Chapter 2
Chapter 2
The old men shrank back, necks retracting like turtles, too intimidated to speak. Someone nearby couldn’t stand it any longer and chimed in.
“Wow, this tour guide is so aggressive!”
“Exactly. Grandpas, don’t be afraid. You can file a complaint against her. Which travel agency are you with?”
I turned to look and saw a group of vibrant college students about the same age as Jiang Haoyan and me. Each of them had a drawing board tucked under their arm; one look and you could tell they were art students out on a sketching trip.
One particularly delicate and slender girl kept glancing over at Jiang Haoyan.
“I’m Wu Duo,” she said. “Hey, classmate, where are you guys headed?”
Jiang Haoyan gave her a cold, indifferent look before stepping over to stand beside me. I nodded to Wu Duo.
“We’re going to Gaoyi Village.”
Wu Duo gasped, a look of sheer terror flashing across her face. She quickly pressed her lips together and scurried away, not daring to say another word to me.
Gaoyi Village was surrounded by mountains on three sides and water on the fourth. From a distance, it looked like a high-backed armchair, which was how it earned its name.
In the old days, the people of this village had made their living through corpse herding for generations.
Corpse herding was always shrouded in mystery. People in the surrounding areas viewed the village with a mix of reverence and dread, generally avoiding any contact with its inhabitants. Wu Duo’s reaction suggested she was likely from somewhere nearby.
Ignoring her, I led the group of seniors onto the bus and we set off.
Gaoyi Village was in a remote location. We spent almost the entire day on the road, transferring from the bus to tricycles. Eventually, the paths became too narrow and difficult to navigate, forcing us to rent local donkeys to head further into the mountains.
Between Jiang Haoyan, myself, and Liu Xiong’s group of seven, there were nine of us in total. Liu Xiong had also brought four bodyguards, but there were only five donkeys available.
In the end, we decided to leave the bodyguards outside to act as backup while the rest of us rode the donkeys into the mountains.
The sun dipped below the horizon behind us at some point, and a dilapidated one-story house emerged through the gray mist. It was a wooden structure with a massive locust tree planted beside it. The tree’s shadow stretched across the wide-open front door, obscuring most of the sickly white light emanating from within.
Seeing the two white lanterns hanging by the entrance, I let out a sigh of relief and waved the group over.
“We’ve arrived. We’ll stay here for the night.”