(Opening Quote: Rainwater smudged the blood, painting a distorted map upon the ground. And that corpse was the ugliest coordinate at the map's center.)
Wu Hao crouched beside the corpse, the hood of his police raincoat pulled low. Icy rainwater trickled down the fabric's folds, pooling in small puddles at the edges of his black combat boots. Thirty years old, he stood tall and straight. His right hand, a constant grip on a gun, bore sharply defined knuckles and thick calluses at the base of his thumb. His gaze was as sharp as a falcon's—the imprint of eight years in criminal investigation etched into his being. Yet now, those eyes that had seen countless crimes churned with uncontrollable shock and hidden pain.
The deceased was Chen Jianming, his distant cousin who just three months ago had pounded his chest at a family gathering, vowing to secure the contract for the suburban construction site.
The abandoned folk culture village lay shrouded in a curtain of rain. Red and blue police lights pierced the mist, casting flickering shadows across the crumbling walls and ruins. The painted door gods' masks, faded and mottled by the rain, resembled grotesque, grinning ghostly faces at first glance. Chen Jianming was fixed in a near-devout kneeling posture on an altar-like stone platform, his wrists bound behind him with hemp rope soaked in tung oil. The knot was a rare "soul-locking knot"—Wu Hao had seen it in ancient texts, a binding technique commonly used in witchcraft rituals during the Ming and Qing dynasties.
What sent the chill down his spine most was the expression on the dead man's face. No signs of struggle, no deathly terror. Eyes gently closed, a strange, almost satisfied smile playing at the corners of his mouth, as if he had completed some sacred sacrifice.
"Captain Wu," the young officer Xiao Li's voice trembled uncontrollably, his evidence light shaking slightly in his hands. "This setup... it's too damn weird. Look at these symbols—they're nothing like the ones we saw in that tomb-raiding case. Not Taoist talismans, not folk charms either."
Wu Hao followed his gaze. Around the body, crushed glutinous rice mixed with cinnabar formed twisted, intertwining patterns that crawled across the ground like living creatures. Three black candles had long burned out, their solidified wax tears dark red, congealing into eerie lotus-petal shapes on the damp earth. As a detective captain who'd solved seventeen brutal murders, he'd witnessed vicious vendettas and meticulously planned killings, but never a death so steeped in ritual.
"This isn't the work of a vendetta," Wu Hao's voice was low and steady, though his fingertips unconsciously tightened around his gloves. "A vendetta seeks pain and catharsis, but this... feels more like a meticulously designed 'offering'."
Old Chen, the forensic doctor, crouched beside the body. His magnifying glass pressed close to the deceased's neck when he suddenly uttered a sharp "Eh?" As he rose, mud splattered his white coat. His expression was alarmingly grave. "Captain Wu, something's wrong. No visible fatal wounds, but the muscles show diffuse atrophy. The liver and kidneys exhibit irreversible failure—as if some vital energy was drained. Yet rigor mortis and corneal opacity indicate death occurred no more than six hours ago."
"Drained of energy?" Wu Hao frowned deeply. He clearly remembered that just three months ago, at a family banquet, Chen Jianming could lift half a sack of rice with his bare hands, strong as an ox. Such rapid deterioration in such a short time defied all physiological logic.
He rose and paced the scene, his gaze sweeping over every detail: the half-feather of black plumage left on the stone platform, the dried crimson traces along the symbol's edges (preliminarily determined not to be blood), and a kicked-over clay jar in the corner, its interior holding a smattering of grayish-white powder. Finally, in the weeds behind the altar, he felt a cold, hard object—a thumb-sized wooden carving depicting a faceless human head. Its forehead bore patterns matching the ground symbols, rough and hard to the touch, seemingly carved from some rare, dark wood.
Wu Hao discreetly placed it into an evidence bag. The instant his fingertips touched the carving, a bone-chilling coldness surged through him, spreading up his arm and sending a shiver down his spine. This wasn't the ordinary chill of wood; it felt more like a malevolent, icy coldness seeping into his pores.
