Winter Returns

Chapter 175 Su Yunzhi

He had barely finished speaking when a girl not far away cried out in surprise:
"ah!"

Zhang Shutong quickly turned on his flashlight and shone it:
"You're human, don't be afraid."

The girl paused for two seconds, then said with a sigh of relief:

"There really was someone there! I was so scared..."

She shook her phone, and the flash illuminated Zhang Shutong's face, causing Su Yunzhi to be startled again.

"It's you, junior?" she asked in surprise.

"it's me."

Zhang Shutong forced a smile.

Two pairs of eyes turned to her simultaneously; one was naturally her senior's, and the other was Lu Qinglian's.

Her eyes were calm and still, her body not yet fully at ease. Zhang Shutong gave a dry explanation:

"This is... a senior I just met, she's from the city."

He then introduced Su Yunzhi:
"This is my classmate."

After saying that, Zhang Shutong felt inexplicably embarrassed. They were supposed to be from two different worlds, one above ground and one underground, separated by an entrance hidden in the house, so that they would not disturb each other. But now, people from the ground had suddenly come down to the underground.

They say fate plays tricks on people, but this is just too cruel.

In the sudden silence, Zhang Shutong subconsciously looked at Su Yunzhi's chest, where a point-and-shoot camera was hanging. Some memories resurfaced, and he thought with a headache that he seemed to have guessed why his senior had come here.

Although she has a very gentle and refined personality, she is surprisingly bold. In high school, the two were in the same club, the photography club.

Su Yunzhi is the president of the association.

All the previous presidents of the photography club were technically skilled. Zhang Shutong initially joined the photography club because she thought it would be easy and that club activities would involve handing in photos she took on her way home from school and having everyone gather around to discuss whether the sparrows on the telephone poles had gotten fat. Little did she know that her senior was a photographer.

That year, under her leadership, the photography club became a full-fledged outdoor club.

Once, they went hiking in the autumn. In order to photograph the sunrise at four or five in the morning, they set off at two in the morning. The mountain was filled with water vapor and it was the coldest time. They needed to rent a thick cotton coat at the foot of the mountain. A group of people climbed to the top of the mountain like penguins, set up their tripods, and were about to start taking pictures.
Su Yunzhi, however, took a liking to a small pine tree growing at the foot of a cliff. The pine tree looked very eerie, like a wild ghost in the desolate mountains. She took pictures with great concentration until her tied-up hair gradually came loose, the hair tie suddenly loosened, and she fell downwards.

Zhang Shutong was standing right next to her at the time. He quickly pulled her back. Two seconds later, the senior looked down at the bottomless abyss and patted her chest with relief, saying, "Luckily, you were here."

Later, the two of them would occasionally go out to take pictures, photographing fish in the water and geese in the sky. They gradually became familiar with each other, and Zhang Shutong learned that she not only had a point-and-shoot camera, but also an instant camera and a DSLR.

Zhang Shutong also knows that as the president of the club, her photography skills are actually terrible. She never discusses composition, lighting, or other techniques. Rather than saying she loves taking photos, she enjoys the process of recording the unknown world.

The senior student isn't the club president yet, but you can tell she's working towards that goal.

"Hello." Su Yunzhi waved to Lu Qinglian with a smile.

Lu Qinglian gave a brief reply, her gaze fixed on Su Yunzhi's face, seemingly looking at her, yet also seemingly not.

Zhang Shutong knew that she was actually looking behind Su Yunzhi. Compared to the eerie fox rock carving, the secret of the basement was what she couldn't let her senior, an outsider, know.

"Are you... on an adventure?" Su Yunzhi noticed that neither of them wanted to talk and realized something, so she quickly apologized, "Did I scare you just now? I'm sorry."

Zhang Shutong came to her senses and shook her head to indicate that she was alright.

It was just a false alarm.

But the most urgent task is to persuade her to go upstairs. For both reason and emotion, Zhang Shutong should not have involved Su Yunzhi.

"How did you end up here?" Zhang Shutong asked.

“My classmate had an upset stomach and was getting an IV drip at the hospital,” she said clearly. “I saw an old house in the hospital corridor and wanted to come and take a look, but I didn’t expect there to be an entrance hidden inside the house.”

She asked curiously:

"Is this an old-fashioned air-raid shelter?"

"Probably," Zhang Shutong actually cared more about another question, "Is there a problem with lunch?"

He thought to himself, "Wouldn't Du Kang's restaurant be the cause of food poisoning?"

