Ou Yu’s movements also came to a stop as his eyes signaled to him.
Xiao Fen signaled for him to stay calm, turned on his phone’s flashlight, and peered into the well.
It was the middle of the night, and the surroundings were already dark. They had walked there relying only on moonlight and the barely functioning streetlights. This area had the Substitute Life Well, so no one lived nearby, and there wasn’t a single shred of light.
The inside of the well was even darker.
Xiao Fen aimed his phone into the well and slowly looked downward. The phone’s light wasn’t strong enough and only illuminated three or four meters deep, still without revealing any water.
They heard another splash of water.
Ou Yu also turned on his phone’s flashlight and shone it down together with him.
A dog’s mournful howl came from the distance, and the surroundings fell silent once more.
“The fine scenery of the day suddenly changed in an instant, the sunlight fading like the sun plunging behind the western mountains…”
One drawn-out line of resentful female opera singing after another drifted over. The voice wasn’t loud, and if not listened to carefully, it was hard to make out the words.
“Th-the well… in the well…” Ou Yu’s voice trembled slightly, his hands shaking.
The voice was coming from inside the well.
Xiao Fen calmly caught the phone in Ou Yu’s hand before it could drop. The two beams of light overlapped as they shone into the well.
Vaguely, there seemed to be a corner of greenish clothing inside the well, or perhaps moss growing on the well wall.
With another shake, a deathly pale hand without a trace of blood appeared in the light. The five fingers were coated with blood-red nail polish as it clung to the opposite well wall, seemingly climbing upward.
Xiao Fen’s breath hitched. He gripped his phone tighter and leaned in even closer.
The phone light reached a bit deeper. The rough stones of the well wall bore marks of wear from years of erosion, with nothing there at all.
It was an illusion.
The camera had no built-in light of its own. It flew to the well mouth and shot downward, revealing only pitch blackness—nothing visible.
Before they could look more closely, a bolt of lightning streaked across the sky, followed by a muffled rumble of thunder.
The two looked up. The sky, which had been clear just moments ago, was now thick with dark clouds. The nearby greenish brick-and-tile houses loomed like squat dark beasts, glaring at them menacingly.
Aside from the light from their phones, there was no illumination anywhere around. A short distance away, and it was impossible to see one’s own hand.
“Thunder roars in chaos, music fades to silence, shouts of people rise—they all say the heavens pour down rain…”
“Hahahahahahaha…”
The female opera voice mixed with gleeful children’s tones, resentful and mournful one moment, playful and laughing the next.
The sound wasn’t loud, but in the quiet environment, it was still quite clear.
“Little Fen.”
Ou Yu had somehow moved five or six steps away from him at some point, his back to him, reduced in the darkness to a vague humanoid shadow.
The shadow pointed at the wall of the residential house.
Xiao Fen slid the flashlight beam from the well to the wall. Dark red streaks of blood trailed downward from the roofline, like human veins or wriggling blood leeches.
The old house shed bloody tears.
Gradually, as if alive, the blood formed several characters.
A massive bolt of lightning split the sky directly overhead, illuminating Xiao Fen’s face and the entire wall.
Yi Chou, Geng Chen, Wu Zi, Guihai.
“What is this… an Eight Characters Birth Chart?” Ou Yu said in astonishment, but his voice was unusually soft, as if afraid to disturb something. “It couldn’t be… the thing in the well… coming to swap… lives?”
Splash! A torrential downpour suddenly bucketed from the sky. The characters on the wall dissolved into streams of blood, diluting as they flowed down and gathered at the well mouth.
The well mouth had a raised rim around it. The diluted blood flowed to the edge but didn’t spill over to either side, as if the well were opening its mouth to greedily drink in the blood.
Once the blood had flowed away, the subsequent rainwater flowed off to the sides of the well, spreading freely.
Ou Yu fumbled in a panic for his raincoat. He had originally prepared it to avoid leaving traces on his clothes while faking the scene, but now it came in handy directly.
Soon, his movements to unfold the raincoat stopped.
“Little mouse, on the lampstand.”
A young woman’s light voice came from the well, rhythmically chanting a lullaby as if coaxing a baby to sleep.
“Stole the oil, can’t come down…”
The tone stretched out, the voice gradually turning resentful and vicious.
It shifted from the well’s muffled echo to something crisp and clear.
It was getting closer.
Something crawled out from the well!
“Hehehehe…” The woman laughed joyfully again, the sound twisting, growing mad and shrill.
“Meow meow meow, the cat… is coming…”
Ou Yu retreated two steps in a row, grabbing Xiao Fen’s hand.
