ID No. 019 - Chapter 15.1

The three drawings were clear in their differences and similarities, making it easy to notice the details at a glance.

The background in each drawing was identical—vines that gave off an eerie feeling, as if they could grow out of the drawing at any moment.

Each drawing depicted a ritual. Three drawings, three different ceremonies. The sequence of the drawings and the appearance and disappearance of the halos—what could they represent?

Chen Yang was an ordinary person, not someone who could draw or who understood art. After thinking for a while, he pointed at the nearby altar and said, “The altar in the drawing is just like this one.

“The stone pillars here are the same as the ones in the drawing, but the first two drawings don’t have them. Only the third one does.

“In the drawing, there are four stone pillars, but currently, there are only three at the altar.

“The positions of the stone pillars around the altar are also different.

He muttered to himself, “What would happen if we find the fourth stone pillar and place them in the order shown in the drawing? Would that complete the mission?

“Anyway, we still need to find the fourth stone pillar first, then we’ll figure it out.

“Just where do we look? There’s no hint.

Chen Yang muttered to himself for a while, then shook the boy’s cane. “Have you discovered anything?”

Chao Jian glanced at him. “You seemed pretty enthusiastic talking to yourself.”

Chen Yang: “…”

Chao Jian took a picture of the drawing with his phone.

Chen Yang said, “At midnight, the overlapping space in the stone cave will disappear, and the altar in the space will also be hidden. What happens if we stay here without leaving?”

Chao Jian replied, “You’ll run out of oxygen.”

Chen Yang was momentarily taken aback by this strange logic, his fear dissipating. “True, it isn’t a good idea to stay in a sealed space for too long. Then let’s head out. We’ll come back at 10:35 tomorrow morning. If everything goes well, we’ll bring the fourth pillar with us.”

Chao Jian put his phone away. “Leave the box here.”

Chen Yang’s hair stood on end. “Why?”

Chao Jian shifted his cane that Chen Yang had tightly clutched in his hand. “Isn’t it heavy to carry?”

“…A little.”

Chao Jian leaned on his cane and walked toward the simple marker where the overlapping point was. Chen Yang quickly placed the box on the ground and jogged to catch up.

In the moment they left, Chen Yang vaguely heard footsteps again.

And many shadows.

Chen Yang truly experienced what the mountain was like.

No matter how bright the moonlight was, the dense foliage would blot out most of it, leaving everything in dim shadows when one traversed the woods. It was even worse given that what hung in the sky tonight was a crescent moon.

The surroundings were pitch-black. After walking for a while, Chen Yang turned around and could no longer see the path they had come from.

Fearing the wound on his hand might get scratched by the branches, he kept it in front of him and used his other hand to hold Chao Jian’s phone to light the way.

With the light and someone behind him, he felt a bit less afraid.

“It’s so dark at night, we can’t even see. How are we supposed to find the fourth pillar?” Chen Yang stepped on a small twig that snapped. “Are we just going to walk around blindly like this? Or do you already have a rough guess on where to go?”

Chao Jian, leaning on his crutches, walked behind him. “No, we’re just relying on luck.”

Chen Yang stumbled slightly. “So you didn’t feel anything even after you saw those three drawings?”

No response.

Chen Yang began analyzing out loud. “The first one shows the leader standing on the altar, and the people kneeling around him look very pious. In the second one, the leader has a halo above him, maybe a kind of blessing.

“In the third drawing, the leader seems to have committed some grave mistake, and the people who were once kneeling are no longer devoted. They’re all standing, watching him kneel on the altar, and the halo is gone. It looks like the leader had been stripped of his blessing…”

He kept talking as he walked, his thoughts rambling. He was the only one speaking while Chao Jian remained silent, but he knew the young man was listening, even if his words lacked structure and logic.

And Chao Jian hadn’t been swayed by Lin Yue’s attempts to sow discord; he was a good ally, a good partner.

“I don’t know what type of plant the vines are. I’ve never seen anything like them on the island. They must be related to the curse,” Chen Yang muttered.

Just then, the cane lightly tapped his calf, accompanied by Chao Jian’s voice, which had lowered to a whisper: “Someone’s coming.”

Chen Yang fully trusted the young man’s sharp senses and immediately stopped in his tracks. It was then he realised they had arrived at a fork in the path. The sound of rustling came from one of the smaller trails ahead, as if someone was desperately running through the forest. And it was heading straight for them.

