The village is already half-asleep when they arrive.
Night does not fall here the way it does elsewhere—not gradually or gently, instead it's as if someone has lowered a lid over the sky. The last band of dull orange light has barely vanished behind the mountains when the streets empty, doors close, shutters slide into place with hurried finality. No cooking smoke rises. No dogs bark. Even the insects seem reluctant to sing.
Chen Qinghe slows, hand resting lightly on the hilt at his waist, eyes scanning rooftops and darkened windows. Shen Ziyu walks a half-step ahead, spear strapped across his back, posture deceptively loose but alert in the way of someone trained to react before thought catches up. They wear no masks tonight — only straw hats casting deep shadows over their faces — and travel clothes dusty from the road.
"All sleeping, what could we expect to be visiting at this hour." Ziyu mutters.
Qinghe keeps in silence instead of answering immediately. The air smells faintly damp, like earth that has not seen sunlight for too long.
Then, a door opens a crack ahead of them, and an old man peers out, lamplight trembling behind him. His face is deeply lined, eyes cloudy yet sharp with fear. When he sees strangers standing in the street, his expression tightens further, mouth pulling into a thin line. "You shouldn't be here," he says at once, voice low but urgent. "Leave before it gets worse."
"We came because of the rumors," Qinghe replies calmly. "We were told this village has… disturbances...as for what we heard."
The old man's gaze flicks left and right along the empty street, as if afraid the walls themselves might be listening.
"There is nothing here for outsiders. Go back the way you came."
Ziyu steps forward slightly. "People are afraid. That usually means something is wrong."
The old man's jaw trembles. For a moment it looks like he might say more — confession pressing against his teeth — but instead he shakes his head violently. "No. No questions. No staying." He blows out the candle. The door slams shut with a hollow wooden crack that echoes too loudly in the silent street, and darkness swallows the house whole.
Ziyu exhales through his nose. "Friendly place."
Just as Qinghe is about to turn away, something prickles along the back of his neck. Soft and wavering light behind the shuttered window, the room is illuminated again — not dimly, not hesitantly, but with the steady glow of a newly lit candle that shines the room in green.
Then comes the sound.
A thin and broken crying of a child. Wet with breathless hiccups.
"Well..." Ziyu's hand already positioning on his spear, "that wasn't there before."
"Spirit lanterns..."
Another voice joins the first — softer, younger — sobbing in uneven bursts, like a child trying to cry quietly and failing.
Qinghe moves without hesitation. "Inside."
Ziyu nods, and the second after, he slams his shoulder directly into the door. The wood gives way with a sharp crack, splintering inward. They enter low and fast, weapons drawn, eyes sweeping the room.
Empty.
The table holds a single clay cup. Dust lies undisturbed across its surface. The candle on the table burns steadily, flame thin and unwavering — yet there is no wax pooled beneath it, no sign it has burned for any length of time.
The old man is gone, and the crying stops the instant they cross the threshold.
Silence crashes down, heavily and absolute.
Ziyu turns slowly in a full circle. "He couldn't have—"
Qinghe is already moving through the small house, checking corners, lifting curtains, opening a narrow storage chest. No hidden door, no window large enough for escape, no disturbance in the dust except their own footprints—nothing.
The air inside feels wrong, it is unsettling stale, especially cold, as if it has not been breathed in years.
Then—crying again. Outside now, and closer, louder and raw with panic.
Ziyu spins toward the door almost immediately. "Behind us!"
They rush out into the street just as the sound peaks — a child wailing as if abandoned in the dark.
And then it stops instantly.
The village goes silent again.
Even their own breathing sounds too loud.
Ziyu frowns. "Where—"
The door behind them slams shut with explosive force.
They whirl around.
Through the thin cracks of the wooden panels, no light shows. The house interior is pitch black like before.
Qinghe's expression hardens. "Something is wrong."
Ziyu doesn't bother knocking, he immediately raises his leg and kicks the wooden door open in force. The door bursts inward, splintering against the wall. Inside, the room is dim but ordinary. A single candle burns low on the table, this time melted wax pooled thickly beneath it. The air smells of old smoke and damp cloth.
In the back of the house, the old man shuffles toward a narrow bed, muttering under his breath. Turning at the sound of them entering. Shock flashes across his face, immediately replaced by fury. "What are you doing in my house?!" he snaps, voice suddenly strong. "You two from before...get out!"
Ziyu blinks. "You just—"
"OUT!"
