entire village had perished and only Nan Tian had escaped before disaster struck—then the so-called “rituals” and “deities” his grandmother spoke of… could they have been the cause of that catastrophe?
What exactly had she meant when she said they had to go deeper into the mountains?
Yan Shixun couldn’t question Grandma Nan anymore, so Nan Tian became his only link to the horrific incident that had happened decades ago.
Under Yan Shixun’s calm, probing gaze, Nan Tian instinctively shook his head rapidly. But in the end, he couldn’t withstand the pressure in Yan Shixun’s eyes. After a long moment of hesitation, he finally gave a small nod.
Silently, Nan Tian said: My hometown was right next to the Nanming Mountains. I used to sneak into the mountains to play when I was little, so I remember some things. The shape of these mountains looks really similar to Nanming.
Since Nan Tian’s grandmother had been responsible for overseeing all kinds of big and small matters in the village, he had grown up seeing and hearing a lot, and had picked up a fair amount about the village’s important events and rituals.
For example, in his hometown village, every time one of the four seasonal solar terms came around, they would hold a grand sacrificial ceremony.
Among them, the most valued by the villagers was the Beginning of Winter Festival.
And every year during that festival, they would always use the corpse of a villager who had died that year to pray to Heaven and Earth, begging for peace and prosperity for the village in the coming year.
In ancient times, sacrifices involved live humans and animals. In some cultures, both the people and livestock used for the rituals were slaughtered on the spot.
Later on, steamed buns replaced human heads, and fragrant fruits and suckling pigs became common offerings.
However, in some remote villages deep in the mountains, with little contact with the outside world, ancient customs were still observed.
In Nan Tian’s hometown, what they used was a corpse.
The villager who had passed away that year would be respectfully dug up from their grave the night before the ritual, placed on the altar, and offered as a sign of reverence from the village to the heavens.
After all the ceremonies concluded and the festival ended, the corpse would be returned to the grave with the same reverence, and the family of the deceased would be treated with respect by the entire village for the following year.
To them, the deceased had taken upon themselves all the illnesses and disasters to protect the living and bless them with peace and health.
Still, if the body had just recently died or had already become bare bones, that was manageable.
What they feared most was a corpse that had begun rotting midway and was still dug up by the villagers.
When Nan Tian was little, like all children, he was mischievous and curious.
Though Grandma Nan would always lock him at home during the festival and refuse to let him attend, one year he managed to escape—with the help of the old dog at home. He climbed over the wall by stepping on the dog’s back.
Then, from a distance, little Nan Tian saw the corpse placed on a high altar.
The half-rotten flesh was turning black, and the pus had dyed the white cloth a burnt yellow. It dripped down along the fabric onto the ground.
Between the bloody flesh, pale white bones were visible. But upon closer inspection, those weren’t bones—they were clusters of wriggling maggots.
The white worms, slick with mucus, slowly crawled about. Occasionally, one would fall off and hit the ground, still twisting its plump white body, sending chills down anyone’s spine.
Little Nan Tian was so terrified he wanted to cry out, but Grandma Nan had already spotted him. She rushed over, scooped him up, brought him back home, and locked the door again.
Ever since then, Nan Tian had harbored deep fear toward all sacrificial rituals.
To him, the word “festival” immediately brought back that haunting memory from years ago.
When Liu Ming mentioned the festival earlier, Nan Tian had forced himself to endure it because he was all alone—even if he was afraid, he had to tough it out.
But now that Yan Shixun was with him, Nan Tian felt like he had someone to rely on. With his guard lowered, his true emotions naturally surfaced, which Yan Shixun noticed right away.
When Yan Shixun asked, Nan Tian spilled everything he knew like pouring beans from a bamboo tube.
In the end, he even tried to explain himself: I’m not afraid there are ghosts outside. I just… wanted to check if the door was locked.
Yan Shixun was amused by Nan Tian’s attempt to save face but didn’t expose him. He simply nodded and pretended to believe him.
Nan Tian rubbed his nose awkwardly, feeling a bit embarrassed.
He was almost thirty and still scared of things like this… It was a little shameful to admit.
Yan Shixun soon put away his smile, frowning deeply at what Nan Tian had said about the sacrificial rituals.
Although using corpses for sacrifices sounded unpleasant, it didn’t involve harming the living. It was, after all, their own cultural practice—outsiders had no place to judge.
But that was when the village was still normal, and they used corpses.
What if… the village was no longer normal?
Yan Shixun remembered clearly what Nan Tian had said: Grandma Nan looked down on the villagers. She had even stated outright that some villagers, in their desperation for a male child, abandoned newborn daughters in the mountains. A single surviving boy meant six dead baby girls—and the mother often died in childbirth.
