Chapter 5: Converging Paths and the Door They Missed
Act One: Cross-Checking in the Office
Monday afternoon, the corridor of National Taiwan University's Physics Department building was oppressively quiet. Late-autumn sunlight streamed through the window lattice, stretching the mottled shadows of the trees into long, crooked shapes. The faint smell of chalk dust and old paper drifted through the air.
The teaching assistant pushed open the heavy wooden door of the associate professor's office and led in a weary-looking, middle-aged man. “Brother Chen, this is Detective Old Li from the Nantou County Police Department. He says he has some case files related to the unsolved cases in Mistveil Village and wants to talk to you.”
Chen Po-han was looking down at semiconductor heat-conduction data on his computer screen. The algorithmic curves resembled a huge net, transforming abstract physical phenomena into precise digital coordinates. He slowly raised his head. His gaze, sharp as a blade, swept over the detective in a well-worn jacket, his face lined with exhaustion and red-veined eyes. His brow creased slightly, and his tone carried the characteristic detachment of a scholar.
“Officer, if you're here looking for a folklorist, a psychological counselor, or a rational explanation for some absurd legend, I'm afraid you've come to the wrong door. I only believe in experimental data and the laws of physics. I don't discuss ghosts and gods, and I don't waste time on nonsense.”
Old Li gave a bitter smile, not angered by the man's arrogance. He was far too accustomed to the condescending attitude of highly educated intellectuals. He slapped a badly worn kraft-paper envelope onto the desk, pulled out a chair, and sat down without waiting to be invited. His voice was low and hoarse.
“Professor Chen, I know you're a die-hard skeptic, and I know you're an authority in the physics world. But take a look at these things before you reach a conclusion.”
Several forensic autopsy reports, repeatedly marked with yellow highlighter, spilled from the envelope, along with several yellowed crime-scene photographs whose corners had curled up. Old Li tapped the data on a few of the reports with his rough fingers and said gravely, “Over the past few years, several unidentified bodies have been pulled from the edges of the mountain regions, abandoned reservoirs, and northern ports. The cause of death was very straightforward: every one of them had fallen into water while alive and died of drowning. But during autopsy, the forensic examiners found an extremely strange discrepancy—the mineral composition in their lungs and the distribution of diatoms were completely inconsistent with the geographical environments where their bodies were recovered. In other words, they drowned somewhere else and were dumped in the water afterward.”
Chen Po-han's indifferent eyes showed little reaction when he saw the reports. As a scholar who had seen countless sets of data, his first instinct was to look for a logic involving criminal psychology or human trafficking. But when Old Li turned to the next page and pointed at the victims' basic information, he uttered a single sentence.
“The strangest part is this... Based on the pubic symphysis and the degree of tooth wear, the forensic examiners estimated that all of these victims were physiologically around twenty-five years old. The margin of error was no more than three months.”
“Twenty-five?” Chen Po-han's long fingers paused. That specific number was like a needle, instantly piercing the supposedly impenetrable shield of his rational defenses. He snatched the report over and scanned the forensic data at incredible speed. Reason told him it might be a coincidence, the target of some rare criminal organization, or simply a statistical outlier. But when “twenty-five” collided with something he had heard from one of his students, an inexplicable sense of wrongness crawled slowly up his spine like a cold reptile.
“Get Zhang Wei and A-Xiang in here.” Chen Po-han suddenly spoke, issuing the order in a low voice to the teaching assistant outside the door.
Ten minutes later, Zhang Wei and A-Xiang pushed through the door, panting for breath. When they saw that a stern-faced detective was sitting in the office with Professor Chen, surprise and unease appeared on their faces.
The four of them gathered around the cramped desk and began an extremely brief but efficient exchange of information. Old Li described the “access blockade” the police had encountered in the household-registration system, as well as the villagers' almost pathological collective silence. Zhang Wei and A-Xiang brought out the fragmentary village-relocation document they had dug up in the library's underground archives, its wording vague and incomplete. Chen Po-han, meanwhile, compared these scattered clues with the dusty hand-drawn map buried deep in his own mind.