The sound grew louder and Chen Yang heard heavy, labored breathing. He was certain it was a human.

Monsters don’t breathe like that.

He quickly turned off the phone, which shouldn’t have been on the island, and asked Chao Jian for the box of matches they had taken from Li Dafu’s house. He struck one and held it up.

He wasn’t sure who was coming, but deep down, he hoped it was Ah Wu. When he saw the figure approaching, his expression faltered.

It wasn’t Ah Wu. It was Teacher Zhou!

This was the second time Chen Yang had encountered Teacher Zhou, after the incident in front of Mrs. Liu’s house. He was still in the same gray changshan, but now, he was soaked to the bone with no glasses on. His whole demeanor was haggard and worn.

Upon seeing Chen Yang and the tall youth beside him, Teacher Zhou’s eyes widened in panic, and he almost turned to flee.

“Hey, Teacher Zhou, we’re human,” Chen Yang quickly called out.

Teacher Zhou froze for a moment, then turned back, his voice trembling, “Human?”

“Yes,” Chen Yang replied, quickly extinguishing the match that almost burnt his fingers and striking another. He sighed. “People who got scared.”

The tension seemed to leave Teacher Zhou’s body and he collapsed onto the ground.

Chen Yang pulled Chao Jian over to sit down beside the fork in the road, letting Teacher Zhou rest for a while before they talked.

Teacher Zhou, a simple school teacher, had seen his worldview shatter over the course of the day. The wise and elegant look in his eyes had vanished, replaced by paranoia, as if he saw enemies in every shadow. He seemed like a delicate flower, fragile and withered, swaying in the storm.

Chen Yang fiddled with the dry grass, struck a match, and tossed it into the pile to start a small fire. “Teacher Zhou, how did your clothes get so wet?”

Teacher Zhou let out a bitter smile. “I crawled out of the sea.”

He then recounted his escape. He did not describe the perils he encountered in detail, but essentially, he had jumped into the sea in his panic. He was too afraid to come up to shore, so he swam around the island, only returning to land after peace returned to the night.

Chen Yang listened and asked, “When you were hiding in the sea, weren’t you afraid there might be something in the fog out there?”

Teacher Zhou shuddered, his heart racing. “I didn’t have time to think.” His clothes were still soaked and his face paled when a breeze blew from the mountain.

Chen Yang handed him two milk candies.

At this point, even milk candies were highly valuable.

Teacher Zhou thanked him repeatedly and was about to ask what they were when, suddenly, he felt an icy, oppressive gaze on him.

He trembled, lifting his head, but found the gaze had vanished, leaving no trace—like an illusion. Disappearing with it was the suffocating sense of impending doom, as if a wild beast had been about to devour him alive.

Chen Yang noticed Teacher Zhou seemed a little dazed. “Teacher Zhou?”

“It’s nothing,” Teacher Zhou muttered. “Nothing.”

“I gave you some food from outside. Go ahead and eat it,” Chen Yang said. He put one of the milk candies in his own mouth, then leaned toward Chao Jian, who was sitting with his arms crossed under a tree. He whispered, asking if Chao Jian had finished his, and if there were any left.

Chao Jian kept his eyes closed and didn’t respond. After a few seconds, a hand reached into the pocket of his jacket, leaving a piece of milk candy behind.

His eyelids slightly stirred and the arms that had been wrapped around his chest shifted down, subtly pressing over the pocket.

Chen Yang heard the young man cough, and Teacher Zhou jumped like a startled rabbit, seeming ready to bolt into the undergrowth at any moment. He quickly explained, “It’s just a cold.”

Teacher Zhou breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh, I see. It’s cold at night, so it’s easy to catch a cold. I’m probably getting one too.” He sneezed. “I had medicine, but I forgot to bring it when I ran.”

Teacher Zhou sighed again. Survival was the priority. He did not have the leisure to care about anything else.

Chen Yang added a few more dry twigs to the fire. “Teacher Zhou, Ah Wu said that he heard from an elder in his family that the island had experienced something like today on a large scale in the past…”

“Impossible!” Teacher Zhou interrupted sternly. “A large scale incident? That can’t be true. I’ve never heard of such a thing. Never.”

Suddenly, Teacher Zhou’s face turned pale with shock. “Wait a minute, how could Ah Wu have an elder in his family? He’s been living alone!”