(Time: Morning of the third day)

  That half-eaten apple with fresh teeth marks was like a cold, malicious exclamation point, shattering all my wishful thinking. Xiao Zhang and Meiling... they were likely nearby! And they had probably encountered some sudden event; their situation was definitely not good!

  Fear coiled around my heart like cold vines, but I knew I absolutely couldn't retreat now. Whether out of moral obligation or the instinct to seek the only "companions" in this desperate situation, I had to keep going forward to find them!

  I forced myself to pull together, temporarily pushing aside the unsettling discovery, gripped my trekking pole and wooden stick tighter, and continued deeper along the muddy, desolate path. Every sense was heightened, vigilantly aware of every rustle and movement around me.

  The dense fog lingered, though perhaps slightly thinner than at dawn, maybe because the sun had risen higher? Occasionally, through gaps in the branches, I could see a patch of pale sky, like the face of a corpse. The light remained dim, the surrounding scenery twisted and oppressive. Dead silence was the eternal theme, only my own footsteps and breathing echoed in the emptiness.

  I didn't know how long I struggled forward. Time seemed meaningless here, only physical fatigue and inner fear accumulated continuously. The path wound tortuously, sometimes climbing upward, sometimes descending, the houses on either side becoming increasingly dilapidated, many completely integrated into the overgrown vegetation, their original appearance unrecognizable. This seemed to be an even more marginal, more forgotten corner of the village.

  Just as I began to wonder if I was lost again, anxiety growing like weeds in my heart, a faint, intermittent human voice suddenly drifted over with the wind!

  My heart leaped!

  Human voices! Truly human voices!

  I immediately stopped, held my breath, and listened intently.

  The sound was faint, mixed with the wind (or the wind in my imagination?) and ambient noise, making it hard to discern clearly. But it was definitely... human speech! And it sounded somewhat... agitated and uneasy?

  Was it Xiao Zhang and Meiling?!

  A surge of intense hope instantly washed over me, almost dispersing the fear accumulated over the days. I pushed forward recklessly towards the direction of the sound.

  I pushed aside a dense thicket of thorny bushes (oblivious to the several bloody scratches on my arms), and the view ahead opened up slightly.

  Not far ahead, an adobe house, appearing "miraculously" intact compared to the completely collapsed ruins around it, emerged from the dense fog. Though also dilapidated, with mottled walls and missing roof tiles, its main structure was still standing, and the doors and windows were mostly intact (albeit the door was askew and the window paper long torn). A faint, yellow light shone through the broken window, forming a blurry halo in the fog.

  And the intermittent, anxious human voices were coming precisely from that house!

  "...It's all your fault! Insisting on coming to this godforsaken place! Now look? No phone signal, can't find the way out! Are we going to die here? Boo hoo hoo..." It was Meiling's voice, thick with tears and fear.

  "What are you crying about! So annoying!" Another voice chimed in, Xiao Zhang's, but his tone lacked yesterday's flippant carelessness, instead filled with suppressed frustration and a barely concealed panic, "How was I supposed to know this place was so creepy?! Those idiots online didn't make it clear! Besides, what's the use of complaining now! Let's think about how to get out!"

  "Get out? How? Look at this damned weather outside! This fog! We almost got lost last night, remember? And those weird sounds... I'm so scared..." Meiling cried harder.

  "Alright, alright! Stop crying! Let me think... let me think..." Xiao Zhang's voice also revealed a sense of helplessness.

  Standing behind the bushes, listening to their conversation, I felt a mix of emotions. Relief at finding them, worry about their condition, and... a strange sense of sadness. It seemed terror hadn't spared them either. The strangeness of this village was finally stripping away their thrill-seeking facade, revealing the fragile fear beneath.

  Taking a deep breath, I stepped out from behind the bushes and stood at the door of the dilapidated house.

  "Xiao Zhang? Meiling?" I called out tentatively.

  The arguing and crying inside stopped abruptly.

  After a few seconds of silence, the crooked wooden door creaked open violently. Xiao Zhang's face, etched with suspicion and uncertainty, appeared at the doorway.

