Chapter 1: Riverside and Outskirts (1)

My mouth and nose were dry and parched, and an itchy, scratchy sensation irritated my sinuses. The air was thick with the damp scent of earth.

But there was no trace of alcohol. The fiery bite of baijiu that should’ve lingered on my tongue was gone.

“…Hmm?”

Where… is this?

My whole body ached.

Not the sharp pain of an injury, but the deep, paralyzing soreness of overworked muscles. My head was foggy, nauseated—like I’d ridden for miles in a stifling minibus on a bumpy mountain road. 

I wanted to open my eyes, but my eyelids felt unbearably heavy. The only thing I could really feel anymore was touch.

My fingers brushed against something cool, wet, and soft—mud. Damp earth. My other hand hit a hard stone. My skin registered the cold, and I realized there was sparse, scattered grass underneath me, flattened by my weight. When I strained to listen, I could just make out the sound of running water. It trickled and splashed—quiet, but hardly pleasant.

“Ugh… mm…”

Some strength was returning to my limbs. The soreness had dulled slightly. 

I pushed myself up into a pitiful all-fours posture and forced my eyes open. Everything was just a white blur at first, but the foggy vision quickly cleared. I rubbed my eyes, and at last the world around me began to take shape.

It was a river. The water was crisp and clean, but it looked icy cold. Judging by the width of the riverbed, it wasn’t very deep or wide. On both banks, moist soil mixed with stones and weeds stretched outward. 

I must’ve been lying here unconscious this whole time.

I looked down at my clothes—gray jacket, black short-sleeve shirt, dark blue jeans, worn gray sneakers. The same outfit I was wearing earlier, when I went out for dinner with my relatives.

“Where… is this…”

I… that’s right, I was just having dinner with my relatives. Why dinner? Because we were celebrating… celebrating my gaokao exam.

Ah, I remember now…

I’m Zhou Yuhong, eighteen years old. A freshly graduated student who just got his college entrance exam results. I did pretty well. The relatives who had always looked after my younger sister and me since we were little had invited us out for a meal. And just as I was mentally preparing myself to get drunk and down a full glass of baijiu—

I—

My head!

“Ugh!”

And then… nothing.

When I came to, I was already here.

I stood up and carefully checked myself. 

Thankfully, there were no visible injuries. I walked over to the river, looking into the clear water to check my reflection.

It was still my own familiar face. Longish black hair. Lean but reasonably healthy build. Pale skin. Regular-looking features. My sister once said I was handsome, but that was just sisterly bias… Wait.

My sister?

“That’s right… Yujing? Yujing?! Where are you?! Zhou Yujing!”

I shouted her name, scanning my surroundings, but there was no sign of her. 

The visibility wasn’t great. There was a faint mist that seemed to smother the sound, swallowing it whole not far from where it left my lips.

If I squinted into the distance… I could just make out a murky grayness. Not the usual gray of overcast skies, but something denser, murkier.

“Yujing! Are you not here?”

It seemed like I was the only one who’d ended up in this strange, inexplicable place.

What the hell is this place?

My throat suddenly felt dry, and I realized my body was filthy. My face must’ve been, too. After all, I’d been lying on the ground for who knows how long.

I looked over at the river.

Not too wide, not too deep, and the water was crystal clear. I could see the black stones lining the riverbed with perfect clarity.

“Well, at the very least…”

The water was flowing. It wasn’t stagnant, so there shouldn’t be any pro—

Wait…

Just as my hand was about to touch the surface, I hesitated.

I’m a cautious person.

My sister always said I was neurotic, but… in unfamiliar environments, a little caution never hurts, right?

This water…

Is it really safe to drink?

Safe to even touch?

I looked once more at the riverbank where I had woken up.

It was scattered with rough, black stones and patches of slightly moist soil, dotted with sparse blades of grass.

Wait a minute.

This is a riverbank, right?

There’s a steady source of water here. Even if sunlight’s a bit lacking, you’d still expect some plants to be thriving. Maybe flowers, bushes, trees—at least some moss?

But there was no moss. The grass that did grow was a sickly grayish yellow, like it had long since withered. 

I peered into the river itself—no algae at all. It wasn’t just a case of “clean water has no fish.”

Raising my gaze a bit, I scanned the area around the riverbank. No way—there were almost no trees. A few scraggly ones stood nearby, but they looked like they’d been dead for years—no leaves, brittle gray-black branches.

And from the start, I hadn’t seen a single animal.

