The World Below Surface 61 ☆ Returning to my hometown to pay respects to my ancestors

An Xing Yu stood amidst the throng of people, his white robe billowing in the wind. The weight of expectations from his parents and the ever-present fear of being on the cusp of life and death had left him in constant unease. The only solace he found was in prayer and listening to the gospel, which brought him a fleeting sense of peace.

As the sacrificial ceremony commenced in the field, An Xing Yu's face lit up with joy. Blood spattered and stained his white robe a deep crimson hue. He was not alone, for everyone present was similarly exchanging their white robes for red ones while feeling honoured by the grace of God. It was a day of grand celebration. An Xing Yu couldn't help but break into an unusual, joyful smile.

His phone vibrated, and he glanced at the caller ID. Without answering, he let the other party continue calling.

After An's mother discovered that her son had run away from home, she was furious with her husband and searched for him daily. She followed any leads from surveillance cameras and posted flyers. Still, An Xing Yu remained resolute in staying hidden from his family.

"It's all your fault. Why did you have to argue with him? He can believe whatever he wants. Can your theories save him? Bring him back?" An's mother wept on the sofa, filled with anger and frustration.

An Ru felt a sense of unease, "He's already gone through so much. He's strong enough to handle this...but isn't it the cult that caused all of this suffering? I'm only trying to help him."

"Help him? Where is our son now?" An's mother was beside herself with grief.

An Ru remained motionless, accused by his wife of being responsible for their son's disappearance.

Mother An's eyes darted to An Ru, her voice lowering to a menacing growl. "You think I'm oblivious to his doings? As long as my son is unscathed, I could care less about what he believes. Does his religion command him to harm or set fires?" She snarled, "How did you suspect him?"

An Ru hardly ever returned home, so where did he obtain the information?

"Didn't you put a camera in his room?" An Ru said, exposing her deceit. "I saw it too. And An Xing Yu's laptop is in your possession, isn't it? This child is quite shrewd, he knows how to encode his secrets using cryptic symbols. If I didn't understand his tactics, I wouldn't have unraveled the mystery."

Those words elicited a proud and mournful grin from Mother An. "Yes, he's so astute." She evaded responsibility, "It's all because of you! If something happens to him during this turmoil outside, we're not done yet!"

An Ru allowed her to blame him, but after a lengthy pause, he seemed to have decided. "Don't fret; I'll locate him."

**

In a dimly lit room, a young girl sat with a doll-like face that displayed an enigmatic smile. Her fingers flicked back and forth.

"Hehehe," the girl suddenly sprang up, exhilarated. "Just as I anticipated, nothing can flummox me, a fledgling master! I've solved it!" Her phone rang simultaneously.

"Hello?" The girl, Lin Chu (林初), rubbed her short hair and cackled. "Honestly, Xiao Yu, where did you get this website? These games are rather entertaining and challenging."

The voice on the other end sounded on the brink of tears. "Chu Chu, are you at home? Can I come over?"

Lin Chu was taken aback. "What's wrong?"

The young man she called Xiao Yu cried out, "I'm a dead man, I...I'm outside your building right now, can you please help me?"

"Alright, um..." Lin Chu nodded slowly, her mind preoccupied with something that seemed to be speaking to her internally. A voice in her head made her responses slower than usual. "What... task? Village of the Heavenly Immortals? What is that?" she asked, trying to shake off the strange sensation clouding her thoughts.

She composed herself and let Xiao Yu inside, but her expression remained unsightly. Xiao Yu, who had been tearful before, noticed her discomfort and asked, "Are you feeling unwell, Chu Chu?"

Lin Chu forced a smile, trying to push aside the nagging feeling in her mind. "No... but what about you?" she asked, attempting to redirect the conversation.

"I..." Xiao Yu's voice faltered as his eyes filled with tears again. "I'm going to die."

Lin Chu felt her heart skip a beat. She had known Xiao Yu for years and had never seen him like this before. She guided him inside and sat him down, trying to remain calm even as her mind raced with questions.

Xiao Yu's real name was Yu Xian Guang (余衔光), but he was called Xiao Yu as a nickname. He was Lin Chu's closest friend. She couldn't bear to see him in such a state.

Then she heard something that made her blood run cold.

"Anyway, that's it. The task that I had you log in to the website and the task that was approved, was actually my personal experience. The posts that you saw were also from their personal experiences," Xiao Yu said in despair. "Next, I'm going to participate in the second task. What should I do? I won't be able to survive."

Lin Chu felt a surge of shock and disbelief. It was too much to take in all at once. Why was he saying so similar to what she had just heard in her head?