  When he saw it was me, the wariness on his face instantly transformed into a mixture of surprise, disbelief, and almost desperate joy, like clutching at a lifeline!

  "Xue... Sister Xue?! It's you! You... you're okay?!" His voice cracked with emotion.

  "It's me." I nodded and stepped inside.

  The scene inside confirmed my guess. It was a relatively well-preserved abandoned dwelling, still containing some old furniture—a dusty wooden bed, a few chairs askew, a dilapidated wooden cabinet, and piles of straw and debris in the corner. The air was thick with the smell of dust and mold.

  Meiling was sitting on the edge of the wooden bed, hugging her knees, her makeup completely ruined by tears, dark circles under her eyes, her hair somewhat messy—she looked utterly wretched, a far cry from the fashionable girl of yesterday. Seeing me enter, she too looked up abruptly, her tear-streaked face showing the same surprise and disbelief as Xiao Zhang's.

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  "Sister Xue! You... you really came! That's great! I thought... I thought I'd never see you again!" She practically lunged at me, grabbing my arm tightly, as if I were her only support.

  Xiao Zhang also came forward excitedly, rambling, "Sister Xue! You finally came! We... last night... we were really scared to death! This place... this place is just too wrong!"

  Seeing their shaken state, I felt a slight sense of relief; at least they were alive. But at the same time, the items I found earlier resurfaced in my mind.

  "You two... after leaving yesterday evening, where did you go? Did anything unusual happen?" I asked directly, my gaze fixed on them.

  At the mention of last night, both Xiao Zhang and Meiling's faces turned deathly pale again.

  "Don't mention it!" Xiao Zhang said with lingering fear. "We wanted to find a better place to set up the tent, but... as we walked, things felt wrong! The fog got thicker and thicker, and it got dark incredibly fast! We seemed to... walk in circles in one place for ages!"

  "It was a ghost wall! Definitely a ghost wall!" Meiling shrieked, her body trembling involuntarily. "I felt... felt something following us! And... and sounds! So many weird sounds! Like crying, like laughing, and... like fingernails scratching glass! It was terrifying!"

  "Later... later we were just too scared, so we ran forward desperately, no idea for how long, then suddenly saw this house was relatively intact, so... we hid inside." Xiao Zhang continued, cold sweat beading on his forehead. "After coming in, we barricaded the door and didn't dare sleep all night! Those weird sounds... never stopped!"

  Their description largely matched my own experience last night, confirming that the terrifying sounds and disorientation weren't just my personal hallucinations. The village at night truly held some kind of frightening anomaly.

  "So... did you lose anything? Or... encounter any more specific danger?" I asked tentatively, glancing over them.

  Xiao Zhang and Meiling looked at each other, seemingly trying to recall.

  "Lost something?" Xiao Zhang frowned, thinking. "It seems... I can't find one of my flashlights. It was too dark and chaotic last night, don't know where I dropped it. That piece of junk wasn't good anyway, dropped is dropped."

  "I also... I threw away the apple I didn't finish yesterday..." Meiling added timidly. "I was too scared last night, had no appetite at all, and carrying it felt heavy... "

  Flashlight... apple...

  Their answers seemed to explain some of the items I found on the path. But... what about the playing cards?

  "Did you... bring any playing cards?" I pressed.

  "Playing cards?" Both Xiao Zhang and Meiling looked puzzled.

  "Why bring those?" Xiao Zhang shook his head. "We're here for exploration, not a picnic to play cards."

  They... didn't bring playing cards?

  Then who left those scattered cards I found on the path?!

  A deeper chill swept over me. Could it be... besides me, Xiao Zhang, Meiling, and the mysterious old man, there was recently... a fifth person (or more) in this village? And those cards were left by them? What... happened to them?

  This new discovery brought many eerie questions to my mind, but I didn't show it immediately. I didn't want to increase the fear of this couple, already on the verge of collapse.

