Chapter 23: “Come Open the Door…”

Chapter 23 "Open up, quick..."

The piercing shriek lingered in his ears, the immense agony within it as if his whole body were on fire, a hoarse scream forced out as if swallowing burning embers.

Yi Fengchu stood there bewildered, waiting until the commotion completely faded before cautiously approaching the charred "ashes," gripping his phone as he examined them carefully.

"This definitely wasn’t here when I passed by earlier... What is this? Did it let out that scream?"

Glancing at the nearby woods, Yi Fengchu initially considered picking up a branch to poke at the ashes, but his germaphobia made him hesitate. In the end, he couldn’t bring himself to do it, merely squatting in front of the ashes to scrutinize them.

As he stared, a mouthwatering smell wafted into his senses—unlike the savory-sweet sesame nori scent from before, this time it was the smoky, meaty aroma of roasted meat...

Yi Fengchu instinctively sniffed, trying to locate the source of the smell, looking left and right.

Finally, his gaze lowered, slowly settling on the shapeless pile of charred ashes.

—He must really be hallucinating from hunger.

Doubting himself for a moment, Yi Fengchu opened his phone’s search engine and began typing:

"Symptoms of pica."

"How to intervene after diagnosing pica?"

"Would someone inexplicably crave eating charred gunk on the road?"

...

Just as Yi Fengchu frowned at his search results, a series of faint rustling sounds emerged from the dense weeds beside him, drawing his attention.

After a while, a small, multicolored snake poked its head out from the grass, slithering toward Yi Fengchu with its long tail trailing behind, hissing with flickering tongue.

Normally, a normal person would either flee in terror or freeze in fear upon encountering such a situation.

Yet, Yi Fengchu felt not the slightest fear. He could even vaguely understand the snake’s meaning—

‘It’s a cocoon... mimics voices... don’t answer...’

The colorful snake helpfully warned him.

Yi Fengchu: "..."

At this point, he was no longer surprised that he could understand a snake’s speech.

After all, he could already see the threads of fate binding all living beings, and he could take a bite out of all sorts of bizarre creatures—so what was so strange about understanding snake language?

Staring into the snake’s beady, upturned eyes, Yi Fengchu briefly zoned out, as if another pair of enormous, liquid-gold serpent eyes—like a scorching sun—flashed before him, the ones he’d seen in his dream.

...Wait, were those his own eyes in the dream?

Was he really not human?

Fragments of his dream resurfaced, leaving Yi Fengchu momentarily dazed.

After a brief standoff with the snake, he attempted to communicate: "You... can you understand me?"

The snake tilted its head and nodded.

"What exactly is this ‘cocoon’ you mentioned? Does it mimic human speech? And if someone called out to responds, would they be in danger?"

The little snake nodded repeatedly, seemingly listening intently, but its reply was fragmented and hard for Yi Fengchu to comprehend: ‘Cocoon, white... in the mountains, eats eats...’

Yi Fengchu listened intently for a long while but remained baffled. He lowered his head and asked his phone, "Is it because my grasp of this foreign language isn’t fluent enough? I can’t quite understand what it’s saying."

"Actually, it’s not your listening skills—it’s just that it can’t articulate well. Its expressive ability is limited."

The phone sounded almost amused. "What exactly were you expecting? It’s just an uneducated wild snake from the mountains."

Yi Fengchu was taken aback. "Aren’t all snakes born hissing? There’s such a thing as an illiterate snake?"

The phone paused before replying, "Of course there’s a difference. A literate snake can master complex sentences, spell, communicate properly..."

Finding this explanation novel, Yi Fengchu leaned in curiously.

"...do homework, take exams..."

At this point, Yi Fengchu sensed something amiss and grew wary.

Sure enough, the phone concluded eerily, "Some even go to college. How about that? Not like the average snake in the wilderness with its limited brain capacity."

"..." Yi Fengchu took a deep breath—the phone had just been messing with him.

Left momentarily ignored, the little snake coiled itself into a spiral like mosquito incense, waiting quietly.

Finding it adorable and well-behaved, Yi Fengchu couldn’t resist reaching out to stroke its smooth, cool head.

He instructed the snake to hide in the woods and secretly observe others, returning to alert him if anything unusual happened.

The little snake nodded solemnly—though it was unclear how much it actually understood—before slowly slithering back into the weeds and disappearing.

Yi Fengchu didn’t dwell on whether it could accomplish the task. He hadn’t pinned all his hopes on a wild snake with a naive mind anyway—it was just a backup plan.

Standing up, Yi Fengchu soon returned to the small cottage where he was staying.

The first-floor living room was empty. Aside from a few classmates resting in their rooms who'd gotten carsick, the others had eagerly gone out to explore in groups. Yi Fengchu sat on the sofa, rubbing feeling back into his legs from squatting, then closed his eyes for a short nap.

Unnoticed, the sunlight streaming indoors gradually shifted westward, taking on a golden dusk glow, casting long, narrow shadows across the room.

Just then, a frantic pounding of footsteps shattered the silence outside, followed by clattering noises as a group of college students piled through the door, their faces pale with unease.

Stumbling inside, the students gasped for breath, gripping the doorframe as their backs tensed in high alert. Their frightened eyes repeatedly darted outside, as if wary of something chasing them.

