Original Suspense Novel: "B l i z z a r d M a n o r" EP58

Chen Mo's breath hitched. He recalled what Old Zhou had said: "They chose you. I stayed behind to take your place." So twenty-four years ago, the elders of Fog Valley Village chose him—a child who had just learned to walk—as the "gatekeeper." And his brother, the boy named Zhou Zhengguo, chose to stay behind to take his place. The core of the "ritual" was to seal the entire village's memories using a child. That child couldn't leave, or the villagers would lose their memories. But the substitute could bear the curse, allowing the true "gatekeeper" to leave. Chen Mo turned to the next page. "In the twelfth year, the gatekeeper's memories will overflow on their own, and the ritual must be performed again. However, if the gatekeeper has already left, the substitute must return to the village and perform the 'reverse ritual'—to guide the overflowing memories back into the gate and sever all connection between the villagers and the village." He looked up. So the "mass disappearance" of Fog Valley Village eighteen years ago wasn't a massacre. It was a reverse ritual. Old Zhou—his brother—had returned, posing as a forensic doctor, and guided all of Fog Valley Village's memories back into this gate without anyone knowing. Every villager lost their connection to Fog Valley and scattered to start new lives. But this process came at a cost. The last page of the booklet read: "After the reverse ritual is completed, the substitute will become the new 'gatekeeper' and must never leave the vicinity of the gate for life. If the substitute attempts to leave or terminate their responsibility, the memories within the gate will backlash, causing all former villagers to gradually lose their sense of self, ultimately returning to nothingness." Chen (To be continued)