DNSTU 5. Lu Ye

When Xiang Ye woke up again, he was in an unfamiliar hotel room.

The room was dim, lit only by a single ray of light slipping through the blackout curtains and falling right across his face. He raised a hand to block it and tried to sit up, but his bones still ached and his head felt heavy, like he had slept too long and muddled his brain.

It took about ten minutes before he was fully awake. He got out of bed and pulled the curtains open with a sharp swish. Sunlight flooded in.

Outside, traffic bustled through the streets. The city was as lively as ever. All the ghosts and monsters seemed buried beneath steel and concrete, as if peace had never left. The weather was clear, with cloudless skies stretching endlessly overhead.

Bathed in warm sunlight, Xiang Ye felt his body gradually ease. He opened the window, letting the breeze drift in, and glanced at the bandages on his hands and arms. His clothes were clean too, which meant someone had already changed them for him.

As for who that person was, Xiang Ye chose not to think about it. Ever since he could remember, he had taken care of himself. He had never let anyone that close. To dwell on who might have changed his clothes now would only bring him unnecessary discomfort.

He yawned, then turned toward the bathroom to wash up. Afterward, he leisurely boiled a pot of water and returned to sit by the window, hands cupped around the warm mug.

When Xing Zhou walked in carrying takeout, the first thing he saw was that quiet scene. Xiang Ye sitting by the window, sunlight scattered across his face, looking almost resigned to whatever life gave him.

It was a strange sight in someone who had just survived a life-threatening ordeal. He was barely eighteen and still injured, with a slender arm wrapped in gauze that looked as if it might break from the slightest strain.

Xiang Ye heard the footsteps and looked up, his gaze passing over the takeout in Xing Zhou’s hand.

“For me?” he asked.

Xing Zhou said nothing and simply placed the takeout on the coffee table.

It was a little past one in the afternoon. On the table sat a bowl of pork congee with century egg and a bowl of pork rib soup. A plastic bag held some fruit for after the meal. Xiang Ye did not care for congee. He only liked meat, but now was not the time to be picky. Once he had eaten, he went straight to the point.

“What’s going on with Shen Yanzhi and Song Ling?”

Xing Zhou stood by the window and answered, “The ones you saw were not really them.”

Xiang Ye frowned. “What do you mean?”

“They didn’t die ten years ago. People from Lu Ye pulled them from the mountain flood and took them away. After that, they disappeared. But what you saw were Shen Yanzhi and Song Ling after possession. The bodies were theirs, but the souls belonged to someone else. The real Shen Yanzhi and Song Ling are most likely already dead.”

Lu Ye. Possession.

Xiang Ye suddenly remembered something Song Ling had said. She had claimed she could see ghosts and that she came from a special place. There had clearly been lies in her words, but what if some part of it had been true?

Xing Zhou saw the look on his face and asked, “How much do you know?”

In that moment, Xing Zhou seemed exactly as he had when they first met. There was a stillness in him that carried the feeling of a storm approaching, and it made Xiang Ye think of only one word. Interrogation.

It was difficult to lie in front of someone like him. His eyes looked as if they could see through every falsehood.

But Xiang Ye truly knew nothing. He stared into Xing Zhou’s eyes without fear, as if facing last night’s wind and rain, and countered with a question of his own.

“You told me there are no ghosts in this world. Then what is possession? Why did the fake Song Ling say she wanted to take my bones?”

Xing Zhou studied him silently. After a moment, he finally looked away.

“Lu Ye Plain. A place of exile. No one knows exactly when or how it came to be. You won’t find it on any map. It sounds unbelievable, but it does exist. According to legend, the people who live there are all descendants of heinous criminals. They were sentenced to remain in that place, cut off from the world, never allowed to leave for eternity.”

Hearing that, Xiang Ye thought again of something Song Ling had said.

“In their eyes, we are sinners. That makes you a child of sinners. You will never be allowed to escape.”