  "Maybe I saw wrong," I said, feigning ease, changing the subject. "By the way, Sister Xue, what about you? How were you last night? Did anything happen?" Xiao Zhang asked in return, a mix of hope and fear in his eyes.

  I hesitated. Should I tell them about my "ghost wall" experience and the strange carvings on the ancestral hall wall?

  Looking at their shaken state, I decided to temporarily withhold part of the truth. Telling them too much would only make them more panicked and possibly lead to irrational actions.

  "Pretty much the same as you," I said lightly. "Heard a lot of weird sounds, felt... felt a bit lost. This village... is definitely creepy."

  I shifted the conversation to the wall carvings: "Right, in the village center, at a place that looked like an ancestral hall, I saw many strange symbols carved on the wall. They didn't look like writing, seemed very old, and also... unsettling. Did you notice them?"

  Xiao Zhang and Meiling both shook their heads blankly.

  "No... didn't notice," Xiao Zhang said. "We were just running scared yesterday, who had the mind to look at walls."

  "Are those symbols... important?" Meiling asked softly.

  "I don't know," I shook my head. "But my gut tells me those things might be related to the secrets of this village."

  I took out the broken flashlight I found on the path (without mentioning the cards or the apple): "Is this yours?"

  Xiao Zhang took it, looked, and nodded: "Yes! This is it! So weird, didn't expect you to find it." He casually moved to toss it away.

  "Wait!" I stopped him. "Let's keep it for now, maybe... it'll be useful." Even though it was broken, my intuition told me these seemingly useless items might come in handy at a crucial moment.

  Just then, Meiling suddenly complained, "Ah, it's so cold here! The clothes I brought aren't enough! And it's damp and dirty, I've had enough! Xiao Zhang, when can we finally leave this place?"

  "I... I don't know either!" Xiao Zhang ran his hand through his hair in frustration. "In this mess, with the fog so thick, we can't even find the road, how can we leave? What if we run into the same situation as last night?"

  "Then... we can't just be trapped here forever, right?" Meiling said tearfully. "The snacks I brought are almost gone... "

  Seeing their anxiety and helplessness, my heart felt heavy too. Leave? Easier said than done.

  "We must find a way to leave," I said firmly, trying to make my tone sound resolute, both to comfort them and to encourage myself. "But we can't act rashly. We need to understand the environment first, find a relatively safe route. And..."

  I paused, remembering the mysterious old man.

  "It seems... there's an old man living in this village," I said.

  "An old man?!" Xiao Zhang and Meiling were both startled. "Really? You saw him?"

  I nodded, briefly describing my encounter with the withered old man (omitting his deeply unsettling gaze and aura).

  "He... he lives here alone?" Meiling asked incredulously. "Isn't he... isn't he scared?"

  "He seemed... very strange," I said. "And he warned me that after dark, the 'door' will close, and you can't get out."

  "'Door'? What door?" Xiao Zhang asked urgently.

  "I don't know," I shook my head. "But he didn't look like he was joking."

  The old man's existence, and his warning, cast another shadow over the atmosphere in the room. Xiao Zhang and Meiling's faces grew even more grim.

  "Then... does that mean we're really trapped?" Meiling's voice trembled.

  "Don't scare yourself!" Xiao Zhang retorted, though the fear in his eyes deepened. "Maybe... maybe the old man was just trying to scare you? Maybe he's crazy?"

  "Regardless, we must be careful," I said. "It's daytime now, relatively safer. My suggestion is, we stick together for now, try to scout the surroundings as much as possible, especially looking for potential ways out. At the same time, keep an eye out for the old man; maybe we can get more information from him. But, absolutely do not split up! And, we must return to a relatively safe base before dark."

  My proposal seemed the only feasible plan for now. Although Xiao Zhang and Meiling were still filled with fear, they could only nod in agreement.

  Reuniting with them temporarily eased my fear of absolute solitude. Three people together were better than one fighting alone.

  But at the same time, their presence and the unresolved mysteries (like the origin of the playing cards) also made the situation more complex and dangerous.