Xin Ci swallowed hard, clutching his flashlight as he walked directly under the corpse’s feet.
Looking up at the straw sandal soles hanging above, he found them remarkably convincing: holographic projections weren’t rare nowadays, often used at singers’ concerts, but those were somewhat hazy and differed from real people…
He raised his arm and reached for the man’s leg. Although he knew he would grasp at nothing, seeing his hand pass through someone’s body would be an unforgettable experience…
Indeed unforgettable.
What happened next was chaotic, like being swarmed and beaten, with punches falling like dense raindrops. Xin Ci couldn’t discern the sequence anymore. He only remembered that his grasp met something solid.
To hell with holographic projections! This was real!
Because he had grasped something solid, he panicked and lost control of his strength. He heard the sound of cloth tearing and bones cracking. He wanted to scream, but was too terrified to make a sound. He tried to step back, but his legs felt weak and he fell. As bad luck would have it, the tree stood at the edge of a slope, and he tumbled down, clutching half a torn-off leg like a heavy stone roller.
This completely unexpected turn startled Meng Jinsong, who instinctively drew his gun. Meng Qianzi reacted quickly too, pressing her back against his, her right hand flicking the telescopic rod to extend over a meter, sweeping a defensive arc in front of her while holding her breath.
Under the fine drizzle, the rustling sound of leaves throughout the mountains made the silence even more pronounced. The hanging corpse swayed more violently due to the forceful pull, and the branch bearing the hanging rope creaked ominously under the strain. From down the slope came Xin Ci’s muffled groans.
With no further developments, the crisis temporarily eased. Meng Qianzi signaled Meng Jinsong to stay on guard, then rushed to the edge of the slope, sweeping her flashlight downward until it found Xin Ci.
It was a long, earthen slope with little vegetation. After the heavy rain, it was already wet and slippery, with a muddy pond half a person deep at the bottom. Xin Ci had fallen headlong into it, completely covered in mud like a mud figure, pathetically crawling toward the bank, spitting wet mud from his mouth.
Meng Qianzi found it amusing but knew she shouldn’t laugh. She called down, “Are you alright?”
Xin Ci was furious. This night had been one misfortune after another, all targeting him, but he couldn’t complain in front of Meng Qianzi. He suppressed his anger and replied: “I’m fine.”
He did indeed seem unharmed. With such muddy conditions below, Meng Qianzi had no intention of going down to help him: “Then come up yourself, be careful.”
After speaking, she stepped back, raising her flashlight to illuminate the corpse.
Something wasn’t right.
During scenic area development, for safety considerations, a large buffer zone would be established between core areas and potentially dangerous regions. Some path junctions marked with red paint saying “Danger, No Entry” didn’t mean you’d be in immediate danger once crossing that line. Since they had walked from the scenic area, this wasn’t considered deep mountains or an ancient forest. Generally, it should have been surveyed and inspected—hadn’t the staff noticed such a conspicuous corpse?
Furthermore, judging by the corpse’s attire, it dated back at least to the late Qing Dynasty or the Republican era, a hundred years ago. After so many years of weathering, hadn’t the hanging rope rotted? How were the clothes still so intact? Hadn’t birds or beasts ravaged the body?
Meng Jinsong had the same thoughts: “Qianzi, keep some light on me, I’ll go up and check.”
For a closer look, the crude approach would be to shoot down the hanging rope and let the body fall, but that would damage both the body and the evidence. Since the corpse was hanging in such a strange manner, the tree, the ground below, and the branch from which it hung should all be carefully examined.
Meng Jinsong removed his raincoat, tucked his flashlight into his waist, wiped his hands on the tree trunk, and climbed up with a leap.
As mountain-traversing Mountain Ghosts, they were naturally skilled climbers, but this wasn’t about speed; it was about finding subtle clues, which required slowing down.
Meng Jinsong steadied his breath and observed. He quickly discovered several places where the bark had fallen off. The breaks didn’t look like natural peeling but more like someone had stepped on them while climbing. He also found several fresh knife marks, possibly from someone climbing with the aid of a dagger. So, was this corpse recently hanged?