Xing Zhou continued, “That place can’t be located. Outsiders can’t find it or get in, and the people inside can’t get out. Anyone who tries to force their way out of Lu Ye has to pass through a gate. But to cross that gate, the body must be destroyed. Only the soul remains. “Possession is the act of taking over a living body. The host is killed, replaced, and the possessor starts a new existence in their name.”

In other words, Shen Yanzhi and Song Ling had both been taken. The people inside their bodies now were two others from Lu Ye. But if the real Song Ling was originally from Lu Ye, then how had she come out?

Had her body also been destroyed, allowing someone else to take her place?

“No exceptions?” Xiang Ye’s hand tightened around the armrest of the sofa.

“There are exceptions. If someone from Lu Ye has a child with someone from outside, that child carries traits from both worlds. If that child is killed and a specific bone is removed from their body, that bone becomes the key to the gate.”

Xing Zhou paused for a beat, then added, “Xiang Ye, you are one of those children. And your mother also holds such a bone.”

Xiang Ye almost laughed. What kind of bullshit truth was this? It would have been better if ghosts really did exist. Before he died, the old man had said that Xiang Ye might be joining him soon. Now, that sounded like the most honest thing he had ever said.

Xiang Ye raised his eyebrows and looked up again.

“So? The so-called Enforcement exists just to hunt down these so-called sinners, right? I’m a sinner’s descendant. You intercepted my call for help. Are you planning to arrest me too?”

Xing Zhou’s voice was calm but firm.

“You haven’t committed any crimes. I won’t arrest you. People don’t get to choose where they come from, but they can choose what kind of person they become.”

That self-righteous tone of his was infuriating.

Xiang Ye ground his teeth. But deep down, he knew his anger was not truly directed at Xing Zhou. What he hated was this so-called truth, and his goddamned fate.

After just a few minutes of talking, the itch had returned to his throat. He held back and forced out one last question.

“If my mother came from Lu Ye, then why was she still possessed? And who is Chu Lian?”

Xing Zhou replied, “Because your mother and Chu Lian stole the key together. They escaped Lu Ye side by side.”

What followed was the third version of the story Xiang Ye had been told.

The key came with strict limitations. One key could only be used by one person, and once it recognized its owner, it could never be transferred. Both Song Ling and Chu Lian had lived at the bottom of Lu Ye society. They stole a key together, and in doing so, became known as traitors.

Later, Chu Lian joined the Enforcement. Song Ling met Shen Yanzhi and began living an ordinary life.

But for reasons unknown, Chu Lian suddenly defected from the Enforcement ten years ago and vanished. Around the same time, Song Ling and Shen Yanzhi were captured by people from Lu Ye. Their fates remained unclear.

The Enforcement had known about Song Ling, but too many things were happening at once back then. Chu Lian’s sudden betrayal had thrown them into chaos, and critical information slipped through the cracks. By the time they realized there was something wrong with how Song Ling and Shen Yanzhi had died, it was already too late. Xiang Ye had been taken, and even his name had been changed.

No one had expected him to be in Jiangzhou. It was the classic blind spot, hidden in plain sight.

“Maybe you won’t believe this,” Xing Zhou said. “But someone used news about Chu Lian to lure me to Jiangzhou. They left the SIM card at a specific location for me to find. I thought I was going to find Chu Lian, but instead, I found you.”

Xiang Ye was stunned for a moment. Then it was as if something had been unlatched in his mind, and a rush of speculation poured in.

When the fake Shen Yanzhi and Song Ling saw the Enforcement arrive, they had looked more shocked than frightened. They had said the Enforcement was supposed to be up north. That meant they must have confirmed the Enforcement’s movements in advance to ensure their plan would go smoothly.

So who had led Xing Zhou here and caught them off guard?

And after all these years of hiding, how had Xiang Ye suddenly been discovered? How had the people from Lu Ye known where to find him, and how had they connected him to Chu Lian so confidently that they built this entire plan around it?

The timing was too perfect. It felt as though some invisible hand had been orchestrating everything from the shadows.

Chu Lian?

The name jumped to the forefront of Xiang Ye’s mind. It was the only possibility he knew of, and the more he thought about it, the more suspicious it seemed. If Chu Lian had been the one to help him disappear and keep him safe all these years, then the old man must have had some deep connection to him.

