Heng Village was vast and built along the water. Seen from afar, its wide swathes of white walls and dark tiles were mirrored in the lake, alongside dark flagstones and pale green hills like strokes of ink.
But one could by no means look down on the villages of this region—
Here, wealthy merchants and prominent officials alike kept their ancestral estates and families in the countryside rather than the cities. As a result, almost every village was an enclave of a single surname, unmixed with others. A village was an immense family, a small fortified city in its own right. A case like Lin Jue's—living in Shu Village under an outside surname—was far from common.
Heng Village belonged to the Wang clan, a family of considerable prominence that still had members serving as court officials. In these times, people placed great weight on honoring ancestors and prizing filial piety; the clan had built more than twenty ancestral halls.
There was one foundational hall, two primary branch halls, further sub-branch halls below them, and even private family shrines kept in certain households.
The one plagued by strange disturbances was a primary branch hall.
After some investigation and inquiry, Lin Jue arrived at a large compound and met with Old Patriarch Wang.
It was a spacious central hall. Daylight fell through a courtyard skylight above, illuminating a water vat below where turtles swam. Several couplets hung upon the walls and pillars. At the main seat, arranged with a vase to the east and a mirror to the west, the patriarch sat in a grand armchair. Dressed in luxurious clothing, he peered down at Lin Jue with eyes as small as beans.
"Whose son or grandson are you?" he asked. "If you're frightened out of your wits, I can't afford the compensation."
"I am from Shu Village. My surname is Lin."
"Oh, the one surnamed Lin."
"Yes."
"You have quite a bit of nerve..."
"I've always been bold."
Lin Jue did his best to maintain his composure.
No matter how bold he usually was, some trepidation naturally crept into his heart now that he had come to an unfamiliar place he barely understood, especially after spending a full year listening to the village elders' ghost stories in the pavilion.
Such trepidation stemmed from the unknown.
"At your age, studying to gain scholarly honors is what matters," Old Patriarch Wang advised. "Do not ruin your health from terror for the sake of a little money or a moment's reckless bravado."
"I wish to go and see for myself."
"You truly want to go?"
"I truly do."
"You really aren't faint of heart. As it happens, you'll have a companion today." The old local gentleman spoke in an unhurried tone, seemingly unconcerned that something was amiss in his own ancestral hall—or perhaps, in his eyes, it was merely an oddity rather than something terrifying or utterly unheard of. "Have you eaten dinner?"
"Not yet, old master."
"You've come to help our Wang family, so we won't neglect you. What do you need? Speak up."
"A blade or sword would be best."
"Give him a Firewood Chopper."
"Many thanks, old master."
"What else do you need?"
"..."
Lin Jue thought quietly for a moment before speaking. "The night will be cold. I would like a quilt and bedding."
"Anything else?"
"Nothing more."
"Good lad!"
Old Patriarch Wang waved his hand, instructing both Lin Jue and a nearby attendant, "Prepare bedding for him, let him eat here, and then take him to the ancestral hall."
A distinguished scholarly clan was truly meticulous.
Dinner was mountain bamboo shoots stewed with cured pork.
It had been a long time since he had eaten such a fine meal.
While eating, Lin Jue caught sight of the companion Old Patriarch Wang had mentioned: a scruffy, heavily bearded burly man who carried the scent of wine and a somewhat dejected air. It seemed he had also come for the reward of ten thousand cash, which brought Lin Jue some small measure of reassurance.
Much of a person's unease stemmed from isolation.
Having company made things considerably better.
After the meal, someone led them toward the ancestral hall.
They passed through the village amid curling hearth smoke and flickering lamplight.
"Walk to the end, and you're there."
The sky was already quite dark. The servant's footsteps visibly faltered, as if he did not dare draw any closer. Holding an oil lamp in one hand, he merely pointed forward with the other.
Lin Jue looked in the direction he indicated.
Ahead lay a straight, narrow alley.
Along both sides of the alley rose towering firewalls of adjacent houses. Originally whitewashed, the walls had been washed by rain over the years to expose the black base beneath, leaving mottled patches the color of ink. In the dusk, as day hovered on the verge of dark, the high walls and narrow path gave the short alley an intensely gloomy and profound feeling.
"..."
Lin Jue drew a deep breath.
