Tales from Luoxia Village

The mist in Luoxia Village always clung to the mountainside. The crescent-shaped birthmark on A He’s wrist had not changed in seventeen years, and Granny Wang’s story always got stuck on the third drip from the eaves during "that rain three years ago." Chen Yan had lived here for seventeen years, believing that a peaceful life was all there was to it.

That was, until a silver pocket watch rolled out from a crack in the rocks on the back hill.

His name was engraved inside the cover, and its hands were frozen at 3:17, precisely matching the stopped clock in the village chief’s home, the frequency of the stream flowing over the pebbles, and even the rhythm of the mallet A He used to beat clothes.

The day the mist began to seep with the smell of rust, the faint dimple at the corner of A He’s eye when she smiled suddenly went blank. In the pouring rain, the villagers repeated the word "peaceful" like a jammed cassette tape.

Only then did Chen Yan understand: the human world he had relied on was a cage of consciousness woven from warmth and affection; the bonds he had clung to were nothing but prewritten code.

His seventeen years of life had been a lie.

When he smashed the core of the illusion, he did not step into the so-called real world.

The shattered crystals reassembled in his palm, becoming new rules. The villagers would be trapped forever in the memories they feared most. A He’s birthmark became a wound playing on an endless loop. The mist on the back hill grew too thick to disperse, hiding only his cold voice.

"Welcome to Luoxia Village."

There were no more lies here, only pain that he had planted with his own hands, pain that would never end.