Chapter 1 He Xing Lai Huo

Liu Wudai glanced at his three companions and said, "Before I begin, could I ask what the date is? Year, month, and day."

"Huh?"

The group leader was taken aback. A boy beside him checked his watch and said lazily, "It's the 25th of June, 84. The time is half past eight in the evening. Why do you ask?"

"It's nothing."

Liu Wudai shook his head. This should be when Fushen Plain was 16 years old.

Almost seven years had passed since the memory Wan Li Feng Dao experienced.

The four strangled corpses stacked in the compartment, the mochi (rice cake) people in the field, the youkai (supernatural monster) band escorting the headless girl, and the three faceless classmates before him…

What exactly happened to Fushen Plain?

"Well then, I'll start."

Liu Wudai picked up the manuscript paper that Fushen Plain had placed in his palm and, by the light of the candle, began to read: "I'm very afraid of boxes. Opened boxes are fine, but if they're closed, I become incredibly afraid.

It's probably because of something that happened when I was a kid.

One day, my cousin Hiderai, who is the same age as me, and I went to explore my grandmother's warehouse at night.

The warehouse was full of things—old armor, worn-out farming tools, dull knives, bamboo baskets, stools, and the like.

After exploring for a while, we felt that there was too much dust in the air, and it was uncomfortable to breathe, so we decided to leave the warehouse.

While searching for a way out, we found a square box placed on a chest of drawers.

The box was about half a meter on each side, made of wood, and decorated with beautiful maki-e (Japanese lacquer decoration technique) craftsmanship. It didn't fit in with the dirty and messy warehouse at all.

Hiderai and I, as if drawn to the box, took it down and placed it on the ground, grasping the lid at the top and lifting it open.

But we found a smaller box inside.

After opening that one, there was yet another smaller box.

Isn't this a Russian nesting doll?

Hiderai and I thought to ourselves, and opened all the boxes one after another. In the process, we discovered that there seemed to be writing on the bottom of each box.

[Skin], [Nails], [Hair], [Limbs], [Kidneys]...

Upon closer inspection, the outer bottom of each box was written with a part of the body.

I instantly felt an uncomfortable chill, but now that we had come this far, it was hard to resist the urge to open all the boxes.

Finally, we reached the last box. That box was only about five centimeters on each side, with the word 'End' considerately marked on top.

The bottom of the box was inscribed with [Heart].

After opening the box, there was a folded piece of paper inside.

Hiderai and I, feeling a sense of disappointment, unfolded the paper, which read: [All of the above will be collected soon]. Below that was my sister's name.

Soon after, my sister, Yuezue, disappeared. The adults said that she had been spirited away in the mountains, but I knew that she had been taken away by something. And her head was missing.

Because those boxes, the word [Head] was the only one that didn't appear..."

No head...

The image of the headless girl in white shiromuku (wedding kimono) being escorted by the youkai (supernatural monster) band, and the mochi (rice cake) person whose head had been inexplicably broken off, instantly flashed through Liu Wudai's mind.

The other three companions seemed very uncomfortable after listening to this ghost story. They were squirming,

But more than the strangeness and bizarreness of the ghost story itself,

It was Liu Wudai's cold, indifferent attitude, his lack of concern for the outside world when he read the words on the paper, that made them feel uneasy.

However,

The story on Fushen Plain's paper continued,

"Next, I will tell another ghost story."

Liu Wudai read from the text: "When I was a child, I used to go back to the countryside to play, and my cousin Hiderai and I would often run around in the fields.

One night, we suddenly felt an unusual atmosphere.

'Strange, why is such a warm wind suddenly blowing?'

He said, looking into the distance at the fields. Due to the distance, we could only see something resembling a scarecrow at the other end of the field.

The thing was white, fixed in place, and twisting and turning in the wind.

Hiderai said that it might be a new type of scarecrow that a family had placed outside, able to sway in the wind.

As he spoke, the wind suddenly stopped, but the white 'scarecrow' in the distance was still twisting.

Without the wind, it was impossible for the scarecrow to move on its own, and the range of twisting was too great, something no normal person could do.

Driven by curiosity, Hiderai decided to take out his binoculars to see clearly what it was.

Since the binoculars were his, I had no choice but to wait for him to finish watching before giving them to me.

At this moment, I suddenly noticed the change in Hiderai.

His face began to turn pale, he started sweating all over and trembling non-stop, and the binoculars in his hand fell to the ground.

I hurriedly picked up the binoculars, and was about to look when my dad, who had suddenly rushed out, stopped me.

'Don't look! You must not look at that thing!'

My dad said anxiously, asking if I had seen it. He breathed a sigh of relief after receiving a negative answer, and took Hiderai and me back home.

I began to feel strange. Hiderai, who was originally lively and active, didn't say a word on the way home, and the terrified and desperate expression on his face didn't improve.

After arriving home, Hiderai began to laugh madly while twisting strangely, just like the thing he saw in the fields.

At such a close distance, the feeling of fear he exuded was even stronger than it had been then.

My grandmother appeared, sighed, and said, 'Hiderai saw it after all, didn't he?'

So, my grandmother told my uncle about Hiderai's condition. Ordinary hospitals wouldn't be able to cure him, so he should stay in the countryside and let the elderly take care of him, because if Hiderai went back, he wouldn't be able to become a normal child.

After that, whenever I thought of Hiderai, I would feel very sad. Later, I occasionally heard of something called 'Scarecrow God.'

Legend has it that in ancient times, there were also cases of mental illness. The doctors at the time were helpless against mental illness, and the villagers could only tie the patients to scarecrows in the fields.

Because the people who were tied up were eager to break free, they would twist and turn with all their strength.

In the end, they were still inevitably abandoned in the fields by the villagers, left to fend for themselves.

Perhaps what Hiderai saw was the legendary 'Scarecrow God.'"

The ghost story finally ended. Liu Wudai looked at his three companions, only to find that the other three were suddenly stiff and motionless. The candlelight placed in the middle of the room floor also seemed to be frozen, without the slightest movement.

An ominous premonition surged into his heart. Liu Wudai heard shouts of "He's awake! Doctor! He's awake!" in his ear, and his consciousness was dragged up, returning once again to that pitch-black space.

This time, it was Li Ang who was in charge of manipulating Fushen Plain's body to open his eyes.