Xiao Jing followed the road sign back to where she first heard the sound of running water. After a short break, she struggled to adjust her mindset. She kept convincing herself that the lake was where she was, and tried to find the feeling she had when she was "going home", and then silently said in her heart that "the lake is ahead" and walked into the forest. Still listening to the sound of the water, as the forest got deeper and deeper, the sound of flowing water became louder and louder, Xiao Jing was a little excited in her heart, for a while, she could only hear the two sounds, the stream between the mountains and her own heartbeat. She couldn't help but quicken her pace. She felt that she was getting closer and closer to the lake, the white fog around her was getting thicker and thicker, and the sound of her heartbeat was strengthening as the distance narrowed. For a moment, she stopped abruptly, and suddenly she felt that she could only hear her own heartbeat. The sound of her heartbeat was mixed with the occasional sound of water, and she seemed to run over, but there was still no trace of the lake. She began to panic. Sensing that something was wrong around her, she unconsciously folded her arms around her chest and looked around. It was then that she suddenly noticed that the road signs attached to the trees were missing. And on the way here, I didn't see Shen Mingde's shadow at all. Could it be that the stream has changed direction in such a short period of time? Xiao Jing didn't want to think about it, she turned her head and ran in the direction she was coming. Mist hung over her front, and she recalled once again what it felt like to be stared at that day. Xiao Jing's mind was blank, anxiety and fear continued to gather in her body, intertwined into a pitch-black cumulonimbus cloud, with an earth-shattering sound, like the sound of a strong typhoon rolling up huge waves hitting the reef on the shore, she felt the pouring rain instantly penetrate her body, and she couldn't help but shiver violently. Then, as if everything was calm, she felt a few splashes of water on her body, and she was wet and cool from her ankle down. She slowly opened her closed eyes, and the sunlight between the dark clouds reflected in a pool of clear water. The water was peaceful, except for a series of ripples at her ankles.

This is the lake. Xiao Jing suddenly had an excitement in her heart, this is the lake described by Zhou Tengfei, the lake in the photo on Shen Mingde's computer, and the lake where her husband disappeared. Her feet were still soaked in the water, and her socks were soaked with the water in her hiking boots. At this moment, she seemed to be back in the arms of her husband, so gentle, so safe.

A mountain bird's cry relieved her. Xiao Jing turned back to the shore of the lake and shook off her soaked feet. It is a large beach of sand and small rocks, and the grayish color seems to announce that it is still untrampled by humans. The beach stretches from the water's edge to a forest of trees dozens of meters away. Xiao Jing saw that Shen Mingde was on the edge of the miscellaneous woods and looked in her direction. Xiao Jing waved his hand excitedly, due to the distance, Xiao Jing didn't see his expression clearly, but it seemed that Shen Mingde had noticed. It seems that their speculation is correct, this lake is hidden in the mist, and not long after Xiao Jing left, Shen Mingde had already found the location of this lake after the mist, and obediently stood nearby waiting for her.

Xiao Jing dragged his heavy footsteps and followed Shen Mingde's back towards the miscellaneous forest. With almost every step she took, she could feel the weight of her body squeezing and squeezing the lake water in her shoes and socks, but the weight of her feet was not necessarily easy. Especially when she entered the woods, the dirt and fallen leaves on the ground stuck to her shoes like iron filings attracted by magnets. Xiao Jing felt a wave of nausea, and used a short branch to clean the mud on her feet, and when she raised her head again, Shen Mingde's back had disappeared into the shadows of the woods. She hurriedly ran in the direction where Shen Mingde had disappeared in her memory, calling his name softly. This forest is dense and leafy, and Xiao Jing staggered forward, hunching his back from time to time, and using his hands to pluck away the hanging branches. Fortunately, the woods were not too wide, and in just a few minutes, Xiao Jing had broken out of this barrier and stood in a clearing. The still wet earth was covered with a green carpet of green grass that followed the gentle slope to a stone wall made of uneven gray rocks. This stone wall is not very tall, about the same height as Xiao Jing. It was definitely not a natural product, and he could see that the gaps between the large stones were filled with an earthy binder.

