Ch32 - We don’t have a next day!!!

Bei Quan laughed in a low voice.

His voice was like a gurgling stream washing on pebbles, reverberant and oddly reassuring.

“Don’t worry, you can talk slowly. Start from the beginning.”

Bei Quan thought about it and decided to take a little more risk, so he suggested. 

“Maybe, you could introduce yourself first?”

The young man on the other end of the phone made a loud exhaling sound as if he was trying to settle his mood by taking deep breaths.

[Host, you can call me Ayun.]

The other party continued,

[I’m a Junior, studying photography… We… Yes, we have an exhibition coming up soon so the teacher took us out to collect pictures…]

The two crucial words, ‘photography’ and ‘exhibition’ touched Bei Quan’s memory of last week, but instead of asking for too much personal information about the caller, he asked.

“Oh, where have you been?”

[I— I remember…] 

The young man who called himself Ayun seemed to be trying to recall something.

[Originally, we had planned to go to an ethnic resort in the mountains of Southern Henan to take photos, but the driving classmate took a wrong turn and we got lost…]

[It was going to be dark soon, and it was raining… We thought we would have to sleep in the wilderness braving the rain, but we accidentally found an abandoned village…]

“Wait.” 

Bei Quan frowned.

“An abandoned village?”

[That’s right! It’s an abandoned village!]

Ayun answered swiftly and in an exceedingly firm tone. 

[The village seemed to have been abandoned for a long time!]

[Because many houses had collapsed and some could be seen crumbling all over the place, not to mention the people— not even a single dog or a cat could be found!]

Bei Quan said, “Oh.”

“So, you stayed?” 

[Yes.]

Ayun sobbed bitterly.

[At that time, we had no better choice than spending the night there.]

From his voice, Bei Quan could hear that Ayun had come to regret their decision. 

Bei Quan said softly, “You must have been very scared to spend the night in an abandoned village?”

[Well…no.]

Ayun’s unexpected answer surprised Bei Quan.

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

[We were not afraid at all!] 

Lf qjerfv,

[We had many people, and the place was not deep inside mountains or forests. Other than the mountain road being a little steep, there was no danger… The mobile phone signal was weak, so it was difficult to connect to the Internet, but the phone could still make calls and send and receive text messages…]

[Not only were we not afraid, but we also thought it’s fun…]

Dfl Hejc jrxfv, “Lbk wjcs bo sbe jgf atfgf lc abaji? Lbk wjcs wfc jcv kbwfc?” 

[There are eight of us.]

Csec gfqilfv,

[A teacher is our counselor…. Three girls and four boys]

Dfl Hejc rlifcais cbafv atlr lcobgwjalbc lc tlr wlcv. 

[At the beginning, we thought of it as an unexpected adventure. It was out of  ordinary and very thrilling. Others suggested that we could stay for one more day, maybe we could also take a few good photos…]

Csec rqbxf ojrafg jcv ojrafg, jcv atf mgslcu nblmf yfmjwf fjg-qlfgmlcu,

[Then, then something happened!]

—————————

Cmmbgvlcu ab Csec’r vfrmglqalbc, jiatbeut atfrf sbecu raevfcar kfgf ragjcvfv lc j vfrfgafv nliijuf yfmjerf atfs uba ibra, atfs vlvc’a offi jcs qjclm ja olgra. Pcrafjv, atfs kfgf gjatfg fzmlafv ys atf revvfc cbnfi fzqfglfcmf.

They parked their car at the entrance of the village, walked around the entire deserted village before sunset, and then cleared out two adjacent, solid houses for the night. 

Someone searched for the relevant information about the abandoned mountain village with the weak mobile phone signal. After positioning, he found that it was the legendary ‘Xuanmen village’.

On the Internet, there were several rumors regarding this village. Young people came here three or five times a year to investigate the spirit, but it was clear that it thundered and rained a lot here. The so-called ‘supernatural happenings’ appeared to be a farce, purposely exaggerated for better dramatization.

After discovering that this was the infamous haunted village, the students were not afraid, but became even more excited.

[We lighted candles at night, wandered around the village and took photos while spying on spirits. We had planned to post these so-called supernatural photos on our social media when we went back.] 

Ayun took a deep breath.

[Then, someone suggested that we might as well play with Bi Xian…]

“Oh?”

Bei Quan asked, “Who suggested it?” 

The young man on the other end of the phone went silent for a while.

[Sorry…]

A moment later, he whispered,

[I don’t remember…] 

Bei Quan was not disappointed. He had expected such an answer.

He continued to ask, “Did all of you participate in the Bi Xian game? Including the teachers?”

[… Yes, I think so.]

Ayun hesitated slightly. 

[At that time…Everyone should have played.]

Wei Fuyuan, who was sitting outside and listening, snorted coldly.

You would die even if you didn’t want to die, but why do these people always seek their own death?

