Dusk spilled like overturned ink, creeping along the mountain ridges toward Huangjue Village. As Feng stepped into the village under the last sliver of daylight, the sour tang of decaying leaves thickened into an invisible wall. He pushed aside a hanging locust branch, its faded paper coins rustling—each coin bore a crudely cut "囍" character at its center, edges speckled with mold.
His hiking boot crunched over bluestone slabs. Something brittle shattered beneath his sole. Feng crouched, brushing aside half-rotted leaves to reveal a desiccated cicada wedged in a crevice. Its wings shimmered with an uncanny blue-gold hue. When he prodded the carcass with his trekking pole, a clump of moldy glutinous rice spilled from its abdomen.
Feng’s fingers hovered three inches above the insect. Years ago, in a Guizhou cave expedition, a guide had pointed at golden beetles in rock fissures: "Raw rice in the mouth stops corpse transformation; insect carcasses stuffed with cooked rice in coffin seams are tolls for underworld officials—but these bugs must feast on corpse oil first."
"Funeral Cicada." He snapped a close-up with his phone. The flash illuminated the path’s end—the Zhang ancestral hall warped into jagged silhouettes by twilight, its upturned eaves crowned by a crow clutching a frayed red cord in its beak.
The air grew heavier near the hall. Feng halted three meters from the entrance, zooming his camera on the doorframe: Faded spring couplets retained half a phrase—"fated union forged at dawn"—while torn remnants exposed wood grain resembling claw marks. A yellow talisman curled at the edges, its vermillion incantations faded to dried-blood brown.
"Not a Ming-Qing era charm." He pulled out a well-worn field guide. The digital scan froze, forcing him to consult the physical copy. "Command structure resembles Chenzhou talismans from western Hunan, but the 'sha' character has an extra stroke..." Shutter clicks startled the eaves’ crow. A half-woven love knot, threads stained crimson, fluttered to his feet.
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At the west wall, Feng’s pole sank into loose soil. Brushing aside weeds, he found stones stacked in patterned layers, moss etching concentric rings. "Someone regularly scaled this wall at least two decades ago." Removing his tactical glove, he traced cracks caked with dried mud—then jerked back as icy numbness shot through his fingers, like touching freezer-burned meat.
Over the wall, paper coins on the locust tree snapped in unison. As Feng’s back touched the inner wall, a shadow lunged from leaf piles. He swung his pole but struck only falling joss paper—yellow funeral sheets meticulously edged with lace-like cuts.
The backyard lay in deeper ruin. A derelict well pierced through weeds, its mossy rim scarred by chaotic footprints. Feng aimed his flashlight. As the beam swept the shaft, clumps of moss peeled away, exposing layered scratches—ancient ones blackened by oxidation, fresh ones gleaming in raw bluestone.
His pole scraped the well’s edge, dislodging crimson crystals. It reminded him of Guangxi’s abandoned "blood brine pools," where women executed in pig cages left salt crusts rusted iron-red.
The light wavered. Fabric rustled from the well’s depths. A scarlet cloth undulated in black water. Feng zoomed his lens. Ripples distorted the screen’s crimson blur.
"The Zhangs’ spirit marriage..." He pulled up county records. The cursor hovered on a 1918 entry: "7th patriarch Zhang Qizong wed spirit bride Lin, interred together on the back hill." A scanned wedding certificate showed ink blots obscuring the bride’s birth chart.
Mucus oozed from the well’s moss. Feng stepped back, his heel hitting a rotten wooden box with a copper key. As he bent closer, locust branches trembled windlessly. Paper coins shredded, their "囍" characters dissolving into a storm of fragments raining into the abyss.