Act One: The Summons in the Rainy Night
At seven thirty at night, the temperature on the National Taiwan University campus plunged with the torrential rain. Outside, wind and rain pounded against the glass windows of the Physics Department building, producing a dull, frantic barrage of sound. Inside the office, a yellow desk lamp illuminated stacks of papers and Chen Po-han's tightly furrowed brow.
Lin Yu-ching sat hunched on the edge of the sofa, water still dripping from her soaked jacket. She clutched a cup of freshly brewed hot tea in both hands. Beside her, her roommate Fen tenderly dried her dripping hair with a towel while eyeing the several men who had suddenly appeared before them with wary concern.
Five minutes earlier, Chen Po-han had called Old Li, Zhang Wei, and A-Xiang back to the office in an emergency, even though they had only just left.
"Professor, it's so late. What happened? On the phone, you said Yu-ching had been found?" Zhang Wei asked urgently as he pushed open the door and shook the water from his umbrella. A-Xiang followed close behind, his eyes immediately landing on the trembling Lin Yu-ching.
Old Li took off his slightly moldy jacket, casually hung it on the coat rack, pulled out a chair, and sat down. His sharp gaze swept over everyone in the room like a hawk's.
The atmosphere in the office was frighteningly oppressive. Chen Po-han did not speak at once. He turned around and looked at Lin Yu-ching. His tone remained hard, but he deliberately softened his voice.
"Student Lin, since you were willing to come back, that means the line of defense in your heart has already collapsed. The rain is heavy outside, and you're safe here. Tell us everything you saw in your old home village in Nantou—in that village that can't be found on any map. Don't leave out a single word."
Lin Yu-ching shuddered all over. She raised her tear-streaked face and looked into Chen Po-han's rational, intimidating eyes, then glanced at the concerned upperclassmen and her roommate beside her. Fen sensed her resistance and fear. She reached out and clasped Lin Yu-ching's cold, trembling fingertips tightly, giving her silent but steadfast strength.
Supported by the warmth in her roommate's palm, Lin Yu-ching drew a deep breath. Her chest heaved violently, and when she finally spoke, her voice was choked with sobs and uncontrollable fear.
"I... I thought it was just a threat concocted by the older generation, an excuse to keep us tied to that mountain..." Lin Yu-ching's voice echoed through the silent office, thin with despair.
She began describing daily life in the village. The villagers had all the normal conveniences—a grocery store, a small bar, even a little clinic—yet the place was utterly lifeless, every person wearing a fake smile that never reached their eyes. She described how, every morning in the village square, the village chief used that matter-of-fact tone to indoctrinate every young person under twenty-five with the "divine revelation."
"The village chief... he told us that a hundred years ago, the village offended some kind of god or suffered an inexplicable plague, and the mountain god was the one who saved our ancestors. But there was a price. Anyone descended from Wuyin Village had to return before reaching adulthood, and devote the rest of their life to the mountain god—to serve it for generations..." Lin Yu-ching choked up, tears spilling from her eyes again. "They said it was a blessing, a haven away from the world... But it wasn't! It was a prison for the living!"
At that, Old Li knitted his brows and snorted. "A mountain god from a hundred years ago? I've heard that line in countless cults and feudal clan organizations. It's nothing more than using ghosts and gods to establish absolute class control and imprison people."
"It wasn't just control..." Lin Yu-ching shook her head, terror shining in her eyes. "The most horrifying part was... the countdown. The moment someone turned twenty-five, as long as they left the village, they would die. Everyone believed it because... because that's how my brother disappeared."
The air in the office seemed to freeze. Zhang Wei and A-Xiang sucked in sharp breaths, and even Chen Po-han, who had always advocated materialism, narrowed his eyes slightly.
"My brother, Lin Yu-sheng, got into one of the top universities in the north two years ago, just like I did. He despised the rules in the village. He thought they were all superstition and firmly believed in science and reason." Lin Yu-ching bit down hard on her lower lip, oblivious even as blood seeped from it. "On his twenty-fifth birthday, he refused to return to the village and stayed in Taipei. Early that morning, on his birthday, he even sent me a message saying he was perfectly fine... But after that, I never heard from him again... The people in the village said my brother had died because of the curse, but I don't believe them... I believe he just went into hiding."
Before she had finished speaking, Old Li fell into deep thought. Not long afterward, he suddenly seemed to remember something. His breathing quickened as he turned and pulled an old, yellowed early case record from the black briefcase he carried, sealed inside a transparent plastic bag.
"Student Yu-ching..." Old Li's voice became more solemn and hoarse than ever, with even a trace of reluctance. "You said your brother's name was Lin Yu-sheng? He disappeared around late October two years ago? Around his birthday?"
Lin Yu-ching froze, then nodded vigorously. "Yes! October twenty-eighth! Officer, how... how did you know?"
Old Li did not answer immediately. He opened the stack of forensic files on unidentified bodies that he had brought with him and pulled out a case file marked "2024-NT-1028." Slowly, he pushed it to the center of the table.
"Yu-ching, listen to me and stay calm." Old Li took a deep breath and looked straight at her. "In early November two years ago, the Tamsui Police Precinct of New Taipei City reported that an unidentified male body had surfaced within its jurisdiction. The preliminary forensic examination determined that the deceased was approximately twenty-five years old and had died about three days earlier. Since he had no identification on him, the case eventually became unsolved."
