There were no lights on in the basement, and the filming crew had not yet gotten their lighting into position, so Xing Yong could not actually see anything.
But he did not hesitate for even a second before choosing to trust Qin Shu. He switched his phone to speaker mode, shoved it into his pocket, turned around, and ran.
“Officer Xing Yong…?!”
Liang Ming Yue, who had been heading downstairs, was hoisted up one-handed like a sack and thrown over his shoulder. At the same time, the cameraman carrying the camera did not escape Xing Yong either.
With one person under each arm, he charged back upstairs and rapidly retreated toward the exit of the paper-effigy shop.
There was plenty of light by the entrance. The rest of the production crew was gathered outside, ready to rush forward and help at any moment. Xing Yong could already see the cigarette dangling from the assistant director’s mouth.
Almost there.
I’m about to get out. I’m about to get out of this damned paper-effigy shop.
Ignoring the crushing weight across his shoulders and back, Xing Yong gritted his teeth and picked up speed, practically leaping through the doorway.
Bang—!
An unknown impact exploded beneath him. A violent sensation of weightlessness struck at the same time as a sharp pain in his tailbone, and Xing Yong’s vision went black again and again.
The glaring production lights outside abruptly vanished.
His surroundings returned to a vast expanse of murky darkness.
From somewhere far away, Xing Yong could hear Liang Ming Yue’s voice. He could hear many people shouting his name. But when he lowered his head, he discovered that he was back in the basement, sitting on the cold staircase.
The phone in his pocket crackled noisily with static because of the weak signal.
Beside his foot lay one thin paper-effigy arm. Beneath the pale paper surface, the faint coloring of human skin seemed almost visible.
Cold sweat broke out across Xing Yong’s back. He immediately looked away.
Staggering to his feet again, he climbed the stairs and charged toward the light spilling through the paper-effigy shop’s entrance.
Bang—!
The exact same dizziness and pain swept through him again.
Xing Yong sucked in ragged breaths. Out of the corner of his eye, he could not stop himself from glancing down toward his feet.
The arm belonging to the paper effigy seemed to have moved closer than before. It was now almost touching the toe of his shoe.
Attached to the arm was a man’s right hand, its joints clearly defined. Flesh-colored fingernails had been rendered vividly in ink, giving the whole thing an unsettlingly plump, living quality.
A ghost wall.
This is definitely a ghost wall. And whatever’s dangerous down here is getting closer…
If he repeated the experience of escaping only to be thrown back here a few more times, that hand would undoubtedly creep closer and closer until it finally touched him.
Elio’s Notes: A “ghost wall” (鬼打墙) is a Chinese folk-supernatural phenomenon in which a ghost or other entity traps someone in a spatial loop, causing them to keep returning to the same place no matter which direction they travel.
If some unclean thing grabbed him while he was dizzy, disoriented, and completely unprepared, the fright could knock his soul loose from his body and cause consequences too terrible to predict.
The occult knowledge Xing Yong had frantically crammed over the past few days was giving him an extremely bad feeling.
He raised one hand to brace himself against the wall, drew a deep breath, and slowly edged upstairs. When he finally reached the shop entrance, he forced himself to suppress the overwhelming urge to run through it again and instead raised his phone.
“…Brother Yong? Brother Yong? Can you hear me? Why did you suddenly disappear from the livestream?”
“There’s a signal here. Thank god.” Xing Yong’s throat was tight. Gritting his teeth, he lowered his voice. “Qin Shu, I can hear you now. Can we switch to video?”
Qin Shu had already gotten dressed and was preparing to leave the house. Hearing that, he stopped and waved Yuanbao over from where it had been curled inside its nest.
“Sure, Brother Yong. I sent a request to switch to video. Just tap accept.”
The moment he finished speaking, Xing Yong’s face appeared on the screen.
Behind him was the interior of the paper-effigy shop that had just been shown on the livestream.
Xing Yong was leaning against the doorframe, his complexion terrible. From somewhere beyond the entrance, Liang Ming Yue’s voice could faintly be heard, forcibly maintaining its usual cheerfulness. Even Qin Shu could detect the unease beneath it.
That was understandable.
Everything had been proceeding according to an ordinary livestream filming schedule. Then, for no apparent reason, the guest had suddenly picked people up, carried them outside—and promptly disappeared right under the camera.
There was no Xing Yong anywhere inside the paper-effigy shop shown on the livestream.
At this point, Qin Shu was probably the only person who could see him.
So Qin Shu understood why Liang Ming Yue was afraid, but he genuinely had no time to explain anything to Jiangcheng Youth TV right now. First, he needed to figure out how to get Xing Yong out.
