Chapter 1

Chapter 1

I slowly sat up. The iron chains that had bound me were gone.

Dim yellow light seeped in through cracks in the wall. Thick dust drifted through the air, and the silence around me was terrifying.

Following the source of that foul stench, I looked over and saw five large words scrawled crookedly across the wall in the corner-

“They all lied to me”…

The dark-red, viscous liquid slid down from the strokes and dripped onto the floor, pooling into a small puddle that did not seem to have dried yet.

“Brother Long, why is this village so weird?”

I vaguely remembered what had happened before I lost consciousness.

Recently, my good buddy Dashun and I had been hauling timber for a furniture factory.

The timber processing site was in a remote location, deep in a mountainous area.

The route there and back was long and winding, and the road conditions were poor. Most truck drivers were unwilling to take the job.

But the client was paying well, and Dashun happened to need money lately, so the two of us teamed up for the run.

There were very few towns in that mountain region, only two or three villages along the way where we could stop and rest.

The trip had been going smoothly enough at first. The only problem was that we got caught in a heavy rainstorm.

Worried we might run into a landslide, I turned off onto a small side road and stopped outside an unfamiliar village.

The village was called Red Cloud Village. It was quite small.

But most of the buildings inside were surprisingly modern, making it seem like a very wealthy place.

Dashun and I originally planned to go into the village and see if we could find a small convenience store or eatery to buy some dinner.

But what was strange was that the moment the villagers saw outsiders, they turned and left. Not a single one was willing to acknowledge us.

We finally managed to find a little shop that sold goods, but the owner refused to open the door.

With no other choice, the two of us could only turn around and head back.

But as we walked out, I kept feeling as if countless gazes were gathering on us from every direction.

Behind those tightly shut doors and drawn curtains, there seemed to be people standing there.

Dashun felt his skin crawl too. He lowered his voice and said to me, “Brother Long, this village is way too creepy.”

“If we can’t do anything here, let’s get out quick. We shouldn’t rest in this place.”

I nodded. But when Dashun and I reached the outside of the village, the truck we had parked at the entrance would not start no matter what we tried.

It was already very late by then. The heavy rain was still falling, and there was barely any light around us, so repairing the truck wasn’t really an option.

“Let’s make do in the truck for the night. We’ll deal with it tomorrow morning.”

Dashun nodded in agreement. I told him to sleep first while I kept watch for the first half of the night.

But I never expected that someone as alert as I usually was would fall asleep just like that, without realizing a thing.