“Twenty-five...” Chen Po-han tapped his long fingers lightly against the desktop. The dull sound stood out sharply in the quiet office. “If this isn't collective hysteria and it isn't a coincidence, then it means someone is using a specific point in time to carry out some kind of act. We need to talk to Lin Yu-ching.”
“Right! Yu-ching took the weekend off and went back to her old home village in Nantou. I heard she'll be taking a bus back to Taipei this evening.” A-Xiang spoke immediately, anxiety showing in his voice.
“Good.” Chen Po-han made his decision without hesitation, his tone leaving no room for argument. “Tomorrow at six p.m., at Shiguang Café near the school. The four of us will talk to her together and clear up every discrepancy at once.”
Act Two: The Return at the Village Entrance and the Struggle Within
At the same time, deep in the mountains of Nantou, in Mistveil Village.
The thin morning fog remained heavy, like a piece of white cloth that could never be washed clean, clinging stubbornly to the scattered wooden houses. Lin Yu-ching stood at the entrance of the old wooden house, her packed suitcase beside her. Its surface was already scuffed, much like the state of her heart at that moment—battered and full of wounds.
Her father stood nearby, his face dark enough to drip water. The hand-rolled cigarette between his fingers glowed and dimmed, giving off the acrid smell of burned herbs and ash. Her mother stood on the steps, repeating her instructions in a sternness that brooked no resistance, almost threatening.
“Yu-ching, remember what the Grand Elder said. No matter what anyone asks you out there, you are not to reveal a single word about the village, the altar, or anything concerning twenty-five. The outside world is filthy. The gods are watching from the shadows. There are eyes over every person's head. Do you hear me?”
Lin Yu-ching lowered her head and gripped the straps of her backpack so tightly that her knuckles turned white. Her voice was dry, as if sandpaper were scraping against her throat. “I understand... Mom. I'm going back to school.”
As the bus rocked away from that suffocating mountainside, Lin Yu-ching leaned against the cold window and watched the lush green mountains and layers of dense fog rush backward outside. Yet she felt no joy at having escaped alive. The notebook stained with blood and ink in the ancestral hall, the Grand Elder's eyes, cold as dead branches, and the last text message her brother had sent while still alive pressed on her chest like a ten-thousand-pound boulder, leaving her almost unable to breathe.
Act Three: The Tug-of-War in the Dorm and the Door They Missed
Monday evening, the autumn wind in Taipei carried a chill through the fallen leaves on the National Taiwan University campus.
Lin Yu-ching had just dragged her exhausted suitcase back to the dorm and collapsed into a chair. Her phone screen suddenly lit up, its vibration jarringly loud in the quiet room. The screen showed a message from her upperclassman, Zhang Wei, asking whether she could spare some time to meet at Shiguang Café near the school. He wanted to talk to her about something involving Mistveil Village.
The moment she read the message, Lin Yu-ching's heart began pounding violently. Her mother's grim face at the village entrance and the Grand Elder's warning—“You are not to reveal a single word”—echoed in her ears like a curse. Terror surged through her like a rising tide, making her instinctively want to avoid it all.
With trembling fingers, she typed a message on the screen: “Sorry, I really am kind of tired today, Senior. Maybe another time.” Then she tapped Send.
After sending it, Lin Yu-ching slumped weakly into the chair and buried her face in her hands. Tears silently soaked into her palms.
In the dorm, her roommate Fen came over with a cup of warm water. Seeing her looking so lost and defenseless, as if she were facing an enemy at the gates, Fen couldn't help feeling sorry for her. “Yu-ching, what exactly has happened to you these past few days? Ever since you came back from the old home village, you've been walking around like you've lost your soul. Who just messaged you? If it's someone who can help you untangle what's weighing on your mind, why do you keep shutting yourself into a dead end?”
“I'm scared...” Lin Yu-ching's shoulders shook violently, her voice thick with barely restrained sobs. “What if telling them gets everyone killed? What if the legends from that village... are all true? What if the people around me get dragged into it too?”