By the time he returned to the police station, it was already three in the morning. Rain still fell outside, tapping monotonously against the windowpanes. Just as Wu Hao opened the case file, his phone rang urgently. The caller ID displayed "Mother."
Her voice on the other end was choked with emotion, not sorrow but a bone-deep terror, as if something had seized her throat. "Haohao... Jianming... Did Jianming die strangely? Remember what I told you before about the well in our old Wu family home? And the ancestral rule passed down through generations—'Blood debt repaid in blood; death by age order'?"
"Mom!" Wu Hao cut her off, a barely perceptible edge of irritation in his voice. "That's just superstition from the old days! I'll get to the bottom of Jianming's case. Stop imagining things."
After hanging up, he couldn't calm down. His mother's words felt like a pebble tossed into the deliberately sealed-off memories of his childhood. He recalled how, during ancestral ceremonies every Qingming Festival, his grandfather would summon the younger generation to the ancestral hall. Pointing to the blurred name "Wu Chengye" on the first page of the family genealogy, he would repeatedly warn them: "Never approach the rear courtyard of the ancestral home. Never touch the wooden box in the ancestral hall." Back then, he'd dismissed it as an elder's scare tactic. But at fifteen, when he sneaked into the old house's backyard and saw the sealed ancient well—its stone slab engraved with symbols identical to those at today's crime scene—he'd run a fever all night and stayed bedridden for a week. His grandfather's expression that day had been the most solemn he'd ever seen.
Wu Hao pulled open the bottom drawer of his desk, revealing a deep blue-covered family genealogy book. Its corners were worn, the pages yellowed. He flipped to the first page. Beneath the name "Wu Chengye," a small, faceless figure identical to the wood carving was drawn. Beside it, in vermilion ink, was a line of small characters: "In the twenty-third year of the Guangxu reign of the Qing Dynasty, relocated to the old site of Qingzhu Village, vowing to guard it." Qingzhu Village? The name seemed familiar, as if he'd heard it in his grandfather's scattered remarks.
Three days later, Chen Jianming's funeral was held at a suburban funeral home.
Wu family relatives gathered, the atmosphere heavier than the late autumn drizzle. His aunt sat slumped in a chair, dressed in black, clutching a photo of Chen Jianming. She muttered over and over, "There's no escaping it. It's all fate... We shouldn't have ignored the warnings back then, insisting on disturbing the old homestead, digging that well..."
His uncle, face flushed crimson from drink, waved a bottle of baijiu in the air, cursing at the empty space: " What curse! It's just people playing tricks! I say Jianming owed gambling debts and got payback! Stop being so superstitious every day, it's bad luck!" His voice was loud, yet clearly a bluff, his eyes darting toward the doorway as if afraid of something.
My cousin Chen Lei kept his head down, swiping his phone with lightning-fast fingers. His face showed no trace of grief, only a numb indifference. Wu Hao remembered that he and Chen Jianming had never gotten along since childhood. Last year, they'd even gotten into a heated argument over a plot of land left by their grandfather, which escalated into a physical fight.
Amidst the crowd, only Uncle Wu Wenyan maintained his composure. At fifty-eight, he'd spent over two decades in the antique trade. Dressed in a neatly pressed navy blue qipao, his hair combed immaculately, he gently comforted Auntie before turning to pat Uncle's shoulder. His tone was steady: "Big Brother, take care. The police are investigating. The truth will come out eventually. Don't let the children see us like this." His demeanor was so composed and considerate, he seemed the very backbone of the family.
"Xiaohao, you've been working hard." Wu Wenyuan spotted Wu Hao and hurried over, handing him a cup of hot tea. His fingertips brushed against the back of Wu Hao's hand, feeling slightly cool. "You haven't rested well these past few days, have you? This family business has been weighing on your mind."
