Chapter 66: The Southern Wind Does Not Cross the Border

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At five fifty-five in the morning, the technical support vehicle was parked outside the southern city data relay station. The engine murmured softly, as if suppressing some imminent turbulence.

Inside the car, Lan Dong stared at the signal waveform flickering on the screen, her brows tightly knit.

A weak but persistent stream of encrypted data packets was being transmitted from an abandoned temple on the border of northern Myanmar—the coordinates matched exactly with the place where Zhao Shan Xu had once practiced in his youth.

“The signal source is stable, the frequency is unusual.” Her fingers danced across the keyboard, calling up the spectral analysis chart. “This isn’t ordinary communication. It’s more like some kind of periodic awakening mechanism… like it’s ‘summoning’ something.”

Su Wan sat in the passenger seat, a faded photocopy of “The Folk Customs of River City” spread across her lap, her fingertips gently caressing an illustrated page.

She overlaid a satellite map onto the ancient text’s image, her pupils contracting sharply.

“No… something’s wrong,” she murmured. “The plaza in front of the temple has been altered recently.”

The image zoomed in.

The once barren ground was now marked by nine concentric circles, each spaced seven paces apart. Twelve broken wooden stakes ringed the outskirts, faded red silk strips hanging from their tops.

The arrangement was eerie yet precise.

“This is the ‘Soul Crossing Diagram,’” Su Wan whispered, her voice barely audible, as if afraid to disturb something unseen. “It’s the highest ceremonial formation recorded in the ‘Lamp Incantation Manual,’ used only on the night when the ‘Lamp Slaves’ are exchanged. They… they’re going to restart the ritual.”

Lan Dong looked up abruptly. “When?”

“By the manual’s calculation,” Su Wan flipped through her notes, “it requires a waning moon, still winds, and a blood offering—the next occurrence is tonight at midnight.”

Silence fell in the car. Only the rhythmic ticking of the instruments sounded, like the pendulum of a countdown clock.

Meanwhile, three hundred kilometers away, the border town was still cloaked in morning fog.

At eleven minutes past eleven, a battered minibus rolled into the town’s entrance.

The door swung open. Zhao Song, wearing black-rimmed glasses and carrying a camera bag, had a temporary badge from the Institute of Folk Studies hanging on his chest.

He adjusted the brim of his hat, his gaze sweeping over the idlers lurking at street corners, the anti-smuggling notices posted at the alleyway, and those seemingly ordinary but wary-eyed “freight agents.”

Su Wan followed closely behind, dressed in a simple long skirt, carrying a canvas bag bulging with ancient documents, her demeanor tranquil like any scholar.

But her right hand was always hidden within her sleeve, gripping a miniature recording pen—a surveillance device she’d salvaged and reassembled from discarded library equipment.

“Remember,” Zhao Song whispered, “we’re here for field research, not for law enforcement. If our identities are exposed, Ah Qiang is finished.”

Su Wan nodded, her gaze unwavering. She knew that with this step, there was no turning back.

On the town’s west side, the freight distribution point.

Ah Qiang rode his electric scooter into the yard, a forced smile on his face, carrying two bottles of white liquor.

“Old custom, for Brother Black Snake,” he said familiarly, slapping a tattooed man’s shoulder. “The goods are ready this week, right? Which route for the refrigerated truck?”

The man squinted at him for a moment, then let out a derisive laugh. “Newcomer’s got guts. Asking so many questions?”

“I just connect people,” Ah Qiang grinned, revealing yellowed teeth. “Besides, the kid hidden in the compartment last time—wasn’t he safely delivered?”

The air froze slightly.

After a pause, the man handed him a crumpled hand-drawn map: a winding mountain road marked with “Three Forked Ditch,” “Broken Dragon Cliff,” “Silent Spring Mouth,” finally pointing to a place outside the border code-named “Red Lotus Temple.”

“Friday night, ten o’clock departure,” the man said in a low voice. “Remember, there’s a hidden compartment under the truck, temperature stays at four degrees. Once inside, make no sound, don’t move, or… freezing to death is the least of your worries.”

Ah Qiang took the map, barely containing the tremor in his heart.

He knew those “goods” were abducted youths, new sacrificial offerings for the “Lamp Slave” program.

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At twelve forty-nine in the afternoon, the old village teahouse.

Sunlight slanted through weathered window panes, the scent of tea mingling with the musty aroma of aged wood.

Zhao Song was leafing through a handwritten “Treatise on the Origins of the Fishermen’s Lantern Festival,” while Su Wan recorded oral accounts beside him.

Suddenly, the curtain was slowly lifted.

A hunched old woman entered, leaning on a bamboo cane, her gray-white hair tightly bound with a red string, a bronze bell hanging from her neck, its surface etched with intricate runes.

Lin Su’e.

Zhao Song looked up, his heartbeat stuttering.

He had seen this face in archival photographs—one of the last batch of dancers at the Lantern Festival twenty years ago, Zhao Shan Xu’s junior disciple.

The old woman walked straight to him, her cloudy eyes staring for a long moment, then suddenly pressed a bronze bell into his palm.

The chill of metal made his fingers tremble.

“Zhao Shan Xu’s lineage is broken,” her voice rasped like wind through dead leaves, “but the bell’s sound endures. If three chimes linger, it means a new lamp leader rises.”

Zhao Song gripped the bell tightly, asking in a low voice, “Who is the lamp leader?”