As for other deceased villagers, Grandma Nan didn’t hold back her disdain. She claimed they deserved to die, that the souls of the guilty were kept in the underworld by the King of Hell.
But what Grandma Nan didn’t know was that after Yan Shixun had experienced the underworld, walked through the abyss thick with ghostly energy, and witnessed the ruins of a collapsed underworld with his own eyes—he knew the truth.
—There was no King of Hell.
The King of Hell had perished beneath the Great Dao over a century ago. The underworld was only barely functioning thanks to the residual power he left behind. Even the Yin officials had gradually lost control and begun abusing their power.
In such dire straits, how could the underworld still patrol the human realm and judge the souls of villagers one by one?
This made Yan Shixun deeply suspicious.
Still, Nan Tian’s story also confirmed that many people had indeed died in that village back then. So Grandma Nan’s words weren’t entirely fabricated.
From Nan Tian’s account, the image of Grandma Nan slowly took shape in Yan Shixun’s mind. From his perspective, she didn’t seem like someone who would conduct human sacrifices.
Unless… after Nan Tian was sent away, something happened in the village that he didn’t know about?
With that thought, Yan Shixun began to suspect the festival Liu Ming had mentioned for tomorrow.
It was also for the Beginning of Winter. It was also a festival held on a seasonal solar term.
The customs Liu Ming described were exactly the same as those in Nan Tian’s hometown.
Moreover, Liu Ming had said that tomorrow’s ritual would be the grandest one yet—they even needed to leave the village for it.
If the Longevity Village’s sacrificial customs were similar to those Nan Tian described, then tonight, they should be preparing the corpse.
Yet Liu Ming was still casually hosting guests and preparing food, showing no signs of a busy night ahead.
So where would the offering come from?
The more Yan Shixun thought about what Nan Tian had said, the more uneasy he felt about Longevity Village.
He looked up at Nan Tian, who was still anxiously standing before him, and made a decision.
“Let’s go take a walk around the village.”
A fake smile appeared on Yan Shixun’s handsome face. “The scenery here is so beautiful—it’d be a shame not to see it before sunset.”
Nan Tian was confused, not understanding why Yan Shixun suddenly wanted to go out for a stroll.
He wanted to say he didn’t want to go. Only the locked room made him feel safe.
But then he thought—if Yan Shixun left, he’d be alone in this empty room. That thought scared him even more.
Just imagining it made him feel paranoid, like ghosts were hiding in every crack of the wall, spying on him.
He even looked at the wall connecting to the next room and thought he was hallucinating. He could have sworn he saw a faint blood-red eyeball peering at him through a gap in the wood, staring intently.
Nan Tian was startled, his face filling with fear.
Facing away from the wall, Yan Shixun caught the terrified look on Nan Tian’s face and immediately grew alert. He spun around to look.
But the wall was empty—just wooden planks forming the structure of the building, nothing more.
Yan Shixun cautiously walked to the wall. His long fingers landed on the wooden surface, slowly sliding along the grain, plank by plank.
From beginning to end, he found nothing unusual.
He turned sideways and looked at Nan Tian with suspicion, silently asking what he had seen.
Nan Tian, pale-faced, steadied himself and simply shook his head. He said he was probably just too scared and had imagined it.
Even so, after that scare, Nan Tian no longer dared to stay in the room alone.
What little courage he had left had been completely scared out of him by the hallucination just now.
Nan Tian followed Yan Shixun out the door. The two of them pretended to be out on a leisurely stroll, acting relaxed. Nan Tian, still shaken, buried his fear deep in his eyes and summoned all his willpower to maintain a composed expression, making himself appear no different than usual.
However, as they walked down the stairs, Yan Shixun keenly picked up on a certain sound.
“Thud, thud!”
It sounded like someone hopping on one foot, unevenly—sometimes light, sometimes heavy, staggered.
The noise came from a room on the other side of the first floor.
At first glance, Yan Shixun immediately noticed that the yellowish, murky liquid seeping out from under the door had spread wider than before, staining the entire bottom of the wooden panel black.
Whatever it was, the fluid gave off a strong, foul, fishy stench. It foamed slightly and continued to ooze out bit by bit from the gap under the door.
Yan Shixun calmly walked forward, making it seem like he was just casually passing by the door.
But the moment he neared the room, all the sounds vanished.
Everything fell completely silent.
As if the noises Yan Shixun had just heard were all a figment of his imagination.
People often doubted their own senses in everyday life.