Wu Hao took the cup, his fingertips feeling its warmth, yet a strange sensation stirred within him. This uncle had always been gentle and attentive to his younger relatives, yet for some reason, Wu Hao always found his overly calm gaze inscrutable—as if beneath that mask of kindness lay some hidden thought. "It's only right, Uncle," he replied indifferently.
Just then, the silent great-uncle was escorted over by attendants. This man, over ninety years old and the eldest in the Wu family, seldom spoke. Yet now his eyes were cloudy, his complexion sallow. Suddenly, he wrenched free from the supporting hands, his withered fingers clamping down on Wu Hao's wrist with astonishing force, as if trying to dig into bone.
"It's the 'Dragon-Binding Curse'..." His voice rasped like an old bellows, each word trembling. "A hundred years... it has returned! Our ancestors broke their oath, slaughtering Qingzhu Village to seize their secret treasure and mineral vein... The shaman cast a blood curse—the Wu lineage shall devour each other by age, buried according to ritual... The next one... who knows who it will be!"
"Dragon-binding Curse," "Bamboo Village," "mineral veins"—these words pierced Wu Hao's eardrums like ice shards. Just as he was about to ask more, Wu Wenyuan stepped forward swiftly, gently prying his uncle's hands apart. His tone remained gentle, yet carried an undeniable authority: "Uncle, you're senile. You're just scaring the children with this nonsense. What era is this? Still believing in such superstitious nonsense?" He guided his great-uncle toward the rest area. As he turned, his gaze darted swiftly over the evidence bag at Wu Hao's waist—the one containing the gloomy wooden statue—a fleeting, faintly unusual flicker passing through his eyes, so quick it could have been mistaken for a hallucination.
Wu Hao watched his great-uncle being led away, his lips still murmuring words like "well," "contract," and "sacrifice." Suddenly, he recalled that a week before Chen Jianming's death, the man had called him in a panic, saying, "The well in the backyard of the old house has been dug up," and that he had seen "things he shouldn't have seen." At the time, Wu Hao had dismissed it as drunken rambling and paid it no mind. Now, he realized the terror in that call had been genuine, not feigned.
The funeral concluded in a heavy silence. As Wu Hao stepped out of the funeral home, his phone rang urgently again—it was his father.
"Hao Hao! Come home immediately! Your mother... she suddenly collapsed, her body is ice cold, and purple spots have appeared on her arms! They look... similar to the ones on Jianming's body!"
Wu Hao's mind went blank with a buzzing sound, nearly dropping his car keys. He hung up and sprinted toward the parking lot at top speed. The wail of police sirens pierced the rain as he raced homeward.
In the bedroom at home, his mother lay on the bed, her face as pale as a sheet of paper, her breath so faint it was barely perceptible. His father paced anxiously beside her, his eyes red-rimmed. Wu Hao rushed to the bedside and tremblingly rolled up his mother's sleeve—revealing three pale purple bruises on her forearm. Irregular in shape with blurred edges, they didn't fade when pressed. They bore a startling resemblance to the "diffuse atrophy accompanied by subcutaneous ecchymosis" described by Old Chen on Chen Jianming's corpse!
A chill shot from the soles of his feet straight to the crown of his head, instantly breaching the dam of rationality Wu Hao had steadfastly maintained. He recalled the terror in his mother's voice over the phone, his great-uncle's warning, Chen Jianming's panic before death, and that faceless wooden carving with its eerie symbols.
Outside, the rain continued to fall, blurring the city's neon lights in the mist—symbols of modernity and scientific order. Yet in this moment, Wu Hao felt it acutely: a century-old darkness, thick with the scent of blood, was creeping toward him from the direction of the Wu family's ancestral home. Silent and relentless, it was closing in, choking him and his family.
He clenched his fists so tightly his knuckles turned white, nails digging deep into his palms.
Could it be that the century-old "Dragon-Sealing Curse" wasn't mere superstition after all? Was Jianming's death merely the beginning of this curse? And would his mother become the next sacrifice?