Chapter 99: The Female Corpse

In addition to my own phone number, I also left the number for the small convenience store downstairs. The owner there has a very good relationship with my parents and has always treated me well. With that, and the number of a close classmate, I figured Dark Sunglasses would eventually be able to find me.

The night passed in silence. My sleep was deep and incredibly restorative; a sense of peace I hadn't felt in a long time seemed to have returned to my body. At some point, I drifted into a dream. In it, I was young again, once more bathed in the warmth of my parents' affection. But this moment of happiness vanished in an instant. I saw my father suffering excruciating agony from that wretched curse—the insect venom—until he finally passed away. I saw my mother’s collapse upon seeing his remains, her subsequent depression, and her final act of hanging herself. All this grief left me writhing in the dream, yet I was powerless to stop it.

I struggled incessantly, desperate to rewrite this painful reality, only to realize that I, too, was trapped within the curse. This fate was inescapable. Eventually, I woke up drenched in cold sweat. Yet, I felt little terror; what was stranger was that while I was in the dream, I was aware that I was dreaming. The sensation was surreal, yet everything I experienced felt profoundly real.

As I lay on the kang trying to steady my nerves, a commotion erupted outside the courtyard. This compound sat right next to the village office, and the village party secretary lived here as well. Before Lishui Village had elected a village director, the old secretary handled virtually everything. With such an uproar outside, something must have happened; the villagers were clearly seeking him out.

I glanced at the wall clock; it was barely past two in the morning. What could have happened? As I pondered this, I noticed Dark Sunglasses had also woken up and was looking toward the door. The clamor grew louder, so we both got dressed, stood up, and opened the door. The pre-dawn air was biting, and I couldn't help but shiver as the cold rushed in.

The courtyard was already packed with twenty or thirty people, and more were arriving. I asked around, and assuming we were out-of-town relatives of the secretary, the villagers were quite forthcoming.

Most of the people were simply there to gawk. Lishui Village is a remote settlement deep in the mountains where even the television only receives one channel. They were far more obsessed with curiosities than people in the outside world; I even saw some people who had rushed out wrapped in heavy quilts.

I managed to piece together the story. Although most of the village's young people had gone away for work, a small group remained—mostly the idle, shiftless sort. Moreover, the village held onto traditional, conservative values, believing in the importance of staying close to one’s roots and never fully encouraging the youth to leave. Consequently, these young men grew lazy. With limited farmland and no real desire to toil, they spent their time idling away, especially during the off-season when there was no farm work to be done.

In the past, many in Lishui Village hunted in the mountains or fished in the river. However, for the last two years, the area had been applying to become a nature reserve. Once granted, it would be highly beneficial for the village, but it meant hunting was strictly forbidden, and fishing was discouraged. While people could restrain themselves from hunting, fishing was harder to prevent, and eventually, people just stopped caring, continuing to fish on the sly.

One of these local loafers, a young man named Wang Bing—known to everyone as "Wang Er"—had an older brother working away, but he preferred to loaf around the village. Bored and restless, he had acquired a set of electric fishing equipment. Thinking that traditional fishing was too tiring and craving a feast, he decided to go electrofishing. It was fast, efficient, and anything he couldn't eat could be sold in town for quick cash.

Electrofishing was strictly prohibited—not that the village rules were always followed—but this method was dangerous, and the village elders would never have allowed it. So, Wang Er sneaked out in the middle of the night to a remote bend in the Lishui River and tossed his electric rod into the water. Having no experience, he only knew the basics of how to operate the device.

Wang Er knew the risks and was careful about his own safety, but he didn't bother checking the river itself—after all, who would be out at this hour? As soon as the rod hit the water, he flipped the switch. A mass of fish immediately floated to the surface. Excited but knowing better than to jump in right away, he waited. Then, something happened that scared the living daylights out of him.

Just as he was about to wade in to collect his haul, he noticed a large, white shape among the floating fish. It was dark, and his vision was poor, so he initially assumed he had electrocuted a massive fish—one that would fetch a high price at the town market.

Wang Er pulled on his boots and stepped into the water. But as he got closer, something felt wrong. It wasn't a fish. He flicked on his flashlight and realized, with a jolt of horror, that it was a person—a woman, her long hair drifting in the water. Terrified, Wang Er scrambled back to the shore, abandoning the fish and even his equipment. He bolted back to the village, ran straight into his house, and slammed the door shut, finally catching his breath.

He lived in the same courtyard as his parents, and the commotion of his return woke them, prompting them to knock on his door and demand to know what was wrong.