Bai Yulao: The Night Watcher's Debt to the King of Hell

The morning sunlight did not dispel the gloom in Su Wantang's heart.

A large number of special police officers withdrew, leaving behind only a mess and the perplexing result—the building was deserted.

The logistics park, once brightly lit and bustling with activity, is now as quiet as an ancient tomb abandoned for decades. The technical staff scraped the ground three times over, but found nothing but dust.

"Captain Su, this...this is too bizarre."

Young police officer Zhang wiped his sweat, his face showing a look of utter disbelief. "The surveillance footage shows there was indeed a heat source here last night, but now there's not even a footprint. It's like... it's like these people just vanished into thin air."

Su Wantang didn't speak. She stood deep in the warehouse, staring at the corner where the "control panel" had been yesterday.

Now there's just a pit there, as if a piece of it had been forcibly dug out.

"Lin Shoumo".

Su Wantang turned around and looked at the charlatan who was squatting by the cordon, eating a meat bun without any regard for his image.

"What do you think of this 'consultant' role? What kind of smokescreen is this?"

Lin Shoumo swallowed the last bite of the steamed bun, patted the crumbs off his hands, and walked over with an innocent look on his face: "Officer Su, in my humble opinion, this is called 'the cicada shedding its shell'."

The people of Guixu are more slippery than eels. Not only did they leave, they also conveniently erased all 'time' here.

"Stop playing dumb." Su Wantang glared at him. "Not a single clue left at the scene? I don't believe it!"

She bent down, holding a powerful flashlight, and searched the edge of the pit inch by inch.

Finally, she found something in an inconspicuous crack.

That's not modern paper, nor is it an electronic component.

It was a small, severely carbonized piece of sheepskin embedded in a crack in the cement.

It was only the size of a fingernail, with a few words written crookedly on it in some kind of dark red paint.

Su Wantang carefully picked it out with tweezers and brought it close to her eyes.

The edges of the fragment were charred, as if it had been rescued from a fire. The handwriting on it was ancient and messy, but four characters could still be vaguely discerned:

Qingxi County · Boundary

Below those four characters, there is another half-sentence, as if it had been severed by a sharp blade:

"...Red flowers, blooming from the very first time, reaching the ends of the earth!"

"Qingxi County?" Su Wantang frowned. "Where is that? Are there any places with this name around Nandu?"

Officer Zhang, standing nearby, immediately pulled out his police terminal to check, and after a while, awkwardly scratched his head: "Captain Su, there's no such county in our province. We've checked several surrounding provinces too, and there's nothing there. There is a Qingxi Town, Qingxi Township... but none of them match."

"Then let's check the whole country!"

"I checked, and there were a few 'Qingxi County' records, but the most recent one... was abolished several hundred years ago during the Ming Dynasty. The current geographical location is impossible to verify; it may have long since become a desolate wilderness or sunk into a reservoir."

Su Wantang's heart sank.

Hundreds of years ago?

How could a place name that disappeared hundreds of years ago appear in a high-tech secret base last night?

"Officer Su, don't bother."

Lin Shoumo had somehow gotten closer. He stared at the piece of sheepskin, a barely perceptible glint in his eyes, but his tone remained nonchalant.

"This isn't a map, it's 'ghost money.' People say, 'From the moment it first blooms, it's the ends of the earth.' Where are the ends of the earth?"

It's a place we just can't find. This is clearly them mocking us: "Come and get me if you dare! I'll be waiting for you at the ends of the earth!"

"Can you be serious for once?" Su Wantang put the fragments into the evidence bag. "This is the only clue. Since we can't find it on the electronic map, let's look through the paper files!"

Go to the city library, go to the archives! I refuse to believe that such a large county could simply vanish from history!

"Hey, Officer Su, going to the archives is physical work, you'll get extra pay!" Lin Shoumo exclaimed dramatically. "Besides, that place is full of yin energy, records of the dead, it's easy to get haunted!"

"I'll give you two hundred yuan extra overtime pay! Shut up and get back to work!"

Su Wantang shoved the evidence bag into her pocket with a huff and strode out.

Lin Shoumo followed behind, a playful smile playing on his lips. He glanced at the red gourd in his hand, then at Su Wantang's tall and straight back.

"Qingxi County... red floral pattern..."

He silently repeated these words in his mind.

Nandu City Archives, three underground floors.

This is the graveyard of the city's memories. The air is thick with the musty smell of mothballs and old paper, making it almost suffocating.

