My girlfriend is a Miao demon.

She was a graceful young woman of thirteen or so, like a budding cardamom flower in early February.

The spring breeze blows along the ten-mile road of Yangzhou, but nothing compares to the beauty of the rolled-up beaded curtains.

Is this a dream? Or is this not a dream?

December 31st, the last day of 2011.

Xiang Nanfeng was jolted awake from a good dream, panting heavily.

Her eyes were bright and lively like spring water, her chin was pointed, and her skin was as pure as snow with a texture as smooth as white jade. Her long, black hair was casually draped over her head, with a dappled halo around her head and ears.

In her dream, Gui Luyao quietly looked at Xiang Nanfeng, just like the dream of their first meeting. After the car accident and the memorial service, one time when Xiang Nanfeng opened his eyes, his lover, who was like a fairy descending to earth, sat in front of his hospital bed and tucked the corner of the blanket around him. Her delicate and warm hand touched his ankle unintentionally.

Even a seemingly ordinary glance is filled with tender affection. In her lover's eyes, she is a stunningly beautiful princess, her fair face radiating pure innocence.

Xiang Nanfeng had always felt that Gui Luyao's innocence was different from the simple purity of adolescence and the bloom of youth. It seemed to be a detachment from the rampant materialism and decadent consumerism, as if she came from another pure world. And it turned out, she really did come from another world.

Dreams are beautiful, but dreams are just dreams; reality is bleak.

He woke up, panting heavily. He lay in bed, feeling sore all over.

The doctor said it was because he had been in a coma for too long and his muscles had become stiff from being bedridden for so long. However, in his own opinion, it was clearly because Lin Shu’s appearance yesterday was like a heavy punch that brought him back to reality.

At 8 a.m., the doctor on rounds brought the brain CT scan, blood routine test, biochemical indicators, and coagulation function test reports from yesterday.

The report showed that he did not experience any adverse symptoms such as bleeding, edema, or infection at the surgical site, and all other tests were normal. However, his potassium level was slightly low and he had a mild electrolyte imbalance, which may be one of the objective reasons for his body aches.

"You can be discharged now, tell the reporter, on the last day before the New Year! Next Monday is the day after tomorrow, it's so close..."

"Never mind, how about next Monday? You can come to the clinic for a follow-up appointment on Monday morning."

"Oh... okay."

Discharge from the hospital was something Xiang Nanfeng had been eagerly anticipating for days since waking up yesterday. He had imagined that the discharge notice would be like a release certificate, restoring his freedom. But when the moment actually arrived, clutching the notice and standing alone in front of the settlement window in the hospital lobby, he felt only an unprecedented sense of disorientation.

Waking from a dream, the disillusionment of the dream lover left a huge void in the ideal of love. But an even more realistic and thorny problem is that, after my repeated outbursts, especially after what happened the day before yesterday, I am basically trapped in a double predicament of career ruin and social death within the television station.

After completing all the formalities, Xiang Nanfeng carried a stack of documents in his left hand, three bags filled with various medicines in his right, and a large bag on his back.

This baggage makes him look nothing like a discharged patient; he looks exactly like the early birds of the Spring Festival travel rush at the South Square of Wangshan Station, five kilometers away. However, the snow-white gauze bandage and elastic net cap on his head make him look even more disheveled!

"Brother Nanfeng, Brother Nanfeng! I'm so sorry, I'm late, I'm so late!"

Xiang Nanfeng struggled to open the door of the hospital building, and the howling north wind carried Ningning's voice to his ears.

"Hey, I already told you nobody's coming, I can walk by myself!"

Xiang Nanfeng wasn't wrong; he genuinely didn't want Lao Zhang to send someone to pick him up, mainly because it would be too awkward. But right now, he knew even better that Lao Zhang would rather lock him up in a mental hospital than be afraid of him being embarrassed.

Otherwise, he wouldn't have let Ningning, who can't drive at all, come over by herself.

Looking further back, it turned out that Ningning hadn't come alone; she was holding hands with someone else, their fingers intertwined—it was her boyfriend, whom she was deeply in love with.