Xiao Jing stood on tiptoe and saw the triangular roof of the low house, which was supposed to be a courtyard wall. She hurried around the stone wall, and she stood on a dirt road. The dirt road is relatively wide and should be able to accommodate two SUV cars passing side by side. The dirt road was not straight, but it was very flat, and it seemed to have no forks in the road, and it continued in the direction of the setting sun, and after a long stretch of flat ground, it climbed up the slope of a small hill to a vague building. There are two rows of houses on each side of the dirt road, along which the hill slope is built.

Shen Mingde's figure also appeared on the dirt road ahead. He seemed to be interested in the village, and as he walked slowly along the dirt road, he looked left and right, holding his right hand around the elbow of his left arm, while his left hand supported his chin, and his index and middle fingers were still tapping on his lips. Xiao Jing ran along the dirt road past a house in front of her, intending to catch up with Shen Mingde. In the open courtyard of the second house, I saw a short rickety old woman sitting on the stone steps in front of the house. The old woman's face was black and yellow, with wrinkles crawling all over her cheeks like vines, and her lips seemed to have shrunk after being dried, revealing mutilated yellow teeth. It was late spring, and she was still wearing a black cotton jacket with gray-black cotton wool at her elbows, and a faded red scarf folded into a triangle around her head to cover her sideburns. She noticed Xiao Jing's arrival, her expressionless eyes met her, and her swollen and cracked hands did not stop working. The old woman grasped a chicken or other bird with her left hand, and with her right hand she ripped off the poor animal's feathers.

Xiao Jing didn't look over, she didn't want to look at it again. Only then did she notice that there seemed to be quite a few people living in the village. Sometimes she could see figures flashing through the doorway, and sometimes she could hear the clash of tools inside and outside the house. Xiao Jing's eyes followed Shen Mingde to a deep well in the village, and he was lying on his stomach to observe the well. Later, the sight followed him into a low-walled yard. Shen Mingde unscrupulously checked and rummaged in the courtyard of other people's houses, completely ignoring the gaze of the woman in the courtyard. A man also came to the door from the house, staring at him with some kind of club-like tool, but making no sound. And the villager, staring at him with a wary gaze, moved away from him as if fleeing from the plague, always keeping a distance of several meters. Xiao Jing was so anxious that he shouted Shen Mingde's name, he just glanced sideways in Xiao Jing's direction, and then still fiddled with a hemp rope on the bucket in the yard of others.

Xiao Jing was about to step forward to stop Shen Mingde, when suddenly, a different outfit from those villagers passed through her afterglow. Xiao Jing recognized at a glance that it was Zhou Tengfei's back, at least it was the back of Zhou Tengfei's unique jacket. Although the jacket is a popular style, the reason why it is unique is because on the back of the jacket was printed by Zhou Tengfei himself with a few big words "I am like Jingjing" and a symbol of a smiling face.

Xiao Jing was about to follow, but a tall old villager stood in front of her. The old man's earthy yellow face was wrinkled and piled up, like a layer of yellow mud on his face, and after being dried by the air, cracks were produced piece by piece. Deep in the cracks between the towering forehead and cheekbones, a pair of tiny eyes can be seen, like a cold light under the abyss. The gaze was a little less clever as a human being, but it was more cruel like a beast. Xiao Jing was about to speak, but saw other villagers pick up tools and surround them. The villagers did not just work with hoes or shovels, and it was clear that they were not just holding tools in their hands, but weapons. Xiao Jing turned around and ran when she saw this scene. She didn't dare to turn back, because there was a noise of villagers chasing after her.

Shen Mingde put on the hood of his jacket, lowered his head, and walked briskly along the dirt road towards the entrance of the village, leaving behind several old houses along the way. Suddenly, he was stopped by a small straight line that appeared in the land. At the end of this line segment is an arrow pointing to the dilapidated house on Shen Mingde's left. The wide open courtyard door was like an "invitation", more like a "challenge letter", as if to warn him that "if you don't come in, you will never find the answer".

