Xu Muchan learned that the Ouyang family had disappeared without a trace several days later from Yan He.
It was during class break when Yan He called.
The background was chaotic, and Yan He’s voice kept cutting in and out, sounding particularly choppy.
“Xu Muchan… The Ouyang family really does have a problem. But we got there too late. They’ve already run… There are alarms going off everywhere lately. Jiangcheng isn’t safe either. You’d better… You’d better be careful. Don’t run around…”
Xu Muchan listened with a frown.
He still had many questions he wanted to ask, but the signal on Yan He’s end was simply too poor. Before they could say more than a few words, the call automatically disconnected.
A moment later, Yan He sent him a message on WeChat. It was equally brief:
[Be careful. I’ll tell you more once I have some free time.]
After exiting WeChat, Xu Muchan had just put away his phone when Wei Yao slammed his shoulder against him.
“Holy shit, look at this!”
“What?”
Wei Yao shoved his phone right in front of Xu Muchan’s face.
Xu Muchan leaned back slightly and looked at the screen.
A video was playing.
It showed a river in the outskirts of the city. A few middle-aged men were scattered along the bank, fishing. The person filming was clearly one of them, because the footage was shaking violently from sheer surprise.
The filmer’s voice came through the sounds of running water and wind, unusually clear.
“Why did the river suddenly turn black? Could some factory upstream be secretly dumping wastewater?”
As he spoke, the camera gradually zoomed in.
The water had originally been fairly clear, but streaks of black were now mixed into the current. The black substance appeared in irregular strips, flowing with the water like seaweed.
The filmer held his phone in one hand and used his fishing rod to poke at the black substance with the other.
The long, grass-like black object touched the fishing rod and immediately dissolved into the water like ink spreading through liquid.
Before long, the surrounding water had all been dyed black.
Amid the noisy background, it was obvious that the others had noticed the black liquid as well. Questions and exclamations came one after another, and someone even said they should report the illegal dumping.
The short video ended abruptly.
Xu Muchan frowned and opened the comments.
The comment section had already been updated with the latest developments. The person who posted the video had uploaded several real-time photographs.
[The entire river has turned black.]
[The police are here, but they don’t know what’s going on either. They’ve already sent people upstream to investigate.]
[It doesn’t seem to be wastewater. Something about this feels wrong…]
[Have you seen the latest video? There’s something underneath the black water…]
Xu Muchan noticed that comment and opened it.
The commenter had attached a screenshot.
The image was extremely blurry, but if one looked carefully, there really did seem to be a deathly pale face faintly visible beneath the black water…
Most of the other commenters, however, were skeptical and dismissive, saying it was merely a coincidence caused by the light beneath the water.
Xu Muchan closed the comments without reading any further.
“The black liquid in the river looks like Black Taisui.”
Wei Yao considered himself fairly well-seasoned after experiencing several supernatural incidents, but even Xu Muchan’s words made his heart jump.
He lowered his voice.
“I know that river. It’s a tributary of the Yangtze. For a river that big to be dyed black, how much Black Taisui would that take…?”
In his mind, Black Taisui was definitely not something good.
Wei Yao glanced at the comments again and got goosebumps all over his arms.
“How does this feel like the end of the world…?”
Whether or not his words had been an accidental prophecy, over the next few days, the river contamination incidents actually grew increasingly severe.
At first, only that one river had been contaminated.
But after several rounds of investigation, the workers still couldn’t find the source of the contamination.
Instead, the mysterious black water continued spreading with the current.
This time, it wasn’t just the rivers in the outskirts that were affected. Even the rivers within the city were impacted, their waters taking on a faint, ominous black color.
Not only that, but the number of supernatural posts appearing across various social media platforms also increased dramatically.
Xu Muchan wasn’t specifically following them, but several popular supernatural posts were pushed onto his feed anyway.
The IP addresses in the discussion threads were almost all from Jiangcheng, and people vividly described where they had supposedly seen ghosts.
Some of them were obviously fabricated stories.
But others contained details so specific that they even named particular streets.
Xu Muchan even came across one comment mentioning Nanming High School.
The person said that they had left late after evening self-study the night before last. When passing the science building, they had seen a girl in a school uniform standing on the fourth floor.
She had stared at him ominously the entire time.
