Fallen People

Six days later.

Yan Kingdom, Beiyang Prefecture, Changluo County.

The summer rains never seem to stop once they start.

The raindrops exploded on the muddy ground, one after another, so dense that it was impossible to tell which came first.

The distant mountains were swallowed by the rain, and the nearby trees were bent over with the weight of the rain. When the wind blew, the water that had accumulated on the leaves was splashed down.

Shen Gui walked in the misty rain, too lazy to avoid the pouring rain.

His gray clothes were soaked through, and his hair was a string of black lines. Water trickled from the ends of his hair into his collar and then down his back.

We arrived at Guhuai Village at 7 PM.

The sky should have been bright, but the rain had darkened the clouds, making them so thick that not a single ray of light could penetrate.

The village was shrouded in the rain, a hazy gray that obscured its outline. The dirt road at the village entrance was deserted; there were no old men enjoying the cool air, no men squatting at their doorways to eat, and no children chasing after dogs.

The doors of every household were closed, with only a few dim, yellowish lamplight shining through the cracks.

There is an old locust tree at the entrance of the village. Its trunk is so thick that it takes several people to hug it, but it grows very lushly.

Shen Gui's brow twitched; the tree looked somewhat familiar.

But which place? When? He couldn't remember. He had traveled to so many places that he had only briefly visited them over the next few centuries.

Shen Gui withdrew his gaze and stopped thinking about it.

The only place open in the village was a tea stall.

It was called a tea stall, but it was really just a low table and two long benches set up under the eaves, with a black iron kettle sitting on the stove, white steam coming out of the spout and being blown around by the wind.

The stall owner, a man in his sixties with a dark face, sat on the threshold, holding a pipe with sparks flickering in it.

When he saw Shen Gui walking over in the rain, he tapped his pipe three times on the threshold, sparks flew out, and went out with a "hiss" on the wet ground.

"Are there still strangers this late?"

The old man stood up, his voice hoarse, "Come in and have a bowl of tea to warm yourself up, then leave before dark. The next village isn't far; go there to rest."

"I won't charge you, just drink and leave."

The old man picked up the iron kettle and poured a bowl of tea. The tea was very light in color, with a few broken leaves floating on it.

Shen Gui didn't stand on ceremony and sat down to slowly drink his tea.

The old man stood there, holding his pipe.

"Crackling and popping—"

The rain outside intensified, pounding loudly on the roof tiles, and the sky darkened instantly, as if someone had poured a basin of ink from the heavens.

The villagers extinguished the candles, and the oil lamp hanging under the eaves of the tea stall became the only light. The flame was pulled by the wind, swaying left and right, and the old man's shadow trembled on the earthen wall.

"How much is it for one night?" Shen Gui suddenly asked.

"Young man, this place is haunted. Outsiders who stay here will die."

"I'm here to find ghosts."

"..."

The old man didn't know what to say for a moment.

"Whoosh—" The night wind blows, carrying the scent of earth.

Shen Gui's hand, holding the teacup, froze in mid-air as he heard a voice.

The sound of a woman crying.

It didn't come from deep within the village lanes, but from the village entrance.

The direction of that old locust tree.

The crying sounded muffled, as if the person had buried their face in the pillow.

Shen Gui put down his bowl, stood up, and walked toward the sound of crying.

"Don't go." The old man's hand trembled. He wanted to pull Shen Gui back, but his fingers twitched. In the end, he only sighed softly, "What a terrible debt."

Shen Gui walked into the rain, where a white figure was kneeling under the old locust tree.

The tree canopy blocked most of the rain, and the rainwater formed a line in the open space, like a curtain of rain, making everything under the canopy appear hazy, including that white figure.

The sound also came from there. If an ordinary person saw this scene, they would probably have been scared away long ago.

As Shen Gui walked through the rain and into the canopy of trees, his view became clear.

At the base of the tree was a woman in white, her body soaking wet, revealing an extremely thin silhouette.

She knelt there, motionless, her long hair cascading down to cover her face, the ends of which dragged in the mud and water, covered with bits of grass and mud.

The crying stopped at that moment.

The figure raised its head, its hair parted in the middle to reveal half of its face.

His face was pale, his lips were cracked, his eyes were sunken, and his pupils moved very slowly within their sockets, without focus.

Then...

She limped over, not very fast, but her arms swung around very quickly.

It didn't seem like a vengeful ghost, but more like a wild beast that had been chained for too long and wanted to break free.

She opened her mouth and roared, blood trickling from between her white teeth. Her fingers curled into claws as she clawed at Shen Gui's calf, her fingernails filled with mud, the tips of her claws drawing several white lines in the rain.

Shen Gui didn't dodge; he raised his hand and slapped the woman squarely across the face.

"Bang!"

The woman in white was slapped several meters away, fell into the mud, slid another half a meter, and finally crashed into an old locust tree, causing countless raindrops to fall.

She stopped moving.

The rain continued to fall, landing on her body, on her face, and on her open mouth. Blood flowed from the corner of her mouth, mixing with the rainwater and spreading a pale red stain on her white clothes.

Shen Gui approached, stood down and looked down, not in a hurry.

After waiting for a while, the woman dug her fingers into the mud a couple of times, then her arms, and slowly straightened up, supporting herself on the ground.

She raised her head, her hair covering her face again, revealing only one eye. Perhaps due to pain, the madness in that eye faded somewhat, revealing what lay beneath.

It was a kind of desperate numbness, a look that Shen Gui was very familiar with.

The woman's hair was down, and she actually looked very young, at most in her early twenties, with beautiful features.

Rain lashed her face and into her eyes, but she didn't blink. She just forced a distorted smile onto her face, a smile that looked worse than crying.

Then, she said something completely nonsensical:

"Run! Run! Why did you stop running?"

"Don't hit me! Don't hit me!"

She kept repeating those two sentences.

Shen Gui squatted down to meet her gaze: "You're not a ghost."

The woman paused.

It's like someone pretending to be a ghost suddenly having their protective shell ripped off.

Shen Gui looked at the woman's right leg.

The skirt covered most of her skin, but there were obvious blunt force trauma marks on her exposed ankles. Her bones had been broken and hadn't been realigned, so they had grown crooked.

The woman followed Shen Gui's gaze to her calf, only then realizing that her leg was broken.

"My legs..."

She repeatedly rubbed the scar with her fingers, then suddenly pressed hard, her nails digging into the old scar, and blood gushed from her skin.

When the blood mixed with the rainwater completely stained her palms, the pain calmed her down.

Her eyes were empty, devoid of pain, anger, despair, or anything at all.

That's what it looks like to be trapped.

Trapped in one place, unable to escape, unable to leave, one can only rot away day after day, exhausting all hope and leaving only an empty shell.

Shen Gui was very familiar with this look...

In the years of seeking immortality, on the broken tiles of a dilapidated temple, in the moments of waking up in countless mornings.

Shen Gui was also trapped.

Trapped in immortality, trapped on an endless road, trapped in a world from which there is no escape.