If something got moved, one might notice it at first, but the more they thought about it, the more they believed they had just remembered wrong. Hearing strange noises while sitting at home—after the initial shock and alertness, if the sounds didn’t continue, they’d start to wonder if they’d imagined it.
The human brain always leaned toward safety, avoiding danger.
But Yan Shixun trusted himself. He also trusted his own judgment.
—There had definitely been something in that room making strange noises, and a foul-smelling unknown liquid had indeed been leaking out.
At that moment, Liu Ming, humming a rustic mountain tune in the kitchen, seemed to grow eyes in the back of his head and noticed the two guests in the living room.
He wiped his hands and came out warmly to greet them.
“Are you two hungry? So sorry—the village chief disappeared somewhere, and I got delayed preparing food.”
“Please go back upstairs and relax, I’ll be right there.”
There was a hint of apology on Liu Ming’s face, but not the kind that made people blame him. Instead, it made him seem like a sincere and hospitable person.
Yan Shixun also made a few polite remarks, complimenting Liu Ming, expressing his gratitude and trust toward him—then finally stated his real purpose.
“We don’t want to trouble you. No rush, take your time.”
He looked genuinely thoughtful, speaking gently: “We’re just heading out for a bit to enjoy the scenery. We’ll probably be gone a while. Take your time. We still haven’t seen the village chief. Hopefully, by the time we get back, he’ll be around too, and we can thank him properly.”
As he spoke, Yan Shixun never stopped walking. Step by step, he naturally crossed the threshold of the wooden cottage. Right before turning to leave, he even gave Liu Ming a sincere wave.
Then he grabbed Nan Tian and walked away without a backward glance.
He clearly had no intention of giving Liu Ming a chance to react.
“Hey!”
Liu Ming panicked and instinctively tried to stop them.
But just then, a loud *thud* came from the room on the first floor.
The sound was intense—like something heavy had dropped from mid-air and slammed onto the ground.
Liu Ming glanced at the room beside him, ground his teeth in frustration, and cursed silently in his heart.
But in the end, all he could do was glare venomously at the backs of the departing Yan Shixun and Nan Tian before storming toward the room in a fury.
“What the hell are you doing!”
Liu Ming slammed a fist against the door, and the face that had just moments ago been warm and sincere now twisted with anger into something grotesque. “This is a blessing for you! An opportunity to escape the suffering of ordinary life—birth, aging, sickness, and death. Don’t be ungrateful!”
He didn’t hold back at all, punching the door so hard it shook violently.
Whatever was inside the room seemed startled by the blow and went quiet again.
Liu Ming sneered, full of contempt. “Even if you regret it now, it’s too late.”
“Longevity, longevity—if you want it, of course, you have to give something up.”
Looking at the now-silent room, Liu Ming snorted and lifted his gaze upward.
“Those ones up there should be just about ready…”
He muttered to himself under his breath, “Probably usable now. Let the village chief go inform Master.”
As if something had just occurred to him, Liu Ming’s face flushed red with excitement, and his breathing grew rough and rapid.
“Tomorrow’s festival—it will succeed. It must!”
His eyes burned with fanatic devotion. “Once we get through tomorrow, we’ll finally be free of all suffering! Hah, hahahahaha—!”
His laughter cracked, turning his once-normal voice into something distorted and terrifying.
The entire wooden cottage fell instantly silent. Even the faint background hum of the mountain forest seemed to still in response.
Only after a long while did Liu Ming stop laughing.
He turned and staggered back toward the kitchen, still mumbling to himself in a feverish whisper: “The Eight Sufferings of life—birth, aging, sickness, death, unfulfilled desires, hateful encounters, love lost… It’s all too painful. Too painful. Ordinary people can never escape it. But us—we’re different. We are blessed.”
“This… this is what life should be.”
In the deathly silence, Liu Ming’s voice sounded chillingly eerie.
Meanwhile, on the second floor, behind the locked doors that couldn’t be pushed open—
In the center of the room stood a bed, covered with a stark white sheet. The surrounding space was empty and bare.
A man in mountaineering gear lay on the bed, his face pale, eyes shut tightly, and lips completely devoid of color. He looked just like a corpse on display in a funeral home, laid out in a hall awaiting the final farewell.
In another room, there was also a man in hiking clothes lying there.
And another one. And another…
If Yan Shixun had been there, he would have been stunned to recognize—
Several of these faces were familiar to him.
They were the people the production team had met outside the mountain, at the guesthouse, before entering Longevity Village.
They had told the crew that some of them came to experience the beauty of Longevity Village, while others, suffering from serious illnesses and unwilling to burden their families, had come to try their luck.
