Chapter 3: Paper Man

“Holy shit!!!”

The tour guide skidded to a halt mid-jog, stumbling backward as if he might topple over. He flung his hand behind him like it had been scorched by fire, then cursed in shock after a moment. “Which bastard put a goddamn paper effigy in the house!”

Gu Xianwang lowered her hand. The light from her phone gathered into a small beam that fell just in front of her high-heeled sandals. The night closed in around them once more, writhing like a mass of worms, and her cold sweat trickled down her back, soaking into her dress.

She said softly, “Every household here has paper effigies standing around.”

Her voice was low, and the driver apparently didn’t hear her. He hurried toward the tour guide instead, leaving only Long Li at her side. At that moment, Long Li turned around, her scrutinizing gaze landing squarely on Gu Xianwang.

Whether to offer comfort or not, Long Li drew closer and extended a hand slightly. “Let’s go take a look first.”

Gu Xianwang steadied her nerves and instinctively shifted half a step to the side. She raised her phone again, lighting the path ahead.

The three of them reached the front of the house. Perhaps bolstered by strength in numbers, the tour guide started muttering curses under his breath. The driver glanced at the paper effigy a couple of times but didn’t seem panicked. He looked at the two women and said, “There weren’t any of these things here the last time we came.”

Gu Xianwang frowned. “This looks like an abandoned village. Are you sure you actually saw people here before?”

The tour guide, still rattled from the scare, grew irritated. “Hell if I know. What about you, Achuan?”

The driver remained calm as ever. He glanced up the slope again. “I’m certain there were people.”

Long Li walked alone to the door. It was an old-style wooden door with a copper latch on the outside, unsecured. She reached out and gave it a gentle push, and it swung open easily.

The weathered wooden planks were badly rusted, emitting a harsh, creaking scrape as they moved. Dust rained down from the lintel, visible in the beam of the phone light, scattering everywhere.

The tour guide jumped at the noise, a fine sheen of sweat beading on his forehead. His voice dropped even lower. “Uh, Miss Long, we probably shouldn’t just barge into this villager’s house like this.”

Long Li gave him a glance but said nothing. She simply turned her shoulder, gesturing for him to look for himself.

Silence was the most unnerving thing in a moment like this—especially from someone with Long Li’s demeanor. She was tall to begin with, and her eyes were cold; a single glance felt like it was pressing down on one’s head. Caught between advancing and retreating, the tour guide had no choice but to crane his neck and peer inside.

In the glow of the light, they saw a small fire pit right inside. Against the far wall sat a square table flanked by two high-backed chairs. The plaster on the walls was half-damp, half-peeling in mottled patches. Above the table hung a faded poster of an old-school Hong Kong-style woman, with what looked like handwritten text—as if it had been torn from some product advertisement.

A thick layer of dust coated the concrete floor, visible to the naked eye. Judging by the state of things, the homeowner wasn’t likely to come demanding an explanation for their uninvited entry anytime soon.

Long Li stepped over the threshold into the house. She pulled a flashlight from the side pocket of her cargo pants and clicked it on with her thumb. The powerful beam instantly lit up the entire opposite wall.

Well played—she’d held something back after all.

Gu Xianwang pressed her lips together and followed her in, ignoring the tour guide.

At first, she’d seen Long Li calmly examining what seemed to be another paper effigy inside and hadn’t prepared herself. But as she entered and lifted her eyes, the thing came into sharp view under the bright light. She gasped involuntarily—

It was a sleek black cat crouched on an iron-framed bed against the inner wall. Its pupils gleamed like twin clusters of ghost fire in the glare of the flashlight.

“Fuck.”

Gu Xianwang didn’t realize she’d let a curse slip out in her fright. Her voice was low, more like a gasp than anything. Long Li, who had been staring down the black cat, suddenly turned her head and glanced at Gu Xianwang—whether she’d heard it or not.

In that instant, the black cat sprang up. With a vicious hiss—”ha!”—it arched and leaped, vanishing swiftly through the half-open window.

“Holy shit.”

The tour guide had just taken half a step inside when the sound made him flinch, his neck shrinking back. His body slumped against the door, and with a loud bang, he knocked half of it off its hinges. It dangled there with a splintering groan.

The gust of wind kicked up dust from inside the house, accompanied by the faint rustle of thin paper flipping.

It was the paper effigy by the window.

Under the harsh beam of the flashlight, every detail of the effigy stood out in stark relief, as if it had come alive in that moment.

Gu Xianwang considered herself braver than most, but right then, she truly didn’t dare take another step.

That paper effigy was too lifelike.

Paper shops had all but vanished from the cities these days. Only in remote rural areas did people still burn paper houses and paper cars for the dead, but even there, paper effigies had gone out of fashion.

In the old days, they mostly made effigies of young boys and girls, or opera performers and servants. But after the Cultural Revolution smashed the Four Olds and market reforms swept the land, folks just burned hell money now. The departed could buy whatever they wanted in the underworld. If anyone still burned effigies, they were nothing more than flat, painted paper figures—thin sheets with clothes drawn on, and that was it.

The paper effigy standing before them was roughly five foot seven, its bamboo frame constructed with remarkable authenticity. Once wrapped in paper skin, its shoulders curved slightly in a hunch—the arc proportioned to perfection, devoid of any stiffness. At first glance, it looked utterly indistinguishable from a living person.

Its skin was a ghastly white, its clothes a vivid splash of color: a fine blue cloth jacket and black cloth shoes on its feet, each finger clearly defined.

“How does this paper effigy have eyes painted on it?” the tour guide stammered, his legs going weak again.

