Fu Miaoxue said: “This opera is one of the early classic works of the Minnan opera scholarly tradition. It is set during the Spring and Autumn period — a man from the state of Qi named Hua Zhou led troops in an attack on the state of Lü and was killed in battle. His wife, Jiang Ji, traveled to Lü to find her husband’s remains and, after countless hardships, transported them back home for burial. On the return journey, she was ambushed by bandits, but was saved when her husband’s spirit suddenly appeared.”

She paused briefly, then continued: “However, the arbitrator just now said the woman carrying the bones is surnamed Li, so it probably doesn’t have much to do with this particular story. It may just share the element of carrying bones, which is why the game was given this theme.”

“Games never provide useless clues. Let’s keep it in mind,” Bai Youwei said. “It might come in handy later.”

“What do we do now?” Fu Miaoxue looked around. “It’s pitch dark here and you can barely see anything, and it’s still raining. Even if we want to investigate for clues, that’s not really possible, is it?”

She grabbed Du Lai’s hand. “Say something. What do we do next?”

One minute earlier she had been screaming at Du Lai, and now she was acting like nothing had happened.

Du Lai was clearly accustomed to Fu Miaoxue’s quick changes of mood. He said evenly, “Let’s go down to the village and find a household to get out of the rain. The villagers should know something.”

His words perfectly aligned with what Shen Mo had been thinking.

The four went down the hill together. As they neared the eastern edge of the village, they spotted an old willow tree.

In the muddy ground beside the path, there were several deep wheel ruts — some overlapping, some crossing each other, but all made by a wheel of the same width, as though the same cart had passed over this ground again and again, back and forth.

Shen Mo raised an eyebrow and looked around. “These must have been left by the bone-carrying woman.”

— Carries bones from the east of the village to the west, then from the west back to the east, day after day without ceasing.

That was why the ground bore such marks.

Du Lai also scanned the area carefully and said coolly, “The rules tell us we need to make the bone-carrying woman stop — but they don’t say what happens if a player encounters her.”

“She is the central key to the entire game. Until we’ve gathered enough intelligence, it’s best not to confront her directly,” Shen Mo continued forward. “The rain is getting heavier. Let’s find shelter first.”

Du Lai and Fu Miaoxue followed him.

……

The village was small — no more than twenty or so households in all, and most of them were dark, their occupants apparently already asleep.

Shen Mo found one that still had a light on and knocked at the door.

No response from inside.

Du Lai and Fu Miaoxue knocked on several other doors in turn, with the same result.

Some even extinguished their lights immediately after the knocking, as though they were afraid of something, refusing to open their doors no matter what.

They sheltered under the eaves. Du Lai tried pushing on one door and said, “This kind of door bolt is a simple structure. Getting in would actually be pretty easy.”

Breaking into a door was as simple as eating a regular meal for Du Lai — no challenge at all.

Shen Mo said, flat and unhurried, “There’s no need. Even if we forced our way in, the owners might drive us out anyway. There’s one more household up ahead — let’s check there first.”

The household Shen Mo referred to was clearly the largest in the village. Stone lions crouched on either side of the gate, and the house and courtyard were many times larger than any other home nearby. It was also set noticeably apart, a considerable distance from its neighbors.

Perhaps the owner had no desire to live among common folk, or perhaps it was a matter of noise — either way, the house was isolated. No neighboring homes surrounded it, only flowers, trees, and a large lotus pond.

Shen Mo had barely raised his hand to knock when the gate swung open before him —

The outer courtyard gate had no lock.

—