"Ningning, how long have you two been dating? Three months?"

"No, it's 85 days!"

"Hehe, okay, okay, still so lovey-dovey!"

"No, he doesn't have class today, which is rare for him."

"Oh, I understand, I understand!"

"Brother Nanfeng, you were so handsome the day before yesterday! Old Wang didn't dare look at me all day yesterday, and Old Zhang was called to the office by Boss Zhao first thing yesterday morning. When he came back, his face was greener than jade. You didn't see it! You were so handsome!"

Xiang Nanfeng smiled awkwardly.

Now that I'm being discharged from the hospital today, Old Zhang will definitely just want to ignore me; why would he bother sending someone to pick me up? Ningning's insistence on coming today, besides the excitement of standing up for her and getting revenge, is probably also an excuse to skip work for half a day so she can go on a date with her boyfriend in the afternoon. After all, today is Saturday, which is supposed to be a day off, but with the New Year approaching tomorrow, this Saturday is a regular workday.

"Come on, come on, Brother Nanfeng, give it to me, I'll get it! Ningning hasn't stopped talking about you these past few days. Once you're better, we'll treat you to drinks and meat!"

Ningning's boyfriend, Mu Yao, took the bag from Xiang Nanfeng's hand and the backpack from his back. He was actually the younger brother of Xiang Nanfeng's college classmate. Because he was admitted to Wangshan University's graduate program, his classmate asked Xiang Nanfeng to help look after him. That's how he met Ningning through Xiang Nanfeng. Even when he later pursued Ningning, Xiang Nanfeng helped him a little.

Two months have passed in the blink of an eye, and seeing the two of them still inseparable, it truly feels like a lifetime has passed.

In the taxi returning to Xiang Nanfeng's residence, Xiang Nanfeng sat in the passenger seat, while Mu Yao and Ning Ning sat in the back.

As he listened to the two of them laughing and whispering, he temporarily forgot about the troubles at work. Xiang Nanfeng couldn't help but recall that not long ago, in that dreamlike moment, he had taken Gui Luyao and the two of them to a roadside barbecue stall and to a karaoke bar. The two couples had spent two pleasant weekends together.

"It's all over, it's all over, everything is over!"

Xiang Nanfeng watched the street scene rushing past, silently wondering to himself, "But is it all truly over?"

Xiang Nanfeng closed his eyes, trying to accept the harsh reality through rational thought. While such a fantastical experience wasn't common, it certainly wasn't an isolated case.

Years ago, he had read a memoir of an Antarctic expedition by the legendary British explorer Sir Shackleton. In the early decades of the 20th century, the name Shackleton was a household name in the West.

One particularly memorable experience in the memoir is that after the Royal Navy ship HMS Endurance broke apart under the weight of ice, Shackleton and three other explorers rowed a small boat through gales, currents, and ice floes in search of land, enduring the most dangerous and desperate 36 hours of their voyage.

In reality, Shackleton only had two companions; there was never a "third person" with whom he shared life and death. So, who exactly was this mysterious "third person," and was he merely a daydream constructed by the explorers themselves in extreme environments?

Coincidentally, there have been many similar incidents throughout history and across the world.

To put it simply, just three to five months ago, on an afternoon, the team members discussed the editing techniques of an American documentary about the "Haley Incident," a well-known paranormal event in the United States that has occurred in recent years.

In 2001, 6-year-old Hayley went missing while hiking with her family on the Buffalo River in Arkansas, USA. She trekked alone through waterfalls, rapids, and jungles, and three days later she reappeared alone 8 kilometers away from where she went missing.

Afterwards, Hailey repeatedly mentioned a four-year-old girl named Alicia, wearing a red shirt, bell-bottoms, white sneakers, and two black braids, saying that Alicia showed her the way with a flashlight and accompanied her the whole way. But is there really an Alicia in the Buffalo River and Eagle Claw Falls area?

Yes, it did happen, but that was around the 80s.