Fen sighed and sat down beside her, patting her shoulder firmly. “Yu-ching, this is Taipei, a society governed by law—not some remote mountain forest ruled by feudal superstition! Whatever ghosts and monsters your old home village has, having a few college seniors and a professor willing to care about you and listen to you has to be better than carrying this ticking time bomb all by yourself, right?”
Just then, Yu-ching thought of her brother. Lin Yu-ching jerked her head up as if struck by lightning. Her brother's face, growing hazier in her memory, and the last text message he had sent from the brink of life and death intertwined in her mind—“Yu-ching, look. I'm totally fine!”
That's right. Her brother had ended up that way because he couldn't accept what was happening and had tried to fight alone. If she even rejected the classmates and professor who were reaching out to her now, she truly would have no hope left.
Driven by the fierce struggle within her, her fear of death, and her longing for her brother, a trace of despair flickered through Lin Yu-ching's eyes, followed by determination. She suddenly stood up and wiped away her tears. “I'm going!”
She grabbed her coat. Without even putting her suitcase away, and ignoring the autumn rain growing heavier outside, she dashed out of the dorm and sprinted toward Shiguang Café through the wind and rain.
Act Four: Outside the Café on a Rainy Night
At the same time, at 6:15 p.m., beside a corner wooden table at Shiguang Café.
Chen Po-han, Old Li, Zhang Wei, and A-Xiang sat in their seats. Several cups of Americano sat on the table, already completely cold, with a thin layer of oil floating on their surfaces. A heavy pressure born of prolonged waiting hung in the air.
“It’s been more than fifteen minutes.” A-Xiang checked his watch, his brow tightly furrowed and regret filling his voice. “Yu-ching just messaged to turn us down. Looks like she really isn't coming today.”
Zhang Wei sighed and turned his phone facedown on the table. “It's understandable. The mental pressure from the village is too much for a freshman like her. She can't carry it all by herself.”
Old Li returned from the outdoor seating area with an unlit cigarette between his lips and shook his head. “That village guards against outsiders like they're thieves. Even if that girl has a whole stomachful of things she wants to say, she probably doesn't have any choice. The old-timers in that village have brainwashed them more deeply than we imagined.”
Chen Po-han silently rose and picked up his suit jacket. His expression was stern, his voice returning to its usual coldness. “Since she didn't show, there's no point waiting blindly. As for you two...” He glanced at Zhang Wei and A-Xiang. “Go back to the lab and finish this week's data analysis report. Don't waste time on pointless speculation.”
The four men rose with their own heavy thoughts, pushed open the glass door, and stepped into the street, where darkness mingled with a light drizzle.
Yet less than three minutes after they left—
A taxi with its hazard lights flashing screeched to a stop beside a puddle in front of the café. Lin Yu-ching gasped for breath as she shoved open the door. Without bothering to open an umbrella, she let the cold autumn rain instantly soak her hair and clothes. Staggering, she rushed toward the café's entrance and shoved open the glass door.
What greeted her was the clerk's cold, formulaic voice.
“Sorry, we're almost closing for the day. Takeout only, okay?”
Lin Yu-ching froze and looked around. The empty corner table held only four coffee cups, faint stains still clinging to their rims.
Hope vanished in an instant beneath the cold blow of reality. Her mounting unease, the mental torment of the past several days, her isolation and helplessness, and her despair over her fate all collapsed at that moment. Lin Yu-ching could no longer support her own weight. She crouched helplessly beside a pillar under the café's covered walkway, buried her face in her knees, and shook violently as she sobbed soundlessly in the cold, rainy night.
Just as her tears broke through and the entire world seemed to collapse around her, a familiar male voice suddenly came from above—cold, yet carrying a hint of confusion and scrutiny.
“Lin, is that you?”
Lin Yu-ching abruptly raised her tear-streaked face.
Standing before her was Professor Chen Po-han, who had clearly left moments earlier but had returned after realizing that he had left his tablet wedged between the sofa cushions. Night and the dim yellow streetlights bathed him in their glow, stretching his silhouette long across the ground.