“How well do you even know me?” Fang Si Ting countered.
“Of course this kind of thing is confidential.” Xiao Fen entered the room first.
Fang Si Ting shook his head. Two minutes later, when he went inside, he held a cup of boiled water and some pills. After Xiao Fen washed his hands, Fang Si Ting placed them in his hand before pouring a cup of hot tea for the woman.
“What’s this?” Xiao Fen asked.
“Fever reducers,” Fang Si Ting said.
His hand had been so hot, and the guy was delirious from the fever but hadn’t said a word about taking medicine or being sick.
Xiao Fen obediently tossed back the pills.
“If you want to sleep, head back and rest first. If it’s really bad, I’ve got a cot in my office.”
“No need. I’m not that delicate.” Xiao Fen just felt a bit drowsy. His eyelids drooped, and the corners of his mouth turned down—he looked a little wilted.
By the time Xiao Fen blinked his weary eyes back to focus from his daze, Fang Si Ting had already gotten the gist from Tang Qin Xin. It was basically the same story she’d told Xiao Fen earlier.
Tang Qin Xin sighed, her voice tinged with sorrow. “Everyone in town says he was killed by the ghost at the bottom of the well. Who would believe that? The body of some outsider from who-knows-where—they insist it’s the corpse from decades ago sunk in that well. How could a fresh body look the same as one that’s been dead for decades? They kept pushing that narrative. Later, I went to the city, and they sent people to investigate too, but in the end, there were no leads, so it was shelved. That’s why I reached out to your program crew, hoping you could find the person. I didn’t expect it would still be too late.”
“Is there anyone in town who’s the most superstitious? The kind who’s fanatically deranged about it?” Xiao Fen asked.
To kill over a legend about a well, they had to be a fanatic believer at least.
Tang Qin Xin thought for a moment. “Plenty, but the people from the Five Directions Divine Temple Committee in town are especially devout. They’re always muttering about this stuff.”
Fang Si Ting made a mental note of the committee and posed a different question. “What else do you know about the body they fished out of the well a year ago?”
Tang Qin Xin looked puzzled. “Just some unfamiliar young man in his thirties or so. No one in town claimed to know him, and I only moved here a few years ago, so I certainly didn’t. Later, the body was taken to the city just like the chief said, and I didn’t follow up after that.”
Fang Si Ting’s phone vibrated.
After he answered, Tang Shen’s urgent voice came through. “Boss, we just fished a leather shoe out of the Substitute Life Well.”
Fifteen minutes later, in Fang Si Ting’s office.
Tang Shen rushed over, panting, holding an evidence bag.
Inside the bag lay a brand-new square-toed leather shoe. It looked finely made and had only been worn a short time.
“With Guo Dongying dead, we pulled a shoe from the well. According to the legend, someone else in town—the owner of the shoe—should be missing.”
“Identity confirmed?”
“Yeah, the president of the Five Directions Divine Temple Management Committee in town, Lu Kaiyu.”
This was the second time that day they’d heard the name of this committee.
“What’s that for?” Xiao Fen couldn’t help asking curiously.
“Mostly handles the temple’s daily operations, organizes temple day events, sells incense, hands out free vegetarian meals, that sort of thing. Basically, they’re like our temple priests,” Tang Shen said. “I asked around locally. Lu Kaiyu is seventy-two this year—pretty advanced age. He’s been friendly his whole life, great reputation, runs the temple well too. By all accounts, he shouldn’t have any enemies.”
“He’s that old—could he have wandered off senile?” Xiao Fen suggested. It wasn’t impossible.
“The townsfolk say he’s in good health. He still hangs around the temple playing chess and battling it out whenever he’s free,” Tang Shen said. “We’ve notified the whole town and villages. Everyone’s accounted for among the neighbors—except him.”
“Let’s check his house,” Fang Si Ting said.
As they passed the next office over, he had the chief call a local vice squad officer to tag along. They would start by canvassing Lu Kaiyu’s whereabouts last night.
The man the chief sent was named Zhang Jian, in his early thirties with a buzz cut. He’d been reassigned home after leaving the service and looked a bit dim-witted.
On the way, Zhang Jian explained, “The chief just called Sister-in-Law Lu. She’s been at a pig farm in the next village over this whole time. She can’t get out until tomorrow at the earliest.”
“Pig stench doesn’t matter,” Fang Si Ting said.