Years ago, a four-year-old girl named Alicia was killed by a group of cultists near the falls. She did have long black hair, always tied in two braids; her favorite gift was a flashlight, which she used to keep on all night long. But by then, this Alicia had been dead for 20 years.

Throughout history, in the news, and even in rumors, stories of people traveling to a new world by chance and fulfilling certain mysterious conditions are endless and enduring. But when the door to the new world closes again and those who have had fantastic journeys return to reality, no matter how wonderful yesterday's adventure was, ordinary life will continue.

It was just a fleeting encounter, nothing more.

At this moment, Xiang Nanfeng kept repeating to himself, as if chanting a mantra, "It's over, it's over." He tried to give himself a strong psychological suggestion through this continuous "self-deception" to fight against all his resentment. However, things didn't go as planned. The taxi, which kept stopping and starting, made the people in the car sway and shake. The more he wanted to calm his restless heart, the more unsettled he became.

"What's going on? It's so congested."

"Hey, up ahead, there was a girl hit at the intersection of Huihai Road. I was stuck in traffic when I came over," the driver replied.

Huihai Road?!

Xiang Nanfeng suddenly opened his eyes. Through the line of cars in front of him, he immediately saw the trunks of plane trees that stretched horizontally out from under the streetlights at the intersection ahead, extending along the street wall.

The tree known as the French plane tree is neither native to France nor is it a plane tree at all. It is actually a large-leaved deciduous tree whose real name is London plane.

At this time of year, their broad leaves have long since fallen, revealing their bluish-gray trunks that make them instantly recognizable.

"Mu Yao, you and your wife help me take my things home. I have some errands to run. The house key is under the doormat, you two know that! Just leave it there when you leave!"

As Xiang Nanfeng spoke, he opened the car door and slammed it shut before the two could answer. He left behind the three people in the car, including the driver, shouting and waving, but to no avail.

He weaved through the congested traffic and headed straight for Huihai Road. At that moment, his mind was blank. Only when he reached the intersection and looked around did he see a blue electric bicycle lying across the middle of the intersection. He also heard whispers in the alley saying that "the person who was hit was wearing the uniform of a certain high school and has been sent to the hospital." Only then did he finally come to his senses and realize that Gui Luyao did not exist in the human world.

Standing alone at the intersection of Pintang Street and Huihai Road, I instinctively looked eastward towards the south wind. The alleyway lined with plane trees was Huihai Road. It turned out that going east from here was Mengzhong Gui Luyao's workplace, Muge Kindergarten, which he used to visit every few days a month ago.

Xiang Nanfeng himself had no idea why, upon hearing "hit-and-run on Huihai Road" and seeing this alley lined with plane trees, he instinctively jumped out of the taxi and headed straight there. He felt as if some invisible force was propelling his body while simultaneously clouding all the commands his brain was issuing to it.

He began to submit to this immense force and walked quickly toward the Pastoral Kindergarten.

If you continue eastward through the two small communities of Haiquan Xili and Haiquan Dongli, the alley is interrupted by a towering banyan tree. Around the tree is a mini roundabout. To the east of the roundabout is a street park of about three to five thousand square meters. Between the park and the roundabout is a small European-style courtyard. In the courtyard, there is a three-story old villa that is the Pastoral Kindergarten.

Luyao mentioned that Muge Kindergarten is a well-known key kindergarten in the city. Its predecessor was the Municipal Party Committee's Nursery School, and it only began enrolling students in the 90s. Although the kindergarten is not large, its educational quality and facilities are among the best in the city.

In particular, the kindergarten's teaching building is a German-style villa built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was originally the German consulate, and the European-style courtyard that belongs to the kindergarten today, along with the three to five thousand square meters of street park on the east side, were all the consulate's courtyards back then, with greenhouses and nurseries built in the courtyards.

Until around the 1930s, when the German consulate moved away from Wangshan City, the building and its huge courtyard were repeatedly divided, merged, changed hands, and requisitioned over the next half-century, eventually becoming the Pastoral Kindergarten and the adjacent street park we see today.