Meng Qianzi’s flashlight followed him like a spotlight on stage, fixed on his body until he stopped at a position half a body height above the hanging rope, straddling the thickest branch.
Down the slope, Xin Ci had finally crawled up using both hands and feet, limping toward Meng Qianzi.
Meng Qianzi’s attention was fully on the tree, ignoring him, but she asked Meng Jinsong: “What’s wrong? Something off?”
It was too complex to explain in a few words. From Meng Qianzi’s position, her flashlight couldn’t reach the corpse’s face. Meng Jinsong pulled out his flashlight, turned it on, and shone it directly at the face. When he looked closely, his heart chilled, and the large veins on his forehead pulsed twice.
A grotesque, dead face would have been expected; he had mentally prepared himself before climbing up. But he never imagined the face was fake!
It was fake, a silicone realistic human skin shaped like a face, so in dim light it appeared no different from a real face. The eyebrows and lips were painted on with great detail, the mouth slightly askew, a bloodred rim curving upward to the right, like an eerie smile.
Meng Jinsong quickly determined the face was fake because at the sideburns, where the face skin met the hair, several wet straws protruded.
Could these straws be…
To confirm his suspicion, Meng Jinsong didn’t hesitate. He reached out and grabbed; the fake face wasn’t firmly attached and came off with a ripping sound, revealing a tightly packed bundle of straw inside.
It was a dummy.
Meng Jinsong found it amusing. His earlier tension completely dissipated, and he realized his forehead and back were clammy, drenched in cold sweat, without him noticing. He casually stuck his flashlight on a nearby branch and wiped his forehead.
Below, Meng Qianzi seemed to sense a turning point: “What’s the situation?”
In Western Hunan, especially in mountain areas, some strange folk customs still persisted. This hanging straw dummy might be one of them. Meng Jinsong looked down: “It’s fake, probably for warding off evil or transferring bad luck—randomly hanging a fake corpse on a roadside tree…”
In fact, after saying “it’s fake,” Meng Jinsong no longer knew what he was saying. His subsequent words bypassed his brain, emerging mechanically from throat memory, while in his mind, something was exploding in sequence.
Because when he looked down, his gaze was naturally drawn to two bright spots below.
One spot was Meng Qianzi, holding a flashlight, looking up, with Xin Ci, raincoat-clad and mud-covered, standing behind her.
The other spot, coincidentally, came from his own casually placed flashlight—the beam’s end hitting the edge of the mud pond at the bottom of the slope, illuminating the upper half of a person lying limply.
When someone is lying face down, their features are naturally obscured, but just by looking at the clothing and hairstyle, Meng Jinsong knew: this person was Xin Ci.
So, who was the person now standing behind Meng Qianzi?
…
In a flash, Meng Jinsong reacted, quickly changing his words, shouting: “Fox spirit on waist!”
As soon as the words left his mouth, Meng Qianzi’s expression turned cold. She lunged diagonally forward and right while turning her head and raising her wrist. The telescopic rod extended nearly two meters, whistling through the air like a powerful whip, lashing directly at the person behind her.
Before Liberation, many traditional occupations in China, especially those requiring little capital, had their jargon, also called “lip dictionary.” For example, “chehe” meant to escape, “zhaidiao” meant to cut off a head, “tutiaozu” was a snake, and “haitiaozu” was a dragon.
“Fox spirit on waist” was part of the Mountain Ghost jargon: in folk tales, deep mountains often harbored fox spirits, or fox demons, that ate and harmed people, extremely dangerous; “on waist” meant “behind you,” as climbing someone’s waist would naturally be done from behind. The meaning of having a dangerous, people-harming creature behind you was self-evident.
As the throne-sitter, Meng Qianzi was thoroughly familiar with Mountain Ghost jargon and understood immediately: she knew someone was behind her but had always thought it was Xin Ci. If it wasn’t, then in the middle of the night, silently approaching her, they probably weren’t coming to greet her, so her first move was fierce.
