The Rusty Bell

Seventeen-year-old Lin Ye hides two secrets. First, he forgot who he was. When he woke up, he was only holding a rusty copper bell, with a red mark that moved like a snake carved on his wrist. The second is that he can see things that others cannot see - the old neighbor lady who can resurrect dead mice, the newspaper about himself who disappeared five years ago, and the black fog that comes in through the cracks in the wall late at night. In the fog hangs a string of copper bells that cannot ring, with blood on the bell tongues that he cannot understand. When the rent reminder was posted on the leaky door of the rental house, the black mist finally showed its fangs. The dead neighbor murmured "It has been looking for you for five years" downstairs, and the kind-hearted Mrs. Wang suddenly took out the peach wood beads and said that she was the "gatekeeper" who had been guarding it for fifty years. At night when the copper bell was hot, Lin Ye found that all the "abnormalities" were coming towards him: his face emerged from the burning old newspaper, the eyes of the black shadow in the reservoir were exactly the same as the red marks on his wrist, and even the rusty bell was whispering - "Your memory is not lost, it's locked up." When the black mist spread over the threshold, when the gatekeeper handed over the wooden sign pointing to "Wangyou Teahouse", when the copper bell finally rang its first clear ring in his palm, Lin Ye knew: He is not the hunted prey. He is the rusty key that can unlock all secrets. And when the key is turned, the first one to crack is often oneself.