Near midnight, a gray-white SUV slowly drove into the reed marshes of Dali Keng Village in Shihe County.
The headlights blazed bright, making the man-high reeds with their white tassels sway in the beams of light.
In the back seat, A-Peng slouched, reeking of alcohol. He’d received notice from Xiong Hei yesterday, along with photos of the people and car they were looking for, with orders to conduct a “meter-by-meter, carpet-style search” of the rural roads in this area.
A-Peng liked this kind of work—he could apply for overtime pay, which had one price when reported upward and another price when paid downward, with the difference going straight into his own pocket.
So he was especially diligent, urging everyone to be thorough and offering double pay for finding valid leads. After arranging the “work” methodically, while his underlings busied themselves everywhere, he played cards and drank as he pleased—this was what he always advocated as “leadership wisdom.”
Tonight he’d drunk a bit too much. When the first few calls came in, he was drunk as mud and missed them all. Only after sobering up and calling back did he learn there was a situation, and he hurriedly gathered people to come here.
In the reed marsh, someone was already coming forward to meet them, waving a flashlight to guide the car.
After bumping and jolting along, rising and falling, the car finally stopped in front of several half-collapsed mud houses.
As soon as A-Peng got out, he asked Lao Si, who was responsible for this area: “Found the people?”
Their targets were two people and one car. This place didn’t look like it could hide a car, so… had they buried people?
Lao Si first pointed at the mud houses: “Brother Peng, we asked around. These houses were dilapidated before, but not collapsed like this. These houses were knocked down by a car.”
So what? A-Peng didn’t understand.
Lao Si led him forward: “Brother Peng, this way, look at this brick building.”
A-Peng, having grown up in the countryside, recognized it immediately as a pump house for a machine well.
Lao Si adjusted his flashlight to maximum brightness and handed it to A-Peng: “Brother Peng, see for yourself, shine it on the wall.”
A-Peng raised the flashlight as instructed.
On the wall…
It seemed like an ordinary wall, with the characters for “Water Resources” painted in red, though age had made the paint fade and peel considerably.
After a while, A-Peng noticed something odd.
Bullet holes.
There were bullet holes in the brick wall, some penetrating through, others not quite.
A-Peng was quite shocked: “Damn… there was a gunfight here?”
Lao Si said: “Those mud houses must have been shot up too. We suspect someone cleaned up the scene by ramming the mud walls with a car. Once they collapsed, you couldn’t see the evidence anymore.”
But they couldn’t ram down the brick walls—trying that might have resulted in both vehicle and driver’s destruction.
So these traces remained.
A-Peng swallowed: “Found anything else?”
Lao Si led him inside.
Upon entering, A-Peng immediately saw two piles of moved wooden boards in the corner, and between them, the opening of a machine well.
He walked to the well’s edge, his body instinctively leaning backward while his head craned forward—this was how most people looked into wells, afraid of falling in but wanting to see clearly.
He couldn’t see anything. It was too deep, the opening quite narrow. Leaning closer, he could smell a faint odor of decay.
A-Peng waved his hand in front of his nose: “What do you think?”
Lao Si: “This well is at least forty meters deep. Brother Peng, I can’t speak for others, but if I’d done something and wanted to dispose of evidence, I’d throw it down a well.”
Indeed. Just thinking about it gave A-Peng the chills. He stepped back: “Have you retrieved anything?”
Lao Si rolled his eyes: “Retrieve? Look how deep that well is—we’d need professional well cleaners. Brother Peng, this decision is yours to make. We can’t be certain what happened here is related to the people we’re looking for—it’s just a suspicion. Say the word and we’ll rent the equipment and get started, but it’s not a small operation. It’ll cost a fair bit.”
Cost a fair bit—meaning another opportunity to request funds and skim some off the top?
A-Peng’s eyes widened: “Clean it out! The company’s loaded—what’s a bit of money? You guys just do it, I’ll talk to Brother Xiong.”
Xiong Hei couldn’t immediately receive A-Peng’s urgent midnight call.
Because he was on the second basement level of the farm. That was the drawback of being underground—poor signal.
He wasn’t alone. Lin Xirou, Li Yueying, Feng Mi, and Yang Zheng were all there too.
This room was the most important one on the second basement level. Except for when it was first built and the doors were left open for a few days, it had been kept under lock and key day and night, year-round. Anyone who didn’t know might have thought it was some kind of vault.
