Daomu Biji: A Thousand Faces

Why is it in the wall? Ah Tou thought to herself. Human ears could distinguish whether sounds were coming from inside or behind walls, so unless this wall had been made out of paper, the phone definitely had to be inside of it.

"He’s just messing around." Liang Yanyan didn’t believe in creepy things like that, so she ended the call and yelled again, “Black Glasses, come out! I know you like to hide in the dark."

The whole space remained quiet. Ah Tou swept her flashlight around and turned on her phone, finding that the signal was sometimes good and sometimes bad. The flashlight’s beam could only reach four or five meters away, so everything beyond that remained dark. 

"Isn’t he being a little too stubborn?" Ah Tou asked. At this point, this kind of joke isn’t funny anymore. Or maybe he simply doesn’t want to meet us? But man… Liang Yanyan is just as stubborn as him, Ah Tou thought to herself. If it were her, she would just go on and investigate by herself.

After shouting a few more times, Liang Yanyan went up to the wall where the phone had rung and shined her flashlight on it. This was a very old brick wall that had been painted with white putty. There were a lot of mildew stains on the exterior, but there weren’t any cracks to put the phone inside. Liang Yanyan then checked the top of the wall, but found that it was directly connected to the roof without any cracks either. 

She kept looking for an opening along the wall but didn’t find any. The decoration of this ancestral hall was relatively complete, so if there was a crack in the wall, it had to be on the other side.

"Why don’t we just investigate things on our own and let him be,” Ah Tou said to Liang Yanyan. “We don’t have to force him to come out.”

"He wouldn’t leave his phone. He's right here," Liang Yanyan walked behind the huge lounge chair, where she found a table housing the ancestral hall’s memorial tablets. There was a doorway on either side of the table that led to the backyard, but the physical doors were no longer there.

As they walked out, they found themselves in an outer courtyard (1) that had been paved with pebbles and bluestone slabs. The courtyard also had landscaping, but it was all weeds now. There were open corridors constructed around the outer edges of the courtyard that gave off an atmosphere of antiquity. Liang Yanyan dialed Black Glasses' number again and followed the sound of the ringing phone. As expected, they saw that there was a huge crack on the other side of the wall.

After shining their flashlights inside, they saw Black Glasses standing there in the crack. 

Liang Yanyan glanced back at Ah Tou, who rolled her eyes. What a weirdo. This is such a bad prank. Why is he being so stupid? What the hell is this all about?  

But when they walked over, Ah Tou immediately found that something was wrong. It was a statue standing in the crack. The statue was wearing sunglasses and had a phone stuffed in its mouth. The majority of the statue was inside the wall. 

The two women looked at each other in dismay. The driver obviously didn’t know what was happening, and just stood there shivering behind them while constantly checking his watch.

"If he took off his sunglasses, then that means there’s huge danger nearby," Liang Yanyan said quietly. 

"How… how huge?”

"He wouldn’t take off his sunglasses even if he was lying in a pool with six or seven crocodiles,” Liang Yanyan said. "No one has ever seen him take off his glasses.”

In a village like this, is there anything more dangerous than six or seven crocodiles? Ah Tou wondered.

Liang Yanyan had already grabbed Black Glasses’ phone and turned it on. A message from Black Glasses instantly popped up on the lock screen: “One of the statues outside isn’t a statue. Find a place to hide and leave during daylight. Don’t run around or make any noise.”

Ah Tou, who had walked over and saw the message, suddenly broke out in a cold sweat when she remembered that they had all been making a lot of noise on their way here. At this time, the driver suddenly fell to the ground and cried out in alarm while looking at the nearby wall.

The two women immediately turned their heads to look. Under the moonlight, they saw a statue’s head poking over the wall and looking into the courtyard below. The statue had to be at least four meters tall.

Ah Tou was on the verge of screaming, but Liang Yanyan clapped her hand over her mouth and instantly dragged her into the darkness. Liang Yanyan hugged Ah Tou tightly, restraining her so that she couldn’t run away. 

The driver had fallen in the middle of the courtyard and was too terrified to stand up. They watched a very thin, long arm reach over the wall and stretch into the courtyard below. Its fingernails were extremely long and there were at least tens of jade bracelets on its wrist. 

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TN Notes:

(1) This place has two courtyards and they’re in the outer one. 

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Yvette Note: “Ah Tou was on the verge of screaming, but Liang Yanyan clapped her hand over her mouth and instantly dragged her into the darkness. Liang Yanyan hugged Ah Tou tightly, restraining her so that she couldn’t run away.” – If this reminded you of anything, don’t be afraid – YOU WERE RIGHT.

Merebear Note: Yvette was kind enough to translate some of the fan comments from the chapters for us. She said Xu Lei turned off auto-comments on Wechat and only selected comments that would show up under each chapter. The chosen ones are either funny imaginings of the plot, quotes, text analysis, or some random daily stuff. They prompt a deeper understanding of the text, and there are many implications that are brought up. (I tried to make them big, but if you can't see them, let me know and I'll try to readjust the size)