When she was caught by those inspectors and thrown into Yulin District Prison, Luo Yuan once thought she would very soon be dragged onto the execution platform and executed by the adjudicators.

However, after half a month in Yulin District Prison, her fate suddenly veered toward an unknown direction.

───♡───

“These are all death-row prisoners who meet the requirements.” The supervisor in charge of watching over them spoke to the man beside him in a tone of flattery he had never used before.

The man was dressed in formal wear, refined and meticulous. His gaze fell on the prisoners in the room, carrying undisguised pickiness; even though he still spoke politely enough, his entire bearing overflowed with the arrogance of someone who saw himself as superior.

He said, “Only these?” as if he didn’t think much of them.

Luo Yuan didn’t know what they had come for. She had only been told in the morning—like everyone else—to change into clean clothes, then driven into this cage to wait.

The slightly hunched supervisor wiped the sweat from his forehead and gave a fawning smile. “You know, last month just happened to be Execution Month. That batch of death-row inmates has already been dealt with. This batch only came in during the last half-month, so the numbers are a bit low.”

The conversation outside was heard clearly by the death-row inmates inside the cage. Among them were both men and women, all imprisoned for crimes like murder, robbery, or rape; many were bold and clever.

Most of them would soon face execution, and at the very latest, live only until next year’s Execution Month. But the man outside made them see hope—he seemed to be selecting death-row prisoners for something. Whatever he wanted, it would certainly be better than waiting to die in prison.

“I don’t know what this gentleman intends to do, but how about choosing me? I’m willing to do anything.” A man quickly stepped forward and spoke.

He approached the side of the cage. As he moved closer, the man in formal wear slightly furrowed his brows, pretentiously taking out a handkerchief to cover his nose, clearly unwilling to speak to him. The supervisor at his side seemed to receive some kind of signal. The moment before he had been groveling, but suddenly he returned to his usual arrogant demeanor, extending the electric baton in his hand into the cage and striking hard, whipping the man to the ground.

“Who allowed you to speak! Shut up! Stay on the ground!”

The other prisoners, who had been ready to move, immediately retreated, unwilling to be punished like that unlucky man. Luo Yuan also stepped back. She stood at the very back of the crowd, from beginning to end like a shadow—silent, unmoving, quietly staying in the corner, timid and ordinary.

In the twenty-plus years she had lived in this world, she had always been like this: plain, simple, diligent in her work, seemingly easy to talk to, easily bullied—an ordinary woman found anywhere.

She didn’t dare to volunteer, nor did she dare imagine who the man outside was or what he wanted. She only hoped it would end quickly so she could return to prison. But—

A black cat suddenly appeared before her eyes.

The black cat sauntered past her, its long tail brushing against her foot. Luo Yuan opened her eyes slightly wider, not understanding how a black cat had suddenly appeared here. It made no sound, as if it had materialized out of thin air.

“That woman inside.” The voice of the man in formal wear carried a penetrating sharpness that stabbed into Luo Yuan’s ears.

She felt the people blocking her in front scatter. Light suddenly fell at her feet. She lifted her head a beat too late. The man in formal wear pointed at her from afar. “That woman. Bring her over.”

In the corner of her eye, the black cat suddenly vanished, as though it had been her illusion.

Under the supervisor’s scolding, Luo Yuan walked to the front of the cage. Looking at the two men outside, she lowered her head somewhat uneasily.

The man in formal wear examined her briefly and asked, “What crime did she commit?”

The supervisor immediately flipped through the notebook he carried and quickly answered, “She committed murder.”

The man in formal wear was somewhat surprised, as if he didn’t quite believe that such an honest-looking, frail woman could kill someone. “Her? Murder?”

The supervisor added, “Yes. She killed three people: a well-known university professor, a company owner, and a somewhat famous actor. All three had their hands, feet, and heads severed, and their bodies were slashed many times. She’s a vicious and ruthless murderer.”

“Not bad. Then her.”

Luo Yuan was taken out alone by the supervisor. Then she saw the man in formal wear select three more people. Including her, there were four in total—two men and two women. They were taken to wash again, change into new clothes, and then they were brought out of the prison.

Seeing the main gate of Yulin District Prison—the gray-white walls, the bright red barricades—Luo Yuan felt as though she were in another world. She had never thought she could walk out alive. All of this felt far too unreal.

They were loaded into a spacious, high-end car they had never ridden before. It gradually pulled away from Yulin District Prison and merged onto a wide main road. Towering buildings and interwoven lanes formed a chaotic yet orderly cityscape; everyone living here followed the rules. And on this road—usually the most crowded and congested—the car held special privileges, passing through the central district smoothly without stopping at a single traffic light.

The car drove for a long time. No one inside spoke, and the silence felt suffocating. Finally, the other female prisoner sitting beside Luo Yuan couldn’t hold back and asked, “Where are we going?”

Aside from the man in formal wear from earlier, there was another man in the car who looked quite young. He was also dressed in formal attire, smiling as if he had a good temper. Hearing the question, he looked around at the four uneasy prisoners and let out a chuckle. “For you, it’s something wonderful.”

A male prisoner’s eyes brightened, and he chased after the topic: “What wonderful thing?”

The first man in formal wear impatiently cut off their conversation. “Shut up, you’re so loud.”

The smiling man spread his hands innocently, then closed his mouth and said nothing more. The others didn’t dare ask further, but in their hearts, anticipation quietly grew. Since it wasn’t something bad but something good, what kind of good thing could it be? Only Luo Yuan still felt uneasy, but she didn’t dare make a sound. She sat honestly in her seat, waiting for whatever was about to come.

