(Time: Morning of the third day)

  Although the fear within me gnawed at my nerves incessantly like a maggot clinging to bone, although the soul-shattering "ghost wall" experience from last night remained a vivid brand on my memory, making me wary and apprehensive of every inch of this village, the thought of finding Xiao Zhang and Meiling still provided a faint support, motivating me to keep moving.

  Carrying my backpack, tightly gripping my trekking pole and the rough wooden stick, I walked slowly and cautiously along the main muddy path in the village. The morning light struggled through the thinning (yet still thick) fog, barely coating the surrounding silent ruins with a pale white glow. The air was cold and damp, thick with the smell of decaying leaves and earth, occasionally mixed with a faint, elusive stench like something rotting.

  I tried hard to recall the direction the couple had taken when they left yesterday evening. They seemed to have headed towards the other side of the village, opposite my base and the central ancestral hall. I planned to search in that direction first, hoping to see traces they left behind, or... find the place they chose to settle.

  However, the layout of this village was more chaotic and disordered than I had imagined. The paths were narrow and winding, often blocked by collapsed houses or overgrown vegetation. In many places, there were no paths at all, forcing me to wade through waist-deep weeds and thorn bushes. The dense fog further exacerbated the difficulty of identifying directions; the surrounding scenery blurred and distorted in the mist, seeming to quietly shift position at any moment.

  While vigilantly observing my surroundings, I carefully looked for any signs that might belong to Xiao Zhang and Meiling—fresh footprints, broken branches, discarded trash... but found nothing. The village was like a greedy maw, silently swallowing all traces of outsiders.

  In this almost aimless search, my steps unconsciously led me back towards the center of the village, to the place that both terrified and intrigued me—the dilapidated ancestral hall, and... the stone wall covered in eerie carvings.

  Perhaps subconsciously, I still believed that crucial clues were hidden there; perhaps a journalist's instinct drove me, unwilling to let go of any point of doubt; or perhaps... fear itself possessed a morbid attraction, pulling me towards it like a vortex.

  Standing before the tall and gloomy ancestral hall building again, my heart still tightened uncontrollably. The vermilion doors were shut tight, the rusty bronze lock like the eye of a sleeping beast. The dense, bizarre talismans covering the doors and walls looked even more eerie and ominous in the grayish-white morning light.

  And that stone wall...

  The daylight was better than at dusk, and the fog had slightly dispersed, making the twisted carvings on the wall clearer, and also more... shocking.

  They were like a dark language, a script not belonging to humans, densely covering the cold stone surface. New carvings overlapped old ones, layer upon layer, as if over countless years, innumerable hands, driven by the same unspeakable fear or hatred, had left their frantic and desperate marks here.

  I took a deep breath, forcing myself to suppress the fear and the lingering shock from last night. I took out my camera and removed the lens cap; documenting these symbols, no matter what, was one of the important goals of this trip.

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  Slowly, I approached the stone wall, almost holding my breath, focusing the lens on the carvings. I tried shooting from different angles and focal lengths, hoping to capture every detail. The camera's shutter clicked softly, "click, click," exceptionally clear in the dead silence.

  The more I observed, the more I felt an inexplicable chill. The composition of these symbols was extremely distorted, full of sharp, aggressive lines, and unsettling, asymmetrical structures. They seemed to mimic certain natural forms—insect limbs, snake scales, twisted branches, or perhaps... human facial expressions in extreme pain or fear? But all were abstracted and rendered malevolently, causing dizziness and nausea if stared at for too long.

  I noticed that certain specific symbols seemed to repeat in different locations on the wall. For example, one resembled a spiral but with a sharp spike at the end; another looked like three distorted eyes stacked together; and one appeared to be a snake devouring its own tail, its body covered in spikes... Did these recurring symbols represent specific meanings? The core of a curse? Or marks of some ritual?

  Taking pictures didn't seem sufficient. I took out a small sketchbook and a pencil from my backpack, deciding to sketch these recurring or particularly significant-looking symbols.

  I chose an area where the carvings were relatively clear and the light was slightly better, squatted down, placed the sketchbook on my knee, and began sketching, stroke by stroke. The pencil tip slid across the rough paper, making a "sha sha" sound.

  This was an extremely mentally taxing process. I had to concentrate fully to accurately replicate those twisted and complex lines. Each stroke felt like introducing a trace of cold, ominous air into the pencil tip, permeating the paper. My fingers gradually grew stiff, and my breathing involuntarily became rapid.

  The air seemed to grow colder. The fog appeared to thicken again, silently gathering around me, isolating me from the outside world. The light dimmed further, and the shadows of the carvings on the wall seemed to come alive, slowly writhing and changing in the faint light.

  And that feeling of being watched... returned!

  Stronger than ever before! As if a pair (or countless pairs) of cold, malicious eyes were hiding behind the thick fog, behind those dilapidated windows, in my blind spots, staring intently at me! Staring at the pen in my hand, staring at the eerie symbols gradually taking shape under my pen!

  My back was instantly soaked in cold sweat. The hand holding the pencil began to tremble violently, almost uncontrollably. The pencil tip drew a twisted and ugly long mark on the paper.

  I jerked my head up, looking around warily.

  Thick fog, dead silence.

  The closed doors of the ancestral hall were like a silent giant mouth.

  The dilapidated house where the mysterious old man lived, its wooden door still shut tight, showed no sign of movement.

  The surrounding ruins twisted and deformed in the fog, like lurking shadows.

  Nothing...

  But the feeling of being watched was like a tangible spider web, wrapping me tightly, suffocating me.

  "Who?! Who's there?!" I finally couldn't bear it anymore and shouted sharply, my voice somewhat shrill and hoarse due to fear.

  My voice spread through the dead air, hitting the cold walls and thick fog, producing hollow echoes, then quickly swallowed.

  No response.

  Only the wind... a cold, almost silent yin wind, quietly blew past, rolling up a few dead leaves from the ground, swirling them to land at my feet.

  My heart sank to the bottom.

  There... there really is "something" here! It's watching me! It doesn't like me probing these secrets!

  Fear surged like a tide again, almost engulfing me. I could no longer maintain composure, slammed the sketchbook shut, haphazardly stuffed it into my backpack, grabbed the camera, and fled miserably from this stone wall filled with cursed whispers.

  I didn't even dare to look back at the eerie ancestral hall, nor think about the mysterious old man. I just wanted to leave this suffocating place as quickly as possible, return to my fragile but at least familiar "stronghold".

  I stumbled through the fog and ruins, my heart pounding wildly, breathing rapid and chaotic. The cold, malicious gaze from behind seemed to follow relentlessly.

  Daytime in Fengmen Village was not much safer than night.

  Terror, like an omnipresent shadow, enveloped every inch of space, seeped into every crevice.

  And I was already deeply trapped, unable to extricate myself.