“Nah, it’s not that. Pig farms don’t let outsiders wander in freely. Unfamiliar smells can stress the pigs into breaking out of their pens. Plus, the bacteria you folks carry is hard to control and could give them swine fever. If even one gets infected, thousands could follow—that’s millions in losses.”
Fang Si Ting nodded, enlightened. He really didn’t know much about agricultural farming.
Based on statements from neighbors and Sister-in-Law A-Kai over the phone, they headed first to Zhong Houwang’s place. He was the history teacher at the town middle school.
After dinner last night, Lu Kaiyu had gone to Zhong Houwang’s house—and hadn’t been seen since.
“How’s Grandpa Lu usually? Easy to get along with?” Xiao Fen asked.
“Great, really great. He’s got a heart of bodhisattva, a living Buddha reborn. The town’s small—everyone sees each other all the time. Any grudges would be known. I can vouch for it: everyone in town gets along fine with his family.”
He changed tack with a sigh. “That’s exactly why the vengeful spirit in the Substitute Life Well took him, right?”
Fang Si Ting frowned. “Nonsense.”
“If not, then how’d he end up in the well?” Zhang Jian got angry that the other man didn’t buy his story. “A corpse from over a hundred years ago floats up, Mayor Guo goes missing. Now Mayor Guo floats up, and President Lu goes missing. How do you explain that?”
Only their pursuit team knew this new body was fresh—nothing like the one from a year ago.
When they arrived at Zhong Houwang’s house, Zhang Jian, as a local, chatted with him in the dialect for a bit before stepping aside.
“What do you want to ask?” Zhong Houwang invited them to sit and talk leisurely.
“We heard from folks in town that Lu Kaiyu disappeared from your place last night,” Fang Si Ting cut straight to it.
“Yeah. I went to the temple for a peace talisman,” Zhong Houwang said. “Uncle Lu knows a bit about feng shui and geomancy. He offered to come check out my place, and I agreed. Last night was the temple fair. There’s a saying here: no going out on temple fair nights, and no stepping in rain if you do. On a regular temple fair night, you can go out, but if it rains on temple day, stay inside—no matter what, or something bad happens.”
Hearing this, Xiao Fen’s eyes flickered, a trace of unease crossing his face.
Temple fair, downpour, Substitute Life Well—he’d hit the jackpot on all of them.
“It wasn’t raining when he came over last night. Rearranging the living room furniture took some time. By the time we finished, it started pouring. I tried to keep him there overnight, but he said it was fine. Our places are close—five minutes’ walk. He’d ridden his electric bike anyway, so he could zip right home.”
“What time did he arrive, and when did he leave?” Fang Si Ting asked.
“About 7 p.m. when he got here. Left at 10:13,” Zhong Houwang said.
“You remember that precisely?”
“I checked the time on purpose when he left. It was past 9 already—that’s late for our town. Folks don’t go out much then. And I had a bad feeling right away, like something was gonna happen. Sure enough, next day it did. He vanished after leaving my place. The Lu family hasn’t blamed me yet, but I still feel bad about it.”
Zhong Houwang sighed again. “Actually, that premonition came because I saw Uncle Lu hadn’t gone far from my door when a dark shadow followed him.”
“What kind of shadow? Can you describe it?” Xiao Fen asked.
“A deformed person.” Zhong Houwang’s eyes filled with terror. “Skinny, over two meters tall, wearing a black raincoat. It was walking forward, but its head looked severed at the neck, dangling upside down on its back.”
His voice trembled as he spoke.
“Staggering around like a drunk.”
“I wanted to warn him, but for some reason, my throat wouldn’t make a sound. I tried forever and couldn’t. Only after I lost sight of old Lu did my voice come back.”
Fang Si Ting looked puzzled. “Why the sudden urge for a talisman and to redo your home’s feng shui?”
That was suspicious. If you were that superstitious, you’d have had a master check it when you moved in. The house was at least a decade old—why change now?
Unless something had happened at home.
And was that connected to Lu Kaiyu’s disappearance?
At the mention, Zhong Houwang seemed to remember something. His face paled, and he grew visibly restless.
“I dreamed of a female ghost coming for my life.”
“You’re a teacher—how can you believe that stuff?” Fang Si Ting scolded sternly.
“If it was just one night, fine. But what about a whole week straight?” Zhong Houwang shook his head with a sigh. “A few nights ago, I dreamed my great-grandpa led a woman in red robes and a red veil into the house. She stood by the ancestral altar in the living room. He said I’d been betrothed to her as a doll marriage when I was a kid, but then I betrayed her by marrying my current wife. Now I had to marry her in a yin wedding in the dream to make it right. I woke up terrified.