Out of curiosity, he had looked directly at her.
And then that girl had followed him home…
Xu Muchan opened the person’s profile.
He discovered that the person really was a student at Nanming. There were even photos of the Nanming sports meet on the profile.
Although one group photo had people’s faces blurred, it had accidentally revealed the class number.
It looked like the student was from Class 3 of Grade 10.
Xu Muchan quietly memorized the information and went to Class 3 of Grade 10 during the next long break.
Wei Yao and Wen Dajiang naturally couldn’t resist joining in whenever there was something interesting happening.
Without even asking what Xu Muchan was going there for, they followed behind him like his shadows.
Wei Yao was like a noisy parrot, chattering nonstop.
“Why are you going to the tenth grade?”
Wen Dajiang, having nothing else to say, chimed in from the side.
“Don’t worry about Brother Xu’s business!”
Xu Muchan ignored their chatter.
He found Class 3 of Grade 10 and peered inside through the classroom window.
The three of them were strikingly good-looking and were obviously not Grade 10 students.
Standing together in the Grade 10 hallway naturally attracted curious looks from quite a few students.
Wei Yao really lived up to his reputation as a social butterfly.
He knew people even among the Grade 10 students.
A boy came over to greet him and asked curiously,
“Brother Yao, who are you looking for?”
Wei Yao pointed his chin toward Xu Muchan and asked him the exact same question.
“Who are you looking for? I can ask him for you.”
Xu Muchan shook his head.
His gaze landed on the boy sitting in the last row of Class 3.
The academic atmosphere in Grade 10 wasn’t as tense as in the higher grades.
During the break, everyone was laughing and fooling around.
Only that boy sat completely motionless in his seat, staring blankly at the blackboard with a stiff expression.
Of course, that wasn’t what caught Xu Muchan’s attention at first.
What drew his gaze was the large patch of bloodstain spreading across the boy’s school uniform.
A school ID was pinned to the blood-soaked chest of the uniform.
It said Class 3 of Grade 12.
Below that was a girl’s name.
It clearly wasn’t the boy’s ID.
Perhaps Xu Muchan had stared for too long.
The boy stiffly turned his head and met Xu Muchan’s gaze.
A strange smile appeared on his rigid, vacant face.
“You’re looking for Zhang Lijun?”
The boy who had his arm around Wei Yao’s shoulder followed Xu Muchan’s gaze into the classroom.
“He’s been acting strange these past couple of days. Something seems to have happened at home. Want me to call him out for you?”
Wei Yao was just about to answer when Xu Muchan said,
“No need. Let’s go.”
Wei Yao had no choice but to shut his mouth again.
He said to the boy,
“Never mind. I’ll call you to play basketball another day. See you.”
Once they reached the staircase, Wei Yao immediately elbowed Wen Dajiang aside and put an arm around Xu Muchan’s shoulder.
“So what exactly is going on? Don’t leave us hanging.”
“I just came to confirm something.”
Xu Muchan considered his words before saying,
“If you notice anything unusual lately, it’s best to pretend you didn’t see it. And don’t get close.”
As he spoke, Xu Muchan casually dropped a single thin strand of hair onto the floor.
The inconspicuous strand of hair slithered along the crack in the wall like a snake.
Then it deftly slipped into the classroom and found Zhang Lijun sitting in the last row.
The thin black hair slipped inside Zhang Lijun’s clothes and climbed upward toward his chest.
Then, without warning, it wrapped itself around the bloodstained school ID.
A shrill scream that ordinary people could not hear rang out before quickly disappearing.
The black hair silently returned with the school ID still wrapped around it.
Zhang Lijun, now haunted by a ghost, rolled his eyes back and collapsed straight onto the floor.
Class 3 of Grade 10 immediately erupted in screams.
As Zhang Lijun was hurriedly carried to the infirmary by his classmates, Xu Muchan pretended to crouch down and tie his shoelace.
He picked up the school ID wrapped in the thin strand of hair and slipped it into his pocket.
His movements were quick and discreet.
Even Wei Yao and Wen Dajiang beside him didn’t notice.
Wen Dajiang was obviously puzzled by Xu Muchan’s sudden warning.
But his experiences over the past few times had taught him that it was best to trust Xu Muchan.
