After the flash of lightning and thunder, an unsettling silence filled the car.
The rain, however, grew heavier and heavier, pouring down in torrents. It was hard to imagine that just an hour ago, it had been a sunny day when they were still in town.
Xin Hexue’s heartbeat raced, accelerating to an uncomfortable degree, as if a layer of invisible thick membrane was swelling around his ears.
Thump, thump.
Thump, thump.
How to describe this sound…
It was like the heartbeat of a fetus, beating within the amniotic fluid.
At the front, Teacher Zhang in the passenger seat unbuckled his seatbelt and broke the silence. “Students, I’ll get out and take a look.”
Xin Hexue blinked hard and came back to his senses. He pulled an umbrella from the side pocket of his backpack, squeezed out from the back row in time, and said, “Teacher, umbrella.”
Seeing this, the others followed suit and got out of the vehicle.
The mountain road wasn’t paved with smooth cement, it was just a compacted dirt path, barely wide enough for one car to pass at a time.
It was fine on sunny days, just dusty, but when it rained, it became muddy and slippery.
Dense forest lined both sides of the path, the terrain higher on the west side and lower on the east. Rainwater gathered into small streams, flowing down from the western slope and rushing across the dirt road to the east.
Xin Hexue opened his umbrella. He was wearing white sneakers, and just from walking from the back to the front of the car, his soles were already caked with mud.
In front of the car was a puddle of blood, the bright red color diluted by rain into a faint crimson, spreading all the way to Xin Hexue’s feet.
“Oh my god…”
Someone gasped, covering their mouth in fright.
Thump, thump.
Thump, thump.
The heartbeat followed him like a shadow. It was as if he could hear a fetus moving its hands and stretching its feet in the amniotic fluid, vibrating against his eardrums.
Xin Hexue’s face went pale as he took a step back, frozen as if trapped in a nightmare.
“It’s fine. We just hit a porcelain doll.”
Matsukawa Masato placed a hand on his shoulder.
Indeed, lying in front of the car was a shattered white porcelain doll.
But it was larger than a normal toy figure. If it had been standing, it would have reached the height of the car’s chasis. When the brakes failed to stop in time, the force must have knocked it to the ground, shattering it against a rock.
The porcelain pieces of its body lay in the pool of diluted “blood.”
It still had a bright, sunny smile, round beaded eyes, painted bangs, and two little braids.
The car hadn’t hit a person.
It was just a toy lost in the middle of the road.
Xin Hexue murmured in a daze, “But… I clearly saw a child running out from that side.”
He lifted a hand and pointed toward the bushes.
Matsukawa Masato stepped forward under his umbrella, crouched down in front of the porcelain doll, and picked up two fragments to examine.
After a while, he stood up. His tall figure was framed against the rain, and the beige suede pants he wore were soaked, the edges of his shoes stained red.
“The rocks beneath the dirt road are protruding. This doll happened to hit them. What looks like blood is actually the weathered surface of hematite rock dissolved by rainwater,” he explained.
“Because hematite is an iron oxide, its color appears dark red.”
Northern Island had a hot, rainy climate. The soil here was rich in trivalent iron, a red soil zone abundant with iron and aluminum oxides. Hematite was indeed common.
From a scientific standpoint, it made sense.
Everyone patted their chests and exhaled in relief. “So it was just our imagination, we scared ourselves…”
But who would place a porcelain doll in the middle of the road?
No one brought up this obvious question.
At the moment of the accident, Teacher Zhang was dozing off, and the students in the back seats were playing games. A deep instinctive fear in their hearts told them…it was better not to dig deeper.
However, when the driver got out of the car, his legs suddenly gave out. “I saw it. I saw the child the student mentioned…”
“Damn it!” The middle-aged man’s terror turned into anger, and he kicked the tire furiously. “I should’ve known better than to get involved! Three hundred yuan for my life?!”
……
Two-thirds of the journey was already done. They couldn’t just turn back now.
Teacher Zhang raised the fare to eight hundred. The driver cursed but agreed to continue forward.
The group got back into the car chaotically.
The tires spun, splattering red mud everywhere.
It stained one of the broken porcelain fragments beside the doll’s smiling face.
As they drove away, none of them saw that after the exhaust fumes faded, the doll’s sunny smile collapsed, turning into a sorrowful rainy-day expression, its mouth drooping down as if it could hang an oil bottle.
……
Because of the slanting wind and heavy rain, the windows were tightly shut, and the air inside the car became stifling.
No one mentioned the earlier incident again, but none of the young people had the heart to laugh or play anymore.
As the clock’s hands turned, a taut string seemed to gradually tighten in everyone’s mind.
Tick, tick, tick.
An invisible clock ticked inside their hearts.
“Have we… been here before?”
What should have been only a half-hour drive had stretched from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m., and they still hadn’t reached Nanwan Village.
Outside the window was nothing but winding dirt road. The rain against the glass was so loud it made one’s heart race, the dense streaks blending together.
“Maybe you remembered wrong? We’ve been going straight. The scenery just looks the same, more or less,” said a girl with glasses, forcing a laugh to sound relaxed.
But as she spoke, it was as if a sponge was swelling up in her throat, rapidly expanding and blocking her words.
Xing Ming cursed under his breath and stared ahead. “What the hell…this damn thing again?!”
Ahead of them stood another porcelain doll.
It was not just similar…it was the same one, from its crack lines to that familiar smiling face.
It stood there like a signpost, welcoming every visitor to Nanwan Village.
Under extreme psychological pressure, the driver snapped before anyone could react. “Ahhh! I don’t believe this crap! Ghost or god, I’ll crush you!”