The phone number the old man left behind was very likely pointing to Chu Lian.

But he had betrayed Lu Ye, and then turned around and betrayed the Enforcement as well. Now both sides wanted to catch him, and he had been missing for so long. What exactly was he trying to do?

Xiang Ye drew in a deep breath, steadied his thoughts, and asked, “Are the fake Shen Yanzhi and Song Ling still alive?”

Xing Zhou replied, “They got away.”

Last night, the Enforcement had been focused on rescuing Xiang Ye. They had raced from Jiangzhou to Qingshui City and had no time to deal with anything else. That man they called Pei-ge was a dangerous one. He had taken Shen Yanzhi and Song Ling with him. They would show up again sooner or later.

Xiang Ye had thought of that too.

“They’ll come back for me, won’t they? As long as I still carry that bone, and as long as Chu Lian doesn’t appear, it doesn’t matter where I run. They’ll keep coming.”

Xing Zhou said, “The Enforcement is a state institution. You can apply for protection.”

But what good would protection do?

People who do evil are far more terrifying than ghosts.

Xiang Ye made up his mind quickly. “I’m going back to Jiangzhou.”

Xing Zhou asked, “Why?”

Xiang Ye countered, “Do you know who lured you here?”

Xing Zhou answered, “Anonymous tip. Untraceable.”

“Then if one end of the trail is cut off, I have to chase down the other.” Xiang Ye stood up and looked him in the eye. “The number came from the old man. He’s the one who raised me. I was born and grew up in Jiangzhou. That place is where everything began for me.”

Xing Zhou stared at him silently for a few seconds, then checked his watch.

“We leave in half an hour.”

Xiang Ye let out a quiet breath. Even though he could sense that the Enforcement meant him no harm, and had even saved him last night, in a world growing stranger by the minute, he could not bring himself to trust anyone. The truth was something he would have to find on his own.

Elsewhere, Xing Zhou stepped out of the hotel room and into the hallway. He didn’t go far. Standing just outside the door, he pulled out his phone.

A light, lively voice came through his earpiece, the same one from last night, the one who had tracked the signal and pulled surveillance footage.

“Boss, I’ve sent you the info. The man who raised Xiang Ye was named Xiang Qi. He was from Jingzhou. But something’s weird. I found signs that his household registration had been tampered with. His age had been altered in the records to make him seem much older. When he died, his hair was already white and he looked like a true old man, but according to his actual date of birth, he was only in his forties. Still very young. And what was a man from Jingzhou doing way out in Jiangzhou raising a random kid he’d never met? It smells fishy either way.”

Xing Zhou stared at the ID photo in the file, then finally slipped the phone back into his pocket.

“Look into Xiang Qi’s background. And recheck everything we have on Chu Lian, especially anything from his time in Jingzhou.”

The voice on the other end answered quickly. “On it. I’ll make sure we get something.”

Soon after, Xiang Ye came out of the room with everything packed.

Xing Zhou gave him a glance but said nothing. He simply turned and led the way. The two of them took the elevator down to the parking garage and found a black SUV.

Xiang Ye glanced at the license plate. It was from Jingzhou.

Once they were inside the car, he noticed that Xing Zhou showed no sign of waiting for anyone else. He couldn’t help but ask, “What about the other two? Aren’t they coming with us?”

“Cleanup,” Xing Zhou replied.

Xiang Ye thought back to the chaos from the night before. The driver shot in the head, the fishing boat blown apart. If the Enforcement really was some kind of special agency, handling the aftermath probably wasn’t a problem. But what about the Specter Net?

“What about the people on the long-distance bus?”

“They won’t remember you.”

The Specter Net didn’t just take people. It erased every trace of their presence from the past hour. But Xing Zhou clearly didn’t want to elaborate, and Xiang Ye understood well enough not to pry. He leaned back against the seat and closed his eyes to rest.

Not worrying about things that didn’t deserve it had always been one of Xiang Ye’s guiding principles.