Sure enough, on the right side of the granite pillar at the kindergarten's main entrance, Xiang Nanfeng saw two white marble plaques of equal size, neatly embedded one above the other. The upper plaque read "Wangshan City Municipal Demonstration Kindergarten," while the lower plaque read "Wangshan City Cultural Relics Protection Unit, erected by Wangshan City Government in 1985."

French plane trees, German-style villas, European-style courtyards...

Everything is as it was yesterday, only things are different now:

It was noon, and the children in the kindergarten were either eating or taking a nap. The courtyard was quiet and silent, devoid of the usual laughter and chatter. Outside, there were no longer crowds of people. In the past, when the south wind blew, the courtyard would be filled with parents picking up their children, and Luyao would be picked up by her. But now, the dream had come true, and everything had changed.

Xiang Nanfeng couldn't help but grab the closed double iron gate at the entrance and peer inside. The shiny iron gate had an unusually smooth black anti-corrosion paint on it.

In his dream, one afternoon two weeks ago, when he came to pick up Luyao, he happened to see two workers who were busy painting an iron gate and finishing up. This fantastical dream felt so real, but today he would no longer be as excited as he was the day before yesterday when he caught a little evidence.

"Hey, what brings you here again? Didn't I tell you the day before yesterday that the person you're looking for isn't at the kindergarten?"

The old gatekeeper recognized Xiang Nanfeng. Although he was asking him to leave, he still tried to persuade him kindly, "Is there anyone at home? Go check with your family!"

Yes, didn't the documentary about Hailey's incident mention at the end that even after Hailey grew up, she would occasionally return to the vicinity of Eagle Claw Falls to look back on those bizarre three days?

In that fantastical dream, wasn't the only thing missing to verify its authenticity was the small building at No. 93 Loubei? Just like when he heard the words "Huihai Road" in the car and rushed out, Xiang Nanfeng had come to his senses. He knew that his behavior was simply irrational, but at the same time, he was like a walking corpse, unable to control himself as he continued to head towards Loujia Village.

After passing through the park on the east side, go through Nanhui Road, turn onto Zimi Street, and then pass through a small commercial plaza with the commercial facilities of a newly developed residential complex, Oriental Como Lake. The roasted nuts shop where Luyao bought melon seeds and chestnuts for Grandpa Hexiao, and the Moshang Cafe where the two of them had visited twice, are both in this small plaza.

Leaving the small square through the east gate, he walked onto Tianlou Road, the place where he and Lin Shu had their accident two months ago. Continuing south along Tianlou Road, a Roman-style gatehouse made of reinforced concrete came into view in the distance.

The gatehouse has a three-bay layout, with the largest central bay serving as a two-way road for motor vehicles, and the two smaller bays on either side serving as non-motorized vehicle lanes and pedestrian walkways. The gatehouse is supported by four classical Roman columns and decorated with Western-style geometric reliefs, which appear grand and imposing, but are actually incongruous.

The problem lies with the Roman columns. These four columns are in the Corinthian order, a style of Roman column, with acanthus carvings on the capitals, making them elaborate and ornate. However, this style of Roman column is beautiful when it is slender, and the golden ratio of column length to diameter should be 10:1. But these four columns are incredibly thick, and the ratio of column length to diameter can only reach a maximum of 6:1, which is clearly the Doric order.

Then look at the three large, gilded characters in regular script carved in the center of the gate. It's clear they've mistaken a European-style building for a Chinese gatehouse, resulting in a hybrid, incongruous mess. And those three gilded characters aren't even calligraphy; they're clearly just free fonts from a calculator's font library—oversized, stiff, and unnatural. And those three gilded characters are none other than: Loujia Village.

Compared to the expensive new gatehouse, the half-person-high blue stone tablet planted in the lawn east of the main road, diagonally below the gatehouse, is much more restrained, but it still cannot escape the ugly appearance of disproportionately large.