Xiao Fen shook him off. Instead of retreating, he advanced, striding right up to the well edge.
Ou Yu and the live stream audience’s hearts leaped into their throats.
“Wang Ze, fly the camera over and see what’s playing tricks.”
“Teacher Xiao, the rain’s too heavy—the camera’s having trouble flying.”
Visibility was extremely low in the storm, with no lights around. The close-up camera wobbled in midair, unable to reach the well several times despite attempts.
The live stream feed showed only extremely blurry silhouettes of the two and the circular well—the octagonal shape wasn’t even clear.
The viewers in front of their screens held their breath.
“Take the victim away first.”
“Little Fen?!” Before Ou Yu could call out, Xiao Fen had already jumped into the well.
Ou Yu stood there at a loss.
In the downpour, he couldn’t even get his phone out.
“What did you find down in the well?”
“Searching.” Xiao Fen’s voice buzzed back.
That meant there was no one down there.
“I’ll go call for help.” After saying that, Ou Yu’s voice cut off.
It was hard to use a phone inside the well too. Xiao Fen wiped the rainwater from his face and asked if Wang Ze’s camera had a light.
There was no response from Wang Ze for a long time.
The live stream chat went completely black—the camera finally gave out in the storm.
Viewers flooded the Program Crew’s Weibo asking about Xiao Fen and Ou Yu.
Meanwhile, down in the well, Xiao Fen couldn’t see a thing. His hands groped around and found a protrusion.
It was a plastic bag containing a square object.
An old cassette tape recorder.
It was taped to the well wall a couple of centimeters above the water surface.
Someone really was playing tricks.
Was it a criminal guest who had received today’s crime task? Had they thought the same and set up a crime scene here?
Or was it someone else trying to scare them?
Xiao Fen was puzzled. With his ice-cold, pale fingers, he groped over the bag and turned it off.
The well water was very cold, and with the rain, he felt his body heat draining away.
The recorder was a bit bulky. He tucked the hem of his T-shirt into his pants, then stuffed the recorder down his collar. Bracing his limbs against the well walls, he began slowly climbing up.
Just as he was about to reach the mouth, Xiao Fen’s ears twitched, and his eyes sharpened warily.
He quickly climbed back down a bit, hiding his body in the darkness.
Outside came several uneven sounds of rain boots splashing through puddles, heavy thuds and sprays of water.
Xiao Fen listened to the footsteps and silently counted—five people.
So many moving together didn’t seem like criminal guests.
Fortunately, they didn’t turn on any lights either. If they’d shone strong beams into the well, he still would have been spotted.
But from the footsteps, they circled the well, searching for something.
The well was in a remote spot, on the edge of town. Beyond a row of abandoned buildings just ten meters away lay Five Directions Stream, with undeveloped hills behind the structures. Combined with the well’s legend, hardly anyone came here normally.
But tonight, it was unusually lively.
Finally, he heard the footsteps fade into the distance.
He climbed up a few steps and peeked out from the well mouth.
In the dim light, the faces of those gathering at the alley mouth were completely shrouded in darkness—only tall black silhouettes visible, the one in front even taller than the rest by a head.
The storm poured down on them from above, streaming off their raincoats’ folds like little brooks.
The black shadows finally left silently, without a single word the whole time.
He waited a bit longer to make sure no one else was coming, then Xiao Fen climbed out of the well.
Five minutes later, he successfully found Ou Yu at the mouth of another alley, along with the corpse beside him.
“Let’s dump the body somewhere else.” Any longer in the rain, and the corpse would catch a fever.
Xiao Fen hoisted the corpse onto his shoulder and saw Ou Yu looking dazed, not quite back to himself.
“What’s wrong?” This mood wasn’t right.
“I saw…” he murmured.
“What did you say?” The rain was loud; Xiao Fen wiped his face, unable to hear clearly. “What did you see?”
Wang Ze and the others came over from another alley, holding umbrellas, and redeployed the camera.
“The rain’s too heavy, teachers. How about we take shelter first and push the task back a few hours? We can do it tomorrow—the director’s already agreed.”
“Did your logistics equipment team see anything unusual nearby just now?” Xiao Fen asked.
“Nope.” Wang Ze looked baffled.
“It’s fine. We’re almost done, and the rain’s letting up.”
He didn’t mind people badmouthing him online, but he was worried someone might spin it later, saying Ou Yu was throwing a tantrum, unable to handle a bit of rain and forcing the Program Crew to change rules.
Besides, they were nearly finished.
Seeing the two insist on continuing, Wang Ze had no choice but to go invisible again.