“I figured it was just a normal dream. But the second night, the female ghost sat beside me, still in her red wedding clothes and veil, head down, silent. I looked down—her feet sank into damp mud water that kept rising, spreading until it reached my ankles. I struggled in fright, and suddenly a pale hand reached out, gripping my wrist tight. Her hand was ice-cold; I jolted awake.
“Third night, she sat on my lap. The lighting was dim—it was the living room. The walls were different: bottom foot-high stone base, then rice straw and yellow mud up to the roof, like old-style rural earthen houses. The ancestral altar, chairs, cooling bamboo bed—all laid out just like mine. People came and went around, bustling, congratulating me when they saw me—but ignoring the bride on my lap.
“The last few nights were more of the same; she wouldn’t leave me alone. Worse, the mud water from the floor kept rising each time. By the seventh night, it was up to my mouth. I could smell the rotten mud stench, my chest crushed so I could barely breathe. And that ghost bride sat face-to-face on my lap, her stiff hands on my shoulders, slowly lifting her head.”
Zhong Houwang took a sip of tea to steady himself. “Uncle Lu said it’s called Ghost King Marries Daughter. Catch the king’s eye, enter the right door, and that night the ghost king builds your grave. That mud water was mine. If it blocked my nose and mouth and I suffocated, I’d go with the ghost bride to the underworld that night.”
Zhang Jian heavily patted Zhong Houwang’s shoulder, at a loss for words.
“As for breaking it, per Uncle Lu, just change the feng shui. Trick the ghost king and bride into the wrong door or block them out—they get lost outside, can’t find my house, and I’m saved.”
“No more dreams after?” Xiao Fen asked, astonished.
“Nope. After rearranging the layout and feng shui last night, Uncle Lu gave me a talisman and a peach wood sword. No dreams since,” Zhong Houwang said. “Actually, there’s another legend in town like this—for women, it’s called Tao Fu Takes a Wife.”
“What’s that quirky tale?” Xiao Fen was tempted to grab some melon seeds to munch on.
Wasn’t this way more fun than stories?
But Zhong Houwang clammed up. Zhang Jian scratched his head, saying as a guy who’d left town young, he hadn’t heard it.
“It’s nothing good anyway. What’s worth talking about?” Zhong Houwang said cryptically.
“Do you still have the talisman? Can we see it?” Fang Si Ting asked.
Zhong Houwang got up and went into the bedroom. Moments later, he brought out a wooden sword and a triangular paper slip.
Their talisman paper differed from H Country’s—thicker yellow stock like soft card, with red cinnabar pigment faintly seeping through.
Xiao Fen shot Fang Si Ting a look.
No need for words—Fang Si Ting got it instantly, blinked to signal “understood.”
His tall frame turned, shielding Xiao Fen as he chatted idly with Zhong Houwang.
Zhang Jian was discussing the price of these talismans and wooden swords with him.
“Last time my mom bought one, it cost 630. How much for yours?”
“1200! Let me tell you, this wooden sword of mine is definitely different from yours. It’s made from millennium lightning-struck peach blossom wood,” Zhong Houwang said proudly.
“You got scammed.” Fang Si Ting mercilessly exposed him. “Look at this wood grain. It’s at most three years old. The best you can call it is a peach wood baby.”
————
It was only 7 p.m. when Zhong Houwang chased the three of them out of his house. Fang Si Ting sent Zhang Jian back first and quietly asked what he had found.
Xiao Fen shook his head.
“It was just cheap, soft cardstock paper, cut into this big rectangular shape. When I opened the talisman paper, there was a red pattern drawn in one stroke on it. I don’t really understand what it specifically said, and it didn’t look like the patterns from H Country. It was very new, still carrying a bit of a smell. As for the sword, it was utterly ordinary—just a peach wood branch whittled into the shape of a sword, too lazy to even carve any patterns on it. And it cost 1200? I might as well switch careers and become a shaman.”
Xiao Fen grumbled all the way to the Town Entrance before parting ways with Fang Si Ting.
“Wait.” Fang Si Ting said, “Give me your phone.”
“What for?” Xiao Fen handed over his phone skeptically.
“From now on, make an appointment before meeting up, or notify each other if you find any clues.”
When Xiao Fen got his phone back, there was a new contact on the screen.
It was even pinned to the top.
Xiao Fen: “???”
He looked up, about to speak, but Fang Si Ting had already walked far away.
