“Professor… I think we’re… lost.” Zhang Wei’s voice trembled.
At that moment, Chen Po-han, who had always been confident in science and reason, felt something absurd rise in his heart for the first time—something that no physical law could explain. They were walking in circles, and the mountain seemed to have come alive, like a colossal python slowly constricting them and dragging them deeper into its belly.
After more than three hours of blindly groping through the darkness and struggling in despair, the first ray of dawn finally pierced the dense fog above the mountain. Three battered figures appeared beside the black SUV belonging to National Taiwan University’s Physics Department.
Chen Po-han, Zhang Wei, and A-Xiang leaned on one another as they staggered to the vehicle and pulled open the doors. A-Xiang collapsed into the back seat, gasping for breath, his clothes soaked through with cold sweat and dew. Zhang Wei stared out the window in lingering terror at the mysterious mountain forest gradually disappearing into the morning mist. Chen Po-han sat in the driver’s seat without a word, his face frighteningly grim. He lowered his head to check the dashboard and discovered that more than half the fuel had somehow been used up, yet they hadn’t even managed to find the boundary marker for Wuyin Village.
“Professor, are we… still going to force our way in?” Zhang Wei asked hoarsely.
Chen Po-han didn’t answer right away. He slowly pressed down on the accelerator, turned the vehicle around, and drove awkwardly down the mountain road. He realized that for a few outsiders to search blindly through terrain this complicated, with its abnormal magnetic field and local clans watching from the shadows, would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. They might even throw their lives away for nothing.
“Back to Taipei.” Chen Po-han spat out the three words, his voice cold with frustration.
“Back to Taipei? But… what about Yu-ching?” A-Xiang asked anxiously.
“Precisely because Yu-ching is in Taipei, we have to go back and draw up a new plan.” Chen Po-han glanced at the mountains receding behind them in the rearview mirror. “Forcing our way in openly won’t work. We need someone who truly understands the village’s internal layout—someone who can even lead us past every layer of its defenses.”
Zhang Wei froze for a moment, then understood. “You mean… find Lin Yu-ching?”
“Exactly.” Chen Po-han’s voice was icy. “It’s dangerous. It would drag her back into the center of the storm. But so far, she’s the only key opening we have for breaking through that line of defense.”
By the time the SUV finally rumbled back to Taipei and reached the area around National Taiwan University, it was already three in the afternoon.
Chen Po-han parked at the mouth of an alley not far from the women’s dormitory and turned to instruct Zhang Wei and A-Xiang. “The two of you go contact Lin Yu-ching. Find out whether she’s willing to cooperate and lead us to the real hidden passage—or to a weakness in the village. Make sure she understands the risks. Don’t pressure her.”
Zhang Wei nodded, pushed open the door, and hurried toward the women’s dormitory.
Ten minutes later, Zhang Wei returned to the vehicle with a grave expression.
“Well? Did she agree?” A-Xiang asked urgently.
Zhang Wei shook his head, looking conflicted. “I… I didn’t end up telling her.”
Chen Po-han furrowed his brow. “Why not?”
“When I went upstairs, I happened to see Yu-ching sitting in the dorm’s common room.” Zhang Wei sighed, his voice full of sympathy. “She was curled up on the couch, her face as pale as paper, her eyes swollen and red. There was even gauze wrapped around her wrist. Her roommate Fen said Yu-ching had another nightmare last night. She even jolted awake in the middle of the night and nearly fell out of bed. Her mental state is already on the verge of collapse.”
Zhang Wei raised his head and looked at Chen Po-han. “Professor, if we ask her to take us back to that village full of terrifying memories, it would be no different from personally pushing her into the abyss of a mental breakdown. She’s only eighteen… Should we… really stop dragging her into this?”
A heavy silence settled over the vehicle.
Through the windshield, Chen Po-han stared at the tightly closed window of the women’s dormitory in the distance. Reason told him Zhang Wei was right—protecting witnesses and students was the most basic line they could not cross. But his instincts were screaming a warning: if they abandoned this only internal opening, the cause of his brother’s death, Old Li’s disappearance, and the childhood memories that had been deliberately erased from his own mind would all remain buried forever beneath Wuyin Village’s bloody fog.
Just then, the phone Chen Po-han had placed on the center console suddenly vibrated.
It was a text message from an unlisted number. The screen displayed only one photo.