Yet when he carefully recalled what he had heard and thought of his eldest uncle's illness back home, he felt there was truly little to fear. He said decisively, "You can leave us here, steward."
"Hm? Oh, all right..."
The servant handed him the oil lamp.
"Thank you..."
Taking the lamp, Lin Jue stepped forward once more.
Cradling the quilt beneath the arm holding the lamp and gripping the Firewood Chopper in his other hand, he stepped into the alley and pressed onward.
He did not look back even once.
Before long, he stood before the ancestral hall.
Lin Jue lifted his head to look.
The main gates of the hall stood open. By the fading dusk light, the interior looked hollow, opening straight through to the portrait wall at the very back, as though nothing at all were there.
Refusing to let his thoughts wander, Lin Jue strode inside.
Crossing the high threshold brought a distinct chill, though it felt no different from an ordinary home—nothing like the sinister dread he had imagined. Behind him came the footsteps and voice of the burly man.
"Doesn't seem like much of anything..."
It was obvious he was comforting himself.
Lin Jue did not reply. Continuing inside, he tilted his head to study the hall.
The ancestral hall in Heng Village resembled the one in Shu Village, both built with a three-entry layout. The first entry was the ceremonial gate, which contained a small storage area. This meant there were two main halls inside: one large and one small, one lower and one higher.
The first chamber was a great hall furnished with tables and chairs, generally called the Hall of Offerings. It was used for clan discussions, praising the accomplished, and punishing the wicked. The wall at its back blocked the second chamber from view; what Lin Jue saw first was the portrait of this branch's founding ancestor hanging on the wall.
It showed a middle-aged man of considerable dignity.
Then he looked to the couplets hanging from the pillars on either side:
Promote filial piety and fraternal respect to honor human relations;
Strengthen clan bonds to manifest harmony and peace.
Circling around from the side and ascending a flight of steps brought him to the second chamber. It was slightly smaller than the first and housed the spirit tablets of the ancestors of this Wang branch; it was called the Hall of Rest.
This hall also featured a courtyard skylight that admitted daylight and moonlight. Its beams were carved and its rafters painted, all constructed with consummate skill.
Only the roof tiles overhead appeared somewhat disarranged.
Apart from that, couplets, family maxims, and clan rules hung everywhere in the hall.
Lin Jue gazed at them in silence, reading them softly in his mind.
Unexpectedly, there was no sense of grim dread. Instead, he felt the respect of descendants toward their forebears, a continuation and inheritance of clan culture that carried a surprising solemnity.
The burly man's voice came from behind again.
"You've got guts, kid, plunging straight in without hesitating for a second!
"What? Did you lose a bet too?
"Or are you just showing off?
"Ha! I thought I'd be the only one here tonight. With another person around, I feel a whole lot better!"
Talking as he went, the man set down his straw mat and quilt and sat down inside the hall.
Lin Jue sat down as well.
He lit the oil lamp and chatted with him.
Both were locals from neighboring villages. As they spoke of where they lived and whether they knew so-and-so, darkness gradually fell, and the already dim hall grew darker still.
Only the bean-sized lamplight flickered.
"Hey kid, tell me—if we slip out right now, find somewhere else to crash for the night, and sneak back before dawn tomorrow, how would they know whether we slept inside or not?"
The man's expression grew increasingly animated with his tone, as if he genuinely believed the scheme would work. If Lin Jue so much as nodded, he seemed ready to check outside for onlookers and lead him away to sneak off.
Listening to him, Lin Jue's immediate thought was—
'This companion doesn't seem very reliable.'
"I wouldn't know," Lin Jue replied calmly.
He did not dare gamble on it, nor did he want to.
Since he had resolved to come and was already sitting here, he would not leave so easily under any circumstances.
"Sigh..."
Having been turned down, the man began comforting himself once more.
"Where would so many ghosts and demons come from in this world? Back in the day, I... well, anyway, those folks who claim they ran into ghosts walking at night were either drunk and seeing things, or just bragging with nothing better to do.
"Most of them are like that.
"Around here, it's probably just wild cats or stray dogs from the mountains making a racket, and the villagers are scaring themselves. Or maybe someone in the village was having an affair in here and made some noise to scare people off. If not that, then maybe Old Patriarch Wang did something that displeased the ancestors. Either way, they won't make trouble for the likes of us.
"Wouldn't you say so?"
