The Nursery Rhyme of Death

In Qingshi Village, Fenghuang County, western Hunan, a nursery rhyme has been passed down for a hundred years. Thirteen lines, thirteen ways to die. The elders say that whoever sings all thirteen lines is doomed to die. Chen Du, a古籍 restorer in the provincial capital, receives a call from his sister-in-law: his great-uncle has passed away. He rushes back for the funeral, only to find that his great-uncle had been dead for seven days, yet during those seven days, he was still eating, talking, and greeting people. The coroner says the body has been decomposing for at least seven days; his sister-in-law says she brought him a bowl of rice noodles yesterday. His great-uncle left behind an iron box, welded shut and unopenable, with a note attached: "For Chen Du's eyes only." The village well, dry for thirty years, suddenly fills with water the night he returns. From the well comes a woman's singing voice, exactly that nursery rhyme. The first line: "Well platform wet, red shirt rises, don't peek in, she's at the bottom." That very night, someone dies, exactly as the rhyme describes. The village elders say the rhyme isn't meant to scare children—it's used to seal something. Now the seal is loosening. And Chen Du gradually realizes that his return to the village is no coincidence. The murder a hundred years ago that scattered the thirteen secret manuscripts, the deliberately forgotten nursery rhyme, the woman in the red wedding dress in the well—they have been waiting for him to come back.