For the past few days, I was busy telling my old classmate about my otherworldly item trades in recent years.

When we first started, we just had very long phone calls, but soon, my friend’s curiosity grew stronger, and he couldn’t wait. He came to my shop, traveling thousands of miles. Every day, aside from eating and sleeping, he would sit and listen to my stories. I’d talk so much that my mouth almost dried up.

“Hey dude, the things you’ve encountered are anomalies that have really challenged my worldview. It’s freaking awesome and mysterious! If I write your stories into a novel, I’m sure it’ll be a best-seller! I bet it’s going to have a great sale. I even picked the name already. This novel will be called ‘Otherworldly Merchant’!”

I just smiled, saying nothing.

After about three days and three nights, I finally finished my story-telling sessions and sent this friend of mine to the airport. Before we parted, he made me promise him that whenever I had new stories, I must tell him.

When I returned to my antique shop, it was around 11:00 PM. I fell fast asleep as soon as my head touched the pillow. The next morning, after washing my face, I checked my figure in the mirror, and the haggard guy I saw startled me.

It took me a while to pull myself together. Then, I prepared to go to the market to buy a hen, a bag of wolfberries, and Northeastern ginseng. I wanted to cook chicken soup to replenish my energy.

But before I could leave my shop, someone banged on my door.

As I just woke up, my eyes were like those of a panda. I slowly dragged myself to the door. “Who’s there? We don’t open during day time. If you have any business you want to do with us, please come again around twilight.”

Seemingly ignoring me, the person outside kept banging at my door. The noise gave me a headache.

I was infuriated. When I opened the door, I saw a man around thirty years old with a flattop. He was wearing an Adidas tracksuit, had a shaved face, and looked exceedingly anxious. While knocking at my door, he kept looking behind him as if something was after him.

My first reaction was: Trouble comes to my door!

I gave him an assessing glance from head to toe, asking vigilantly, “Who are you looking for?”

“Excuse me, is this the place of a master named Zhang?” He craned his neck, curiously looking into the shop.

“Why do you need to see the master named Zhang?” A slight frown grew on my face.

This guy looked sneaky. I hope the Longquan Villa didn’t send him.

“My friend told me that there’s a master with the name Zhang living on this antique street, and only he could save my life. I came here early today and asked around. They told me that Master Zhang lives in the antique shop at the end of this street. That’s why I’m here,” he said.

“Ah, it is so. Do you want to have a cup of tea inside?” I asked.

The man contemplated for a while. Then, he nodded, gingerly entering my antique shop.

While making tea, I glanced at the guy and saw him sitting on a bench with a sad face. He couldn’t even hold the teacup steady with his shaky hands.

It seemed that he was scared out of his mind.

I didn’t want to deny such a poor man outright, but I sensed something suspicious when he came to my door all of a sudden.

Contemplating, I decided to call Li Mazi, asking him to be the ‘Master named Zhang.’ I would be his apprentice. We needed to see what this fellow wanted first. If something were amiss, we would reject him.

Li Mazi was still mad at me because of the magic brush event. However, as soon as he heard that we might have a new business case, he was delighted. He put on a nice suit and came to the shop. As soon as he entered, he opened his mouth, talking as if he was some immortal. “Little brother, you’ve abruptly come to my door early in the morning. May I ask what the problem is?”

The man with a flattop was surprised and lifted his head. Li Mazi’s ugly face came into his eyesight. “You are the Master named Zhang?”

“Of course.” Li Mazi deliberately checked his watch. “If you’ve encountered any trouble or want to sell something, please hurry! I’ve got a lot of things to do. I’m going to the city center to collect an antique.”

I followed Li Mazi’s flow. “Although my teacher looks strange, he’s the real deal! If you’ve encountered something bad, you should tell him. He’ll help you.”

The guy was convinced. He looked bewildered for a while, but in the end, he nodded. “Okay, here’s the story. I’m Zhao Wuyang. I’m a member of a backpacker club.”

“Barbeque?” Li Mazi blinked. “Oh, I like that too.”

Zhao Wuyang stared at him, not quite understanding.

Li Mazi guffawed, “I love barbeque, and now, people even have a barbeque club! Did they want to make it a formal hobby?”