So he nervously edged closer to Xu Muchan and asked suspiciously,
“Our school isn’t starting to have ghost problems too, is it?”
The two of them had clearly spent plenty of time reading the posts online.
They huddled together beside Xu Muchan, nervously looking around.
Xu Muchan’s brows furrowed deeply as his gaze swept across the enormous campus.
His voice was heavy.
“I’m afraid it’s more than just ghosts appearing.”
As if to prove his words, the last class that afternoon, which was originally supposed to be math, was unexpectedly changed to a class meeting.
Their homeroom teacher, Wan Zheng, entered the classroom with a stern expression.
He first gave everyone a lesson on safety education.
It wasn’t until the very end that he got to the main point and announced that evening self-study would be temporarily canceled starting that day.
Not only that, he emphasized that the city was currently suffering from severe water pollution and instructed everyone not to wander around after school.
They were advised to stay away from contaminated water sources.
The unusual arrangement seemed to confirm the rumors that had been spreading wildly online.
After all, the gaokao was fast approaching.
There had never been a precedent for canceling evening self-study for the senior students.
With Wan Zheng keeping everyone under control during class, nobody dared discuss it too openly.
But the moment the bell rang and the homeroom teacher left the classroom, the room instantly became noisy.
Everyone excitedly began discussing why evening self-study had suddenly been canceled, as well as the water pollution incidents that had repeatedly made the trending searches lately, only to be suppressed again and again.
Most of the students who didn’t know what was really happening treated it as gossip.
There was no fear in their voices, only curiosity and excitement.
But Wei Yao and Wen Dajiang, who knew at least some of what was going on, were much more uneasy.
Even He Jiaqi, who sat in front, looked toward Xu Muchan several times as though she wanted to say something but couldn’t bring herself to.
In the end, unable to suppress her curiosity, He Jiaqi packed up her schoolbag and came over.
“I’ll walk with you guys.”
Wen Dajiang and Wei Yao occupied Xu Muchan’s left and right sides.
He Jiaqi could only walk beside Wei Yao.
She glanced sideways at Xu Muchan and lowered her voice.
“Have you guys seen the posts online?”
Wei Yao said,
“Yeah. Those people are saying all kinds of things. It’s pretty creepy.”
He Jiaqi pressed her lips together, seeming hesitant.
But in the end, she spoke.
“Actually, I’ve seen something too lately… I think what people are saying online might be true.”
The moment Wen Dajiang heard this, every hair on his body stood on end.
He stared at her with wide eyes.
“You saw something too? Saw what?”
Although it was still light out, she didn’t dare casually say the word “ghost.”
He Jiaqi nodded slightly. “I’ve seen them about three times. At the subway station, on the road… and even in my neighborhood. I didn’t dare make eye contact with them. I pretended I hadn’t seen anything and just walked away…”
“And my sleep hasn’t been very good lately, either. I keep having dreams at night. In my dreams, I’m always by a river, and I can clearly hear the sound of running water, as well as a lot of people talking. I try to listen to what they’re saying, but every time I get halfway through, I lose consciousness…”
Clearly, He Jiaqi had been experiencing this kind of situation for more than just a day or two, yet she had never mentioned it before, nor had she shown the slightest sign that anything was wrong.
Wei Yao gave her a thumbs-up. “Damn, you actually managed to hold it in until now before saying anything.”
He Jiaqi said, “At first, I was a little scared, but later I realized it didn’t seem to have much of an impact…”
If her homeroom teacher hadn’t suddenly announced the suspension of evening self-study today, and if she hadn’t recently read quite a few discussions online and vaguely sensed something ominous, she wouldn’t have brought it up herself.
Xu Muchan frowned as he looked at her. The last time He Jiaqi had been possessed by the Judge, she had already used the Black River to call for his help… and now she was hearing the Black River’s voice again…
Xu Muchan took out the talismans Yan He had previously given him and divided them among the three of them. He especially warned He Jiaqi, “If you hear the sound of running water and people talking again, don’t pay attention to it, and don’t try to make out what they’re saying.”
He Jiaqi carefully put away the talisman and nodded in agreement, but she still couldn’t suppress her curiosity. “Do you know what’s going on?”
Unexpectedly, Xu Muchan shook his head. “I haven’t figured it out yet. In any case, it can’t hurt for you to be more careful.”