She couldn't help but wonder if the voice she heard just now was real?

Xiao Yu beseeched once more, his tone desperate and imploring. "Can you help me? Can you analyze it for me? You're the best, and all the survival strategies you sifted through on that website were spot on."

Lin Chu's complexion drained of colour, her features taut with tension. "Are you being serious right now? Just a moment ago, I heard a voice instructing me to undertake a task. Right when you called."

"What? What?!" Yu Xiang Guang's countenance was frozen in disbelief, as if he never envisioned Lin Chu would be ensnared in this game.

Lin Chu's expression contorted as if she had glimpsed a phantom. "If I hadn't undergone the same thing, I would've thought you were pranking me. Who on earth could've devised such a bizarre thing?"

Now, it was Yu Xiang Guang's turn to console her. "Don't be crestfallen. You can ask for assistance on the website. Everyone is in the same boat, and you can certainly make it through with your intellect."

Before he could finish, Lin Chu's demeanour left him astounded. There wasn't a scintilla of the panic he envisioned. She was brimming with enthusiasm!

"What's gotten into you?"

Lin Chu tried to suppress her glee, but it burst forth in laughter. She sprang up abruptly, placing her fingers above the laptop and slamming it shut, her eyes dancing excitedly. "I never envisaged something like this. Life can get tedious if it continues for too long. Tsk... it's merely a task, right? I'm in!"

Her voice grew in intensity, leaving Yu Xiang Guang speechless.

"Now, let's discuss the task. Oh, right, my task is to go to the Village of the Heavenly Immortals. It told me that I'm the daughter of a family who's been studying away from home for years. My name remains the same. It's almost Chinese New Year, and I must return to pay homage to my ancestors. Once the ritual is complete, the task will conclude. What about you?"

Yu Xiang Guang's mind took a while to emerge from the fog. "Ah, um, me too. By the by, did you just receive the task?" he muttered, head lowered. "It shouldn't be this way. The tasks are always released simultaneously, so why was one person added at the last minute?"

"Maybe I'm some kind of bug. Oh, and could it be that you leaked the task details to me?"

The accusation made Yu Xiang Guang turn pallid. "No, I didn't intend to harm you."

"Chill. I was just fretting about not finding the true meaning of life." Lin Chu was thrilled, licking her lips, and said, "It's so exhilarating to experience the feeling of walking on the edge of death."

Yu Xiang Guang trembled for a while before returning to his usual self. "I attended a gathering a few days ago. You see, the participants of the same batch of tasks would convene on the website after the task details were published. There were five people in total in this batch, and with you, that makes six. There was also a high school student who was particularly good and had already completed many tasks."

He looked at Lin Chu expectantly. "Master, I'm counting on you."

But Lin Chu was more interested in the high school student. "High school? What's his name? How many times has he done this?" Her round eyes narrowed slightly. "I feel like he's a bit suspicious..."

"What's suspicious?"

"Nothing." Lin Chu kept her thoughts to herself.

To Lin Chu, the whole situation felt like a twisted game with life-or-death stakes. It was like an infinite-flow novel come to life. The stakes were high, and failure was not an option. Those who didn't participate or failed the task were doomed to die. It was no wonder that there had been a surge of strange cases in recent years. How many of them were related to the task?

"Why do people who want to do the task still gather to open a website?" Lin Chu mused aloud. "Hasn't this website been discovered by the relevant departments?"

She couldn't help but wonder if the task also screened its takers. After all, with so many people participating, someone was bound to spill the beans. But no news had surfaced yet, meaning something was suppressing it.

But then again, why had Yu Xiang Guang confided in her? Was it the survival rate of small-scale dissemination, or did she have something special? Too many questions were piling up, and she needed answers.

That's why Lin Chu decided to investigate the site before coming to any conclusion. She was particularly interested in the high school student and hoped to learn more information from advanced task takers. Additionally, the idea of another world was quite intriguing.

**

"We're almost at the Village of the Heavenly Immortals," the woman in the red robe announced. "This village has always been relatively exclusive. Our people only recently learned about it after inquiring for a long time."

Despite the deep winter, the car was driving on a winding path, surrounded by dark green and thick trees. The atmosphere was bone-chilling. In the car, a man and woman were present. The man was driving attentively, while the woman in the red robe in the back seat looked dignified and holy. She was introducing the situation of the village to the person in front.

"It is said that the original Village of the Heavenly Immortals was very prosperous and covered a large area. However, after being wealthy for a period of time, the entire village immediately encountered a curse. The specific cause and manifestation of the curse are still unknown. In short, the entire village almost became extinct. But later, they invited the Five Great Immortals to the village, and the people in the village began to survive smoothly."

