Chapter 13

Chapter 13

Lai Zhi fell silent. We trudged through the woods, our steps sinking and rising over the uneven ground, until we finally reached the entrance to the mountain hollow.

No one had been here in a long time. The weeds had grown waist-high.

I picked up a stick and pushed forward, beating the grass as I went to scare off snakes.

Lai Zhi followed behind me, but the farther we walked, the slower his steps became.

I turned back and glared at him. “If you dare run back to the village on your own again, I swear I’ll drag you back here and throw you into the hollow by yourself!”

Lai Zhi didn’t dare make a sound. He hurried forward a couple of steps. “Brother Long, how did you find Tang Dong back then? So many people from the village went into the mountains, but none of them found him.”

“I don’t know. I don’t remember.”

“You don’t remember?” Lai Zhi’s hair practically stood on end. “Then do you know what’s in this mountain hollow?”

“No.”

In truth, I found it a little strange myself. It was as if I had never once been curious about what lay inside the hollow. I hadn’t even asked.

“I asked my grandfather about it,” Lai Zhi said. “It wasn’t until after I grew up that he told me there used to be a village in this hollow.”

When he saw I wasn’t saying anything, he went on talking on his own. “My grandfather said that village was incredibly sinister. No one knew when it was built. It was like it just appeared out of nowhere.”

“And that village was especially wealthy. Back then, the surrounding villages were so poor people were practically ready to pawn the pants off their bodies, but every house in that village had big tiled roofs. Even the roads were paved with stone bricks.”

“My grandfather and the others were curious back then, so they went there a few times. Sometimes they could get in, and the villagers would even give them candy. Other times, they weren’t allowed inside at all, and there would be people guarding the village entrance.”

“Still, even though the village was strange, they often bought grain and vegetables from the nearby villages, and they paid generously. Everyone benefited from it, so the villagers actually liked them quite a bit.”

“But later, just like they’d suddenly appeared in the first place, the people in that village suddenly vanished on a stormy night full of thunder.”

“Vanished?” I looked back at Lai Zhi. Only then did I finally feel a flicker of curiosity.

“Yeah,” Lai Zhi said quickly when he saw I was paying attention. “My grandfather said he remembered it very clearly. The rain was especially heavy those few days. One night, the thunder was going crazy, lighting up the sky so brightly that night looked like day.”

“Then the nearby villages suddenly heard a tremendous rumbling from the direction of the hollow. The old people in the village all said something terrible had happened. They figured there might have been a landslide, and the people in the hollow were probably all buried.”

“When the rain finally stopped, people from several villages went into the mountains to check. But when they got to the hollow, it was empty. Everyone in the village was gone.”

“My grandfather said that at the time, everyone thought the villagers had left to take shelter somewhere. But after a long time passed, none of them came back, and the village slowly fell into ruin.”

“People were poor in those days. With such fine houses sitting there, the villagers nearby had been eyeing them for ages. After that, waves of people went into the mountains, stripping the houses, tearing down brick walls, and hauling back anything they could use. That village was completely gone after that.”