The four of them eventually parted ways at the school gate.
It got dark early in winter, and perhaps because of the Black Water contamination, even the clouds on the horizon seemed to carry a faintly ominous darkness. Large masses of clouds piled together, like heavy mountains pressing down from above, and even the wind seemed sluggish.
Xu Muchan climbed into the car with practiced familiarity, greeted the driver, and lowered his head to look at his phone.
Outside the window, the sky gradually became completely dark. Rows of streetlights came on, their warm-colored glow winding into the darkness in the distance.
Mottled light and shadows fell across Xu Muchan’s face through the car window. He browsed online posts for a while, hesitating over whether he should contact the research institute to ask about the situation. But before he could even make the call, a stretch of continuous darkness outside the window suddenly caught his attention.
At that moment, the silver sedan was moving slowly along an elevated highway. Since it was rush hour, traffic was packed in every direction. Red taillights and orange-yellow streetlights interlaced, flickering into a mottled sea of colors.
Yet beyond this sea of color, shadows that had appeared at some unknown point were gradually replacing the modern buildings of varying heights.
A range of mountains stretched across the end of his field of vision, standing there silently as though they had always belonged there.
A broad black river wound its way from the foot of the mountains. The sound of its surging waves layered upon itself, like some secret language beyond human comprehension, issuing an invitation to every creature capable of understanding it.
Xu Muchan’s eyes uncontrollably reddened slightly. His red pupils shifted as he struggled to tear his gaze away from the towering mountains and toward the area through which the Black River flowed.
It was an urban scenic river, running beneath the elevated highway. The water flowed gently, and the river wasn’t particularly wide. Green trees had been planted along both banks, with railings and benches for pedestrians to rest on.
At that very moment, quite a few people were still leisurely strolling along the riverbank, completely unaware that the river flowing through the night was churning, and that the splashes rising from it were pure black.
Meanwhile, countless evil entities that seemed to have been summoned were rushing toward this small scenic river from all directions. With satisfied sighs, they stepped into the water, their huge or distorted bodies sinking beneath the surface before quickly merging with the churning Black Water.
Such an absurd yet magnificent scene was seen by no one except Xu Muchan.
“Uncle Wu, get off the elevated highway and pull over.” Xu Muchan’s voice was slightly tense.
Uncle Wu didn’t understand why, but he still exited the elevated highway at the nearest junction and pulled over by the roadside.
Xu Muchan told Uncle Wu to wait there, then pushed open the car door and ran toward the scenic river not far away.
The closer he got, the stronger that feeling of being summoned and drawn toward it became. Xu Muchan could even smell the strong fishy scent of water in the wind. That strange smell was like some kind of catalyst, nearly causing him to lose control and transform directly into a ghost.
He stopped, bracing his hands against his knees, and tightly gripped the two Mountain God plaques hanging against his chest. Only then was he able to suppress that uncontrollable urge.
At the edge of his vision, more and more evil entities, their faces and forms impossible to make out, continued stepping into the river, transforming into black streams of water that flowed into the distance. After listening to the rhythm of those waves rising and falling for long enough, they seemed to beat in time with his heartbeat.
Xu Muchan pressed a hand against his wildly pounding heart, desperately suppressing the inexplicable impulse surging through his body as he cautiously approached the riverbank.
Perhaps sensing his arrival, the splashing of the water grew more violent.
Xu Muchan cautiously stopped at the riverbank. Unlike those evil entities drawn to the river, he did not impatiently step into the water. Instead, he stood there for a long time before tentatively lowering a strand of his long hair into the water—
The instant his hair touched the water, Xu Muchan’s black-and-red pupils dilated. He had the illusion that his entire consciousness was being dragged into the water. Fortunately, the impact lasted only three or four seconds, and Xu Muchan quickly regained his reason.
He recalled the information about the Black River that he had obtained before. He Yunyi had once said that the Black River contained an enormous, unimaginable amount of information. People who had come into contact with the Black River and were lucky enough to escape unharmed had a very high chance of receiving a gift from the Black River, gaining knowledge and abilities they had previously been unable to obtain.
Just like He Jiaqi. Because she had once been temporarily connected to the Black River when she was possessed by the Judge, she had sensed the danger the moment something abnormal happened to the Black River.