The old man grabs Ziyu's sleeve with surprising strength and shoves both of them toward the door. Qinghe allows himself to be pushed, more startled than resistant. The door slams again, this time from the inside. A wooden bolt drops into place with a final, decisive thunk.
The two stand in the street, stunned.
Ziyu rubs the back of his neck. "Did we just get scolded… for breaking into a house we broke into to save him?"
Qinghe doesn't answer, his gaze shifting past Ziyu's shoulder.
Soft laughter of children coming from behind them. They turn as one to see lanterns lighting themselves along the street one by one. Pale green flames bloom inside paper shells, casting sickly light across the ground. The glow does not flicker like normal fire; it pulses faintly, as if breathing.
The lanterns form a line leading away from the village… toward the dark slope of the hill beyond. A thin mist gathers there, swallowing the path.
Then comes the voice. Several voices whispering together in uneven harmony.
"Come… come and play with us…"
The words are stretched, sing-song, wrong in a way that prickles beneath the skin. Some voices sound like children. Others sound too deep, too hollow, as if spoken from the bottom of a well.
Ziyu's grip tightens on his spear. "That's not human."
"The lanterns are already giving the answers," Qinghe steps forward slowly, eyes fixed on the lantern trail. "It wants us to follow."
Laughter ripples again — delighted, breathless, overlapping.
"Come… come…"
The lanterns flare brighter.
For one heartbeat, Qinghe thinks he sees shapes moving inside the green light — small silhouettes, heads tilted at unnatural angles.
Then every flame extinguishes at once, and darkness crashes down.
The voices cut off mid-breath. Silence returns deeper than before. Only the empty street remains, stretching toward the hill where nothing now moves and no light burns.
Ziyu exhales slowly. "Well...we have our direction..."
Qinghe adjusts his grip on his sword, "not today."
Above them, clouds swallow the moon completely, as if the sky itself refuses to watch what happens next. From somewhere high on the hill, so faint it might almost be imagined, a lullaby begins to hum.
For a long while after the lanterns were extinguished, Chen Qinghe and Shen Ziyu remain standing in the middle of the street, as if movement itself might disturb something fragile and invite danger. The darkness has weight now, not the ordinary absence of light, but a dense, muffling presence that presses against the ears and skin alike. Qinghe becomes aware of the sound of his own pulse being dull and steady, echoing faintly in his skull. Ziyu shifts his stance once, boots scraping against packed earth with a soft grit that seems far too loud, as though the entire village might awaken in protest.
No window opens, no curious face peers through cracks, and no baby making a fuss. The houses remain sealed like tombs, each door closed tightly with each and every shutter nailed down with the quiet desperation of people who believe wood and iron might hold back the unseen.
"That certainly was not an illusion," Ziyu says finally, voice pitched low. "Something guided us."
Qinghe, eyes still fixed on the path leading toward the hill, nods slightly in agreement. "And the old man..." Qinghe turns to look behind him at the old man's house. "...was afraid," finishing softly, "but not of us."
A thin wind slides through the empty street, carrying with it a faint scent of damp moss and stagnant water. It does not stir the hanging cloth strips or loose straw that should move with even the slightest breeze. Instead, it passes through the village as if the air itself has forgotten how to respond.
Ziyu glances back at the shuttered house. No light seeps through now. No sound emerges. It stands as inert as every other structure around them, giving no sign that anything unnatural occurred within its walls.
"Do we check on him again?" Ziyu asks.
Qinghe considers for a few breaths of time before shaking his head. "If he wished to speak, he would have. Forcing him will only make him retreat further." His gaze returns to the dark slope. "Whatever is happening here does not confine itself to one house."
Another long silence follows, filled only by that faint, almost inaudible humming drifting from the hill — so soft it might be mistaken for wind passing through hollow reeds, yet steady, patterned, unmistakably deliberate. It rises and falls like breath, never quite forming a melody yet never dissolving into randomness.
Ziyu hears it too, and that makes his jaw tighten. "…you hear that?"
"Don't think I can ignore..."
The sound does not invite. It does not threaten. It simply exists, patient and unhurried, as if it has all the time in the world to wait for them to come closer.
They begin walking.
Not toward the hill — not yet — but deeper into the village itself, moving along the main road that splits the settlement in two. Their footsteps remain the only rhythm in the night. No insects chirp in the weeds, no frogs croak from unseen ditches. Even the leaves on the sparse roadside trees hang limp and unmoving, their silhouettes sharp against the faint glow of the clouded sky.