In front of Su Wantang and Lin Shoumo, there was a pile of local gazetteers and photocopies of ancient books, each half a person high.

"This... is too much."

Lin Shoumo, looking utterly dejected, flipped through a yellowed copy of "A Study of Water Conservancy in Southern Metropolis." "Officer Su, shouldn't we apply for workers' compensation? My neck is practically broken!"

"Shut up and get to work!"

Su Wantang was now fully engaged in her work. Like a tireless machine, she meticulously perused the obscure and difficult classical Chinese documents.

From the "Ming Dynasty Gazetteer" to the "Qing Dynasty Gazetteer", and then to the hand-drawn maps of the Republican era.

It wasn't until the afternoon that Su Wantang finally found a few words about the place name in a tattered copy of "Qingxi Ancient Records" from the Guangxu era.

The pages were so brittle they were like potato chips, crumbling at the slightest touch.

On the page above, there is an extremely rudimentary topographic map.

It was a basin nestled deep in the mountains, with a winding river flowing through the city. The map was labeled with only four characters: Qingxi Ancient City.

In a small note next to the picture, Su Wantang saw a chilling sentence:

"At the end of the Jin Dynasty, the land collapsed, and the city was submerged. Tens of thousands of people disappeared overnight. It is said that at midnight, a song arose from the bottom of the water, as if weeping and lamenting..."

Su Wantang's fingers trembled suddenly.

Whereabouts unknown? Overnight?

She remembered the logistics park and the empty warehouse.

"Lin Shoumo...look at this!"

Su Wantang turned to show the book to Lin Shoumo, only to find the charlatan slumped on the table, drooling as he slept.

He was still clutching the so-called "overtime pay IOU" in his hand, which he had scribbled on and calculated the interest on.

Su Wantang was furious and was about to kick him awake when suddenly, Lin Shoumo mumbled something indistinctly in his sleep:

"...An eight-year-old village boy made an umbrella with his fists..."

Su Wantang froze.

This line...

She suddenly looked at the ancient book in her hand. After that annotation, there seemed to be another line of words stained with ink.

She leaned closer to look and could vaguely make out:

"...A folk rhyme goes: An eight-year-old village boy makes an umbrella with his fist, but in the cold rain at dawn, his life is as fragile as sand."

Su Wantang felt a chill run from the soles of her feet straight to the top of her head.

This is not a local history.

This is clearly a record of deaths.

"Wake up! Don't sleep!" Su Wantang grabbed Lin Shoumo by the collar and shook him awake. "I told you to investigate Qingxi County, how did you fall asleep? An eight-year-old village child? His life is as fragile as sand?"

Lin Shoumo groggily opened his eyes, wiped the drool from the corner of his mouth, and looked completely bewildered: "Huh? Did I say that? Maybe I dreamt I was eating children... no, I dreamt children were giving me candy? Officer Su, why do you look at me like you're about to kill me?"

"That sentence is also in my book!" Su Wantang pointed to the line in "Qingxi Ancient County," her fingers trembling. "Qingxi County didn't disappear naturally; it...it encountered something terrible!"

Lin Shoumo followed her finger and looked in that direction. His eyes cleared for a moment, but he quickly regained his carefree expression.

He yawned and stretched: "Officer Su, history books are always written by the victors! The county town at the end of the Jin Dynasty was gone; it was just a natural disaster and man-made calamity. What's the big deal?"

"No!" Su Wantang stared intently at the line of text. "'Red floral pattern,' 'eight-year-old village child,' and that empty logistics park... these clues are like pieces of a puzzle. Lin Shoumo, it seems we've unearthed a major case that's been buried for hundreds of years."

Looking at her serious expression, Lin Shoumo's lips curled up slightly, and his tone became meaningful:

"Officer Su, some cases, since they've been buried for hundreds of years, are better left buried. Digging them up... might cause them to rise from the dead!"

"I'm a police officer, and my duty is to bring the truth to light!" Su Wantang closed her book, her eyes resolute. "No matter how many years it's been buried, no matter if it's a ghost or a god, I have to find out!"

Lin Shoumo sighed, took out a lighter from his pocket, and fiddled with it in his hand:

"Alright, since you insist on investigating, I'll accompany you to the end. But we have to agree on this first: what if it really comes back to life, or some ancient monster from hundreds of years ago appears..."

He held up two fingers:

"You need to pay more!"