Later, when the crew entered the lower part of the village and didn’t see them again, they had even asked about it.
The guide and the villagers from the lower village simply said they must have gotten lost and taken a longer route, which was why they hadn’t arrived yet.
But now…
They were lying here.
Devoid of the vitality they had outside the mountain.
Only the cold stillness of death remained.
—
After entering the village with Nan Tian, Yan Shixun didn’t follow the same path Liu Ming had led him along. Instead, he boldly ventured deeper into the village.
Nan Tian looked at the surrounding houses, all similar in appearance. In the dead silence devoid of life, he felt a creeping dread.
“Brother Yan,”
Nan Tian’s voice trembled. “Won’t we get lost if we keep walking like this?”
Getting lost in a desolate mountain village, unable to find the way back, possibly starving to death out here…
Just imagining the scene made Nan Tian feel suffocated with fear.
Because of his childhood experiences, Nan Tian only felt safe inside small, enclosed spaces with the doors and windows securely shut.
Being in a place like this—vast, deserted, abandoned—made his heart feel lost and panicked.
But Yan Shixun’s steps remained steady. His calm face showed no hint of fear or urgency. He walked the narrow path in the village with such ease, it was as if he were taking a stroll in the park outside his home.
Still, Nan Tian wasn’t the only one who was scared. So were the viewers watching Yan Shixun’s split-screen feed.
[As someone who grew up in the city and never got close to mountains or rivers, I always thought I’d enjoy an idyllic countryside life. Now that I’ve seen this village… I was too naive. I’m sorry!]
[Oh my god, this village is way too creepy! Where did all the people go? Even if they all went off to work, it shouldn’t be *this* deserted, right? I live in a village myself, and I’ve never felt scared—until now. Let me go lock my door first before I keep watching!]
[Damn, damn, damn! I used to make fun of Nan Tian, saying how can a guy be scared of everything, what a coward. But if I were in a place like this, I wouldn’t last either. I take it back.]
[Wuwuwu please spare this poor child. My parents went out for a trip, and I’m sleeping alone in a big villa on the mountain. Now I swear I’m hearing footsteps outside the door. This is so scary! Someone help me!]
[Watching the livestream is giving me chills. No matter how many layers I wear, I still feel cold.]
[I don’t think I’ll ever be able to look at those old buildings covered in climbing vines the same way again… This is way too creepy! What if there are corpses inside?!]
When Liu Ming had brought Yan Shixun here, he had mentioned that there were very few villagers left in Longevity Village.
These abandoned wooden cottages looked like discarded waste, piled layer upon layer. What should have been warm homes had turned into a graveyard of forgotten belongings.
The village lay in a low basin, surrounded by mountains, with a river running alongside. The heavy humidity in the air caused the abandoned houses to quickly become overgrown with moss.
What should have been a refreshing green instead instilled a deep sense of unease. It felt like something was lurking in the shadows of those moss-covered, plant-entwined houses—watching intently.
Peering through the windows of these little wooden buildings, one could just make out traces of once-active life, only adding to the chilling atmosphere.
Dust-covered clothes, living supplies now buried under wild grass—these left people wondering what on earth had happened to drive the original owners away?
The house still looked lived-in, as if its owner never realized that they were leaving for good and would never return.
Nan Tian, trembling, silently moved closer and grabbed onto the sleeve of Yan Shixun’s coat.
At that moment, Nan Tian suddenly understood why Director Zhang relied on Yan Shixun so much—he was truly scared! Only by staying close to Yan Shixun could he feel even a little bit at ease.
Yan Shixun noticed someone getting close to him and frowned slightly in discomfort. He didn’t like people being too near.
However, when he looked down and saw Nan Tian’s expression—so terrified he seemed on the verge of suffocating, like he might faint at any moment—although annoyed, he said nothing and simply furrowed his brows tightly.
Tch.
This was exactly why he wanted to get the entire production crew to a safe place.
Otherwise, one after another, they’d all cling to him…
In his mind, Yan Shixun recalled the moment when Lu Xingxing, Zhang Wubing, and An Nanyuan had surrounded him like a human shield.
Suddenly, he felt like he couldn’t breathe either.
Fortunately, it was just Nan Tian this time, which he felt was still tolerable.
But then, why didn’t he feel the same discomfort when Ye Li got close to him?
A voice suddenly popped up in his mind, questioning him.
He subconsciously stopped in his tracks, dazed.
I didn’t…
You did.
The voice rebutted his denial.
When Ye Li came close to you, you never felt repulsed.
You let him into your life. He occupied a part of your home. You even grew used to seeing him the moment you turned your head.
Why could Ye Li, and no one else?