"The Five Great Immortals?" repeated Lu Yan.

Lu Yan had heard of many strange things, so the legend of the Five Great Immortals was familiar to him. Up in the northern regions, folks believed in the five "great immortals" - Hu (fox), Huang (yellow weasel), Bai (hedgehog), Liu (snake), and Hui (rat). This belief system was rooted in folk legends and influenced by shamanism and Taoist culture.

Despite his familiarity with these stories, he didn't need to show off his knowledge to the priest who had accompanied him on this trip.

"It's just a folk legend, a bunch of low-level animals, they don't know what real gods are," the woman said dismissively, her expression still sacred and gentle. "Remember, don't forget your identity."

She wasn't trying to admonish him but instead reminding him. They had found a villager from the Village of the Heavenly Immortals living outside to make a fake ID. Their plan was to claim that they were villagers from the Village of the Heavenly Immortals who had lived outside for many years and returned to worship their ancestors.

"Understood, I won't forget," Lu Yan replied, his tone confident.

As he spoke, something caught his eye. Lu Yan noticed a brownish-yellow weasel brushing past the car and the path's edge. He looked back in the rearview mirror and saw it standing on a bare, protruding rock. Its shiny fur gleamed in the sunlight, and its round black eyes were looking right at them through the mirror.

Suddenly, the weasel jumped down from the rock and disappeared. But before it vanished, Lu Yan saw that the weasel's two front paws were folded across its chest like a human, and its mouth was curved in a smile similar to a human's.

Meanwhile, the woman in the back seat continued to speak. "Let's check again. Your name doesn't need to change, it's still Lu Yan. My name is Luo Ying (罗莺), and we've both been living outside with our parents and have never returned to the village. We're here this year to worship our ancestors. Do you remember?"

"Don't worry, I won't make any mistakes," Lu Yan reassured her, his voice calm and steady.

Luo Ying's eyes narrowed as she leaned forward and hissed, "Remember, our mission is to ensure that the villagers worship my Lord, no matter the cost. And the best way to do that is to tear down everything they hold sacred." Her last words were almost a whisper, but the venom in her voice was unmistakable.

As the vehicle rumbled towards the village, the sun descended, casting an amber glow over the surrounding fields. They soon arrived at the village entrance, where a middle-aged man stood waiting. His face was rugged and leathered from years of exposure to the elements, and his lips were already cracked from the dry heat. But his smile was genuine as he rushed forward to greet them.

Lu Yan rolled down his window and was met with a warm welcome. "You must be the boy from the Lu family, right?" the man said. "I've been waiting for you. Is this your first time back? Take a look around the village when you enter. You young men will have to contribute to the ancestral temple when the time comes."

Luo Ying emerged from the back seat, shedding her vibrant red robe in favour of a plain tracksuit. "Zhang Bo (张伯), I, too am here to pay my respects to our ancestors," she said, flashing a bright smile. "I am Luo Ying, from the Luo family."

Zhang Bo's eyes widened in recognition. "Luo family... Oh, your father is Luo Rong Shan, right? I remember now." He clapped his hands together. "I never knew that Luo Rong Shan had such a stunning daughter. Come, come, let us go inside."

With Zhang Bo leading the way, the car passed through the village. As they drove, they were met with friendly waves and warm greetings from the villagers. They slowed as they entered the village's parking area, savouring the sense of community that pervaded the atmosphere.

The village sprawled, a vast expanse that revealed its economic underdevelopment due to its remote location. Most villagers inhabited adobe houses with scarce tiled abodes that dotted the landscape. But occasionally, exquisite wooden buildings stood tall, their grandeur unmistakable. Zhang Bo enlightened them, "These are sanctums reserved for the Five Great Immortals."

Zhang Bo's parking space lay within arm's reach of his home. After disembarking, he ushered them and, with a vigorous rub of his hands, declared, "On your first day back, there'll be nothing in that old house. Spend the night at mine, and we'll fix up your dilapidated shack tomorrow. Once it's done, how about you take up residence?"

The duo agreed and trailed behind Zhang Bo, a large pine tree looming near his abode. Verdant foliage enveloped the tree, making the season appear more vibrant. They followed a path that wound under the tree and were welcomed by the sight of a brand-new tiled house.

Curiously, the doorstep to Zhang Bo's house was unnaturally high, almost reaching Luo Ying's calves. The two of them awkwardly stepped over it, barely maintaining their balance. As soon as they crossed the threshold, the shrine in the hall's centre came into view.