In it, Lin Yu-ching was unmistakably sitting in the dorm’s common room, reading. Outside the window, the glass faintly reflected a face wearing a baseball cap, grinning coldly at the camera.
It was A-Hai!
Wuyin Village’s informant had actually followed Lin Yu-ching right to the window of her dormitory!
The autumn rain fell endlessly over Taipei, soaking National Taiwan University’s asphalt paths until they gleamed black and slick.
Warm yellow light spilled from the women’s dormitory common room through the glass windows and onto the sidewalk. Lin Yu-ching sat on a couch beside the window, clutching an original-language book tightly in both hands, but her hollow gaze had fallen on the curtain of rain outside. The faint bruise on her wrist was still barely visible—a physical manifestation of the fear inside her.
Just then, she caught sight of an extra figure in the window’s reflection.
A man in a dark gray hooded jacket and baseball cap stood silently outside the common-room window. The brim of his cap was pulled low, hiding most of his face, but his exposed eyes glittered with a cold, cat-and-mouse amusement.
It was A-Hai—the village informant who had threatened her in the Literature Department hallway that afternoon.
The book in Lin Yu-ching’s hands hit the floor with a sharp smack, and her heart clenched violently. She rose in terror and tried to back away, only to discover that her legs felt as heavy as lead. Outside the window, A-Hai slowly raised his right hand and made a crisp throat-slitting gesture toward her. Then he turned and melted into the shadows of the night.
“Ahhh!” Lin Yu-ching finally broke down and screamed. She crouched on the floor with both hands clasped over her head, trembling uncontrollably.
The other students in the common room jumped at the sudden scream and gathered around her. Her roommate Fen rushed over first and pulled her tightly into her arms. “Yu-ching! What’s wrong? What happened?”
Ten minutes later, in a dark alley outside campus.
Chen Po-han’s black SUV screeched to a halt at the roadside. The door flew open with a bang, and Chen Po-han, Zhang Wei, and A-Xiang strode out in a rush. They had just received an emergency call from Fen and learned about A-Hai’s brazen appearance outside the dormitory and his vicious threats against Lin Yu-ching.
“Professor, these people are completely out of control!” A-Xiang cursed angrily as he pulled up his jacket zipper. “They’re running a reign of terror in the mountains of Nantou, and now they’ve extended their claws into the National Taiwan University campus. They’ve driven Yu-ching to the verge of a breakdown!”
Chen Po-han said nothing. His face was frighteningly dark. In those usually calm eyes, filled with a scholar’s pride, a cold fury now burned. He strode into the lobby beneath the women’s dormitory and saw Lin Yu-ching, who had just been calmed down, her eyes swollen and red as peaches, along with Fen, whose face was full of concern.
“Student Lin.” Chen Po-han stopped in front of her. His voice remained low, but it carried a soothing strength unlike anything she had heard from him before. “Are you all right?”
Lin Yu-ching looked up, and tears spilled from her eyes again. She stared at the physics professor who had once mocked her with cold sarcasm but was now willing to do anything to protect her, and the defenses around her heart finally collapsed. She suddenly grabbed Chen Po-han’s sleeve, her voice breaking with sobs.
“Professor… I’m so scared… They’ve been watching me the whole time! Am I next? My brother is dead, my parents abandoned me—what am I supposed to do?”
Chen Po-han looked down at the eighteen-year-old girl who should have been enjoying her youth on a college campus but had instead been dragged into a century-old bloody fate. He slowly reached out and gave her shoulder a firm pat.
“Yu-ching, listen. You’re not alone. As long as I’m here, I won’t let anyone hurt you.”
At eleven that night, the Physics Department office door was locked from the inside.
The curtains were drawn tight, and only one desk lamp was on. Chen Po-han, Zhang Wei, A-Xiang, Lin Yu-ching, and Fen, who had hurried over because she couldn’t bear to leave her alone, sat around the desk.
The air was as heavy as molten lead.
Chen Po-han pushed several maps and detection instruments to the center of the desk and looked straight at Lin Yu-ching. His tone was utterly serious. “Yu-ching, we originally planned to rely on our own strength and scientific instruments to uncover Wuyin Village’s secrets. But as you’ve seen, their informants are everywhere. We’re exposed, while she’s hidden. If we keep defending blindly, we’ll only become more helpless.”
He paused, then posed the unbearably heavy question they could no longer avoid.
“Old Li’s map was wrong, and the sentries—both visible and hidden—outside are impossible to guard against. Right now, the only person who can lead us to the real hidden mountain trail that the villagers don’t know about, and even help us evade every layer of their defenses… is you.”
