I pretended to be afraid. “Brother, don’t scare me!”

While we were talking, Li Mazi took out a pack of cigarettes from his bag and gave it to the driver. “Please tell us more about it, I don’t want my little brother to suffer.”

The driver received the cigarettes while laughing heartily. “Brother, you’d better listen to me. You should go back to where you came from. This Wuyan Village is not a place you should be visiting. You’ll sense a murderous aura everywhere.”

“Murderous aura?” I exchanged looks with Li Mazi.

The driver nodded in confirmation. “Yes. Do you know where the name ‘Wuyan’ comes from?”

I shook my head.

He sniggered. “Have you ever heard about Zhong Wuyan? The woman that topped the list of China’s Top Four Ugliest Women. That Wuyan Village was actually her hometown. Rumor has it that her final resting place is right there…”

I opened my eyes wide in shock after listening to what the driver had revealed.

Did Zhang Qinghai unearth the tomb of Zhong Wuyan, the famous historical figure?

The driver puffed his cigarette as he continued, “That Wuyan Village has a forbidden area. People say it’s where Zhong Wuyan’s tomb is located.”

Zhao Wuyang’s face turned pale; it almost looked as if he had fallen sick.

The driver continued, “In earlier years, Wuyan Village was a rich and lively village. It was actually the biggest village in the area. However, after the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the tomb-robbing industry in Shandong was on the rise. Some bold tomb robbers came here and unearthed Zhong Wuyan’s tomb. After that, paranormal activities started to happen in the village… In particular, many girls were attacked and killed. The villagers were scared, so they began to move away. In a few years, the once prosperous village had been almost abandoned.

“The people who decided to stay took it upon themselves to rebuild Zhong Wuyan’s tomb and set up the forbidden area. The situation has been getting better ever since.” Then, the driver told us wholeheartedly, “You’re outsiders visiting this place. You don’t know how horrible Wuyan Village is. It would be for the best if you left while it’s still bright. This place is not for sightseeing. It’s evil.”

Once he finished talking, he held the cigarette pack underneath his arm while humming some song and drove away in his tractor.

Zhao Wuyang kept shivering even after the driver had completely disappeared from our view. “How could this be? In which period did Zhong Wuyan live? How could her tomb survive to this day?”

I carefully went through all my recollections about her life.

Zhong Wuyan had been born during the Spring and Autumn Period. She was said to be an extraordinarily ugly woman. Not only did she have a red birthmark on her face, but her hair was also sparse, her nose big, and her lips looked like a pair of sausages. In short, people chose to stay clear whenever they saw her.

The ancient books mentioned that she had not married until she was forty years old; it could be taken as an indication of how ugly she was. However, Zhong Wuyan had an outstanding talent when it came to governing the country. In fact, Zhong Wuyan had gone to the palace when the State of Qi was going through troubling times and offered her solutions to King Xuan of Qi. The king appreciated her a lot, to the point that he decided to make her his queen.

However, King Xuan of Qi had married her only because of her talent; they never slept on the same bed.

No matter how outstanding Zhong Wuyan was, she was still a woman. Although she was living in the harem with her queen status, she never once received love from her husband. Every day, as she put on her makeup and looked at herself in the mirror, she would remember her parents with deep hatred for giving her such a hideous appearance! If she had had a mesmerizing face, wouldn’t she have been able to keep King Xuan of Qi for herself?

My guess was that the mirror had absorbed a great deal of Zhong Wuyan’s resentful energy. That was why it would peel off people’s faces to vent out the anger. After discovering this important piece of information, I decided to go to Wuyan Village to investigate before it got darker.

Li Mazi panicked when I told them about my plans. “Little Brother Zhang, didn’t you listen to the driver? That Wuyan Village is quite strange. Why go there?”

I answered lazily, “Because I don’t have any other interest but to collect strange items. The more ominous they are, the more excited I get.”

I didn’t know if my answer had encouraged them, but they hurried to catch up with me.

Although our pace wasn’t slow, the sky had become completely dark when we arrived at Wuyan Village.

It was similar to what Zhao Wuyang had told us. The mountainous village was scarily quiet at night time. Except for some random dogs barking, the place was as still as a cemetery.

Since it was his second visit, Zhao Wuyang easily took us to the house he had stayed in the previous time. The old owner didn’t greet Zhao Wuyang as people normally would, smiling when they saw an acquaintance. His voice grew vigilant instead. “Why did you come back?”

Zhao Wuyang didn’t know how to answer.

I quickly stepped forward. “Good evening, sir. I’m Zhao Wuyang’s friend. He took a lot of beautiful photos on his last visit. I’m very interested in photography, and this place looks magnificent to me, so I begged him to bring me here.”

The old fellow assessed me from top to bottom, and his face became friendlier. “What do you want?”

Zhao Wuyang said, “Sir, we don’t have a place to stay. We would like to stay in your house for a few days.” While he spoke, he showed the old man a bag of gifts he had prepared.

The old fellow checked the bag carefully, looking satisfied. He nodded and said, “Come in!”

The courtyard was completely dark as we followed him inside. Moments later, as we were about to reach the mud-walled house, we heard the naive giggling of someone standing in the dark. Although I was unable to see anybody, I knew it was the madwoman Zhao Wuyang had mentioned.

The old man ushered us to the mud-walled room. He asked in a low voice, “Have you eaten yet?”

I hurried to take out some bread and sausages from my bag. “We came prepared. There’s no need for you to trouble yourself. Please go ahead and have some rest—”

The old man had already left with his kerosene lamp before I finished speaking.

I felt a little awkward as I looked back at Li Mazi. I caught the mirth in his eyes.

“What are you laughing at?”

“Little brother, you do have moments when you look like a fool.”

His satisfied face annoyed me, so I said to Zhao Wuyang, “Li Mazi doesn’t feel like eating. We’ll split the food between us two!”

We ate the bread and sausages, then we went to bed early that night.

I was woken up by the noise outside the next morning. I pushed Li Mazi, who was sleeping like a dead pig. “Wake up. Go out and take a look, something’s happening!”

Once we got out of the room, we saw many people standing in the old fellow’s courtyard. All of them looked worried.

A man asked, “When did Old Wu’s daughter disappear?”

“She was still inside the house when they went to bed. However, the girl was nowhere to be seen this morning…”

“Old Wu worked hard on his field yesterday. He slept deep enough that he didn’t hear anything. How could that girl disappear into thin air?”

The villagers were discussing boisterously.