However, when Bei Quan inquired Ayun about playing Bi Xian, the other party stated that nothing unusual had occurred. 

[Actually, I don’t think we really invited anything.]

The young man stammered.

[To tell you the truth, I have a crush on a beautiful girl in my class, so when someone asked whether she had a boyfriend, I deliberately pushed the pen towards the ‘no’ side… And I pushed it easily.]

Bei Quan’s fingers tapped on the table silently. 

“What happened next?” he asked.

Ayun replied that after they played off the Bi Xian game as a joke that day, some people protested that this was all very boring and wanted to play Four Corners.

However, it was getting late at that time. Everyone was really tired after running around all day, so they gave up the plan of repetitively dying, divided themselves into two gender wise groups, and retired to their respective houses.

[I suddenly felt very drowsy and fell into a deep sleep.] 

Ayun abruptly raised his voice.

[I didn’t expect that everything would change as soon as I woke up!]

—————————— 

Ayun was certain that they had arrived at a remote mountain village that had been abandoned for many years the night before and opted to seek refuge in a dilapidated house.

However, the next day he was awakened by a deafening cacophony of gongs and drums.

Ayun and his classmates scrambled up and found themselves sleeping on a complete Kang, covered with worn-out but clean cushions and dark blue printed sheets. 

Everyone was stunned.

Before they could make sense of what had happened, several middle-aged men and women who looked like villagers opened the door and involuntarily entered the room to shoo them out.

Outside, they saw more people.

Because of the stress and newfound fever, Ayun grew increasingly anxious and agitated as he described the situation, and Bei Quan and Wei Fuyuan struggled to grasp what had happened to the students. 

When they woke up, the originally desolate and dilapidated village turned into a lively village where people thrived. The village was comparatively small, but there were men and women, old and young people all around. Based on visual observations alone, there were approximately two or three hundred people.

But although the village became full of living, breathing humans, Ayun and others were almost scared to death.

There was really no other reason, only that both— the village and the villagers were totally weird.

The house was a low-tiled house with a red brick and plaster structure. The villagers were wearing Chinese-style jackets with buttons down the front and wore clothed shoes with soles made of layers upon layers stuck together on their feet. There were also two women in the crowd whose feet were wrapped in Foot Binding. 

It was as though when they awoke, they had been transported back a hundred years to a mountain village during the Republic of China.

[At that time, we thought that all of us had time-travelled!]

Ayun sniffed.

[But soon, things started to become stranger and stranger…] 

For whatever reason, these people appear to regard Ayun and others who came from ‘traversing’ as tourists passing through and warmly invited— or more accurately, straightforwardly coerced them to join in on a god reverence ritual performed in the village.

They couldn’t refuse at all. They had to be dragged around the village by the villagers for most of the day. They didn’t notice that there was one less student until noon.

When Ayun said this, Bei Quan interrupted him,

“Who is missing among you?” 

Ayun’s memory seemed to be a little confused. He ‘uh’—ed and thought for a while before answering,

[It should be my roommate… Well, maybe…]

He paused a little and started babbling again.

[It was very chaotic that day, it wasn’t until in the evening that we realized that another girl was missing!] 

[No one knows where she went, or even noticed when she disappeared!]

Ayun’s voice began to tremble,

[We looked everywhere, questioned the villagers and looked at all the places we passed during the day, but we still couldn’t find the two missing people!]

[We were so scared that we didn’t know what to do!] 

[We decided that we had to leave the village quickly, but the car that we parked at the entrance of the village was gone and it was dark— ]

The voice of the young man on the other end of the phone started trembling excessively,

[We dared not go wandering around the mountain in the dark, so we could only… We could only wait for sunrise…]

Bei Quan patiently waited for Ayun to calm down. 

When the young man’s hoarse, quivering voice came to a halt, he inquired further.

“So what did you do the next day?”

[—— No, host, that is the biggest problem! You don’t know!]

Ayun shouted in a sharp voice. 

[We don’t have a second day!]

[It seems terrible, doesn’t it? But what I said is nothing but the truth—— We don’t have a second day at all!]

“What do you mean?”

Bei Quan frowned and asked in a resonant voice. 

“What do you mean by ‘no second day’?”

[Because there is no second day!]

Ayun’s tone could be described as ‘hysterical’ at this point,

[The second day, the third day, the fourth day— all were yesterday! ] 

The young man screamed.

[Every day I open my eyes to see the same group of people breaking into the room and dragging me out to take part in the damn sacrifice!]

[Then every day, when the sacrifice is over, a companion disappears!]

[Our number is decreasing every day, one by one.] 

[I don’t know where they went and whether they are still alive!!]

[I— ]

Ayun finally cried,

[I know— it’s going to be my turn soon, isn’t it?!] 

————————

The author has something to say: I believe you all must have noticed/observed that the original inspiration of the village is the legendary Fengmen Village XD