"No, he insisted on eating ice cream," the senior student reassured him. "We went to the restaurant you recommended, and everyone thought it was delicious and reasonably priced."

It seemed that the student with diarrhea wasn't in serious condition, so Su Yunzhi offered a brief explanation and then dropped the matter.

"So this is the urgent matter you were talking about," she said, looking around. With a flash, she snapped a picture of the tunnel wall.

"Actually, I didn't tell you last night, but I like some... well, scary places." She smiled sheepishly. "If I had told you earlier, maybe you would have recommended it to me and I could have come to see it sooner."

Zhang Shutong actually knew about her little hobby. Back then, they had filmed everything from the moonlit wilderness to the sets in mobile haunted houses.

“But it’s a dead end ahead,” Zhang Shutong said deliberately. “We’re just about to go back.”

"May I take a picture?" Su Yunzhi asked politely.

Zhang Shutong instinctively wanted to refuse, but then he thought that knowing his senior, if he really refused, she wouldn't give up. It would be a problem if she took the boat over again next week to sneak over.

He glanced at Lu Qinglian's expression again. Lu Qinglian still had no expression and simply turned her body away.

It seems the two of them have similar ideas; the other side is the key point.

Seeing this, Zhang Shutong also made way for them and told a lie:
"The other end is blocked. Don't stay down there for too long, or you might run out of oxygen."

Su Yunzhi listened to the advice and nodded in agreement.

"There are stones on the ground ahead, be careful not to trip," Zhang Shutong reminded him.

While the senior student was taking photos, he took out his phone and typed:
"It was an accident that she barged in; I'll persuade her to leave in a bit."

Lu Qinglian glanced at it, took the phone, and wrote in the memo:

"Is this the person you went to see at noon?"

Zhang Shutong nodded, which was taken as tacit agreement.

"Senior?" Lu Qinglian finished typing and looked at him expressionlessly.

Okay, I've given myself away a bit.

Where did he get this "senior sister" from the city?

Just as Zhang Shutong was considering whether to use yesterday's excuse to brush it off, Su Yunzhi exclaimed in surprise again:
"There really are foxes."

The two turned around at the same time. It turned out that she was leaning over the platform, looking into the cave. The girl didn't seem to mind getting dirty; she was wearing a long dress today, and she was now bending over the platform to take a picture of the relief sculpture.

Zhang Shutong wasn't surprised. Since he'd let her go, he wasn't worried about her discovering the rock carving. But why was it...?

Actually?

It's as if it was expected.

"What do you mean by 'surprisingly'?" Zhang Shutong asked, puzzled.

“I just saw a little fox this morning, you forgot? It’s the one you told me about, the one in the photo.”

"Where?" Lu Qinglian asked, getting ahead of Zhang Shutong.

“It’s up in the mountains,” the senior student leaned back, as if sensing the seriousness in her tone. “Oh, I didn’t explain clearly. You mean this kind of rock carving? This is the first time I’ve seen one. I meant a live fox, it’s very cute.”

Lu Qinglian turned her head and looked at Zhang Shutong.

Zhang Shutong pretended not to see it.

"So is this place related to local legends? It doesn't look... like an air-raid shelter," Su Yunzhi asked again.

"Uh, what legend?"

Zhang Shutong couldn't follow her train of thought for the first time.

"Hmm, I heard it too," the senior student gestured with her hands, drawing a fox's ears. "It's said that a long, long time ago, there was only one mountain here. People built a settlement at the foot of the mountain, and there were five foxes on the mountain. Because it was ancient times, living conditions were very harsh. These foxes helped people catch prey, find wild fruits and water, and were worshipped as guardian beasts by the inhabitants. From then on, they lived in peace and prosperity... The version I heard should be the most accurate, right?"

Su Yunzhi was a little excited.

It's like a student from the city coming to find a child on the island to compare their answers to a standard answer.

But Zhang Shutong was stunned again. Let alone whether there were any discrepancies in the details, this was completely wrong. The mountain was called Green Snake Mountain, which, as the name suggests, only had one green snake. There were only legends about snakes. Where did the fox come from?

It was too dark around him, so the senior didn't see the surprise on his face and continued:
"This year's theme for our club... Oh, I almost forgot, you'll find out later, junior. Every six months, clubs at school have a project to complete. I'm in the photography club, and this year's theme is animals and historical sites. Actually, we just came to the island to gather some material. The other upperclassmen are also in the photography club. It would be great if we could take some pictures. When you first told me there were foxes in the mountains, I thought we might find some..."