“Brother Yong, don’t panic and don’t look around. Enlarge my side of the screen and just look at my eyes.”
Qin Shu switched on the warm light in the entryway and slowly sat down, keeping his voice as steady as possible. “If I ask you to move the phone camera, whatever you do, don’t instinctively look in that direction yourself. Understand? For now, I can be your eyes.”
“Okay.”
“Do you have a flashlight?”
Xing Yong gave a quiet “Mm,” felt around the key ring at his waist, and detached a miniature flashlight, looping it over his hand.
Click!
He switched it on. The dim paper-effigy shop immediately brightened considerably, and the staircase leading underground became particularly conspicuous beneath the shifting light and shadows.
“Move a little closer. Let me look… Has anyone gone into this basement before?”
“No. And this isn’t some scripted television effect. This is a livestreaming accident. What the hell was that morning crew doing? How did they miss such an obvious hidden basement door?”
The subject immediately gave Xing Yong a headache. He paced back and forth, taking deep breaths. “I’ve suspected for a while that something was off. This shop is too small. There’s one bedroom, one storefront, and one bathroom. That doesn’t make sense…
“I interviewed the surrounding businesses too. Nobody has seen the owner receive wholesale shipments of paper funeral goods more than a few times. I knew it. There had to be another warehouse hidden somewhere, maybe even a workshop!”
“Okay, okay, calm down. No wonder nobody else ran into a ghost wall. Only you, Brother Yong, are suspicious by nature and keep stumbling into strange things wherever you go. Hahaha.”
Qin Shu tried to lighten the mood, but it did not seem to work.
Xing Yong looked at the screen with his face still tense, and somehow his expression became even more complicated than before.
Still, thankfully, this was only a ghost wall.
The fact that Xing Yong could maintain contact with him by phone meant he had not accidentally fallen into a ghost domain. The situation was not yet too terrible.
“If it’s just a little ghost messing with you, this should be easier. Let’s try the simplest method first. Brother Yong, close your eyes and turn around in place—three circles counterclockwise, then three clockwise. Repeat after me…”
Qin Shu took a deep breath, staring intently at the image on the screen.
“We bore each other no grievance in the past and hold no grudge today. The road beneath heaven is wide; you go your way and I’ll go mine.”
“…The road beneath heaven is wide; you go your way and I’ll go mine.”
Xing Yong obediently did as instructed. Slightly dizzy afterward, he raised his phone and aimed it toward the paper-effigy shop’s entrance.
“No good. The ghostly aura hasn’t dispersed. Whatever trapped you in there has latched onto you.” Qin Shu frowned. “My guess is it won’t let you leave until you help it solve some problem.”
“Tsk. If you’ve got guts, come out and fight me. Hiding around acting mysterious—what a fucking coward…”
Xing Yong clenched his teeth and cursed the empty air, but Qin Shu did not stop him.
A public official like Xing Yong had strong three spiritual fires and naturally carried a sharp, evil-repelling aura. Ordinary ghosts and supernatural creatures would actually feel extremely uncomfortable getting too close to someone like him.
Keeping up that fearless, aggressive momentum was safer for him.
Since the simplest form of negotiation had failed, they could only start with the details and investigate slowly.
Watching carefully through the video, Qin Shu directed Xing Yong in dismantling the shop’s feng shui formation completely while keeping up their conversation.
“Brother Yong, tell me about the owner first. Who is he? What bad things did he do to get all his fingers cut off?”
Xing Yong had put on gloves. Frowning, he smashed apart the beckoning-cat ornament.
The seemingly harmless hollow figurine was stuffed full of damp scraps of paper, some of them moldy. The sight made Xing Yong’s expression twist in disgust.
“No clues. The owner’s name is Zhang Cong, and he still hasn’t woken up. Huff… He probably dabbles in those heterodox arts too. Ever heard of him?”
“No. Brother Yong, I barely know anyone. I thought the police would have more leads than me.” Qin Shu frowned slightly. “In that case, we can only investigate those paper effigies in the basement.”
“Do I really have to touch that creepy thing? Hiss… What the hell is that?!”
Xing Yong had climbed onto the shelving to reach higher up. He had barely removed an incense burner hidden behind the cabinet when the face of a paper effigy on the highest shelf startled him.
It was a man’s face.
Square-jawed, deathly pale, with empty, unfocused eyes and blue-purple lips.
The bottom of the paper man’s head was attached with staples to a short section of paper neck.
The neck itself had been rendered in even richer detail. A vicious ring of blue-black finger marks circled it, crushing the blood vessels beneath the skin and leaving countless tiny hemorrhagic spots.