All the color drained from Lin Yu-ching's face. Her body went limp on the sofa as though all her strength had been pulled out of her. Her lips trembled violently. "No... No, that's impossible... My brother..."
"Don't panic yet. Let me finish matching the identifying features." Old Li continued heavily. "When the forensic examiner autopsied the unidentified body, they recorded several highly distinctive details—even ones not listed in the household registration system. First, beneath the deceased's left collarbone was a small, light-brown birthmark shaped like a plum blossom. Second, on the inside of his right wrist was a mechanical watch that had been ruined by water, but its band was fastened with a distinctive braided red cord."
At those words, a thunderous boom erupted in Lin Yu-ching's mind, and everything before her eyes went black.
"The plum-blossom mark beneath his left collarbone... the old watch with the braided red-cord band... Mom braided that band for him herself..." Lin Yu-ching's tears burst forth. Her voice was hoarse, like a shattered bellows. "That was my brother... It really was my brother... He didn't go into hiding. He wasn't trying to cut off contact with his family... He really died on the night of his twenty-fifth birthday..."
Fen held the completely shattered Lin Yu-ching tightly as she sobbed aloud, her own eyes reddening as tears spilled over.
The office fell into utter silence. Zhang Wei and A-Xiang had tears in their eyes and turned away, unable to keep watching. Old Li let out a heavy sigh and slumped helplessly back against his chair.
Amid the crying that pressed down on the room, Chen Po-han remained silent for a long time.
Standing before his desk, he slowly picked up the forensic report on the unidentified body, then looked at the bloodstained notebook on the table. As a physics professor, everything he had been taught, every experiment he had conducted, and every logical model he had built throughout the first half of his life was screaming at him that there had to be a scientifically explainable blind spot—a previously unknown neurotoxin, myocardial infarction brought on by a long journey, or simply an extraordinarily meticulous murder plot.
But when "twenty-five," "Wuyin Village," "mineral composition inconsistent with the lungs," "unidentified body," and the grief-stricken female student before him became intertwined, that supposedly flawless materialist logic developed an enormous, irreparable crack for the first time.
"This isn't a coincidence..." Chen Po-han's voice was frighteningly low, utterly flat, yet filled with the pressure of a storm about to break. "If the cause of death was drowning, but the composition in the lungs doesn't match the location where the body was found; if every person died precisely on their twenty-fifth birthday; if even the administrative system could be deliberately wiped clean by some force..."
He raised his head, his gaze shooting toward Old Li like a blade. "Old Li, how deeply did the police investigate cases like these in the past? What exactly are the household registration authorities and local factions in Nantou covering up?"
Old Li gave a bitter laugh and slapped his cigarette case onto the table. "Professor Chen, do you think I didn't want to investigate? Whenever we formally requested the old household registration records related to Wuyin Village, they were immediately stamped with a red seal reading 'Classified Files, Transferred to the Provincial Government.' Even the rank-and-file officers at the local police station would collectively pretend to be deaf and dumb whenever anyone mentioned the village. That isn't an ordinary village. It's an absolute forbidden zone, completely forgotten by the law and the light of day, built on fear and blood debts."
Zhang Wei couldn't help asking, "Then... what are we supposed to do now? Yu-ching isn't even nineteen yet. She still has several years before she turns twenty-five, but if the people in the village are already watching her, she won't be safe going back to school either!"
"She can't go anywhere." Chen Po-han made the decision without hesitation, his tone leaving no room for argument. "Starting today, Student Lin will stay in a dorm near campus, under covert protection from plainclothes officers. If anyone calls her, including her family, don't answer."
He turned and looked at Lin Yu-ching, who was still sobbing on the sofa. An extraordinarily complicated emotion flashed through his eyes. There was disgust toward superstition, shock at the cruelty of reality, and a stir deep in his blood that even he could neither explain nor put into words.
"...Murdered?" she murmured, her voice hoarse as a dry leaf breaking apart. "You mean... they weren't taken away by some invisible curse. They were drowned and thrown into the river by the village elders—the uncles who watched me grow up and always acted so concerned about me?"
She shook her head, her body lurching violently from intense nausea. "No... I don't believe it! How could they be so cold-blooded? They clearly said it was because we had defied the mountain god's will, that it was divine punishment! If... if it really was done by people, then over all these centuries, how many filthy crimes has that thing we called a 'god' actually covered up?"
Thinking of the playmates she had once played with at the village entrance, and the people her age who would "disappear" when their birthdays came around, Lin Yu-ching felt a chill run up her spine. Cold surged from the soles of her feet straight to her scalp, more horrifying than hearing about any vengeful ghost coming for her life. The thing she had feared all along was not some nonexistent ghost, but a group of devils willing to send even their own flesh and blood into the abyss of death without mercy to protect this lie.
Watching her nearly collapse, the rational barricade in Chen Po-han's heart was struck hard as well. He realized this was not a simple cult. It was a hunting system built on a structure of collective complicity.
"If this was a carefully planned human massacre," Chen Po-han said, his voice turning low and cold, "then no one in Wuyin Village is innocent. Every one of them is a participant in this sacrifice. Student Lin, what you're facing now isn't a ghost. It's an entire village of cold-blooded executioners."