"Where did this fox come from?" Zhang Shutong couldn't help but interrupt. "Excuse me, I mean, why is it a legend about a fox?"

Su Yunzhi straightened up in confusion:

"Isn't that right?"

“That’s completely wrong. There are only legends about snakes here,” Zhang Shutong said in surprise.

Su Yunzhi was also surprised:
"What's a snake? Didn't they say there's a fox shrine on the mountain? Although we didn't make it to the top today, I heard there are still shrines in some parts of the island, but we didn't find this one..."

Zhang Shutong's hair suddenly stood on end. He instinctively turned around and realized where the danger came from—

Lu Qinglian narrowed her eyes and stared at Su Yunzhi without saying a word.

Zhang Shutong's heart skipped a beat. He almost forgot that there was a temple keeper girl next to him. So what was the senior's behavior equivalent to?
I went to the Shaolin Temple and asked, quite confused:
"Hey, why didn't I see Lao Tzu?"

But the senior student didn't notice Lu Qinglian's reaction at all:

"What about the temple keeper on the mountain? Is that true? I heard that there is still a profession of temple keeper on the island... Although I can't quite imagine it, is it similar to a Japanese shrine maiden? I was discussing it with my classmates today, the kind with fox ears, the kind of cute little girls?"

Zhang Shutong had never noticed that Lu Qinglian had this thing on her head.

Who came up with this idea for a temple keeper? He couldn't help but think to himself, "Does it also need a fluffy tail?"
Zhang Shutong thought helplessly, "My senior probably got misled by some rumors. These days, online communities are still an important channel for people to get information. Even the No. 1 High School in the city has its own internal forum. Zhang Shutong saw all sorts of outrageous rumors back then, from urban legends to gossip. They would spread and eventually become the truth." He interjected helplessly:
"It's fake. There's only the Green Snake Temple on the mountain."

As she spoke, Zhang Shutong recounted the legend she had heard from Lu Qinglian to her senior.

But even the senior student was confused:
"But I feel like this is the legend I've heard since I was a child?"

"From childhood to adulthood" refers to...?

"My parents and friends all seem to say that."

Zhang Shutong remained silent for two seconds upon hearing this.

If he didn't know what kind of person Su Yunzhi was, he probably would have thought it was a prank, like an April Fool's joke where you wake up to find that your common sense has been completely overturned.

"Junior, are you... joking with me?" Su Yunzhi's smile faded.

Her tone was puzzled, yet also serious, and Zhang Shutong knew this was no joke.

Or rather, this is no longer just a problem with online communities.

Who exactly is at fault?

He began to recall exactly when he had heard the legends about the island.

Before transferring schools, they had no idea about the Green Snake Temple or even the island. Their family was from the provincial capital, unlike their senior who lived in the city, which was relatively close. If it weren't for their parents' work, they probably would never have had any connection with the island in their entire lives.

Upon arriving on the island, his primary concern wasn't the Green Snake; he was focused on fishing. It was only through becoming classmates with Lu Qinglian and hearing his classmates talk about her that he learned of the Green Snake Temple's existence.

Their family didn't believe in any Green Snake God, so they stayed on the island for more than three years without ever going to the temple.

Of course, I've heard some rumors, such as the temple's sacrificial ceremonies and the temple's thriving incense offerings.

Thinking about it carefully, in the original timeline, Zhang Shutong never inquired about the Green Snake Temple in detail. Even when he went to high school in the city and talked about the island with some people, he only occasionally talked about the "adventures" of his junior high school days.

The only time she actively inquired about the island's legends was when she went back in time and asked Lu Qinglian about the origins of the Green Snake, but the version she gave was practically a complete collection of myths.

So where exactly does the problem lie?

Where do foxes come from?
He glanced at Lu Qinglian's reaction, and Lu Qinglian was also looking at him. Zhang Shutong seemed to understand what she meant. She had previously thought it was Su Yunzhi's prank, but now, as she listened, she realized that the other party thought it was real.

Where did the rumors I heard come from?

Du Kang, Qing Yi, and Ruo Ping all seem to know about it, or rather, who on the island doesn't know?

But what about the senior student?

She's from the city.

She said she had only heard stories about foxes since she was a child.

A guess suddenly popped into Zhang Shutong's mind:
The people on the island, and the people in the city.

The legends heard by the two sides have actually been different?

(End of this chapter)