But the room was quite basic, showing almost no signs of modern decoration. It could have passed for a room from the 80s or 90s: cement flooring with a large circular patch of original earth in the center, above which stood an arched miniature plastic greenhouse. Between the cement floor and the greenhouse were brick pathways—not straight lines, but winding curves that, viewed from above, looked like the writhing flames of the sun.
On the walls hung two worn paintings.
One was a black and white New Year print showing carp leaping through a farmer’s gate, with great fish emerging from white waves, and clusters of white clouds above embracing majestic towers. The lintel bore the characters for “Dragon Gate.”
The other depicted Kua Fu chasing the sun, in the color scheme of ancient times: half the sky held a blazing red sun, while a giant with flowing hair and thick beard lifted his head and hands as if about to snatch the sun into his embrace.
Usually, the miniature greenhouse was kept tightly covered, as if afraid an underground breeze might give its delicate contents a headache, but now the greenhouse and its frame lay overturned to one side.
In the slightly damp soil, something was writhing.
At first glance, this thing had a human form, but its naked body showed patches of normal skin color interspersed with dark brown areas that were “uneven”—the skin bulging and sinking, creating an extremely disturbing sight.
As for where the “head” should have been, it had already started to shrivel, making its eyes appear extremely large. The whites of the eyes were slowly filling with blood, the color deepening until it nearly matched the pupils.
But it still had breath, taking great gasping breaths.
Lin Xirou watched it expressionlessly for a while, then looked around at everyone present before suddenly laughing like someone unhinged: “Would anyone like to explain what’s going on?”
No one answered.
Lin Xirou’s face gradually darkened: “All turned mute, have you? Speak! Xiong Hei, you speak!”
Xiong Hei cursed his luck—good things never came his way, but when trouble arose, they called his name.
He forced himself to speak: “By all rights… this shouldn’t happen. We’ve had good control the last few times. Maybe we… overlooked something somewhere.”
Lin Xirou looked at Li Yueying: “Sister Li, what do you think?”
Li Yueying had been covering her nose and mouth with a handkerchief, appearing unable to bear the stagnant air in the room: “I can’t say for sure. I’ve never operated this system. It failed—just bad luck, I suppose.”
Feng Mi gave her a sidelong glance, curling her lip in obvious disdain.
Lin Xirou laughed coldly: “Bad luck? Number 018 should have been Dog Tooth, but that worthless creature didn’t have what it took—failed. I thought never mind, we’ll replace it with a new one. This one had been doing so well, who knew it would end up like this at the final step!”
She ground her teeth: “Is 018 cursed? One fails, then another fails?”
Yang Zheng sighed: “Sister Lin, nobody wants this to happen. Our success rate isn’t high, only two-thirds…”
Lin Xirou cut him off: “That’s right, numbers 1 to 18, six failed. Heaven won’t grant us success—we can’t fight fate. But this time, we can’t blame heaven. Xiong Hei, turn it over.”
Xiong Hei was used to following Lin Xirou’s orders without thinking. He strode over and gripped Number 018’s shoulders to turn it over. Feng Mi and Yang Zheng caught the implication in her words and both started slightly.
Li Yueying lowered her eyes behind her handkerchief and gave a light cough.
With the body turned over, its back exposed, they could see countless light brown dots densely packed across the surface. But in several places, instead of dots, there were light brown filaments hanging down like corn silk.
Lin Xirou looked at Yang Zheng: “If I remember correctly, you grew flowers in Kunming?”
Yang Zheng made a sound of agreement: “I’m not very bright, could only do physical labor. Kunming is a major flower province, and lots of people work with plants. I found work at a flower base, specifically tending to flowers and plants.”
Lin Xirou: “Then let me ask you, what happens when a plant’s roots are damaged?”
Yang Zheng felt a chill: “The roots are the source, nourishing the branches and leaves above. If the roots are damaged, the plant above dies.”
Lin Xirou: “What about partial root damage?”
Yang Zheng: “That depends on the situation. Sometimes, partial roots correspond to specific parts of the plant above ground. The plant might die on one side while living on the other.”
Lin Xirou spoke as if sighing: “Yes, with damaged roots, a plant might be half-dead, half-alive. But humans aren’t like that. Have you ever heard of a person being half-dead, half-alive? Humans are so delicate—sometimes the failure of just one or two organs means death.”
“Sister Li hasn’t operated this system, but I have. Numbers 1 through 18, I’ve followed everyone. Nobody knows the process better than I do.”