The corner of Zhao Wuyang’s mouth twitched.

I felt embarrassed. I wondered if I had done something bad in my previous life that resulted in my embarrassing friendship with Li Mazi in this life.

Zhao Wuyang didn’t know how to answer Li Mazi.

I laughed, intervening, “My teacher likes to joke. He thinks that jokes make people connect more easily. Please tell us your story, don’t mind him.”

Zhao Wuyang worriedly nodded. “Half a month ago, our club organized an outdoor trip. Including me, there were four members registered: three males and one female. The girl’s called Xiao Sisi; she’s a trainee working at a bank. The other two men are Zhang Qinghai, a painter who likes to collect folklore materials; and the second is Xue Peng, a college student.”

I assessed Zhao Wuyang, asking curiously, “May I ask what do you do?”

Zhao Wuyang answered immediately, “I’m a dentist. However, I really love traveling, and I take vacations every year to travel. These past years, I’ve been traveling through almost the entire country. Zhang Qinghai is one of my patients, and he often comes to me to clean his teeth. We eventually became friends, and it was him who introduced me to the backpacker club. This past trip, he was the one that chose our destination. It was a small rural village deep in Shandong. He heard that the area hadn’t been exploited yet. Since it was deep inside the mountains, it was apparently a paradise on earth.”

I nodded, indicating for him to continue his story.

Zhao Wuyang took a sip of his tea, speaking with regret in his voice. “As I only took a few vacations every year and planned to go to Bali this year, I wasn’t really interested in that so-called ‘paradise on earth.’ Nevertheless, Zhang Qinghai kept pestering me, so I finally had to agree. If I knew this would happen, I never would have listened to him. It was truly a nightmare.”

When he arrived at the next part of his tale, Zhao Wuyang started to shiver again. It appeared that his nightmare-like encounter had happened during his trip.

I pricked my ears up, listening carefully.

Zhao Wuyang continued his story, “Zhang Qinghai told me that six people were joining the trip. Moreover, they were all males. I didn’t really pay attention to these details at first. However, when I met them at the airport, I found that there were only four people, including Xiao Sisi. I wasn’t pleased, to be honest. Zhang Qinghai explained to me that two people were suddenly busy at departure time. They couldn’t make it.”

“Xiao Sisi was a junior from his university, and she wanted to use the last school break to have a nice time and gain more knowledge. He couldn’t reject her, so he agreed to take her with us. Xiao Sisi is a pretty girl with a sweet mouth. Moreover, as she was already there, I couldn’t say anything.”

Li Mazi listened to him, smiling awkwardly. “Don’t you know that lascivious activities can lead to bitter consequences?”

“No,” Zhao Wuyang hurried to explain himself. “I’m several years older than her, and I didn’t think of her that way. This time, our journey was very rough. At first, we took a flight to Shandong, and then the train to a tiny station I’d never heard of. In the end, we had to hitchhike on a farmer’s tractor to reach the ‘paradise on earth’ Zhang Qinghai had mentioned. It turned out that it was not a paradise on earth. It was just a poor village by a stream! The village was called Wuyan Village, and it had around a dozen households. We got there by night time, and everything was completely dark. There were no street lights, and the people there had already closed their doors. No matter how hard we called, no one opened their house to welcome us.”

Wuyan Village as in ‘Saltless’ Village? What an interesting name!

Zhao Wuyang sighed, “We’d traveled a long way just to find that ‘paradise on earth’. And yet, we arrived at a place where even the birds wouldn’t want to shit in. Although we didn’t say anything, our displeasure was evident in our expressions. Only Zhang Qinghai looked happy. He knocked on a fellow’s door in the village, begging them to let us stay in their house for the night. I thought people living in remote villages were all simple and friendly. However, this village was the complete opposite. No one answered us. I felt like we were in a ghost town.”

Then, he shot me a frightened glance.

I smiled, encouraging him. “Sometimes, people living in rural areas don’t like contact with outsiders. It’s normal.”

“No, it wasn’t like that,” Zhao Wuyang explained seriously. “It wasn’t simply because they didn’t want to contact us. They actually looked hostile! It appeared as if they hated our guts so much that they wished to kill us all!”