Every one of those stomach-turning details had been painted by Zhang Cong himself with an extremely fine brush, his watercolor pigments mixed and applied stroke by stroke…
A virtually perfect paper effigy.
If Xing Yong had not been observing it from extremely close range and could not faintly make out the traces of brushwork, he would never have believed that such a skilled craftsman existed—someone capable of creating a paper head this lifelike.
The horrific state of the man at the moment of death had been reproduced with far too much realism.
Just looking at it sent chills through him.
He raised his phone so Qin Shu could see as well and muttered through clenched teeth, “Jesus fucking Christ. This Zhang guy can make a paper effigy look exactly like a living person’s head. He’s clearly talented. Why the hell couldn’t he have made something else?”
Qin Shu was already used to disturbing sights. His expression did not change as he enlarged the image and thought rapidly.
“…Just the head? Why didn’t the forensic team take this away for examination? Doesn’t it look suspicious? Find out who this man is. Maybe that’ll give us a clue.”
“They didn’t even find it!” Xing Yong immediately snapped. “See? Even you think the paper effigy should have been taken away for investigation, right? They missed something this obvious. You tell me—is that normal? Back when I was in Jing City… Forget it. I’m not trying to insult Jiangcheng’s criminal-investigation standards. Tsk. Once I get out of here, I’m telling Captain Wu. We’re holding an emergency overnight review and going over this whole thing from top to bottom!”
Xing Yong only became angrier the longer he spoke. He rubbed his temples furiously, trying to calm himself down.
Qin Shu made a thoughtful sound and lowered his eyes toward Yuanbao.
He had a different idea.
“Brother Yong… is it possible that when the forensic team examined the scene, this head wasn’t actually sitting on top of the cabinet yet?”
“…”
Xing Yong abruptly fell silent.
Qin Shu lowered his voice.
“There’s only one arm in the basement, and a severed head hidden on the cabinet. Neither is complete. There may be other paper-effigy body parts hidden around the shop. Find as many as you can and put them together.”
Xing Yong nodded and carefully checked that his gloves were intact. Then, suppressing his discomfort, he delicately pinched the edge of the paper head between two fingers.
He strode to the basement stairs and threw the paper piece down as quickly as he could.
The pale face of the square-jawed man fluttered through the air before disappearing into the darkness below.
“All right. I’m starting the search. Bathroom first.”
When it came to finding hidden objects, Xing Yong, as a criminal detective, was far more talented than Qin Shu. His skill in that area was practically maxed out.
The instant he stepped into the bathroom, he noticed something wrong with the mirror above the sink. Feeling along its edges, he discovered a concealed latch and successfully opened an extremely thin compartment between the mirror and the storage cabinet.
The gap was only slightly thicker than the fabric of a pair of winter jeans.
There was hardly enough space to store anything…
Except a few sheets of paper.
Xing Yong spent quite a while digging them out with the blade of a folding knife.
The moment he unfolded them, his pupils contracted.
First came a pair of severed paper-effigy legs, folded together—the lower half of a man’s body.
Xing Yong could see messy individual leg hairs, the swollen and blood-seeping structure of a pelvis shattered by a comminuted fracture, and certain places minors really should not be looking at…
Every detail was disturbingly lifelike.
The corpse’s cold coloration, the stiff flesh, the bulging blood vessels—all had been reproduced with just the right amount of precision, enough to pass for the real thing.
Even knowing perfectly well that it was nothing more than a paper funeral craft, Xing Yong still felt a powerful wave of nausea.
The legs also appeared to have been deliberately crumpled into a miserable state before being casually folded in half and stuffed into the narrow compartment behind the bathroom mirror.
They had been hidden inside that damp, dark crack for some time, and they were in terrible condition.
“Both legs broken, imprisoned somewhere no one would easily investigate, with nowhere to escape…” Qin Shu murmured thoughtfully. “Brother Yong, what are the other sheets?”
“Cough. Let me see.”
Once again, Xing Yong pinched the severed paper legs between two fingers. Then he spread out the remaining pieces and aimed the camera at them.
Several sets of paper clothing.
All were completely flat and all were men’s clothes: an ordinary hoodie, an extremely common white button-up shirt, and a casual crew-neck T-shirt suitable for practically any age.
There was also a handwritten price list.
Qin Shu enlarged the small writing.
Across the top, it read:
“This shop offers wholesale, individual purchase, and custom-made paper clothing. Add three more items to your order to enjoy unrestricted recoloring, tailoring adjustments, accessory additions, and decorative customization—the ultimate VIP treatment.”
Scanning farther down, Qin Shu found that every listed price began in the tens of millions, followed by dizzying strings of zeros.
The visual effect was genuinely impressive.