This stone tablet was originally a landmark of Loujia Village. The surface of the tablet has been worn and scarred by the years, and even the edges of the tablet are mostly broken and chipped. The inscription reads "Loujia". The composition is unrestrained but vigorous. Although the calligraphy itself is not top-notch, it is not bad. The problem lies in the composition of the inscription.

Traditional Chinese calligraphy and painting mounting, as well as ancient book binding, emphasize the use of white space. Calligraphy and painting mounting requires a top and bottom margin, while ancient book binding requires a top and bottom margin; they cannot be made to reach the top and bottom simultaneously. The same applies to the carving of inscriptions on steles. The most important reason why this stone stele appears so unsightly today is that it has too little white space and its proportions are severely unbalanced.

The character "娄" in the Lou family name has a full-length top radical, but the character "家" below it only has a quarter-length bottom radical. What kind of bottom radical is that?

It's clear that there's no place to call home.

Of course, this could also be due to the passage of time and land subsidence. It's not that the ancestors had poor aesthetic sense; the blame lies with the later generations for being lazy and not knowing how to repair it. But if you walk to the side of the stele and look at its thickness, you might think differently. How tall is this stele? At most, it's only 80 or 90 centimeters tall, but how thick is it? At least 30 centimeters thick.

If such a small stone tablet were made so thick, and placed horizontally, it would be almost as big as a stone lock. Wouldn't that be a serious imbalance in proportion?

This shows that the Lou family of Loujia Village has "inherited" poor aesthetic sense and is by no means a scholarly family that has passed down poetry and literature. However, this does not prevent Loujia Village from being a beautiful place nestled against the mountains and by the water, and an ancient village with a history of hundreds of years.

The legends of history seem to have been dampened and polished into fine river sand by the Xiangnong Creek, which flows from Shounan Mountain and meanders around the village entrance, settling back into the riverbed. The modern process of urbanization is like a magical eraser, quietly erasing the planning boundaries between urban and suburban areas, between cities and villages, making them one, sharing both glory and hardship. And what has been changed is not merely buildings and communities; it has also altered the villagers' consciousness, their lives, and their self-identification as farmers.

Villagers, migrant workers, factory girls, urban "ant tribe" members, short-term renters, temporary workers, street singers, painters, small vendors...

What kind of person is Gui Luyao? She doesn't have the surname Lou, so why is she living here?

Why did her grandmother leave her here?

She once said that Loujia Village is an ancient village with a history of more than 300 years, but who among those passersby would still care about the history of Loujia Village?

The southern starting point of Tianlou Road is the Roman-style gatehouse of Loujia Village, which also marks the northern starting point of the village road. Loujia Village is actually located in a valley at the northern foot of Shounan Mountain, so the village unfolds from north to south, following the contours of the mountain. The village road is called Loujia Village Road, and it is divided into two sections, north and south.

The houses in the village are numbered sequentially from north to south along Loujia South Road and North Road, with odd numbers for the east side of the road and even numbers for the west side. Houses with doors opening onto the east-west alleys are also numbered separately as A, B, C, D.

Fried chicken shop, illegal internet cafe, small barbecue stall, village primary school, sports square, beauty salon, foot massage parlor...

各色房屋上「娄北某号」即「娄家村北路某号」的路牌编号号码越来越大：娄北85号、娄北86号、娄北87号、娄北88号、娄北89号……

The closer Xiang Nanfeng got to Gui Luyao's house, the clearer his memories became.

The shop at No. 90 Loubei is rented to a barbershop. The red, white, and blue hair salon lights at the entrance have been broken for a month, and unsurprisingly, the owner hasn't bothered to fix them yet. The shop at No. 91 Loubei is rented to a pastry shop. Their specialty is honey milk and red date cake; saying its aroma travels three miles is an exaggeration, but it certainly wafts to three households. Even before reaching No. 89, you can smell the overwhelming fragrance of dates. No. 92 Loubei remains owned by the villagers and has never been rented out. And further south…

Xiang Nanfeng was stunned. Further south, a tall wall appeared before him.