He slammed on the gas pedal.
The doll shattered instantly into countless fragments, scattering far behind them.
Xin Hexue turned around in his seat to look back.
“What’s wrong? Are you scared?” Matsukawa Masato asked gently.
Xin Hexue shook her head, not answering him aloud.
For some reason, his gaze seemed to penetrate the curtain of white rain and sense the emotions of the white porcelain doll
It was angry…but more than that…
It was sad.
So sad.
Thump, thump.
Thump, thump.
The surging wave of inexplicable emotions didn’t belong to him, but they clogged in his chest all the same.
Xin Hexue clutched the fabric at his chest as if struggling to breathe, the blue ribbon curling between his fingers.
He turned back around, his spine arching like a drawn bow.
Xiao Hei didn’t understand what was happening, but as they say, the bond between mother and child runs deep. It could sense Xin Hexue’s emotions.
[Mother…]
[Happy.]
[Mother is happy.]
Its language ability had advanced at an astonishing rate, no longer limited to “hungry” and “dog-level speech,” and it was now beginning to explore human emotional expression.
Indeed, being loved can desperately grow intelligence.
[Mn.] Xin Hexue said to it, [Mother is fine.]
Matsukawa Masato gently patted his shoulder. “You look pale. Do you want to eat something to take your mind off it?”
Xin Hexue lowered his gaze and sat upright. “Mm.”
They had been driving this mountain road since 2 p.m., and now it was 5:30, a full three and a half hours, and the rain hadn’t stopped once.
The silence made the car feel like stagnant water.
The driver even thought about turning back, but the road was only wide enough for one car. There was no space to turn around.
That meant they could only turn back after reaching Nanwan Village.
For Nanwan Village, whether entering or exiting, there was only one path to take.
Or maybe…
There was no way back at all.
“There must be an emergency turnaround spot. Otherwise, how did that real estate boss manage to turn around halfway? There has to be one!”
No one cared about folk research, sightseeing, or “facing the sea” anymore.
Panic and despair spread wildly through the car.
They tried to send messages to their families, to say their last words, but not even a “Mom, I love you” could go through, there was no signal this deep in the mountains.
Two girls clung to each other, crying. The boys stared up at the car roof with his teeth clenched, refusing to let tears fall.
“Teacher,” Matsukawa Masato suddenly spoke, “didn’t you say you found a local from Nanwan Village online to act as our guide and meet us there?”
After the long ride, Teacher Zhang’s face had turned pale, but he forced himself to stay calm. “Yes, we agreed to meet at the village entrance. He was going to take us to the village chief’s house.”
The village entrance…
Forget Nanwan Village, they hadn’t seen a single living soul since they got in the car.
The further they went, the heavier the despair grew.
Matsukawa Masato: “Did you agree on a specific time?”
Teacher Zhang blinked, then answered, “Yes! I told him before we left. I said we’d arrive around three-thirty in the afternoon.”
“So maybe he noticed something’s off and is already coming to find us.”
No matter what, having a local guide meant they could at least be able to drive into the village.
Teacher Zhang nodded. “Yes! Students, don’t lose hope!”
Someone sniffled and wiped away tears,.
To lighten the mood, Teacher Zhang started talking again. “The person I found online was the only one from Nanwan Village who ever got into Beidao University. He’s your senior, actually.”
“His story’s quite interesting. He left home when he was young and happened to meet a swimming coach from the city at the middle school in the nearby town. Growing up in a fishing village, he swam like a fish in the water and ended up joining the swimming team.”
“Later he became a student at Beidao University. Maybe he couldn’t get used to life there after graduation, so he went back home. Because of that connection, I decided to come to Nanwan Village for this folk study.”
The degree of preserved original culture in Nanwan Village was one aspect; this student was another
After all, going to an unfamiliar place, especially deep in the mountains, sometimes money alone can’t resolve unexpected situations
It was said that more than ten years ago, a professor brought a research team here, and a female student was almost forced to stay in the mountains to have a child, while a male student was nearly enslaved as labor. They barely escaped, and it even made the national news.
In such isolated, lawless mountain regions where even public authorities couldn’t easily intervene, having a trustworthy local was a vital safeguard.
Otherwise, you could cry to heaven and earth and get no response, becoming one of the corpses recorded in future cold case murder files.
As they spoke, everyone’s spirits seemed to relax just a little.
But in the next moment, the same porcelain doll appeared ahead once more, making everyone’s hair stand on end.
Fortunately, this time the story changed. A tall man appeared in the middle of the road before the car hit the doll, signaling for them to stop.
The driver slammed on the brakes in time, collapsing against his seat, his body drenched in sweat.
The man looked to be in his twenties, with sword-like eyebrows and hawk-like eyes. He wore a dark blue short jacket on top and wide black trousers below. The silver chain around his waist resembled the sturdy, tough cables from a ship.
His skin was tanned, his body strong and wild, with broad shoulders and a narrow waist. His bare arms showed powerful muscles, rising and falling like mountains, or waves.
He stood in front of the car, pointing toward the passengers and signaling them to get out.
Then he took the curved machete from his belt, its surface gleaming from long use, and weighed it in his hand.
The group grew uneasy.
Xing Ming couldn’t help but whisper, “Teacher, are you sure this person is our senior and not a mountain bandit?”
Xin Hexue, however, narrowed his eyes and stared at the man ahead.
This has to be a joke.
Zhou Liao actually got into a university?
He almost wanted to cry for the Zhou family ancestors in their graves.
