Scared, I scrambled and crawled, fleeing the ruins and arriving at the village road. At this moment, the half-moon, obscured by dark clouds, emerged. Bathed in moonlight, I could clearly see my surroundings. It wasn't just this one dilapidated house; as far as the eye could see, there were only crumbling walls and broken ruins. It was clearly an abandoned village, devoid of human life.
What the hell was this kid Song Lei up to? What kind of trickery was he using to lure me to this ghost of a place!
Despite being an abandoned village, my phone signal was still active. I called Song Lei. No service?
I tried sending him a WeChat message, but it wouldn't go through. Stranger still, our entire chat history had inexplicably vanished. Just then, Cui Xiaohu sent me a message, asking if I had time to go get a haircut with him.
Cui Xiaohu was also a university classmate. We both lived in Jinling and saw each other often. He got married early, and his child was already in kindergarten. So, Song Lei's wedding probably didn't involve him.
I replied: "I'm in the Northeast."
Cui Xiaohu: "Business trip?"
Me: "Attending a wedding. Remember Song Lei? He's getting married, and he asked me to be his best man."
Cui Xiaohu: "Holy shit! I'm all alone at the company. In the middle of the night, don't you dare scare me!"
Me: "Huh?"
Cui Xiaohu: "Song Lei has been dead for years! What kind of wedding is he having!"
What! Song Lei is dead?!
My once calm heartbeat surged past a hundred. I quickly asked Xiaohu: "How did he die? When did this happen! How come I didn't know!"
Cui Xiaohu: "I heard it from the class monitor. Song Lei had cancer and passed away in 2018. After graduation, he didn't keep in touch with us much, so his family didn't notify us."
Xiaohu was my good friend; he wouldn't pull a prank like this at midnight to scare me. What he said was probably true.
So, what was the deal with the invitation I received?!
I dared not stay here any longer and wanted to retrace my steps. But when I checked the navigation, going back would require at least fifteen kilometers to reach the town, and I'd have to cross several mountains in between. I'd be lucky to make it by dawn.
The opposite direction, however, had a road. Just a few hundred meters ahead, I'd reach a geographical coordinate that looked familiar: Jiuxian Cave.
It was the place the girl from my dream told me to find her.
Suddenly, a gust of chilling wind slowly drifted from the village entrance. Within the wind, faint whispers were mixed, drawing closer and closer!
My subconscious told me I couldn't just stand there and wait for the chilling wind to envelop me. I had to make a decision!
Song Lei wanted me to stay here.
The girl wanted me to go to Jiuxian Cave to find her.
On one side, a college classmate who had been dead for four years, and his paper cousin.
On the other, a mysterious woman with whom I had shared intimate moments for a month and who felt so close.
Who should I trust?
Weighing the pros and cons, even if that girl was something unclean, I could only trust her now, right?
At worst, I'd die!
A. Die at the hands of a classmate I wasn't very close to.
B. Die at the hands of a girl with whom I had intimate contact.
As the saying goes, to die beneath a peony is to be a romantic ghost!
I choose B!
With that thought, I hardened my heart, hoisted my suitcase, and ran in the opposite direction. The chilling wind behind me pursued relentlessly. The wind seemed to carry countless vengeful spirits, baring their teeth and wailing, some even reaching my heels!
I didn't dare to stop for a moment. Fortunately, I'd always kept up with my running, so my cardiopulmonary function was good. Combined with the adrenaline rush from fear, I ran out of the abandoned village in one breath and climbed up the mountain road.
Strangely, the chilling wind stopped at the foot of the mountain and didn't follow. After climbing about a hundred meters, I finally couldn't bear it, my legs went weak, and I stopped. I took a few deep breaths, confirmed nothing was chasing me from behind, and then dared to look back down the mountain.
The moonlight had intensified. The entire village was visible; it was indeed the most desolate abandoned village imaginable. Many houses were left with only half-height mud walls. It looked like it hadn't been abandoned for a hundred years, at least thirty or forty years.
No wonder the driver knew I was coming here and asked if I was here for an archaeological dig.
That chilling wind was still swirling around the village, rustling the withered willows. Several times it surged towards me, but it was blocked at the village's edge by some invisible force. I didn't understand these supernatural things. Was it called a "barrier"?
With the barrier blocking it, the mountainside seemed safe.
I sat on a rock, took out a cigarette from my pocket, and lit it. By the light of the lighter, I inadvertently glimpsed some characters on the stone beneath me. I shone my phone's flashlight on it, quickly got up, threw away the cigarette butt, grabbed my suitcase, and continued running up the mountain!
Song Lei's tomb! I had just sat on his tombstone!
After running a few steps and not feeling anything unusual, I stopped. I hadn't seen it clearly before. Besides Song Lei's name and birth and death dates, there was also the inscription of who erected the monument. But it didn't seem to be his family, but a unit with a very long name?
To figure out why my deceased college classmate was putting me through this, I summoned my courage, turned back, pushed aside the grass on the grave mound, and carefully examined the fallen tombstone.
Indeed, the person who erected the monument was not his relative, but an organization called the "Jiuxian Cave Management Committee."
So, Song Lei was a member of this committee. Why would a unit erect a tombstone?
Did Song Lei have no family? Or, had his family all passed away?
Even stranger, next to Song Lei's name, there was a prefix, five small black characters carved into the stone: Liao Dong Ye Bu Shou.
What was that?
I glanced at the village. The chilling wind still couldn't come up. The graveyard, however, was quiet, with no sense of danger. I took out my cigarettes again, lit three, and inserted them into the incense burner in front of Song Lei's grave, muttering: "Old Song, although we weren't very close, we were classmates for four years, and I even treated you to meals. Don't harm me!"
It was still quiet.
"Brother Lei, if you really 'exist,' then please smoke the cigarettes I'm offering you. This is your favorite Red Nanjing." I added.
The middle cigarette among the three suddenly glowed red at its tip and shortened at a visible rate!
"Alright, brother, take your time and smoke. I'm leaving now. If there's a chance in the future, I'll come back specifically to pay my respects!"
Trembling, I kowtowed to Song Lei and scrambled towards "Jiuxian Cave" at the mountain's summit without looking back...