This wall is incredibly high, towering above the surrounding houses. In Loujia Village, most houses are tiled, while those used for business are single-story. The ridge of the tiled houses is only about five meters high, while this wall must be at least seven or eight meters high.

This wall is not only high, but also exceptionally large. Although it's paved with the same blue bricks as the surrounding houses, and judging from the color and weathering of those bricks, they should be no more than ten or twenty years old, this high wall seems completely out of place in the entire village. Why does it appear so ancient when it's clearly not old at all?

Angle! It's the angle!

Xiang Nanfeng suddenly realized that the wall was not vertical, but slanted.

In other words, this wall is not an ordinary enclosure, but a rammed earth wall built in the style of ancient city walls. At the beginning of the construction, the earth was piled up, built high, and rammed. Then the earth was piled up again, built high again, and rammed again until the earthen wall reached the designed height. Finally, bricks were laid on the outside of the earthen wall to protect the rammed earth inside.

The city wall built in this way is different from a brick wall built directly with bricks. Because the rammed earth is wider at the bottom and narrower at the top, the wall is slanted and therefore appears exceptionally tall.

But why is there a rammed earth wall in Loujia Village? And what is behind this wall?

Where is No. 93 Loubei? Where did No. 93 go? What happened to Luyao's house? Why has it turned into this city wall?

Xiang Nanfeng hurried along the high wall, trying to find the city gate. He thought that once he found the gate, he could go around it and that's where number 93 would be. But he circled the wall again and again, and couldn't find even a single locked gate: it was a walled city without any gates at all!

"What's going on? What's going on! Where's the door? Where's the door? Where's number 93? Where's number 93?!"

Xiang Nanfeng walked faster and faster, almost running. Suddenly, he stumbled, nearly tripping over a raised bump on the asphalt. He instinctively reached out and grabbed the high wall to his right, narrowly avoiding a fall. However, the stumble caused his phone to fall from his pocket and crash to the ground. This unintentionally broke the tense atmosphere. Xiang Nanfeng quickly picked up his phone and instinctively checked it for damage.

He pressed the button, and the screen lit up—it wasn't broken. He immediately saw six missed calls in the notification bar.

"Let's take a look and see who called." Xiang Nanfeng leaned against the wall, panting heavily. Seeing that two of the calls were from Liangzi, he hesitated for a moment, then dialed them back.

"Hey, Liangzi, it's been a while since we last talked."

Liangzi was a police academy classmate he met during inter-school club activities at Nanfeng University. After graduation, he became a criminal police officer in the provincial department of a neighboring province.

"Nanfeng, you called me a few days ago when I was on a mission, but I got busy and forgot about it. What's up? Is something the matter?"

"I'd like to ask you something. Are there any people whose information can't be found in the public security household registration system?"

"Chinese?"

"Of course."

"Can't find it... I don't think so. Oh, no, there are exceptions!"

"for example?"

"For example, if the identity involves confidential information?"

"Is there anything else?"

"Also... active-duty military personnel have transferred their household registration to the military, so the police can't directly check their records."

"Is there anything else?"

"And then there's..."

"Hey, hey!"

The cell phone signal suddenly weakened, and Xiang Nanfeng quickly took a few steps forward. At that moment, the high wall overhead had quietly blocked the bright winter sun. Standing in this vast shadow, facing the mottled and eerie wall, Xiang Nanfeng suddenly felt as if a strong electric current was rushing through his head with lightning speed. He abruptly turned around and saw that opposite the high wall, in the direction he had his back to, was the self-owned house at No. 92 Loubei.

The gate to the house had opened at some point, and behind it, in the shadow of the eaves, stood an old woman with a cane, a complete stranger, facing in his direction. Her gloomy and aged wrinkles seemed to conceal some kind of eerie, strange laugh, which made one's heart tremble.

"Hello, hello!" Xiang Nanfeng felt a chill run down his spine from the bizarre scene. He instinctively raised his voice and shouted into the phone, "Liangzi, Liangzi, what else? Who else can't be found in the public security household registration system?"

"And also, there are dead people!"