The further they go, the more unnatural the stillness becomes.
A cart stands abandoned in the center of the road, one wheel tilted into a shallow rut. A bundle of firewood rests in the back, tied neatly as if prepared for transport but never delivered. Beside it lies a single straw sandal, toe pointing toward the nearest house, its partner nowhere in sight.
Ziyu crouches briefly, touching the ground near the wheel.
"No signs of drag marks or struggle."
Qinghe scans the surrounding buildings. "Whatever happened, it was certainly not some sudden violence."
They pass a well, its circular stone rim worn smooth by years of use. A wooden bucket lies on its side, rope trailing into darkness below. Qinghe pauses, peering down into the shaft. The interior is pitch black, swallowing what little light reaches it. For a moment he thinks he hears something — not water, not movement, but a distant echo like someone breathing slowly at the bottom.
He straightens at once. "Nothing," he says quietly, though he is not entirely certain.
Ziyu does not press. He has already learned that Qinghe rarely speaks of impressions he cannot confirm.
They continue their way.
At the center of the village stands a larger house than the rest, its courtyard gate hanging open. The doors beyond it are not merely closed but barred from the outside, thick wooden beams wedged into iron brackets to prevent entry or exit alike.
Ziyu frowns. "That's strange."
Qinghe approaches the gate slowly, pushing it wider. The hinges creak — a long, complaining sound that scrapes against the silence like a blade across bone.
Still, nothing responds.
Inside the courtyard, a table has been set beneath the eaves. Eight bowls rest upon it in a neat circle, lacquer dulled by a thin layer of dust. Seven pairs of chopsticks lie beside seven of the bowls. The eighth remains bare.
A small crack runs down one side of that final bowl, splitting its glaze like a frozen tear.
Ziyu swallows. "They were expecting company."
Qinghe studies the arrangement without touching it. The dust tells its own story — undisturbed for some time, yet not thick enough to suggest years of abandonment. Days, perhaps. Weeks at most.
"Or they were waiting," he says.
"For who?"
Qinghe keeps in silence, not sure of what to say.
The humming from the hill grows slightly louder, drifting over the rooftops like a memory carried on wind. Now it almost resembles a lullaby — not one sung clearly, but one half-forgotten, its notes blurred together by distance and time.
Ziyu shifts uneasily. "I don't like that sound."
"Definitely," Qinghe agrees, "nor do I."
A shadow moves at the edge of his vision.
He turns sharply.
At the far end of the street beyond the courtyard gate, something stands — tall, slender, indistinct. Not close enough to make out details, yet undeniably present against the pale smear of sky.
Ziyu follows his gaze. "Someone there?"
The figure does not move.
Qinghe steps forward, hand on his sword. "Who is there?"
No answer heard, and when he takes another step, the figure vanishes. Not retreating or turning away — simply gone, vanished as if erased between one blink and the next.
Ziyu inhales sharply. "You saw that too."
"Yes."
They advance to the spot where it stood. The ground shows no footprints, no disturbance, nothing to suggest anyone had been there at all.
Only silence.
And that humming, patient and distant, waiting from the hill above.
Qinghe lifts his gaze toward the dark slope once more. Through gaps in the clustered rooftops, he can just make out the faint outline of trees climbing upward, their branches tangled like skeletal fingers clawing at the sky. Somewhere among them sits the ruined shrine the villagers spoke of — the place no one enters, the place the voices come from.
Ziyu follows his line of sight and exhales slowly.
"So that's where it wants us."
Qinghe's hand tightens briefly on the hilt at his waist, not in fear but in quiet resolve.
"...yes..."
Behind them, somewhere deep within the village, a door creaks softly — opening just a fraction, then closing again with careful precision, as though someone has peeked out and decided better of being seen.
Neither of them turns because they know, with a certainty that chills deeper than any visible threat, that whatever's watching from the darkness has no intention of interfering—or at least not yet.
Above, the cloud cover thickens further, smothering what little light remains. The world contracts to shades of black and grey, edges blurring into one another until distance becomes impossible to judge. And still the faint singing continues, faint but unwavering, drifting down from the hill like a promise that cannot be taken back.
Qinghe steps out of the courtyard and onto the road leading upward.
Ziyu falls into place beside him without a word. Together, they begin the slow ascent toward the shrine, leaving behind the village that makes no sound — not of life, not of movement, not even of breath — as though it has already forgotten what it means to exist.