Something round rolled to a stop at Yan Qing’s feet. She looked down and her breath caught in her throat.

It was a bloody head — the scalp had been torn away, exposing the protruding eye sockets and pointed snout beneath, the flesh raw and mangled.

Fortunately Yan Qing was exceptionally composed, or she might have fainted on the spot. The skinned head was not a human head — it was a rabbit’s head.

“Murong, don’t move.” Yan Qing said steadily. “That person may not have left yet.”

Murong kept her eyes sharply fixed on the surroundings, not daring to budge.

Just as the two of them stood with every nerve stretched taut, the grass rustled again, and a dark shape came hurtling straight toward Yan Qing.

Without hesitation, Yan Qing pressed the switch on the wheelchair. A bullet burst from the barrel, pierced through the heavy fog, and flew toward its target.

A muffled sound seemed to carry through the air, and then the rustling grew fainter and fainter until it disappeared entirely.

After waiting a while longer and confirming that the surroundings were safe, Yan Qing drove the wheelchair to the spot where the dark shape had appeared.

On the grass blades nearby, a few drops of blood had fallen. The bleeding was not heavy — the bullet had only grazed the person. She followed the scattered trail of blood drops a short distance, but they vanished.

The intruder was sharp-minded. Knowing that blood could lead others directly to them, they had tended to the wound while running.

“Murong, stop searching.” Yan Qing called out. “The fog is too thick here, and we don’t know the terrain. If they attack again, we may not be so fortunate this time.”

Murong pushed Yan Qing back to where they had been waiting. “Miss,” she asked with curiosity, “Director Shi’s wheelchair actually has a weapon built into it. Someone who could design something like this — that’s a genius.”

The wheelchair was precisely engineered and fully equipped. Yan Qing could not identify the materials, but she had seen real firearms before, and this wheelchair had been built from the same kind of material used to make guns and cannons. The concealed, retractable handgun was of exceptional craftsmanship — a precision no less impressive than any imported firearm.

If Shi Ting had made all of this with his own hands, he had to be a weapons expert.

She thought of that very popular saying from online: his looks are the least remarkable thing about him.

“I wonder if they’ve found the Mountain Demon shrine yet.” Yan Qing looked up at Kui Mountain, veiled in fog, and felt a wave of worry. Would the person who had attacked them in the shadows now go looking for trouble with Shi Ting?

Up on Kui Mountain, Jianguo was running ahead and leading the way. What he was tracking was the scent Shi Ting had let him smell at the burned house.

Most of the Qiao brothers’ belongings had been destroyed in the fire. Scent evidence can only be preserved for about ten days at most, and at this point their only hope was that the scent of burning might help Jianguo locate similarly charred remains.

The mountain path was rugged and difficult. Along the way, wild pheasants burst from the undergrowth from time to time, startled into flight.

The Wugen that grew on this mountain was precious, but getting it down from the mountain had cost the local people considerable hardship and sacrifice.

Every year at harvest season, people rushed up the mountain to dig out Wugen in competition with one another. Some tumbled down the slope and were left disabled. Others were mauled and killed by wild animals. Yet none of this dampened the local people’s determination to harvest the herb. This modest plant had been gradually lifting this poor village out of poverty.

But since Qiao Sheng’s death, Wugen no longer fetched the price it once had, and the villagers’ livelihoods had dropped sharply. Even so, people still scrambled desperately up the mountain to dig roots just to survive.

Jianguo pushed through a stretch of grass and kept running toward the mid-slope. The fog on the mountain was growing thicker. Everyone had to keep pace with Jianguo to avoid falling behind.

On the mid-slope, there appeared to be a faint, rough trail — the kind formed over time by the repeated tread of human feet.

Shi Ting picked up a round paper offering from the ground. “We must be getting close.”

His words had barely left his mouth when Jianguo’s barking rang out ahead.

The group hurried over and found Jianguo circling a small earth deity shrine.

Jianguo was not a trained tracking dog — just a naturally gifted little animal. He hadn’t yet learned to sit still and leave a scene undisturbed once he found a target.

The shrine he was sniffing his way around occupied roughly one square meter, built simply from red bricks and capped with a tiled roof. Along a wooden crossbeam at the base, the characters “Mountain Demon Shrine” had been written.

“This shrine is really crudely made,” Bai Jin crouched down and picked up some paper offerings from in front of it. “Someone’s actually been making offerings here.”

Zheng Yun said, “The locals have always felt a kind of reverence toward Kui Mountain. When a shrine suddenly appeared on the mountain, no one dared interfere — offering sacrifices was all they could do.”

“If we tamper with this Mountain Demon shrine, are we going to be cursed?” Layers of fog drifted above the shrine, and the three blurred characters wavered in and out of view within the mist. From all around came strange intermittent cries, and everything about the place felt deeply unsettling.

“Woof woof.” Jianguo, impatient with their dawdling, barked twice in protest.

“Dig.” Shi Ting said. “What we’re looking for should be right beneath the shrine.”

Zheng Yun and Bai Jin rolled up their sleeves and picked up the shovels they had carried up the mountain. Working together, the group began to dig in front of the Mountain Demon shrine.

