ID No. 019 - Chapter 5.2

Chen Yang relaxed a little and started to think. Everyone on the island had gathered around when the boy’s body was carried out of Li Dafu’s house and all had their mouths agape without exception. He carefully recollected the scene and realised none of them smelt the faintest bit like fertiliser or were hiding the panic they felt; they were purely grieving for Mrs Liu.

Even Mrs Liu herself couldn’t smell it, or else she would have noticed her son’s abnormality earlier.

With these thoughts in mind, Chen Yang’s gaze wandered over to Zhang Yan, Lin Yan and Zhao Yuan. A bizarre conjecture surfaced in his mind, “Was everyone else cursed, while I remained normal?”

Chen Yang didn’t voice his speculation. A team without trust was very fragile and would crumble from any form of probing.

“It seems the curse is indeed related to fertiliser, but you won’t immediately die from it. Chen Yang, don’t panic.” Zhang Yan broke the silence, “Once we find the reason for the curse, those of us who haven’t been affected can avoid it and figure out a way to complete the mission. Then, we can get out of here.”

Zhao Yuan regained his composure after Zhang Yan spoke. He looked at Chen Yang awkwardly before hesitantly approaching him, “Sorry, bro. I was scared just now. I’m only eighteen and I don’t want to die here.” He choked up and covered his eyes with his arm as he started to cry.

The fear and desire to survive gradually eroded the simple and honest boy.

Chen Yang glanced at the young man, who was roughly the same age, and was rendered speechless. He was currently sleeping with his head buried between his legs.

Once Zhao Yuan started crying, he couldn’t stop and wailed like he was at a funeral.

“Great, someone was already wailing over there and now we have another one!” Lin Yue’s expression turned cold with annoyance.

“That’s enough!” Zhang Yan once again defended his teammate and gently suggested, “Chen Yang, you could smell fertiliser from the deceased’s mouth this morning, right? Try to recall what you did and said at the time.”

Chen Yang disclosed his interaction with the child in detail.

Zhang Yan was lost in thought while Zhao Yuan sat on the ground in a daze, tired from all the crying. As for Lin Yue, she continued to inspect the body by the coffin.

Chen Yang took a look around the forest for a while before sitting back down. The young man had already woken up. He looked harmless as he rubbed his eyes with his hand while the other rested on his leg. Chen Yang gave him a blank stare before approaching to ask, “You don’t smell the fertiliser too?”

The young man continued to rub his eyes, neither confirming nor denying it.

Chen Yang gleaned the answer from his silence. He stared at the young man for a while before whispering softly at a volume only the two of them could hear, “I have no appetite for fertiliser. You tested me out yourself. The only one who knows about it is you, so don’t tell anyone else.”

The young man’s hair cast a shadow over his drooping eyelids. Having just woken up, he was still groggy and listlessly replied, “Besides smelling the fertiliser on the corpse, you also found something else.”

His tone was confident.

Chen Yang paused, sceptical, “Did I?”

The young man glanced at him, “How about I take you over to the coffin and let you have another sniff?”

Chen Yang was immediately roused and rejected, “Let me think!”

The young man did not press him and instead remained quietly seated.

“I can’t remember.” Chen Yang muttered to himself, “I think I did smell something, but nothing specific comes to mind. I can’t put it into words even if I took another whiff.”

“Stupid.” the young man remarked.

Before Chen Yang could retort, a startled cry interrupted them.

“You can speak?!” Zhao Yuan had only heard the word “stupid” and looked at the young man beside Chen Yang in disbelief. “I thought you were mute…”

The young man directed a quiet gaze at Zhao Yuan, which caused him to shiver and his voice came to an abrupt halt.

Neither Zhang Yan nor Lin Yue glanced their way.

This young man was inscrutable and had a peculiar temperament. He couldn’t walk without his crutch, so he was essentially disabled. Though he couldn’t travel around, he could extract information from young girls with his face alone, but he had clearly chosen not to. They did not see a need to understand or interact with him. Neither befriending nor antagonising him was necessary; ignoring him was just fine.

Moreover, there was only one day left. They just wanted to avoid the curse and make it out alive.

The group remained vigilant and kept watch over the coffin, waiting for any changes in the body.

“I overheard that every household had ordered fertiliser during the meeting. They had procured it based on the number of people in each family, which was Old Madam Qi’s idea. Everyone listened to her.” Zhang Yan said, “Tomorrow, they’re going to bring the fertiliser home.”

“Where are they going to put all that fertiliser?” Zhao Yuan muttered. “The people here live in a small compound with just a few rooms. There’s not much space.”

“I heard them mention a cellar,” Zhang Yan replied.

Zhao Yuan suddenly looked up at Lin Yue. “I didn’t notice any cellars!”

Lin Yue’s expression was grim. She hadn’t either. Earlier in the night, they had split up and snuck into the homes of the islanders. They searched through at least half of the houses, but they hadn’t found anything significant.

It seemed they had overlooked the cellars.