After a long while, they finally relaxed slightly and shut the door behind them.

"What’s wrong?" Yi Fengchu opened his eyes, his gaze clear-eyed and calm as he observed them.

The group was still shaken, wordlessly trading looks. For a while, no one could speak—only their shaky, uneven breathing, heavy with fear, filled the air.

An indeterminable amount of time later, someone finally spoke as if snapping out of a nightmare, their lips pale and quivering as they muttered, voice thick with dread:

"Ghosts... there are ghosts in the mountains..."

Outside the window, the wind howled through the mountains, its chill creeping up the napes of everyone present. As those words fell softly, the students seemed plunged back into that moment.

...

Half an hour earlier, the golden sun had dipped low, the last light bleeding red as it filtered through the thick trees, painting the students’ faces in a crimson glow.

Laughing and joking, the group made their way through the woods, occasionally brushing aside branches as they dodged and ducked through the gaps between trees.

The wind blew, causing the grass and trees on either side of them to sway slightly, their shadows twisting wildly like a ghost's bony fingers clawing outward.

Suddenly, one of the students stopped and hesitantly asked, "Listen, is that someone calling for Li Yin behind us?"

At these words, everyone went quiet, turning their heads to look back while listening hard for any faint sounds in the wind.

Sure enough, a distant call echoed through the remote hills.

The voice was very soft but clear, standing out clearly once all other noises had faded.

After a moment of thought, Li Yin, who had been called, ventured, "Maybe it’s Wang Er catching up after falling behind earlier?"

In their program, there were two students surnamed Wang. Coincidentally, they looked somewhat alike in appearance and temperament—both tall, sturdy, and quiet types—so their classmates jokingly referred to them as separated-at-birth brothers.

Once everyone got familiar, they dubbed the two Wangs by age, calling them Wang Yi and Wang Er; the nicknames stuck.

—Wang Er was the younger of the two.

Li Yin giggled as she looked around, noticing Wang Er wasn't there and feeling more sure of her guess.

With a laugh, she turned and yelled over her shoulder, "Wang Er, hurry up! If you don’t catch up soon, we’ll leave without you for dinner—"

The forest remained dead silent. After a pause, the distant call came again:

"Li Yin, Li Yin..."

The smiles on everyone’s faces slowly faded. Now even Li Yin got a bad feeling. Staring into the foggy woods ahead, she called out again, "Wang Er? Why do you keep calling my name instead of coming over?"

Her voice trembled slightly as it echoed through the trees, but once the sound faded, only heavy silence remained.

They slowly realized—at some point, even the ever-present chirping of insects and birds in the wild had vanished.

Only the overlapping branches and leaves hung heavily like nooses, rustling in the wind.

Despite the lush greenery that should've been lively, the forest now felt dead.

"..."

From somewhere far behind, "Wang Er" still didn’t respond, continuing to call "Li Yin" in a voice that seemed to drift through the mountain mist.

"Y-You don't think we actually ran into something supernatural?"

"Like... the legendary wandering ghosts or something?"

Everyone gulped, their gazes fixed on the distance, but all they could see were dancing tree shadows and weeds swaying in the wind beneath the dim canopy.

It was precisely the fear of the unknown that made their skin crawl, making them instinctively recoil.

The wind seemed to sap their warmth, raising goosebumps. The students, picking up on something wrong, stopped trying to engage with the inexplicable voice behind them and instead pushed ahead stiffly.

Li Yin, in particular, was about to cry, biting her lip hard to keep from whimpering.

No matter how persistently the voice called after her, she didn’t dare look back, her eyes locked straight ahead.

At first, they walked at a normal pace, but as their hearts pounded faster, they unconsciously sped up—from walking to brisk strides, then to a flat-out run.

After a moment of silence, Li Yin blurted out, terrified, "That voice... it’s so strange..."

"Why does it feel like the distance between us... never changes?"

No matter how fast or slow they moved, the voice remained like a ghost—always the same distance behind them, never drawing closer or farther away, and never accompanied by footsteps or breathing.

—It never approached, but it never left either.

Realizing this, the students got goosebumps. Panicked, they stumbled and made a panicked dash back to the villa.

...

"That’s what happened," Li Yin said after drinking half a glass of water, slowly calming down. "Luckily, whatever that was didn’t seem to follow us back..."

The sense of safety indoors dispelled the creepiness of the strange calls, and the atmosphere eased up.

Just then, two loud knocks sounded at the tightly shut door.

A voice drifted in from outside: "Can someone open the door? It’s Wang Er."

The student nearest to the door instinctively stepped forward, but the moment their hand touched the knob, they snatched it back like they'd been shocked.

Pale-faced, the student whispered, "Wang Er... he doesn’t mind us calling him that, but he’d never refer to himself as 'Wang Er'..."

—So, who—or what—was outside?

The knocking resumed, and the doorknob jiggled as if whatever was outside was trying to open it...

Just as the students’ hearts leaped into their throats and they held their breaths in terror, the knocking finally stopped.

After another pause, the door was knocked on again, the knob twisting from the outside. But this time, the voice outside changed its plea:

"Why’s the door locked? Open up, it’s me, Wang Lin..."