“The soil over here is loose — something really is down there.” Zheng Yun drove his shovel into the earth and immediately sensed something was off.

After much effort, everyone drenched in sweat, a pale yellowish corner emerged from the soil.

Bai Jin’s eyes lit up in excitement. “Keep digging — we’re almost there, keep going!”

That pale yellowish corner belonged to a woven rush mat. With time, the mat had turned moldy and brittle — a single tap of the shovel sent it crumbling to pieces.

To protect what lay inside, everyone set down their tools, put on gloves, and dug by hand.

Once all the soil covering the mat was cleared away, the full extent of it was revealed. At the same time, a suffocating stench of charred matter rose from below.

“Woof woof!” Jianguo barked louder than ever, tail wagging triumphantly from side to side.

Bai Jin lay on the edge of the pit and reached down to lift the mat. Two blackened, burned corpses appeared before everyone’s eyes.

“Seventh Brother was right — the Qiao brothers’ bodies were really buried here.”

E’Yuan said, “Everyone be careful not to disturb the original condition of the bodies.”

Burned corpses were brittle, and three years had only made them more fragile. Preserving their original state would allow the forensic examiner to reconstruct the circumstances of death more accurately.

Shi Ting cut two pieces of bamboo and fashioned a simple stretcher. Together, everyone carefully lifted the bodies, mat and all, and transferred them onto it.

“There’s something else here.” Bai Jin dropped down into the pit and retrieved a backpack, lifting it and slapping the dirt off the surface.

It was a tan canvas travel backpack of the kind typically carried by travelers. It was completely intact, with no signs of fire damage.

“And there’s a case.” Bai Jin, as though discovering a whole new world, pried around in the earth and pulled out a suitcase by its handle.

“Seventh Brother was right — the Qiao brothers’ luggage really wasn’t in the house. The killer must have stolen the bags first, then set the fire to burn the brothers alive.”

Bai Jin tossed the bag and case up out of the pit, and Zheng Yun pulled him out after them.

“The fog is too heavy up here. Let’s bring the bodies and the evidence back and examine everything down below.” Wild animals moved through Kui Mountain from time to time. Even with firearms, they were no match for creatures that knew this terrain and this fog far better than any of them.

The group descended the mountain with their findings — a triumphant procession, with Jianguo bounding gleefully in the lead.

As they neared the foot of the mountain, Shi Ting heard a commotion below, and among the voices, a small sound he recognized as Yan Qing’s.

His chest tightened. He broke into a quick stride toward the noise.

In front of Yan Qing stood several dozen villagers — hands gripping wooden clubs and shovels, every face flushed with agitation.

Standing at the front was the village chief. He carried no weapon, but his voice was louder than anyone’s.

Yan Qing said, “Everyone, please calm down. Let me explain.”

“You people have sinister intentions — what is there to explain?”

“Exactly — you’ve disrupted the peace of our Wuyin Village. Just go!”

Yan Qing’s voice was quickly swallowed up by the crowd’s furious accusations.

Some of the more impulsive villagers were already pressing closer to her, swinging the wooden clubs in their hands with threatening faces.

Just as Yan Qing was at a loss for what to do, a tall figure appeared in a single instant, planting itself directly before her — steady and immovable as a mountain peak, shielding her from every direction’s wind and rain.

Yan Qing looked up at his back and felt something warm rise in her chest. In her memory, he had stood in front of her like this more than once — as though every time she was in danger, he was summoned and arrived like a god descending from the heavens.

“Don’t be afraid.” His voice came low and unhurried, like a sedative entering the bloodstream, steadying the anxious turbulence of her emotions.

When Shi Ting appeared, the agitation in the crowd visibly subsided — perhaps out of wariness toward this man’s commanding presence, perhaps because his gaze was simply too clear and penetrating.

“Officer, you’re here at the right time.” The village chief said. “Someone is saying you dug up the Mountain Demon shrine on the mountain. That can’t be true, can it?”

“It is true. Look what they’re carrying.” A villager pointed to Bai Jin and the others arriving behind Shi Ting. “They have tools. They’re carrying something. Isn’t that proof they went and dug up the shrine?”

“We’re doomed — they actually dared to dig up the Mountain Demon shrine. Wuyin Village is finished.”

“Heaven help us — more people are going to die.”

“Give back our Mountain Demon shrine! Give it back!” Someone in the crowd started the chant, and in a moment everyone took it up, arms raised in unison.

The villagers were fired up, armed with weapons, and if truly provoked, the consequences would be severe.

With the crowd in an uproar, Shi Ting spoke: “We did dig at the Mountain Demon shrine. But do you know what we found?”

Everyone exchanged glances.

A villager said, “You didn’t dig up the Mountain Demon itself, did you?”

The Mountain Demon existed only in local legend — no one had ever truly seen one.

“What we found — you can see for yourselves.” Shi Ting gave a glance over his shoulder, and Bai Jin and Zheng Yun immediately brought the stretcher forward.

On the stretcher lay a rush mat, wrapped around something.

Driven by curiosity, the villagers’ eyes all shifted over in unison.

—