The voice interrogated Yan Shixun, leaving him speechless, unable to come up with an answer.
“Brother Yan?”
Seeing Yan Shixun come to a stop, Nan Tian looked back at him in confusion, wondering what was going on.
Nan Tian’s voice pulled Yan Shixun out of his daze.
He steadied himself, his gaze darkening, and replied to the voice in his mind:
Ye Li was different only because he was a ghost deity, not a human being.
His body temperature was low, his breathing slower than an ordinary person’s. That’s why his closeness didn’t make Yan Shixun feel uncomfortable.
As for why he occasionally glanced to the side now, expecting Ye Li to be there…
It was simply because he had grown used to Ye Li’s presence.
Just like with Zhang Wubing—he had gone from finding him annoying to getting used to him.
Humans were creatures of habit, after all.
That was all. There was no other reason.
Yan Shixun’s gaze steadied as he tossed aside the distracting thoughts in his head. He turned and led Nan Tian toward a small wooden cabin nearby.
He had noticed the cabin earlier on their way here.
—In a fleeting glance, Yan Shixun had seen a pale skeletal hand in the shadows beneath the raised foundation.
However, now that he had returned to take a closer look, he was surprised to find that the suspicious hand bone in the soil beneath the floorboards had vanished.
This only made him more suspicious of the wooden cabin.
As his Martin boots stepped onto the wooden stairs, the heavily decayed boards groaned under the pressure, producing strained creaks and occasional cracking sounds.
He couldn’t help but wonder if the floor would break apart the next second, sending them crashing down.
Nan Tian followed, his heart pounding, filled with dread.
But he also knew that Yan Shixun had come to investigate for a reason. Speaking up wouldn’t change his mind, and would only get him left outside.
Not wanting to be alone, Nan Tian had no choice but to grit his teeth and follow Yan Shixun up the stairs.
Yan Shixun, on the other hand, looked calm as ever, as if nothing could frighten him.
He paused before the front door, then reached out and pushed it open.
Creeeaaak—!
It seemed no one had lived here in a long time. The rusted hinges let out a spine-chilling screech.
Nan Tian shivered involuntarily.
Many viewers in front of their screens immediately turned down the volume before they dared to keep watching with bated breath.
As the door swung open, mountain wind blew into the cabin, lifting clouds of thick dust.
Caught unprepared, Nan Tian burst into a coughing fit and quickly fanned the air in front of him with his hand.
But Yan Shixun had come prepared. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and covered his nose and mouth, avoiding the tear-inducing choking fit Nan Tian suffered.
Yan Shixun’s gaze fell on the living room directly ahead of the entrance. What appeared before him was a room fit for a solitary resident.
The layout was similar to the other wooden cottages in Longevity Village downstream. But after seeing the village chief’s extremely simple home, he now had something to compare with.
Compared to the chief’s cabin, this one was more like Liu Ming’s house.
Many of the furnishings visible were clearly handmade, but unlike the village’s rustic style, they leaned more toward the aesthetics of the outside world.
Though dust lay thickly everywhere, the room was relatively tidy.
It seemed the original occupant was someone quite capable and accustomed to taking care of themselves.
A jacket draped over the sofa on the first floor caught Yan Shixun’s eye.
He walked over and gently lifted it.
It was a hiking jacket.
Immediately, Yan Shixun concluded that judging by its clearly modern design, someone had likely wandered into Longevity Village—maybe lost or for some other reason—and had stayed for some time.
That would explain why the interior leaned toward modern furniture styles.
But the design and color…
After brushing off the dust and shaking it out, the more he looked at it, the more familiar it felt—as if he’d seen it somewhere before.
There was a name badge sewn onto the chest, its cold metallic sheen reflecting light from a certain angle.
Yan Shixun’s eyes narrowed. He immediately took a closer look.
The badge displayed the owner’s name, followed by the title “Team Leader.”
Below the badge, in a front pocket, there was a cloth patch stitched on with medical information—blood type and other emergency data.
It looked like something someone would prepare in case of an outdoor accident, so emergency responders could quickly help them.
This kind of habit, along with the hiking jacket…
Yan Shixun frowned, holding the jacket as he searched his memory.
He didn’t think he had seen this person directly. More likely, he had seen someone like them somewhere before. But this type of gear wasn’t just for hiking…
Wait, maybe it wasn’t for hiking at all.
Backpackers and trekkers also wore this kind of outdoor, insulated clothing.
Yan Shixun recalled that the guide’s materials from before they entered the mountains had mentioned that hikers had once come to Longevity Village.
Then, they vanished into seclusion within the village.
Never to be seen again.
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