As she spoke, she walked along the nearest brick path to Number 018’s side, gesturing to the light brown dots on its back.
“This is root detachment—when the root system naturally and successfully disconnects. The disconnected roots withdraw into the body with their remaining nutrients. It heals perfectly, without even leaving a scar. After some time, it looks just like normal skin.”
She raised her toe to brush one of the corn silk-like filaments: “This isn’t root detachment. This was forcibly broken, which is why it couldn’t withdraw. It’s hanging here dead. Not many people can enter this room. Whoever did this, step forward willingly. Save yourself some face.”
Feng Mi was startled and couldn’t help glancing at Li Yueying.
Not just Feng Mi—gradually, Xiong Hei and Yang Zheng also turned to look at her.
If it had been just one person staring, Li Yueying might have ignored it, but with so many eyes on her, she had to speak.
She raised her eyes, returning their cold stares one by one: “What’s this about? You’re all looking at me—you suspect I did this? Because I had bad luck, got stuck with defective blood vessels, and lost hope for a second generation, I became mentally twisted and don’t want others to succeed either, is that it?”
Lin Xirou smiled slightly and turned to face her: “Sister Li, have you ever entered this room alone?”
Li Yueying replied coolly: “No, only when everyone else was here.”
Lin Xirou: “Sister Li, you should know there are security cameras in this second basement level.”
Li Yueying laughed dismissively: “Then check them. To catch a thief, you need evidence. You can’t accuse someone without proof.”
Xiong Hei grew impatient hearing this and strode toward the door: “I’ll check.”
As he reached the doorway, Lin Xirou called out: “Xiong Hei, Sister Li seems so confident, maybe she really didn’t do it. I hope so too. But it’s also possible she destroyed the surveillance footage. After all, she knows where the monitoring room is. So I suggest you don’t go to the monitoring room to look.”
Xiong Hei acknowledged and hurried out.
Li Yueying didn’t quite understand and looked questioningly at the door. Feng Mi was also confused: “Aunt Lin, what do you mean? If not the monitoring room, where should he look?”
Lin Xirou smiled at Feng Mi: “Usually, people trying to clear themselves will immediately destroy the surveillance—either deleting footage, removing cards or even violent destruction. This second basement level is so important that we prepared backup measures from the start. Even if the monitoring room burns down, we have backups elsewhere.”
Then she gently reassured Li Yueying: “But if you didn’t do anything, there’s nothing to worry about, right?”
After several turns, Xiong Hei entered the archives room, which stored various receipts and contract documents for the farm. He turned on a computer in the corner and clicked into a storage folder on the desktop.
Dense rows of surveillance videos, all arranged by date.
Xiong Hei pulled up a chair—this would take a while.
He randomly clicked one open.
Time ticked by second by second, and sweat began to form on Li Yueying’s forehead.
Feng Mi had been staring at her and finally couldn’t hold back: “Aunt Li, if they find this on surveillance, it’ll be really ugly. I’ll say this—I wouldn’t dare do such a thing. We all saw what happened to Dog Tooth. But you dared, didn’t you? Death either way, not many years left to live, might as well drag someone down with you, right?”
Li Yueying’s eyelids twitched, and she burst out: “Shut your mouth!”
Feng Mi gave a light snort: “Getting anxious, aren’t we?”
Yang Zheng looked at Li Yueying. Though seeing is believing, her expression made it hard not to suspect: “Sister Li, how could you? Your situation, we all deeply regret it, but that was unavoidable…”
Li Yueying looked up at him and couldn’t hold back anymore, breaking into violent coughs, gasping for breath as if her heart and lungs might come out.
Catching her breath, she laughed like crying and muttered: “Why should they…”
Her words inflamed Lin Xirou’s eyes red. She stared hard at Li Yueying: “Why? I know you’ve been angry, thinking I ruined you. Did I want this? This is my first time in this world too—having to learn each character and figure things out bit by bit. Yes, I lacked experience with your case, and didn’t handle it well, but at least you’re still alive, aren’t you? What about my husband? He was Number 001. I helped him detach roots first, and he was the first to die!”
The room fell deathly silent.
Number 018, writhing in the soil, finally took its last breath and moved no more.
Xiong Hei’s voice came from outside: “Sister Lin, can you come out for a moment?”
Lin Xirou closed her eyes, then opened them again: “Did you find something? Just say it.”
Xiong Hei hesitated for a few seconds: “No, Sister Lin, please come out. There’s… another situation.”