Chapter One: The Master's Chair

  In front of me is a dense forest, dozens of dilapidated small houses, occasionally with some two or three-story small buildings, but not many. These houses all have one thing in common, that is, they are all dilapidated and there isn't a single person inside.

  This is a dilapidated village, it's not scary or gloomy, just looks shabby. However, the village in front of us has a name that many people are familiar with: Fengmen Village, the legendary China's No. 1.

  There are many strange legends about Fengmen Village, and many film and television works have been based on it. I was also deeply fascinated by it before, but after reading a lot of relevant materials, I realized that some of the eerie places were just artificially hyped. For example, the "Three Temples Valley" legend, the "Tianchao Reservoir Construction Road Closure" legend, are all deliberately mysterious. With a little geographical knowledge and looking at the map, you can see that it's impossible. Some people even intentionally call Fengmen Village "Fengmen Enclosed Village", saying that it has the meaning of "sealed door and extinction". The men in the village cannot marry wives, and the women cannot give birth to children. I find this statement ridiculous. If the men cannot marry wives, how can there be a statement about women not being able to give birth to children? This is fundamentally illogical.

  I prepared a lot of things, took a long car ride, walked many mountain roads, and came to this desolate place. Along the way, I got lost multiple times, and if it weren't for the markers left behind by previous adventure teams, it wouldn't have been easy to find. I didn't come here to seek inspiration for writing, but because the last page of the letter I received recently had a printed photo of Fengmen Village.

  For so long, I've been thinking about what happened to me. I can be sure that the young man with glasses didn't deceive me, but how could a ordinary doctor from a small town have such great skills to hypnotize me like that? I think even the world's top hypnosis expert may not be able to do it. And why was he so concerned about what I saw that day, why did I lose my memory, and why didn't I remember anything about what I wrote at all? Most importantly, why was the handwriting on that last letter exactly the same as mine, and why did he give me a photo of Fengmen Village?

  No one told me the answer, I thought for a long time, maybe when I and the young man's sister came to Fengmen Village, it was just this place. Since that's the case, I'll come here to take a look, not for anything else, even if it's just to retrieve my original memories, to find out why I would kill people, I should try coming here too. Moreover, I also want to know what happened to the other story in that letter.

  Fengmen Village is a place without ghosts. The weather has already turned very cold, and usually there would be many adventure teams coming to visit, but now not a single person can be seen. I saw the legendary house with a south-north orientation, and then walked in. Inside, it's said that there's an armchair of the Grand Preceptor, whoever sits on it will die. Of course, this is just some people's hype. After watching a program, a certain TV station went in to explore, and that armchair was already broken beyond recognition, unable to be sat upon anymore. Now after so many years have passed, I thought to myself that the chair should also have fallen apart, perhaps when I go over there later, what I'll see is just a pile of wood on the ground.

  I walked towards the house, of course not to look at that armchair, I just needed to find a place to put all the equipment I was carrying on me, and now it's quite cold outside, from some information I found, this place should have sunlight shining in, it should be a bit warmer.

  I walked step by step towards the house, thinking about the description of the armchair on the web, saying that there should be an elderly person with mobility issues in the household, who would sit there every day when there was nothing to do, basking in the sun and watching the relatives working in the fields and the scenery. As I thought about this, my heart couldn't help but habitually think: This is truly a perfect picture of horror.

  I gradually approached the house, according to the photos and videos circulating online, that armchair was placed at a position just inside the entrance. I looked over and it seemed there was indeed a chair placed there. I thought: this armchair's quality is really good, last time it was already tattered and worn out, yet after all these years it still hasn't completely fallen apart.

  I finally approached the house and saw the armchair clearly. In the moment I saw it clearly, all the hairs on my body stood up. In the center of the house, an armchair was placed, which was relatively new compared to the one in the data. This wasn't what scared me, as it's possible that someone had deliberately brought a new armchair from outside and put it here to scare people. What really scared me was that this armchair had obviously been placed here for a long time, with thick dust all over it, but amidst the dust, there was a very clear impression, as if someone had just sat there.

  None of these are the scariest, what's scary is that these marks appear particularly clear. On the armrests of the chair, you can even see the palm prints of a person who was sitting there with their hands flat. The ground has been blown in by the wind and has a lot of weeds and fallen leaves, I couldn't tell if there were also footprints, but the shadow on the chair is too clear and realistic, it's as if a thin person is sitting there, except that person doesn't have a head. However, the marks clearly told me that this person wasn't paralyzed in the chair, he sat up straight, so the back of the chair has his complete back print, making him look even more like a person without a head.

  A thin person without a brain is staring at me.

  I struggled to control my emotions, before entering the mountain I asked some locals, saying that no one had entered the mountain in the past month, let alone one or two people, so he looked at me with a strange gaze. I didn't explain too much to him, for me, the fewer people here, the better, it's more convenient for me to explore my secrets, I don't believe that person just simply let me come here, I'm not Sherlock Holmes, even if I were him, after so many years have passed, the scene has been destroyed by countless adventurers, definitely can't find anything useful, so I originally had a psychological preparation, there are some things here that others haven't discovered waiting for me.

  Perhaps this thin, headless impression is what I'm looking for, but it's so realistic that it makes me think of a person without a head. Suppressing the fear in my heart, I carefully walked to the front of the armchair, lowered my head and examined it carefully, but apart from the realistic impression, I didn't find anything else.

  I put down my luggage and carefully checked the house, but found nothing. Looking at the imprint on the armchair, I gritted my teeth and decided to sit down and try it out, to see if I could discover anything. Since that mysterious person had left me this clue, and since I hadn't discovered anything else, it seemed there was no other choice but to do this.

  I don't know if it's because of the vivid descriptions online or because I happened to think of it earlier, but as I slowly sat down in the armchair, I couldn't help but think of that old man who exists in everyone's imagination. He had trouble walking, and he would sit here to bask in the sun, sit here to enjoy the view. As I continued to sit down, the impression on the chair gradually transformed into that old man in my mind - he ate meals here, grew old here, and finally lowered or tilted back his head with a dry mouth, passing away here. Now he's sitting in this armchair, and I'm about to sit on his lap, lean against his body, as he opens his arms to tightly hug me.

  I couldn't help but turn my head to look up at the back of the armchair, where there was also a layer of dust. At least no one had leaned their head against it with their mouth open, waiting for me to sit down. I originally didn't believe in ghosts anymore, and even if I knew this was China's number one, I wouldn't have cared. But for some reason, my heart would involuntarily think of that old man, and I would inexplicably feel a thrill of fear.

  I finally sat down, nothing scary happened except for a chill that ran under my butt. My tense nerves and body finally relaxed, I let out a breath, trying to relax myself as much as possible, then twisted my body to make myself more comfortable, after sitting still for a while, I lifted my head and looked into the distance.

  I took a glance forward, just one glance, and suddenly let out a loud cry and jumped up. In front of me was a patch of trees, perhaps originally there were some fields, but now they were all desolate and overgrown with weeds. However, it was already early winter, so many leaves had fallen off the trees, and the weeds were mostly dead and dry, not blocking my line of sight. Moreover, the sky wasn't dark yet, so I could still see distant scenery clearly.

  I saw in the desolate wilderness that was originally supposed to be a field, a taishi chair was placed, and an old man sat on it, with his head lowered, staring straight at my location.

  He held a doll in his hand, wearing a black skirt and hanging her head low, with long hair falling down, unable to see her face.

  This doll looks very familiar to me, exactly the same as the one hanging from the ceiling in Old Chu's house.