Que Cha was sleeping when, in the middle of the night, she felt the latex mattress beside her rise slightly.
Jiang Baichuan was getting up.
Que Cha didn’t move, her heart simmering with resentment—she had argued with Jiang Baichuan before bed and vowed not to give him a single pleasant look for the next two days.
But her ears betrayed her, pricking up to catch every sound of Jiang Baichuan’s movements: he dragged a chair to the desk, turned on the computer, put on headphones, and the light in the room shifted as he started watching videos again.
Que Cha gritted her teeth in frustration. Here she was, a beautiful woman in the prime of her life, staying by the side of a middle-aged man, and he didn’t even appreciate it. He had promised to take her around Xi’an for a good time, but instead, he was distracted every day, obsessing over Banya’s trivial matters.
Damn man. Did he really think she’d cling to his old tree forever? It wasn’t like she had any formal ties to him—there were plenty of strong, handsome men around. She could switch to anyone she wanted.
Lao Dao wasn’t bad—strong and sturdy, definitely more enduring than that Jiang guy. Shan Qiang wasn’t as good-looking, but he was young, barely in his twenties, a fresh sprout. Xing Shen…
At the thought of Xing Shen, her mind wandered.
Que Cha first met Xing Shen in Banya.
It had been raining that day. Hua Saozi led her to the newly cleaned small building—she hadn’t expected much from a village lodging, so she was pleasantly surprised.
For a rural place, it was impressively clean and bright.
She opened the window to take in the mountain scenery.
The rain wasn’t heavy.
Near the mountains, when the rain was light, mist would rise—everything was hazy, even Banya below seemed veiled, like a half-hidden beauty.
A man walked past below, holding an umbrella.
That was Xing Shen.
At first, Que Cha didn’t pay him much attention, only thinking the scene resembled an ink painting, where man and scenery complemented each other, creating an oddly beautiful atmosphere. Then Hua Saozi leaned in and told her, “That’s Xing Shen. Such a striking figure, but what a shame—he’s blind.”
Blind?
Que Cha stared at Xing Shen.
A blind man, she thought. How did he get around without assistance? No cane, no guide dog, yet he moved with far more grace than most, even exuding a quiet, transcendent air—like “a lone figure braving the misty rain.”
……
Que Cha rolled over sullenly.
In the past, she had always complained about Banya being shabby and lifeless, “enough to drive a person mad with boredom,” and had pestered Jiang Baichuan until he finally took her back to the bustling world she craved.
But now, thinking back, Banya wasn’t without its merits.
At least, she had met Xing Shen there, hadn’t she?
Jiang Baichuan was completely oblivious to Que Cha’s little thoughts. These days, his mind was wholly consumed by the three “people” secretly imprisoned in Banya.
He opened a folder filled with video clips—this was his requirement: every interaction and conversation with these three had to be recorded.
His cursor hovered over the videos, each labeled with dates, names, and codes, before finally selecting one.
The video opened. The first few seconds were dark and shaky. Yan Tuo struggled to sit upright in his chair, then turned his head and spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva.
His face and neck were marked with cuts and bruises, his cheeks slightly sunken from days of forced starvation and dehydration. Under the harsh light, the shadows on his face looked especially deep.The person asking the questions was Jiang Baichuan, though he remained off-camera.
Jiang Baichuan: "How did you come across Gou Ya?"
Yan Tuo stared straight into the lens, the corners of his mouth twitching as if trying to smile, but he was too weak from hunger to manage it. "Found him. I own a company that deals in traditional Chinese medicinal herbs, including funding direct sourcing—paying people to go to remote areas to search for wild herbs. Cultivated ones just aren’t the same."
At this point, he licked his lips.
A hand entered the frame, splashing a small bottle cap’s worth of water onto Yan Tuo’s face. He tilted his head back desperately, sticking out his tongue to lap up every drop he could reach.
The meager water did little to relieve him. If anything, it made him even hungrier—so hungry his body trembled slightly.
"Once, during a direct sourcing trip into the mountains, I tagged along since I had nothing better to do. That’s when I found Gou Ya. At first, I thought he was just lost and wanted to help him get home. But when I asked for his name or address, he couldn’t answer. So I took him with me before the sourcing trip ended."
Jiang Baichuan: "And then?"
"Then I realized there were things about him that weren’t quite human—or rather, that surpassed humans. In business, we sometimes deal in shady matters that require people willing to cross lines. Someone like Gou Ya, with no identity or records, was perfect."
Jiang Baichuan: "Where exactly did you find him?"
Yan Tuo lifted his head, licking his parched lips again. "Give me a regional map. I’ll point it out to you."
Here, Jiang Baichuan hit pause, zooming in on Yan Tuo’s face—closer and closer until the pixels blurred, his eyes barely recognizable as eyes.