Shen Mingde played back and forth in his mind the arrow he saw painted on the ground. When he came back to his senses, he found himself standing in front of the door of the house with the word "mountain" written on it, clenched teeth. The door was hidden, and the ajar door was like a centenarian who wanted to tell people about ancient legends, but he couldn't say anything. Shen Mingde approached the crack of the door with a hint of awe, and the black hole inside really disappointed him. So, he gently stabbed the door with his index finger. The thin and old door panel made a "squeak" sound. After a moment, seeing that there was no movement in the room, Shen Mingde licked his lips as if he had made up his mind. He turned to his side, pointed his left toe to the gate of the courtyard on the outside, and his right shoulder to the hidden door, pressed the thumb, index and middle finger of his right hand against the door, and slowly pushed forward. As the right hand gradually moved away from the body, the crack in the door also "creaked, creaked" and slowly expanded. The faint light seeped into the dark room little by little, and Shen Mingde seemed to see a strange silhouette hanging in the room. The man's head hung low, his face obscured by a huge hat, and his thin body wrapped in straw hung limply at his sides. Shen Mingde did not hesitate, immediately turned his head, turned around with his left foot as the fulcrum, exerted his right foot, kicked the ground violently, and jumped to the vicinity of the courtyard gate with one arrow step. He ran a few steps and stopped at the courtyard gate, for there was no movement behind him.

Shen Mingde returned to the door of the room again and found that the thing he regarded as a terrifying "monster" was nothing more than a hat and a robe hanging on the wall. He relaxed while laughing at his timidity. Turn on the flashlight function on your mobile phone and stand at the door to observe the situation in the house. The mud walls and the blue brick floor, the wood stove next to the east wall, and the hand-pulled bellows all show the vicissitudes of the house's era. The structure of this house is very simple, there are two doors open on the left and right sides of this kitchen. walked into the "kitchen" identified by Shen Mingde and stood at the door of the room on the right. If he guessed correctly, Shen Mingde thought that this should be a bedroom. A huge earthen kang occupies half of the room. There are no furnishings in the bedroom, and the only furniture is probably two tree stumps placed against the wall opposite the ondol that could be used as seats.

And in the small room on the left, it has a different feeling of "four walls of home" from that bedroom. In a six- or seven-square-meter room, there were scattered tools and a few long-handled farm tools leaning against the left and right walls at the entrance of the room. What attracted Shen Mingde the most was a small desk in the corner diagonally opposite the door. The desk is old and tattered, and the table top has a very smooth coating effect due to years of use. With the light of the flashlight on the mobile phone, you can also see the scratches on the desktop, which shows that this desk has experienced all kinds of "abuse" by those naughty students in its life. On the table was a stack of open, old-fashioned manuscript papers, on which a letter-like article was neatly written. The text is written in simplified Chinese characters familiar to Shen Mingde, and the style and grammatical structure suggest that the author of this article should be a modern person, at least a person who has received compulsory education after the founding of the People's Republic of China. Shen Mingde didn't look any further, but folded several pages of manuscript paper with handwriting and put them into the pocket of his jacket.