Gu Xianwang felt as if she’d seen a ghost herself. Who in their right mind would craft such a lifelike likeness of a grown man just to burn it underground? Even the most devoted descendants wouldn’t commission something this elaborate—paper effigies had one unbreakable taboo: painting the skin and dotting the eyes. No matter how realistic the figure, it remained a lifeless object. But dot the eyes, and you opened a gateway between worlds. Heaven only knew what might possess it then.

Burning a thing like this for the ancestors? They’d claw their way out of the grave to give the culprit a thrashing.

What utter nonsense.

Long Li spoke up abruptly. “It’s Qing Dynasty style.”

Sure enough, a long braid dangled from the back of its head.

Who these days would specially order a paper effigy like that?

“No, no, this won’t do. Ladies, let’s get out of here fast. This village might not have a soul left in it.” The tour guide was the first to back away.

Gu Xianwang grabbed his arm. “Wait. Someone’s coming.”

Long Li switched off her flashlight at the same moment. The tour guide froze, and the room plunged into pitch blackness. Yet the paper effigy’s vermilion lips seemed to glow even brighter, the corners of its mouth curving upward as if in a smile.

Their breaths—shallow and ragged—mingled in the darkness like the strains of some eerie string quartet. Amid the faint disorder, another sound emerged: footsteps, slow and dragging. Rustle… rustle… approaching from the distance.

Gu Xianwang’s body had tensed to the point of aching when a soft “meow” sounded from outside the door. A hunched shadow flickered into view, half-caught in the moonlight.

“Who’s there?”

It was the voice of an old woman.

The tour guide crept to the door on tiptoe and let out a massive sigh of relief. He switched to the local dialect. “Granny, where’d everybody in your village go?”

The three of them filed out after him. Now they could see her clearly: a lone elderly woman cradling the black cat. She seemed startled by their midnight intrusion. “Ain’t nobody been left in this village for ages. Where’d y’all come from?”

The tour guide hurriedly explained their predicament. “See, it’s so late, and we really need a place to crash for the night.”

Granny gave him a long look, then eyed the driver with suspicion. After a pause, she relented. “I got a few empty rooms at my place. You can stay there if you want. But you can’t go into any of the other houses.”

The tour guide flashed a quick grin. “Wouldn’t dream of it—we wouldn’t dare. Granny, why you got paper effigies in the houses like that? Gives a body the creeps.”

Granny stroked the black cat’s glossy fur, her eyes half-lidded as she murmured, not quite lightly, “Guarding the village.”

Paper effigies guarding the village? Gu Xianwang stared in bewilderment. She’d never heard of such a thing.

The granny offered no further explanation, and the tour guide didn’t press. After all the commotion, it was deep into the night, and he had zero interest in learning more about paper effigies—as long as the one in front of him was flesh and blood.

With the village deserted and only the granny to deal with, their courage swelled. The bus still held several burly men, after all—strength in numbers. The granny followed them back to the bus, inspected each newcomer, and reiterated the rule against entering other houses before leading the way to her home.

The people from the bus hadn’t endured their earlier ordeal; they simply found the village eerily desolate. Gu Xianwang walked ahead, listening as those behind peppered the tour guide with questions. He answered vaguely, calling it a village of holdouts and reminding everyone to respect local customs—no peeking, no wandering.

Ye Chan stuck close to Gu Xianwang’s side, her small backpack slung over one shoulder. She had a hunch that Fairy Sister wasn’t quite herself. “Everything okay just now? You and those two…”

She nodded toward Long Li and Sara up ahead, assuming some spat between them.

Gu Xianwang’s gaze fixed on Long Li’s back, her thoughts a tangled knot. Everything about today felt off, from start to finish. “I’m fine,” she said softly.

~~~

This time, they’d only brought their personal luggage when disembarking. Gu Xianwang hefted her travel bag, which looked quite heavy.

Granny’s house sat at the top of the village slope, a typical rural flat-roofed dwelling with a small courtyard at the entrance. The fire pit was outdoors, the kitchen to the left, the outhouse to the right. The living room was cramped, furnished with only simple wooden chairs; the rest were empty rooms.

Granny’s own room was at the far end. The tour guide counted them up and found exactly four empty rooms. Although she lived alone, they were still fairly clean. Strangely enough, all the empty rooms were fitted with iron bunk beds like those in a university dormitory. The rooms weren’t small to begin with—they could easily accommodate two regular beds—but every one of them had large swaths of empty space left over, with no wardrobes or tables, just bare floor.

These conditions were even worse than those in a village guesthouse.

“Why aren’t there any lights in the rooms?” one of the men asked.

The entire house only had wiring in the living room and kitchen, where a couple of bare bulbs hung.

After a while, Granny emerged from her own room, clutching several white candles in her hand, and handed them to the tour guide to distribute one by one.

Rooms were scarce today, leaving Gu Xianwang no room to be picky. Ye Chan, hugging her little bag, was quite cheerful about it. It had been just the two of them signing up for the tour on their own to begin with—if not for Gu Xianwang insisting on a single room, she could’ve been sharing with Fairy Sister ages ago and wouldn’t have had to worry about insomnia.

Ye Chan received a candle and turned to look for Gu Xianwang. She saw her standing in the doorway of the first room, so she hurriedly pattered over and offered it up like a treasure. “Here, Sister Gu—our candle.”

But Gu Xianwang showed no sign of taking it. She was still frowning as she stared at the corner of the wall inside the room. Just as Ye Chan leaned in to peek, she heard her ask, “Granny, do you usually light these candles and place them in the room corners like this?”