He didn’t believe Yan Tuo was telling the truth, but he had no way to refute it. No matter how much they beat or tortured him, Yan Tuo stuck stubbornly to the same story.
Jiang Baichuan frowned deeply. After a long pause, he opened the second video.
This time, the subject was Sun Zhou.
Clad only in a pair of underwear, a cloth stuffed in his mouth, his limbs bound with bandages in a spread-eagle position, he was strapped to a metal bed. His eyes were wide with terror, his body thrashing violently, veins bulging on his forehead from the strain.
Hua Saozi entered the frame, holding a bundle of sticks about three inches long and as thick as a lotus root. The tips had been dipped in oil from a jar, then set aflame from an oil lamp beside her. With a whoosh, the sticks erupted in a blaze of rust-green-tinged orange flames, stretching nearly two hand spans long.
She brought the fire close to Sun Zhou’s face.
It was akin to roasting him alive. Sun Zhou’s body jerked violently, his struggles intensifying. The camera zoomed in, cutting straight to his face—close enough to see wisps of white steam rising from his searing flesh, to hear the sizzle of fat rendering.
Jiang Baichuan paused the video again, enlarging Sun Zhou’s face until his bulging eyes nearly filled the screen.
Even through the pixelation, it was unmistakable: in both of Sun Zhou’s eyes, several vivid red blood streaks pierced straight through the irises.
Jiang Baichuan shook his head, murmuring under his breath, "Beyond saving."
Finally, he clicked on Gou Ya’s video. As he did, his throat bobbed slightly, his lips dry—though he’d already watched these videos before. Having seen them, he was mentally prepared. Yet, perhaps because of that preparation, his body reacted first with visceral dread.Like Sun Zhou, Gou Ya was only wearing a pair of shorts. However, he was unconscious, which was related to his severe injuries: Nie Jiuluo had made three cuts on his neck, arm, and thigh to draw blood and confirm his identity as a "Dixiao." To ensure he remained incapacitated in the short term, she had inflicted two more wounds—one stabbed into the top of his skull and another severing his spine.
Combined with the earlier injury to his left eye, Gou Ya now bore six wounds in total.
The video captured his front and face. At first glance, his left eye socket appeared jagged and white, with a small white tip on his head. A closer look revealed it was covered in something resembling a cocoon or spider silk, tightly wrapped around the wounds.
There was no need to watch frame by frame—all six wounds looked the same. Jiang Baichuan fast-forwarded directly to the 2-minute-and-39-second mark.
The screen zoomed in on the injury to Gou Ya’s left eye, still tightly wrapped in white silk-like membrane. The cameraman’s breathing was heavy, his voice strained: "I’m filming his blinded eye. The eyeball was completely destroyed before, but now, if you look closely, this cocoon membrane is swelling up..."
To emphasize the "swelling" effect, the angle shifted to a side view. Indeed, as described, the membrane beneath the silk bulged as if inflated, gradually rising until it seemed on the verge of bursting...
The phone vibrated. Jiang Baichuan had set it to silent before bed, so there was no ringtone—just a persistent buzzing on the table, like an agitated toad.
Afraid of disturbing Que Cha, Jiang quickly closed the video, grabbed his phone, and stepped out onto the balcony.
The night was deep, but the city never truly slept. Endless lights diluted the darkness, and cars streamed along the roads below. In the distance, the heavy outline of the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda loomed faintly.
The call was from Shan Qiang, speaking rapidly and urgently.
Jiang Baichuan listened quietly. "Unofficial channels?"
"Yeah, Jiang Shu. Pretty intriguing, right? It was only posted in WeChat groups, friend circles, and forums—never made it to official channels. And get this—they claimed to have reported it to the police, saying the company was anxious and offering a reward for information. But I checked with a friend at the station, and no one received any report. 'Reported to the police'? More like reported in a dream."
Jiang hummed in acknowledgment. "And then?"
Shan Qiang hesitated. "Da Tou and I discussed pretending to be informants and reaching out to them. You know the old saying—if the mountain won’t come to me, I’ll go to the mountain..."
The phrase, adapted playfully with a rustic touch, made Jiang chuckle softly.
Two weeks had passed since receiving the three "goods"—Yan Tuo and the others—from Nie Jiuluo. Yet, progress had stalled completely, leading most of the team to disperse. Only Hua Saozi and four or five others remained for housekeeping and security.
Gou Ya remained unconscious, Sun Zhou was still "undergoing treatment," and Yan Tuo had confessed—flawlessly. His extensive business holdings, inherited from his wealthy father, included not only a Chinese medicinal herbs distribution company but also a farm at the source. His mother, Lin Xirou, truly was a long-term bedridden vegetative patient—photos confirmed her as a withered, frail old woman nearing the end. The frequent phone calls? Simply because Yan Tuo was a filial son, with caregivers regularly updating him on Lin Xirou’s condition...Flawless and unassailable carries two meanings: one is that it is indeed true and credible; the other is that the opponent has crafted the setup too perfectly.