“We shouldn’t waste time searching house by house. Let’s just go to Old Madam Qi’s.” Lin Yue said, sounding impatient. “Since she’s the one who suggested ordering the fertiliser, she must know about the curse.”

Chen Yang gazed at the mysterious figure of the moon between the mountains as he listened to Zhao Yuan’s question. “If that old woman knew about the curse, why didn’t she panic when she saw Aunt Liu’s son turn up dead?”

“Most likely she can’t smell the fertiliser coming from the boy’s mouth like us.” Zhang Yan’s gaze briefly swept over Chen Yang, who was affected by the curse. “She only has her suspicions, but nothing definite. She’s definitely up to something.”

Zhao Yuan shivered, “Should we go to her house now?”

“Let’s wait a little longer. We’ll go at around one in the morning, just the three of us.” Zhang Yan turned to Chen Yang, “You two stay here.”

Chen Yang nodded, “Okay.”

Zhang Yan left with Lin Yue and Zhao Yuan as soon as time came. The coffin seemed particularly conspicuous with their absence. Chen Yang was under the illusion that the mountain wind had become strangely ominous. He rubbed his arms and asked, “Are you cold?”

The young man did not speak. Chen Yang openly scrutinised him and found that his tracksuit was rather thin. He could vaguely make out a blue stripe inside the collar, which resembled a hospital gown.

Chen Yang’s eyes widened. He initially assumed that the young man had returned after undergoing treatment at the hospital.

“Did you sneak out of the hospital?” Chen Yang asked.

The young man sidestepped the question, “Is there any food? I’m hungry.”

Chen Yang, “…”

By the coffin, Chen Yang handed the young man some milk candy. When the young man gave him a strange look, he explained, “My sister liked them. She’s gone now, but I always keep some in my pocket. I got used to it.”

The young man didn’t ask what happened after his sister was gone. He just took the candy and picked one to nibble on.

Chen Yang didn’t eat any himself. He had lost his appetite from the lingering smell of fertiliser and the sight of the coffin. It didn’t help when he thought of the body inside.

“I heard that Old Madam Qi is a hundred and fifteen years old. She’s the oldest person on the island.” Chen Yang tried to ease the tension with some conversation. “There are several people that are over ninety on the island. They seem to live quite long lives, which means the environment here is pretty good.”

Flickering lights suddenly appeared at the foot of the mountain. When Chen Yang saw them moving, he swiftly stood up, “This isn’t good. Someone’s coming up the mountain!” Without a moment’s hesitation, he led the young man to the hiding spot he had found earlier.

It was Mrs. Liu, who had woken up, along with several men including Li Dafu. They each carried a kerosene lamp and a shovel as they made their way to the burial site.

Mrs Liu stumbled over and threw herself onto the coffin, crying out in anguish.

Li Dafu hung the lamp on a nearby tree and the others followed suit. The area around the coffin was now illuminated.

Chen Yang hid among the weeds and watched as they had a quiet discussion before starting to dig.

The scent of earth drifted over with the wind, prompting Chen Yang to ask, “What are they digging up?”

The young man replied, “They’re digging a hole for the coffin.”

Goosebumps rose all over Chen Yang’s skin. “But why are they doing it in the middle of the night?”

It dawned on him that this was a local custom and was related to the curse. He carefully parted the grass and stared at the coffin, “Speaking of which, I went to the mountains this afternoon to find the water jars Zhang Yan mentioned and found a lot of mounds in that area. They’re probably graves, but I didn’t see any tombstones.”

The young man sat on the grass and flatly stated, “No tombstone. No praying. Nobody to claim the body.”

Chen Yang whipped his head around and asked, “So they become wandering ghosts?”

“It seems as if they’re afraid to erect tombstones because they did something wrong.” Chen Yang mused.

It must be a very old secret, known to only a few. Most people were in the dark about it but still followed the custom of burying their loved ones without a tombstone, which demonstrated the high level of prestige Old Madam Qi held.

She was the Empress Dowager of the island.

“Son!”

“Son! My son!”

“Son!”

“Son!”

Mrs. Liu suddenly began shouting for her son, as if she was trying to call his spirit back. Each cry was as piercing as that of a dying crow, haunting and chilling.

Chen Yang had a habit of counting things. When he arrived on the island, he counted the bags of fertiliser the crew carried onto shore. Now, he began counting the number of times Mrs Liu called for her son. As he counted, his breath hitched.

“Don’t you feel like there’s something behind us?” Chen Yang asked in a hushed voice.

The young man ignored him.

Chen Yang’s imagination ran wild despite the man’s silence. He nervously scratched his neck and back, then patted his shoulders. However, he still felt a chill down his spine. Just as he was about to sit in front of the man, there was a thunderous crash.

“Bang!”

Something had exploded.

The sound came from inside the coffin.

Chen Yang’s face paled when he realised what it was and looked towards the coffin. The lid lay on the ground as large tufts of white fluff flew out.

Mrs. Liu fainted in fright. Meanwhile, Li Dafu and the others threw down their shovels in terror and frantically ran down the mountain, screaming as they fled.

It exploded!

The coffin exploded!

Dandelions! It was all dandelions!