Before long, quiet settled over the hall.
It was not that either of them had fallen asleep; neither had, and neither dared to. They simply had nothing left to say. Wrapping themselves in their quilts, they leaned against the wall with their eyes open in the gloom.
The oil lamp continued to flicker with a faint light.
There was a moon tonight.
Bright moonlight filtered through the skylight, coating the ground like white frost.
As the night deepened, drowsiness took hold.
Before he realized it, his eyelids were beginning to droop.
A gust of chilly breeze blew through.
The man beside him abruptly opened his eyes wide.
"What was that?"
Lin Jue felt a slight jolt in his chest as well. He peered forward, yet saw nothing.
Just as he was thinking this idler was merely startling himself for amusement, or making a fuss over the wind stirring the grass, he truly saw a flicker of light and shadow outside. Almost at the same instant, another gust of wind blew into the hall.
Smothered by the draft, the oil lamp immediately dimmed, its flame struggling for several breaths before rising again.
Turning his head toward Lin Jue, the man asked again, his large eyes wide and bright, "What was that? Did you see it too?"
"I saw it."
"What was it?"
"Perhaps... a village dog."
Lin Jue felt uncertain as well, yet compared to the older and burlier man beside him, he was far more composed.
"A village dog?
"Could be, could be," the idler said repeatedly, as though trying to convince himself.
Right then, however, movement came from outside once more.
This time, it was the sound of a spoken voice:
"Have more fools who don't fear death arrived?"
The voice was shrill and high-pitched. Not only was it impossible to tell whether it belonged to a man or a woman, it hardly sounded like it came from a human throat at all.
The idler jumped in sheer terror.
"What is that?"
He repeated the same question, but his voice was trembling violently now, having completely forgotten the rationalizations he had offered earlier.
Lin Jue was a student of the Old Master of Shu Village, influenced by his doctrine that "the world holds sorcery, not ghosts or spirits." He had been unsure whether this Wang Family Ancestral Hall was truly plagued by demons and spirits or if people were stirring up mischief; hearing this bizarre voice now, he began to lean toward the former.
For no other reason than that it was simply too strange.
While he was hesitating, a sudden tremor shook the roof overhead.
A loud clatter arose, followed by the clinking and rattling of tiles.
Then tiles began to plunge downward.
One struck the ground and shattered to pieces with a sharp crack.
With another whoosh, a blast of wind swept in, blowing out the only oil lamp in the Hall of Rest.
Total darkness swallowed the chamber. Overhead, the rattling tremor continued as if whipped by a violent gale. Intermittent tiles fell, cracking and slapping loudly against the stone floor, now and then sending shards flying against Lin Jue's body with sharp pinpricks of impact and stinging pain.
Lin Jue's eyes widened.
What was happening now?
Could it be that monsters and demons truly existed in this world?
Were all the strange tales told by the village elders real?
No wonder so many drunken brawlers who fancied themselves fearless, and so many desperate drifters seeking coin, had failed to last a single night here.
If there were truly demons and spirits, how many men would not be afraid?
At that moment, the voice came again from outside the Hall of Rest:
"If you don't want to die, leave quickly!"
It remained shrill and unearthly, accompanied by the clatter and clinking of roof tiles.
With his life on the line, the idler beside him scrambled up without a second thought. Before he could even stand straight, he fled toward the exit on hands and knees.
Lin Jue did not stop him, nor did he move.
For one, the disturbances in the Wang Family Ancestral Hall had been going on for some time, and quite a few people had spent the night here. The Wang clan had even organized their own able-bodied youths to stay. Yet aside from those who fell ill with fright after returning home, Lin Jue had never heard of anyone actually being killed.
Second, as the idler ran out, the moonlight pouring through the courtyard skylight would reveal whether whatever lurked outside was man or ghost.
Could it be a band of conspirators working together?
The idler's panicked footsteps receded into the distance, passing out of the Hall of Rest. He seemed to trip over a threshold or a stone step, and once outside, an even more terrified shriek tore from his throat:
"Aaaagh!!"
The sound rapidly faded into the distance as well.
The village was utterly peaceful at this hour.
Presumably, many villagers had been awakened, or had stayed awake after hearing that someone had entered the ancestral hall tonight; yet at this moment, none dared to make a sound.
In the Hall of Rest, Lin Jue was left entirely alone.