Lin Su’e did not answer, only stepped back, her gaze vacant, looking into the distance. “The southern wind does not cross, the northern fire does not turn back… If you go, don’t expect to leave unscathed.”

With that, she turned and left. The bell’s sound faded, blending with the wind outside to form a strange resonance, as if some ancient incantation was awakening.

The teahouse was as silent as a chasm.

Su Wan gently held Zhao Song’s wrist, feeling the quickening of his pulse.

“She’s warning us,” Su Wan whispered, “and reminding us—the ritual countdown has begun.”

Zhao Song looked down at the bell in his palm. Its etched patterns were remarkably similar to the “Soul Summoning Sigil” on the fragment of the “Lamp Incantation Manual.”

He suddenly remembered the scorched photograph among his father’s relics—in its background, there was such a bell.

“They’re not just transporting people,” he stood slowly, his eyes steely. “They’re transmitting a ‘beacon.’ And this bell… is the key.”

In the distance, mountain winds rose, stirring the faded red silk atop the temple’s broken eaves.

A ceremony spanning life and death was silently unfolding.

At four twenty-three in the afternoon, inside the modified laboratory at the southern city data relay station, the air was heavy as lead.

Lan Dong’s fingers flew between the oscilloscope and signal generator, headphones replaying the bizarre audio from northern Myanmar—low and intermittent, like a recitation of scripture, interspersed with piercing metallic screeches.

She had deconstructed its spectrum down to the millisecond, finally locking onto the non-standard frequency of 432.7Hz. It belonged to no known communication band, yet could penetrate the geological layers of border mountains, creating stable resonant transmission.

“This isn’t for conveying information,” she tore off her headphones, her voice hoarse. “It’s activating something.”

She pulled up the scanned electronic version of the “Treatise on the Origins of the Fishermen’s Lantern Festival,” comparing it with the “Lantern Gate Sutra” in the ancient records: “Summon souls with sound, connect the underworld with fire… Three chimes open the lantern gate, nine turns cross the lamp slave.” Her pupils contracted. “They’re using specific sonic frequencies as ‘keys’ to unlock ritual nodes—like biometric voiceprint verification.”

She quickly assembled a miniature device: a silver-gray disk, barely three centimeters in diameter, fitted with a reverse resonance chip and pulse interference module.

Upon powering it, a faint blue glow shimmered across its surface, like a dormant talisman.

“Countermeasure device.” She gently embedded it inside the bronze bell Zhao Song had brought.

The bell’s wall was hollowed out just enough to house the device, leaving no visible trace.

“Once activated, it emits a reverse wave, briefly disrupting the resonance effect of the ‘Lantern Gate Sutra,’ lasting about ninety seconds. But it can only be used once.”

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Zhao Song gazed at the transformed bronze bell, his fingers tracing the engraved marks.

The pattern matched perfectly with the faded image in his father’s relic photo—he suddenly realized this was not just a token, but a credential.

Only the bearer of the genuine bell could approach the main lamp pedestal, recognized by the system as a “participant in the ceremony.”

“Can Ah Qiang deliver it?” he asked, his voice almost lost beneath the instrument’s noise.

“At six tonight, the temple festival preparation team will receive offerings,” Lan Dong handed him a sealed bag. “The bell is waterproof and shockproof, and you control the activation remotely. If you notice abnormal sound frequencies rising, activate it immediately.”

Meanwhile, at the western freight point.

Ah Qiang crouched beside his scooter, wiping the tires, his palms drenched in cold sweat.

He had just handed a box of “ritual incense and candles” to the temple festival steward, inside which the disguised bronze bell was hidden.

The steward paused for two seconds, his lips curling into an enigmatic smile.

“Your master, Zhao Shan Xu,” he suddenly said, “started out delivering offerings too.”

Ah Qiang’s heart jolted; he forced himself to nod calmly. “I… heard the elders mention it.”

“Pity,” the man sighed. “He shouldn’t have listened to those three chimes.”

With that, he turned and walked away, leaving Ah Qiang frozen, sweat soaking his back.

He finally understood—he was not the first substitute pulled into this chain.

Night fell, and the mountain winds grew fierce.

At eight minutes past eight, the infrared drone relayed live footage: the abandoned temple was ablaze with light, the nine concentric circles on the floor outlined in red candles, resembling rings of blood.

Dozens of blindfolded children were led into the center of the formation, dressed in identical scarlet robes, bronze discs hanging from their necks, silent as dolls.

Their ankles bore old scars—the marks of prolonged restraint.

Zhao Song stood atop the ridge, binoculars pressed to his brow, his knuckles pale from the force of his grip.

Su Wan stood behind him, clutching a reconstructed “Lamp Cipher Decoding Table” from Republican-era archives, the words stark: “When the lamp leader rises, the old soul is extinguished; when the new fire burns, the old name disappears.”

“They’re erasing their identities,” her voice trembled. “Not trafficking, but… sacrifice.”

Zhao Song did not reply.

He felt a dull ache behind his eyes—the “Eye of Truth” stirring, countless images crashing in his mind, never coming into focus.

He closed his eyes; the last glimpse of his father lying in a pool of blood overlapped with the flickering candlelight in the temple.

And so it was—a gate to hell, unclosed for a hundred years.

The mountain wind howled, unable to scatter the red silk fluttering atop the temple’s broken eaves.

The bell was already placed upon the offering altar.

The fire was poised to ignite.

The gate awaited its opening.