Chapter Twenty-Four: The Strange Incident in Dongmen Village

I stared at the photo in the bus driver's hand for a long time, unable to believe that Wang Feiyang would actually appear in it.

It was an old black-and-white photograph, depicting a reservoir with a vast bamboo grove beside it. At the center of the reservoir, Wang Feiyang's face twisted in agony, emerged from the water. He raised both hands high above his head, mouth full of water as if struggling desperately to reach the surface, while below, a hand seemed to clutch his leg, dragging him relentlessly downward.

At first, I wondered if this was just a coincidence. After all, the photo looked at least a decade or two old; perhaps the person in the reservoir simply resembled Wang Feiyang. But upon closer inspection, I realized it was no coincidence—the man in the photograph was undoubtedly Wang Feiyang, as he wore the very same black hoodie that he’d been wearing these past few days.

I gazed at the bus driver in terror, hoping he could explain what on earth was happening.

Without a word, he grabbed my arm and hurried me out the door, quickly descending the stairs to his bus, and then drove us back to White Street.

Neither of us spoke a word on the ride back. I found myself at a loss for words, completely adrift as the situation spiraled ever further out of control.

Everything seemed to be growing more complicated. I almost wished that the female ghost really was Yang Li, the woman my grandfather and his friends had buried alive all those years ago. If that were the case, we would simply unearth her corpse, perform the necessary rites to help her spirit find peace, and leave the rest to fate.

But now I knew that the ghost was not Yang Li at all. The real Yang Li had also been murdered by this ghost, and Wang Feiyang had inexplicably ended up trapped in that photograph. Clutching at my hair, I felt as if the sky were about to collapse around me.

"What does she really want?" I muttered in anguish, my mind on the verge of shattering. "She’s not Yang Li—who is she? Why is she taking everyone I care about, one by one?"

The bus driver watched my suffering in silence, then handed me a cigarette and told me to calm down. Now, more than ever, I must not lose my sanity.

Red-eyed, I stared at him and said, "Why do I get the feeling you know everything that’s going on behind the scenes? What else do you know? Tell me."

"When the time comes for you to know, you’ll know," he replied.

With that, the bus driver suddenly floored the accelerator, and before long, we were back at the coffin shop.

Once inside, he immediately took out the black-and-white photo and asked if I recognized the reservoir in it.

I stared at the image for a long time, but could make nothing of it. In the end, I shook my head and said I had never seen that place before.

He took a deep breath. "Since that female ghost left us this clue, she clearly wants us to go there. If we want to save Wang Feiyang, this photo is our only lead."

"But what can we do with just a photo? We don’t even know where that reservoir is."

The bus driver stared at the photograph for a long time. Suddenly, his expression changed, as if he had discovered something horrifying.

I anxiously asked what he’d found. He was silent for a long while, then murmured, "It’s the East Gate Reservoir."

"East Gate Reservoir?" I repeated, bewildered. "Where is that?"

He seemed lost in a daze, muttering over and over that it was impossible. No matter how I pressed him, he wouldn’t answer until finally, he slapped the photo onto the Eight Immortals Table, took a deep breath, and said, "I never thought that woman would use Wang Feiyang to lure us to East Gate Village. Could it be that the strange incident in East Gate Village twenty years ago is connected to her?"

"Strange incident in East Gate Village?" I looked at him, puzzled. "What terrible thing happened there twenty years ago?"

The bus driver fell silent for a few seconds, his expression growing tense, as if he were reliving a nightmare.

East Gate Village—a settlement of eighty-nine households and three hundred twenty-four people. Twenty years ago, on a single night, all three hundred twenty-four villagers perished in the East Gate Reservoir. Not one survived.

That night, everything had seemed normal. In the villagers’ homes, half-eaten meals were left on tables, half-folded laundry on beds, and the old Panda-brand black-and-white televisions were still playing the wildly popular "Legend of the White Snake." Every sign suggested that the villagers had left their homes in haste, expecting to return soon—they hadn’t even turned off their TVs or cleared away their dishes.

But after they left that night, they never returned. All three hundred twenty-four souls—men holding women’s hands, women cradling children, elders leaning on canes—marched like the bewitched onto the dam of the East Gate Reservoir and jumped in, one after another. By dawn, the reservoir was filled with countless grotesque, floating corpses, packed so tightly it resembled a pond of writhing fish.

Hearing this, my eyes nearly popped from their sockets. "How could that be possible? How could an entire village jump into a reservoir and drown in a single night?"

"Who knows?" The bus driver sighed, the tension on his face gradually melting into calm once more.

"How far is East Gate Village from here?" I asked.

"About forty kilometers," he replied.

I paused, then asked in confusion, "Forty kilometers? That must still be within our county, right? So why have I never heard a single story about this village growing up, if something so huge happened there twenty years ago?"

He chuckled. "Over three hundred people died. If word got out, it would have shocked the whole world. Why do you think you never heard of East Gate Village?"

The answer dawned on me. "The authorities must have completely sealed off the news." Then, suspicious, I asked, "If the news was suppressed, how do you know what happened in East Gate Village twenty years ago?"

The bus driver deliberately avoided my question, instead musing that the ghost had left us this photo to lure us to East Gate Village. Then he looked at me with a strange expression and said, "Wu Dao, haven’t you always wanted to know the truth? Maybe the answers you seek are in East Gate Village."

My eyes lit up. "You’re not lying to me, are you?"

He nodded. "At the very least, you’ll find out who that female ghost really is. But this trip will be extremely dangerous. You could lose your life at any moment. Are you sure you want to go?"

I nodded firmly, resigned yet resolute. "Almost all my friends and family are dead or gone. Whatever that ghost wants, the worst she can do is take my life. Wang Feiyang is in her hands now. I have to save him, no matter what."

Hearing this, a flicker of approval passed over the bus driver’s face. He muttered that if we were really going, we’d better prepare, then turned to me with an unexpected question: "Wu Dao, do you want to learn Daoist arts?"

My heart skipped a beat, and I instinctively nodded.

"Then let me teach you the Palm Thunder Talisman technique. Watch closely."

He stood up abruptly, bit open the tip of his left middle finger, and swiftly used the dripping blood to draw a Daoist talisman on his right palm. As he drew, he chanted rapidly, "Heaven is round, earth is square, nine talismans of law, thunder and fire in the palm, ten thousand spirits suppressed—by the urgent decree, I command!"

As soon as he finished, he turned and struck the air with his palm. A sharp popping sound rang out, like a firecracker, followed by a piercing shriek echoing from nowhere. It was as if he had struck something invisible—a shadowy figure flew out from the main hall of the coffin shop and vanished out the door.