Although Xu Muchan had directly confronted the Black River several times before, Wei Xilou had always been standing in front of him. Strictly speaking, this should therefore have been the first time he had actively connected with the Black River without any interference.
Unexpectedly, he didn’t feel any fear or danger. The strands of hair submerged in the Black Water were gently pulled by the current, giving him a feeling of comfort and security, as though he had returned to his mother’s womb.
Xu Muchan’s body, which had originally been standing upright, unconsciously leaned toward the surface of the river. But just as his body was about to touch the water, he abruptly stopped himself.
The black strands of hair drifting with the current were slowly withdrawn from the water. Droplets fell from their ends, one after another, returning to the river.
The surging river suddenly became calm, and the surroundings grew extremely quiet.
Xu Muchan retreated from the riverbank little by little. Everywhere he looked, the nonhuman monsters that had stepped into the river turned their heads and looked toward him in unison.
Until the final moment when their bodies completely merged into the Black River, their eyes remained fixed on Xu Muchan.
Countless noisy voices drowned out the sound of the water and the wind. This time, however, Xu Muchan could hear them clearly.
They asked him in his ear: Why don’t you want to join us?
Xu Muchan could even sense a trace of indescribable sorrow within those voices. The emotion came without warning, like a sudden flood roaring through Xu Muchan’s body, leaving behind only several scattered images and an emotional aftertaste that could not be erased.
Xu Muchan stood motionless at the riverbank for a long time before finally breaking free little by little.
When he came back to his senses, the mountains, the river winding in from the distance, and the evil entities that had been summoned had all disappeared.
Pedestrians along the riverbank were leisurely strolling beside the water. Xu Muchan stared at the dark river beneath the streetlights, recalling the images he had caught when that overwhelming torrent of emotion had swept through him.
The images were extremely fragmented, like scenes cut from an old silent film.
Fortunately, Xu Muchan’s memory was good enough. After trying hard to recall them, he recognized that one of the scenes was actually Mount Guiyi.
On the desolate Mount Guiyi, a huge and grotesque monster lay sprawled across the mountaintop like a slug. Black liquid continuously seeped from its rotting body, spreading all the way from the summit to the foot of the mountain…
This bizarre scene inexplicably reminded Xu Muchan of the missing Ouyang Yuping.
It was just that Xu Muchan couldn’t figure out for the moment what the Black River meant by showing him these images. But eager to verify his thoughts, he temporarily pushed his questions aside and took out his phone to contact He Yunyi.
He Yunyi’s phone could not be reached. With no other choice, Xu Muchan called the other people at the research institute one after another. In the end, Jiang Fang answered.
“Xu Muchan?” Jiang Fang’s voice sounded extremely tired.
Xu Muchan didn’t waste any time and immediately explained why he was calling. “Have you found anyone from the Ouyang family?”
“No. At this point, the Ouyang family fleeing isn’t even the main issue anymore.”
Jiang Fang sighed. “You should have seen the rumors spreading all over the internet recently. The Black River has contaminated ordinary rivers. After coming into contact with contaminated water sources, many ordinary people have become able to see ghosts and evil entities. The number of supernatural incidents has skyrocketed, and the public opinion online is impossible to suppress. We’re busy cleaning up messes everywhere…”
“Sister He and the other higher-ups are all in the capital attending a meeting. There still isn’t any definite decision on how we’re going to respond. Apparently, they’re still arguing…”
Even Jiang Fang, who normally didn’t say much, couldn’t help complaining a few times. Only after finishing did he realize something. “You suddenly contacted me. Did you find some kind of lead?”
Xu Muchan gave a quiet “Mm” and said, “Have you been to Mount Guiyi to investigate? I suspect they might be at Mount Guiyi.”
“Mount Guiyi?”
There was some hesitation in Jiang Fang’s voice over the phone. “After the incident there, the remaining villagers were gradually relocated and resettled. We really haven’t paid much attention to the place since then.”
Xu Muchan said, “I’m planning to go take a look. If you can’t spare anyone, I’ll go by myself.”
After a slight hesitation, Jiang Fang said, “When are you leaving? I’ll report it to the higher-ups first and see how many people we can spare to support you. We’ll meet in Yundong then.”
Xu Muchan opened the ticket-booking app and glanced at it. “I’ll leave Friday night.”