The jargon had another advantage: if you shouted “Watch out behind you,” you would alert Meng Qianzi but also alert the person that they had been exposed, giving them time to prepare. But if you shouted something seemingly unrelated like “Fox spirit on waist,” the person would be confused, momentarily distracted, and in combat, would inevitably lose the initiative.
Indeed, the person was caught off guard and dodged too slowly, catching the rod’s tip on the side of the neck. They grunted in pain but reacted quickly, their mind sharp, knowing that a longer weapon had the advantage. If they were kept at bay by the telescopic rod, they would only be able to defend themselves and be struck. They had to get close to attack. Immediately, they rolled on the ground, avoiding the rod, and rushed toward Meng Qianzi.
The rod could be extended at will, but couldn’t be shortened easily. Once an opponent closed in, it became cumbersome. Meng Qianzi’s mind worked swiftly, immediately discarding the rod and switching to hand-to-hand combat. In the brief moment of repositioning, she had already exchanged two or three moves with the person.
Meng Jinsong’s temples throbbed anxiously. Gun in hand, he had hoped to use his higher position to take down the attacker, but he hadn’t expected them to engage in close combat so quickly. His marksmanship was average, and he feared hitting Meng Qianzi in the melee. He quickly slid down the tree, preparing to join the fight, but Meng Qianzi glimpsed him from the corner of her eye and shouted sternly: “I can handle this, go find Xin Ci!”
Meng Jinsong hesitated but obeyed, turning to rush down the slope.
In the heat of battle, it’s taboo to divide one’s attention. In those few seconds of distraction, the person’s fist was already sweeping toward Meng Qianzi’s face. She tried to dodge sideways, not realizing the punch was a feint. Midway, the attack suddenly changed to a downward grab, trying to snatch the glass jar hanging at her waist.
Meng Qianzi’s heart jumped: this person was after the Mirage Pearl!
At this point, no defensive move seemed appropriate. Meng Qianzi had a quick thought; instead of retreating, she advanced, pressing her body directly against the attacker, arms reaching forward as if to embrace them, straight for their neck.
The person had never seen such a fighting style and hesitated slightly, but guessed that being embraced by her would bring no good. They immediately stepped back, and Meng Qianzi’s hands could only reach their shoulders—this was exactly what she wanted. She immediately changed her reaching motion to pressing, using the leverage to propel herself upward while stepping on the attacker’s hip bone, like climbing a ladder to the roof. She leaped high, instantly crossing over the person’s shoulder.
The attacker knew something was wrong and raised their hand to grab her, but Meng Qianzi was prepared. Like a gymnast on a pommel horse, using their shoulder as support, she twisted and flipped in mid-air, her hands gripping tightly on the shoulder well acupoints, while her right knee struck viciously near the vital gate point on their back: “Down!”
This move combined both skill and brutality, targeting acupuncture points. Even a bear would struggle to withstand it. The person groaned in pain and fell forward. Upon landing, they tried to turn over and get up, but Meng Qianzi wouldn’t give them the chance. Almost as soon as they turned, before they could sit up, she came crashing down, one leg braced at their side, the other knee pressing heavily on their chest, almost preventing them from breathing. She grabbed their hair, pushing their head into the muddy water: “Who are you?”
As she spoke, she felt the person’s body relax—seemingly surrendering, ceasing resistance. During the struggle, the flashlight had been lost somewhere. Although she couldn’t see their face, in the dim light, she could vaguely make out that the person was smiling.
This smile gave Meng Qianzi an uneasy feeling; something bad was about to happen.
Sure enough, the person suddenly raised their hand from their side, holding something black, pointing it directly at her face. Meng Qianzi instinctively thought it was a gun and reflexively turned her head to dodge.
There was a hissing sound, and a large cloud of pungent, milky-white spray instantly enveloped half her face. The most intense jet from the nozzle hit her directly in her left eye.