The moment he said it, the temperature in the office seemed to drop several degrees.
Zhang Wei sucked in a breath and immediately objected. “Professor! Have you lost your mind? Yu-ching barely escaped that hellhole, and now you want to take her back? To her, that place is practically hell on earth!”
A-Xiang hurriedly nodded in agreement. “Exactly, Professor. It’s too dangerous. If the people in the village discover that she’s leading us, they’ll kill her!”
Lin Yu-ching sat there without speaking. Her body trembled faintly, and her eyes remained fixed on the bloodstained notebook her brother had left behind.
A deathly silence filled the office. Everyone could hear one another’s heavy breathing.
After nearly a full minute, Lin Yu-ching slowly raised her head. Her face, pale as paper moments earlier, now held a grim determination utterly out of keeping with her age—almost the look of someone who had already given up on everything.
She extended her slender fingers and gently traced the handwriting in her brother’s notebook. Her voice was as soft as a sigh, yet it carried an unshakable strength.
“You don’t need to worry about me… Actually, from the day my brother died in the Danshui River, I was already dead.”
Lin Yu-ching lifted her eyes and stared fiercely at Chen Po-han. “Professor, I’ll take you there. I’ll lead you to the old hunting trail known only to the core members of my family. I’m going back… I’m going to get justice for my brother. I’m going to tear apart the mask of the demon hiding in those mountains!”
Seeing the flames burning in Lin Yu-ching’s eyes, Chen Po-han felt something slam hard against his heart. He knew that once they set foot on this road, there would be no turning back.
“All right.” Chen Po-han drew a deep breath and announced in a low voice, “We’ll rest for twelve hours. Tomorrow at noon, everyone moves out. Destination—Wuyin Village.”
Those few brief, resolute words did not ease the tension in the office. The pressure, already stretched to the breaking point, seemed instead to be crushed beneath a massive weight.
Only the faint electrical hum of the desk lamp and the patter of rain against the window remained in the air. In that brief silence, everyone in the office silently chewed over the bloody fate that awaited them.
Zhang Wei clenched his fists, his knuckles whitening from the force. He was afraid, but whenever he thought of the horrifying bruise on Yu-ching’s wrist and the image of her brother’s gruesome death, the hot blood and indignation of a college student overwhelmed his fear. He secretly swore that this time, no matter what happened, he would protect Yu-ching. He would never let that murderous village hurt anyone else.
A-Xiang instinctively pushed up his glasses, his gaze falling on the cold detection instruments spread across the large table. As a science student, he had always been accustomed to measuring the world with data and circuit diagrams. But now, when he imagined tomorrow’s destination—a remote mountain filled with man-made assassinations and bizarre legends, a place capable of warping even maps—his stomach churned. He regretted his curiosity at the beginning, but there was no turning back now. Since he had already climbed aboard this ship, he could only place all his hopes in the terrifyingly calm professor before him.
Fen looked worriedly at Yu-ching beside her. She gently wrapped an arm around Yu-ching’s trembling shoulders, her heart filled with reluctance and resistance. She wanted so badly to stop Yu-ching from taking this risk, but she also knew that only the person who tied the knot could untie it. As long as Wuyin Village remained unexposed, a blade that could fall at any moment would forever hang over Yu-ching’s head. All she could do was pray silently that everyone who left tomorrow would return safely.
As the person at the center of the storm, Lin Yu-ching was strangely calm at that moment. She lowered her head and stared at her slightly trembling hands, her mind weaving together the last smile on her brother’s face before he disappeared and the image of his cold corpse floating in the water. The fear was still there, but beneath it burned a searing flame called vengeance and survival. She was no longer the freshman who could only run away. She was about to embark on a path of judgment leading straight to the source of her fate.
As for Chen Po-han, standing at the front of the group, his eyes were deep as a pool. As a committed atheist, he still armed himself with the framework of matter and reason, firmly convinced that this was nothing more than a criminal deception woven from feudal clans, chronic toxins, and meticulously planned human assassinations. Yet deep within the defenses of his rational mind, a strange sensation had begun to quietly take root—one he himself had never noticed. Whenever he stared at the endless rain outside the window, a dull ache would stir in his chest, as though somewhere in those distant mountains shrouded in fog, an invisible bloodline were calling out across the distance, answering the childhood sealed away inside him.
The twelve-hour countdown had begun.