However, at this moment, Shen Mingde noticed that another piece of work notebook paper appeared on the desk, which read, "Please, take me out". The reason why this piece of paper "appeared" on the desk was because Shen Mingde had never seen this piece of paper with a request for help when he was looking through the words on the manuscript paper. Maybe it was because it was too dark in the room and the brightness of the flashlight was limited, so I missed this piece of paper when I flipped through the contents of the manuscript paper. On the piece of paper was clearly the words "Take me out", which were written in a hurry and in a mood. Although there was no reason, Shen Mingde secretly felt that these words had just been written. All of a sudden, his imagination came flooding with superstitious legends from his childhood memories. Shen Mingde felt that there was something around him, and that thing was invisible and invisible, but he could feel a faint breath and a sense of oppression that was being watched. Under this oppression, he looked a little hysterically left and right, his eyeballs rolling up and down like a lizard looking for prey. The heartbeat was like thunder, one, two, three...... It wasn't until a few sounds later that Shen Mingde felt his hands cold, and his powerful heart carried his blood from his arms to his legs. He slowly lowered his body, stabilized his center of gravity, slightly bent his knees, and prepared to flee. The contraction of the heart again made Shen Mingde take a deep breath, and the subsequent heartbeat was like the sound of a starting gun on a sprint track, which made him adrenaline rush and woke up the cells in his body, and his legs were like springs that launched his body in the direction of the door.

For the first time in 37 years, Shen Mingde realized that he could run so fast and react so quickly. He nimbly stepped across the scattered tools in the room and ran to the door of the room in a few steps. And just as he was about to step out of the doorway with only two steps left, several long-handled farm tools that were leaning smoothly against the left and right walls of the doorway suddenly collapsed. This was by no means a natural phenomenon, nor was it Shen Mingde's running in the room that shook those farm tools. Rather, some surreal force pulled the long-handled farm tools on both sides towards the door, like several spears blocking the door in an "X" shape. Shen Mingde jumped past the wooden handle of the broom that stood in front of his legs, and then quickly shielded his arms from another oncoming long-handled attack, and at this moment, another falling pickaxe long-handle hit his right soft underbelly. Due to his fast running speed, if it was a sharp weapon, it would likely pierce his body. Shen Mingde suddenly felt soreness, numbness, swelling and pain, this painful feeling made his whole body lose strength, and even the fighting spirit to leave the room disappeared with this poke. Shen Mingde fell straight to the left side, lying on his side, his right arm clamped the ribs on his right, and his feet kicked the ground as if venting, raising puffs of dust. Like a fish out of water, he struggled and opened his mouth slightly in an "O" shape, breathing greedily and rapidly, because each breath brought a sharp pain in the right rib. It took a while for the pain to subside. Shen Mingde gained a sense of relief from the beginning of a serious illness, although he still didn't dare to take a big breath, but his sanity had recovered. His right arm was still gripping the painful area, and he was about to sit up with his left elbow on his elbow, when he suddenly noticed a piece of paper on the ground. The scrap of paper reads, "Are you alright? I don't want to hurt you", and at the end of the sentence, he simply drew a smiley face.

Shen Mingde's inner array can be described as mixed. The pain turned into anger, and he didn't know whether to vent to the thing that wrote the note or to himself, which he thought was a little funny, but he couldn't laugh, so he had to keep his left arm on the ground. Not long after, another piece of paper reappeared. It was a piece of paper that appeared on the ground out of thin air, like a dream, like magic. The scrap of paper read, "Please take me out." Mark the paper on the table and wait for me at the edge of the woods with 'quacks' on it, and I'll hold you, don't be afraid. Then pull me out of the woods. Shen Mingde probably understood what it meant, sat up slowly, looked nearby for a while, and then took out his mobile phone. He wrote in the notepad on his mobile phone, "Zhou Tengfei? ”

Then another piece of paper fell in front of him, with the words "I am a high mountain apricot." I can see and hear you. You don't have to write. ”

Shen Mingde also calmed down as the pain weakened. Although he couldn't see the "person" in front of him, he didn't perceive any malice in his actions and tone. So he threw a series of questions at the "invisible man". Soon, another piece of paper fell from the sky. Shen Mingde didn't wait for the piece of paper to hit the ground, so he hurriedly caught the piece of paper. It reads, "Trouble writing, go out and tell you everything." ”

Shen Mingde was in a hurry, he turned on the recording function of the mobile phone, and instructed the "invisible man" to speak into the microphone. Before Shen Mingde could react, the mobile phone placed on the ground disappeared from his eyes in an instant. When the phone reappeared, there was already another audio file inside. Shen Mingde hurriedly played the audio. The sound inside is clear, not at all eerie and scary like ghost stories or legends. In the recording, a young girl's impatient voice said:

"I can't be seen when I meet you. This house is disliked by the local villagers, and generally no one will come in, so it is safe. I studied at Fengyang Art Institute, and the story is very long, so I'll talk about it when I go out. Let's go, they'll be back in a moment. ”

Shen Mingde put the phone on the ground again and asked how to take her out. When the phone appeared in front of him again, there was another audio file. The voice said:

"You can follow the route back, and occasionally drop a ball of paper as a signpost. I can't get too close to you, it's a problem to be seen. I follow you from afar. When you go to the quacks, which are the things hanging on the trees, and those quacks are reduced, it means that you are already at the edge of this forest. I can't see the grunts, so you have to stop and wait for me. Then throw some more paper balls on the ground. Or reach out and gesture to me. I'll grab your hand. It is said that when you are touched by me, you will feel terrible, and I don't know what it feels like, but it may be very painful. But please don't let go, and pull me out of this woods, and we'll be safe. Thank you so much! ”

Shen Mingde hesitated a little after hearing this. He was a little afraid of what would happen if he was touched by this girl, and he was not confident that he would be able to pull the girl out of the woods after being touched. Halfway curious, Shen Mingde sat up straight on the ground, stretched out his arms, and said in a commanding tone, "Let me feel what it's like to be touched by you." After the experience, when I pull you out, I won't be scared to death by that feeling. At the same time, he kept comforting himself in his heart: "If this girl wanted to harm me, she could have done it a long time ago, why wait until now?" ”

Shen Mingde's arms were raised in the air for a long time, so that his arms trembled slightly. Just as he was about to put it down, a petite, cold, slightly trembling touch came from his right wrist. Immediately, the coldness pierced through his flesh and pierced the bone marrow. Rushed along the right arm to the heart, and with another heartbeat, it spread throughout the body. What followed was soreness and numbness that followed the spread of the heartbeat, and finally pain. Various physical sensations appear in turn, gathering in the body. Suddenly, fear, frustration, despair, shame, self-pity, jealousy, hatred, disgust, anger...... And so on, negative emotions alternately circulate. I don't know how long it took for Shen Mingde to realize that his right arm was hanging weakly on the right side of his body, and his hand was still clenched into a fist on the ground. Shen Mingde cherished his right hand in front of him, and with a little difficulty, he broke his stiff fingers with the help of his left hand. The fingertips were still a little numb, the blood that flowed back seemed to be extremely disgusted with the hand that had been touched, and the skin from the wrist to the right hand was still cold and grayish. And on Shen Mingde's right wrist, a small purple-cyan handprint gradually appeared.

After Shen Mingde recovered his right hand, he slowly stood up. Although there was still a slight pain in his right rib and some numbness in his right hand, he survived the pain twice in one day, making him feel that life was so beautiful. It's not that he's in a good mood now, but that he enjoys the sense of relief from the beginning of a serious illness. He felt like his body was feverish, and his steps were a little erratic, but he still moved to the small desk, picked up the stack of manuscript papers, and said firmly, "Let's go, I think I can do it." ”

Shen Mingde staggered out of the village, and before entering the woods, he had not forgotten to tear off a piece of manuscript paper with his left hand and throw it on the ground. The heavy body stepped on the "carpet" woven by dead branches and leaves, as if walking in cotton wool. Fortunately, you don't need to look for the way back, and when you look up, you can see the road sign on the trunk of the tree when you came. His heart was full of hope, Yang Chuan was already lying in the hospital, Zhou Tengfei should still be alive, maybe he would go back soon, and the mystery that had been entangled with him for the past few days would be solved as the girl walked out of the woods. Unconsciously, the "cicada cages" hanging on the trees have become scarce. Shen Mingde stopped, threw a few paper balls at his feet, and then stretched out his hands to the sides, waiting for the arrival of this final level.