Not one.

Despite the running water, everything along the river seemed lifeless and dead. Not even a hint of vitality.

Even in autumn, it shouldn’t be like this. Could this be midwinter? But no. While it was a little chilly, it wasn’t nearly cold enough to be winter.

“…”

I took a deep breath, pulled my hand back, and stepped away from the river.

Best not to touch that water.

It might be poisonous or harbor some kind of pathogen.

Better to be careful. 

But where do I go from here?

I climbed onto a slightly higher black rock by the bank and tried to get a better view. On my side of the river, it was all wasteland—just a few scattered trees, and beyond that, jagged, irregular boulders blocking the view. Across the river, I could see what looked like a large forest, but the trees there were just as dead. Tracing the river upstream through the mist, I could vaguely make out something… man-made?

A village by the water?

There might be people there. 

I had to find help and figure out what the hell had happened to me.

My memory cut out during dinner. When I came to, I was here. If this were a kidnapping, why would the culprits dump me in the middle of nowhere? If this were a dream, it was far too real. If this were a prank show, the budget was absurd.

I checked the mechanical watch on my wrist. It was my father’s old keepsake. 3 p.m. I pulled out my phone—an old model—but thankfully, it wasn’t broken and still had over half its battery left.

“Signal… Of course. Nothing.”

No signal. No data. Just to be sure, I tried calling every emergency number I could think of—110, 119, 120, 122, 999… Nothing worked.

Looks like calling for help isn’t an option.

No choice, then.

I took a deep breath, climbed down the rock, and started heading upstream along the river.

***

Too quiet.

Far too quiet.

Aside from the soft trickle of the river, there wasn’t a sound. No birds, no insects. The unnatural silence pressed in on my mind. I almost felt the urge to open my phone and play music just to break it.

If only I could run into someone—huh?

A patch of soft mud ahead caught my eye.

There were footprints on it.

I rushed over to examine them. They were definitely shoe prints, and from the tread pattern, they looked like ordinary sneakers.

Someone else had been here.

My spirits lifted at once, and I began to follow the tracks. Whoever left them had carefully avoided the rocky patches and stuck to softer ground, making the trail easy to follow.

“…”

A sudden sense of unease gripped me.

The footprints… all pointed toward the river.

They ended right at the water’s edge.

So did I.

There were two long parallel indentations in the damp soil—someone had knelt here. What were they doing? Clearly… drinking from the river.

The unease twisted deeper.

Then came more footprints—the person stood up and began walking along the riverbank, just as I had. But the trail didn’t go far before it stopped completely. The soil ahead was disturbed—footprints, handprints, drag marks. It looked like…

Yes. The person collapsed, thrashed about, and then—

And then nothing.

No more prints. The trail just ended.

A surge of dread and sorrow welled up inside me, along with a shiver of relief.

If I had drunk from that river when I first woke up, I might’ve ended up just like him.

Just like…?

Wait.

Where’s the body?

If he drank poisoned water and died right there, where did his corpse go? There were no signs of dragging, so it wasn’t hauled off by some animal. It was like he vanished into thin air.

A cold chill shot down my spine. 

A body vanishing into nothing? In a horror novel, that’d be cliché. In real life… It’s terrifying.

And just then, as I glanced back at the river.

I really did jump in fright.

A corpse.

A body, drifting slowly downstream toward me.

I hadn’t seen a dead body since my parents died in an accident when I was twelve. And certainly not one this hideous.

I took a deep breath, resisting the urge to bolt, and I stepped closer to the water. The current was slow, the body drifting lazily, allowing me a clear look at the details, though I regretted it immediately.

The skin was pale, bloated, rotting—like something out of a horror film.

But I was certain this wasn’t the same person I had just tracked.

No, I couldn’t even confirm if this was human.

The corpse wore a coarse robe that looked like it had been soaking for ages. What little skin I could see on the exposed limbs was covered in ulcers, scabs, and peeling wounds—almost like clusters of tiny barnacles. The face was worse: the upper half completely decomposed, the eyes unrecognizable. From the lower half, a crooked set of yellow teeth jutted out through a twisted mouth.

Could this have been a local?

Looking like this?

If this wasn’t some kind of congenital deformity, then it must’ve been a terminal disease—at the very least, a horrifying skin condition.

The corpse floated on, slowly vanishing downstream, and I turned my head away, unable to bear looking any longer.

Oh my god.

What kind of place…

What kind of people… brought me here?