Xing Yong narrowed his eyes. “There’s something wrong with Zhang Cong’s brain. What kind of customer base needs ‘ultimate VIP treatment’ for this stuff? Who’s paying him eighty million for a paper suit?”
“That’s dead man’s money. Eighty million in hell money.”
Realization dawned on Qin Shu, and he could not stop himself from laughing. “This shopkeeper must be making money off ghosts. But why is he selling everything so cheaply?”
“…Hell money? Then eighty million really is dirt cheap. These paper clothes are pretty well made, but those prices are pathetic. When my wife burns offerings for her ancestors, she burns hundreds of quadrillions at a time. The smoke pollution is terrible.”
Xing Yong muttered as he threw everything he was holding into the basement. Then he personally began dismantling the toilet tank.
After all, toilet tanks were old friends of criminals everywhere.
Whenever someone wanted to hide contraband, the water tank was always one of their favorite places.
“Brother Yong, you’re married?” Qin Shu immediately became interested.
“Mm. I never told you.”
Xing Yong’s movements paused. Remembering his encounter with Pei Zhao before the New Year, his face tightened slightly again, and he looked away unnaturally.
“You know about the chuma xian traditions up north, right? My wife is from the Chang family. She’s a snake yao.”
Elio’s Notes: Chuma xian (出马仙) refers to a Northeastern Chinese folk spirit-medium tradition in which animal or immortal spirits may work through human disciples. The Chang family is traditionally associated with serpent spirits.
Qin Shu naturally noticed his strange expression, but his guess had absolutely nothing to do with Pei Zhao.
Instead, he grew even more curious.
“Wait, wait. When you say your wife is a snake yao, do you mean you can invite a snake spirit to possess you… or is she literally a snake yao herself?”
“She’s literally a snake yao.”
“That is so cool!” Qin Shu exclaimed. “Brother Yong, you’re basically a modern-day Xu Xian!”
Elio’s Notes: Xu Xian is the human husband of the White Snake in the famous Chinese legend The Legend of the White Snake. Qin Shu is teasing Xing Yong for marrying a snake yao.
“What the hell are you talking about? You really…”
Xing Yong silently rubbed his forehead.
“Anyway, I don’t cultivate, but if my life is in danger, I can use a secret Chang-family method to invite my wife to possess me. Or I can call on one of her ancestors to save my life.”
“That’s amazing!”
“All right, all right. The point is, you don’t need to be excessively cautious with me. Don’t worry that I’m going to suddenly drop dead. Just tell me how to force my way out. Even if something genuinely dangerous happens, I have other ways to save my life.”
“I understand, Brother Yong. In that case, shall we be a little more aggressive?” Qin Shu considered it. “Get some glue and scissors ready in advance.”
At the word “scissors,” Xing Yong’s eyebrow twitched.
“They should have both somewhere in the shop. I’ll look later. What are we doing with them?”
Qin Shu rubbed his chin. “The basic plan hasn’t changed. We still need to find every fragment of this paper man. First glue him back together and restore him as closely as possible to his original shape. Then we’ll negotiate and find out what he wants.”
Xing Yong pulled half of a dripping wet left arm from the toilet tank. His expression stiffened slightly.
“And if negotiations fail…”
Qin Shu lowered his eyes and met the gaze of Yuanbao, which had wound itself around his fingertip.
His lips curved.
“If negotiations fail, cut him apart with the scissors, glue him back together, and negotiate again.”
The blood-colored centipede bobbed its head enthusiastically in agreement, swaying back and forth and displaying its brilliantly colored antennae and vicious mouthparts to the camera.
This was not Xing Yong’s first time seeing it.
Throughout his conversation with Qin Shu, that eerie flash of bloodred kept appearing at the edge of his vision.
Every time he saw it, the snake scale hidden over his heart grew hot.
The iridescent scale he had possessed before was gone. His wife had given him a new one to protect his heart.
And the heat radiating from that protective snake scale represented one fact Xing Yong could not ignore.
This insect was extremely dangerous.
It had killed more people than could possibly be counted.
Once blood debts accumulated beyond a certain point, they no longer weighed down the killer. Instead, they became a tangible manifestation of terrifying strength and oppressive presence.
This creature was several times more dangerous than anything inside the paper-effigy shop.
It was an outright calamity of an entity.
Xing Yong desperately wanted to say something.
To ask something.
But listening to Qin Shu’s completely casual, tranquil voice and seeing the almost gentle expression with which he stroked the centipede, all those questions rose to Xing Yong’s lips…
Then he swallowed them himself.
Qin Shu was a good kid.
But Xing Yong had not forgotten…
There had once been a period when he could not see Qin Shu’s face at all.
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