"It's not locked?"
"A brand-new mailbox hangs on the main gate, a red bucket filled with clean water sits just inside, and clothes are hanging out to dry behind the house. Someone must have been living here all along."
In order not to scare the "residents," Chen Ge waved his phone around, then knocked lightly on the door and called out: "Is anyone home?"
Everything was silent. He waited for over ten seconds, and just as Chen Ge was about to give up, a door on an adjacent building cracked open.
No one spoke. After a long pause, a hoarse voice came from behind the door: "Who are you looking for?"
Just from the voice alone, it was impossible to determine the person's age. Chen Ge studied the building but didn't approach rashly.
Any normal resident discovering a stranger at their door in the middle of the night would absolutely not open the door — they'd turn on the lights first.
But this voice's owner had acted very differently. After hesitating for over ten seconds, he had simply opened his door wide.
"Excuse me, is this Yongling Mountain Resort?" Chen Ge was very polite. No matter the time, no matter what he encountered, he firmly believed in the principle that you don't hit someone who's smiling at you.
"What do you want?" The man behind the door didn't answer Chen Ge directly, but from his tone it was clear he had tacitly admitted it.
"A friend of mine says he lives at Yongling Mountain Villa and asked me to come find him tonight. But Yongling Mountain Villa doesn't show up on my phone's GPS, so I wanted to ask someone for directions."
Chen Ge wasn't lying — he really was looking for a friend. But after hearing what Chen Ge said, the man behind the door sucked in a sharp breath: "Your friend lives at Yongling Mountain Villa?"
The man's voice was strange, as though his throat had been scalded by something. His words were slurred and unclear.
"That's right. Do you know where Yongling Mountain Villa is?" Chen Ge took a few steps closer. He was curious about the man behind the door.
"Of course I know — because this is Yongling Mountain Villa." Hearing Chen Ge's approaching footsteps, the man shut the door again. "Yongling Mountain Resort was converted from the Yongling Mountain Villa district. Some things happened here back then, and most of the residents chose to move away. Later the resort was abandoned for various reasons, and in the end, only I stayed behind to watch the gate."
The man paused, then continued through the door: "I'm the only person left in this entire resort now. You've probably been tricked by your friend — he doesn't actually live here."
"That doesn't seem right," Chen Ge said casually. "A film crew once came to Yongling Mountain Villa to shoot a movie, and he was one of the crew members. He invited me over this time — apparently because he made some important discovery."
"Stop talking! It's dark out — don't say things you shouldn't." The man inside spoke rapidly, as if trying to make Chen Ge shut up immediately.
The other party's abnormal behavior was exactly what Chen Ge wanted to see. He not only didn't stop, but started talking to himself: "The reason Yongling Mountain Villa was converted into a resort was probably because of that film crew. I heard all sorts of strange things happened during their shoot. The movie they were filming was called something like — Left Eye?"
"Stop!" The man threw the door open, his emotions clearly agitated.
With the door now fully open, Chen Ge finally got a good look at the man. He appeared to be around forty, short in stature, severely hunched, with a deathly pale complexion. Most notably, his eyes were shut tight — he seemed to be blind.
Chen Ge waved his hand gently in front of the man's face. There was no reaction at all. "I'm sorry, I meant no harm. Everything I said just now was what my friend told me."
"Your friend — he said he was part of a film crew? What does he look like?" It took the man a long while to calm down.