Chapter 1

As a social youth exuding an air of hoodlumism, Li Ang, along with another male passenger, was assigned to the home of Shi Chengpeng, a villager of Dusheng Village.

Shi Chengpeng was an honest and robust man, but his son, Shi Miao, who had just started elementary school, was quite active, pestering Li Ang in the guest room, wanting to get his hands on a smartphone to play a couple of rounds of Honor of Kings.

"Can't play anything without a signal."

Li Ang said unhappily, "What mobile games are you playing as a kid? Go do your homework obediently."

"I don't have any homework."

Shi Miao picked his nose, "Our school only has four students, one teacher. Now that Teacher Meng is gone, we have to go to another village for classes. The classrooms there are newer and bigger, and the teachers assign less homework..."

As he spoke, Shi Miao's mood dropped.

Dusheng Village was remote and underdeveloped. Some villagers went to work in the townships and county seats. After gaining some economic capacity, they gradually moved out, leaving behind mostly old people.

A decade or two ago, school-age children from surrounding villages would gather in Dusheng Village to attend elementary school. At its peak, there were more than a thousand students.

With the continuous advancement of the township urbanization process, neighboring villages were merged, and teaching locations were placed in the townships.

The remote Dusheng Village Elementary School also gradually declined. Two two-story teaching buildings, with a total of more than twenty classrooms of various sizes, were left with only four students. Among the four students, two came from even more remote villages to attend school.

Meng Qixi was originally just a youth volunteer teacher, but by chance, he worked at Dusheng Village Elementary School for ten years, from a substitute teacher to a private teacher, and then became the only active teacher in the entire school.

Persistence and dedication became his synonyms.

Half a year ago, he contracted a strange disease and died bizarrely. The villagers discovered that they didn't even know where his ancestral home was, so they had to bury him on the back mountain.

Li Ang silently listened to Shi Miao's somewhat jumpy and disorganized narration, piecing together the life of the middle-aged man Meng Qixi in his mind.

"Teacher Meng was very good to us, but he didn't like to talk much. He always lived alone in the school building and cooked his own meals."

Shi Miao said vaguely while eating the soft candy that Li Ang gave him, "The villagers don't invite him to play cards either."

"Play cards?" Li Ang raised his eyebrows, "Where do they play cards?"

"At the village chief's house."

Shi Miao chewed on the candy, "The adults in the village used to go to the village chief's house to play cards together, playing all night long, but they never let women and children go.

My mom said that my dad went once before, and ran back in the middle of the night."

"Is that so."

Li Ang nodded noncommittally, becoming even more curious about the seemingly kind and amiable old village chief, Lu Gui.

The blocked cat's eye, the death event seven months ago, the rural teacher who died of illness, the mission name six feet below...

The water in this village is very deep.

The villager Shi Chengpeng and his wife returned after repairing the backyard fence, stood outside the door, and called their son out, telling him not to disturb the guests.

Shi Miao ran out of the house. Shi Chengpeng stood outside the door, glanced at Li Ang dressed as a social youth, hesitated for a moment, and said in a dull voice, "We're going to sleep first, you guys should sleep early too.

There might be noises outside at night, just ignore them.

I've nailed wooden boards on the doors and windows, the wild boars outside can't get in, and the anti-theft door inside can't be opened either.

The toilet is downstairs."

"Thanks, buddy." Li Ang nodded and watched Shi Chengpeng's family go to the master bedroom.

————

Shi Yuande, Yu Kui, and Niu Jian were three male university students who, because their school had an early break, went to Shi Yuande's rural hometown to play together.

Before they even reached their destination, they encountered a landslide and were trapped in the village, which was very upsetting.

The three stayed at the same villager's house. Late at night, Shi Yuande, who was tossing and turning, sat up and shook his good buddy sleeping next to him.

"Kui, Kui, wake up."

Yu Kui impatiently reached out and pushed Shi Yuande's arm away, not even opening his eyes, "What is it?"

Shi Yuande continued to shake his good buddy, "Come with me to the toilet."

"Can't you just find a bottle to take care of it?"

"Not for pee, for poop."

Shi Yuande pulled up the grumbling Yu Kui, as well as Niu Jian who had been woken up, "It'll only take a while."

The three turned on the bedroom light. Shi Yuande hurriedly ran to the toilet to relieve himself. Yu Kui and Niu Jian were bored outside the door, playing with their phones.

Listening to the crackling sounds inside, Yu Kui gently kicked the toilet door with his heel, "Are you done yet? Are you going to die in the toilet?"

"Can't I have diarrhea?" Shi Yuande said weakly, "Wait, almost done."

Yu Kui and Niu Jian looked at each other and shook their heads helplessly.

Drip.

A barely perceptible sound of water droplets falling to the ground came from the doorway of the master bedroom at the end of the corridor.

Yu Kui looked up. The master bedroom was not lit. A vague figure was standing in the shadow of the doorway, seemingly the villager Shi Derong, who was letting them stay.

"Still not asleep?"

Shi Derong's voice rang out in the darkness.

"Yeah, we're accompanying our classmate to the toilet." Yu Kui stood up straight, feeling a little embarrassed, "His stomach is a bit uncomfortable."

The figure didn't speak, just quietly looked at them.

Drip, drip.

Shi Derong was like he had just been fished out of a pool, dripping water all over his body, forming a small stream on the corridor floor.

Yu Kui took a half step back in shock, avoiding the water, and raised his head, "Uncle, you..."

"Huh? What's wrong?"

In the shadows, Shi Derong's figure tilted his head, his neck twisted nearly 90 degrees on his shoulders.

Yu Kui suddenly shut his mouth, reached out and pinched Niu Jian who wanted to shout, his face pale, and forced a smile, "It's nothing, we'll be asleep soon."

"Okay. Go to bed early, call me if anything happens."

Shi Derong's neck continued to tilt down, his entire head drooping on his chest like a limp slug.

However, he seemed to have not noticed anything unusual, and very normally turned around and entered the house, casually closing the bedroom door.

Yu Kui and Niu Jian looked at each other, hurriedly poked the toilet door lightly, and urged Shi Yuande to come out quickly.

The latter pulled up his pants, opened the door impatiently, and was about to speak when Yu Kui covered his mouth, dragged him into the side bedroom,

The three of them braced the door. After a while, muffled footsteps sounded in the corridor outside.

The footsteps were like a rice bag soaked in water hitting the ground, heavy, viscous, making a "splattering" sound with each step.

The three held their breath, hearing the footsteps wander in the corridor for a while, slowly approaching their bedroom.

The knocking on the door was not crisp, but rather like someone was hitting the door with their head.

"Classmates, open the door."

Shi Derong's vague voice, as if his mouth was filled with water, came from outside the door, "My neck hurts a bit, can you come out and help me support it?

I think it's about to break..."