Jiang Baichuan’s intuition told him it was the latter. The waters behind Yan Tuo ran deeper than he had imagined—much deeper.
After a long silence, he finally said, "Contact is necessary, but we need to plan it carefully."
The lid of the clay pot rattled as steam pushed against it—the silver ear fungus soup was ready.
Sister Lu turned off the heat, ladled a bowl onto a black lacquer tray painted with gold, and carried it out.
This was an old courtyard house from the Republican era, though it didn’t strictly adhere to the architectural norms of that time, blending a bit of East and West. The main building was a two-story house, nestled quietly in the bustling city center—just a glance upward revealed the towering commercial buildings of the downtown area.
Sister Lu was a domestic worker who usually only provided on-call services. At the beginning of the year, she had taken this job after an agency told her about a young female client surnamed Nie who wanted a live-in housekeeper. The salary was high, and the workload was light—just cooking, cleaning, and the like.
Sister Lu had accepted without hesitation. After settling in, she felt truly fortunate: good living conditions, good food, light work, and an easygoing client...
Such luck was hard to come by, even with prayers and incense.
Miss Nie had gone to southern Shaanxi last month for inspiration but caught a chill. Since returning, she had been coughing from the cold. Sister Lu made her silver ear fungus soup every night to soothe her throat and lungs.
Outside, rain was falling heavily. Fortunately, the house had eaves encircling the courtyard, with covered walkways beneath them leading to every room, ensuring no one got wet. Sister Lu followed the sheltered walkway to the main house and pushed the door open.
The first floor was the living room, unlit, but visibility wasn’t an issue because light from the second floor spilled down, casting a faint glow over the spiral staircase to the left.
Sister Lu ascended the stairs. This Miss Nie was a sculptor who dabbled in various styles but specialized in traditional Chinese clay sculptures. The second floor served as both her studio and living quarters.
The second floor was much brighter, designed as an open, unobstructed space. Two large tables dominated the room: one was a workbench cluttered with axes, saws, hammers, wires, wooden armatures, sculpting knives, and more—enough to make an outsider mistake it for a carpenter’s workstation. The other was a sculpting turntable with a rotating platform in the center, allowing the sculpture to spin 360 degrees so the artist wouldn’t have to circle it endlessly while refining details.
Beyond these, sculptures of varying heights filled the room—some finished, some in the drying phase, and others abandoned mid-process when she suddenly became dissatisfied. She would wrap these in large transparent plastic sheets, periodically spraying them with water to maintain their plasticity, waiting for the day inspiration struck again.
...
Nie Jiuluo wasn’t working at the moment. Instead, she was quietly flipping through an old photo album, already dressed in her shimmering silver silk nightgown, sitting comfortably.
Sister Lu set the tray aside and glanced at the album. It was an old one, with photos yellowed at the edges, but the two people in them looked young and vibrant.
The photo Nie Jiuluo was looking at was a wedding portrait.
Sister Lu immediately recognized their resemblance to Nie Jiuluo from their facial features. "Oh, are these your parents?" she asked.
Nie Jiuluo hummed in affirmation and tilted the photo toward Sister Lu. "Do I look like them?"Sister Lu nodded repeatedly. "You do resemble them. You inherited all the best traits from your parents."
Nie Jiuluo smiled, even reaching up to touch her face. "Really?"
The housekeeping company's policy was for employees to work more and talk less, especially avoiding prying into clients' private lives. Combined with Nie Jiuluo's frequent outdoor sketching trips, Sister Lu had worked here for quite some time yet knew nothing about her family life.
Still, it seemed appropriate to make some small talk now. And judging by Nie Jiuluo's cheerful expression, she didn't seem opposed to the topic.
"They... don't live with you?"
Nie Jiuluo replied, "My mother died in an accident long ago. My father was too heartbroken to move on, so he jumped off a building."
Caught completely off guard, Sister Lu's mind blanked momentarily, and she blurted out, "What a good man."
The moment the words left her mouth, she wanted to slap herself twice. How could she praise "what a good man" when the girl's parents had met such tragic ends?
She stammered an explanation: "No, I mean—on TV, when a man dies, usually it's the woman who follows in death. The reverse is rare... Your father... was a man of deep feelings."
Nie Jiuluo looked at the photograph, her tone indifferent. "A good man... perhaps. But not necessarily a good father. When he jumped, he probably forgot he still had a child to raise."
Sister Lu was mortified beyond words—she truly didn't know how to continue this conversation.
Noticing her discomfort, Nie Jiuluo looked up with a smile. "It's fine. I don't mind talking about it, and I hold nothing against my father. Just making an observation."
She might not mind, but to Sister Lu, this counted as a major "work mistake." Mumbling a few more awkward words, she practically fled downstairs.
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