Near dusk, the car slowly entered a forest. The crisp mountain air, tinged with the smell of rotting wood, rushed in through the slightly open window. Luo Yuan silently looked outside, unsure if this could still be the Yulin District she had lived in for more than twenty years. Yulin District had already been fully developed—there shouldn’t be such a large stretch of forest remaining.

Along the wide, clean mountain road stood gatehouses at intervals. The car drove too fast for Luo Yuan to see them clearly, but she noticed that each gatehouse had red lanterns hanging on both sides. In the dusk, the paired red lights glowed like the awakening eyes of some creature.

Finally, the car stopped before one of the gatehouses. Luo Yuan and the others got out and lifted their heads to look at it. Three tiers of upturned eaves were supported by red-painted stone pillars, and on those pillars were carved strange, shapeless patterns—complicated, interwoven lines that made one’s head spin if stared at too long. In a daze, even the mottled traces of weathering on the red paint looked like bloodstains, slowly flowing downward along the column.

The two men in formal wear—arrogant and frivolous inside the car—also got out. When they saw the two elderly women waiting by the gate with red lanterns in hand, they immediately bowed deeply, well-behaved like obedient grandsons.

They were two elderly women with white hair, dressed in white skirts. Though their features were not exactly the same, their attire and expressionless faces made them appear nearly identical at first glance. One of the old women beckoned to the four prisoners, then turned and led the way, entering the gatehouse.

As for the two men who had escorted them here, they said nothing. With reverent, solemn expressions, they quickly returned to their car, turned around, and drove away, like deliverymen finishing a task.

A strange place, strange people. In this twilight hour—when monsters were said to roam—the four death-row prisoners watched the receding car, then looked at the guides ahead. Hesitant but with no other choice, they followed the two old women into the gatehouse, as though willingly stepping into the jaws of a beast.

What appeared inside the gatehouse shocked them once again.

Most places outside were already filled with bustling skyscrapers. Buildings like these—constructed of wood and tiles—seemed like styles from hundreds of years ago or even earlier. They were relics from centuries past, long vanished from ordinary life. Even in TV dramas, they had never seen such large, luxurious, and intricately crafted ancient residences.

Standing within it, they felt as though they had passed through time; the world itself seemed distorted, and terror and doubt piled up endlessly in their hearts.

Gate after gate, gloomy tree shadows, silent corridors and courtyards. The shadow-like elder leading the way brought them deeper into the labyrinth-like ancient residence, arriving at an extremely peculiar courtyard.

The entire courtyard formed a square like the character “口”. On its four sides were four rooms, and at the very center stood a single, smaller building. Unlike the other ancient structures they had seen along the way, Luo Yuan felt that the building in the center resembled an enlarged shenkan—a spirit shrine. She had once visited a folk museum with her younger sister and seen this design; it was said to be the highest-grade type of shrine.

“You will each live in one of these four rooms.” One of the old women said.

She stood there, her slightly clouded eyes staring at them. The emotionless gaze—like looking at dead objects—made discomfort rise from the depths of one’s heart.

Frightened by the strangeness of this place, the four prisoners unconsciously did as she said. Under her gaze, they obediently entered the four rooms of the four-sided courtyard.

Luo Yuan entered the room on the right side. The room was spacious and empty, containing nothing. The floor was smooth and clean, the walls painted with red lacquer, and the beams above were made of layered wood. Because the lighting was poor, she couldn’t make out what carvings might be on them.

Footsteps sounded outside in the corridor—those two old women. They walked along the corridor, closing the four doors one after another. The soft thud of each closing door made Luo Yuan’s heart inexplicably skip.

The sky had already turned completely dark. Nothing inside the room could be seen clearly. Only a faint bit of light filtered through the window lattice. Luo Yuan couldn’t help leaning toward the crack of the door to look outside and saw two points of red light withdrawing from the courtyard. The two old women were carrying lanterns and leaving through the small door they had entered from. They must have locked it again—she heard the sound of the lock. When they first came into this courtyard, she had noticed the lock on that small door—two layers of locks, thick and heavy.

In the darkness, Luo Yuan hugged herself tightly. She glanced around the empty, pitch-black room, constantly feeling as though something would quietly emerge from the dark—perhaps a pair of hands suddenly grabbing her ankle, or strands of hair silently falling from the beams above into her sight. Luo Yuan couldn’t control her imagination, curling herself into a tight ball.

After an unknown amount of silence, she heard the sound of a door opening. One of the four people had opened their door. It should be a man—his footsteps in the corridor were especially heavy, loud even when he tried to walk lightly.

He knocked on the door beside him and said in a low voice, “Open the door, everyone come out!”

“Hey! Hurry up and get out here. What the hell is this place? You’re not really planning to just curl up in your rooms all night, are you? Come out and talk about what we should do!”

Through the crack of her door, Luo Yuan saw the man’s dark silhouette standing before another door. She pressed her lips together. She recognized him as the tallest of the four.

In such a strange environment, being together with the others would indeed feel safer. But… this was the man who had been imprisoned for raping and killing over a dozen women. The man, unable to get the other door open, cursed under his breath and walked toward her side. Luo Yuan quickly raised her hand and held her own door tightly shut.

At that moment, in the deep darkness, a dim red lantern lit up—inside the central shrine-like building.