The moment his voice fell, the girl a short distance away let out a startled cry.
"Ah!"
Zhang Shutong quickly flicked his flashlight and shook it back and forth. "It's a person. Don't be afraid."
The girl froze for two seconds before letting out a sigh of relief. "There's actually a person here. I was scared to death just now..."
She shook her phone, the flash illuminating Zhang Shutong's face, causing Su Yunzhi to freeze again.
"It's you, School Junior?" she asked in surprise.
"It's me."
Zhang Shutong squeezed out a smile.
Two sets of gazes shot toward him simultaneously. One, naturally, belonged to his Senior, while the other belonged to Lu Qinglian.
Her eyes were like a pool of stagnant water, her body not yet fully relaxed from its defensive posture. Zhang Shutong offered a dry explanation:
"This is... a Senior I just met. She's from the city."
He then introduced her to Su Yunzhi:
"This is my classmate."
After saying this, Zhang Shutong felt a wave of inexplicable awkwardness. They were supposed to belong to two different worlds—one on the surface, one underground—separated by a hidden entrance inside a house, completely out of each other's way. Yet now, a person from the surface had suddenly stumbled into the subterranean depths.
They say fate plays tricks on people, but this was a bit too much.
In the sudden silence, Zhang Shutong instinctively looked at Su Yunzhi's chest. A compact digital camera was hanging there, triggering a flood of memories. With a growing headache, he thought to himself that he had probably guessed why his Senior had found her way here.
Though she possessed a very gentle, refined, highborn-lady personality, she was unexpectedly bold. Back in high school, the two of them had belonged to the same club—the photography club.
Su Yunzhi was the club president.
Every past president had been a hardcore technician. Zhang Shutong had originally joined the photography club looking for a bit of leisure, assuming that club activities merely involved submitting random snapshots taken on the way home from school, where everyone would gather around to discuss whether the sparrows on the telephone poles had put on weight. Who knew that his Senior was a field-research purist?
Under her leadership that year, the photography club had transformed into a thoroughbred outdoor club.
On one occasion, they went mountain climbing in the autumn. To capture the sunrise at four or five in the morning, the group set off at two o'clock past midnight. The mountain was shrouded in dense mist and moisture, marking the absolute coldest time. They had to rent thick cotton coats at the foot of the mountain, climbing to the summit like a flock of penguins. Just as they set up their tripods and were about to start shooting, Su Yunzhi caught sight of a small pine tree growing beneath a cliff. The pine tree looked incredibly eerie, like a wild ghost in the barren mountains, yet she shot it with complete concentration, right up until her tied-back hair gradually unraveled. Her hair tie suddenly snapped loose, plunging straight down.
Zhang Shutong had been standing right beside her at the time. With quick eyes and a deft hand, he scooped her back in. Two seconds later, looking down at the bottomless abyss beneath her feet, his Senior patted her chest in relief, saying it was a good thing he was there.
Later on, the two of them would occasionally go out to gather material together, photographing everything from fish in the water to wild geese in the sky. As they gradually grew closer, Zhang Shutong learned that she didn't just own a compact digital camera; she also had a Polaroid and a DSLR.
Zhang Shutong also knew that as a club president, her photography skills were actually quite terrible. She never discussed composition, lighting, or any other technical skills. Rather than saying she loved taking photos, it was more accurate to say she enjoyed the process of recording an unknown world.
Right now, his Senior wasn't the president yet, but it was clear she was working hard toward that direction.
"Hello there." Su Yunzhi waved at Lu Qinglian with a beaming smile.
Lu Qinglian offered a brief response. Her gaze settled on Su Yunzhi's face, looking as though she was observing her, yet also as though she wasn't.
Zhang Shutong knew she was actually looking behind Su Yunzhi. Compared to an eerie stone relief of foxes, the secret of the basement was the real matter that could not be leaked to an outsider like his Senior.
"Are you... exploring?" Noticing that neither of them seemed inclined to speak, Su Yunzhi realized something and hurriedly apologized, "Did I scare you guys just now? I'm so sorry."
Zhang Shutong snapped back to reality, shaking his head to indicate it was fine.
It was just a false alarm.
However, the pressing priority was still to persuade her to go back up. In all fairness and logic, Zhang Shutong should not involve Su Yunzhi in this.
"How did you end up here?" Zhang Shutong asked.
"My classmate ruined his stomach from eating and is on an IV drip in the hospital," she explained clearly and methodically. "I saw an old house from the hospital corridor and wanted to come over and take a look. I didn't expect an entrance to be hidden inside the house."
She inquired curiously:
"Is this an old air-raid shelter?"
"Probably," Zhang Shutong said, though he was actually more concerned with her other sentence. "There was an issue with lunch?"
He thought to himself that Du Kang's family restaurant wouldn't go so far as to cause food poisoning.
"No, it's because he insisted on eating ice cream," his Senior reassured him. "The restaurant we went to was exactly the one you recommended. Everyone thought it was delicious, and the prices were reasonable too."
It appeared the classmate with the upset stomach wasn't in a serious condition. Su Yunzhi dropped the matter after a brief explanation.
"So the urgent matter you mentioned turned out to be this," she remarked, scanning her surroundings. With a flash of her camera, she had already snapped a photo of the tunnel wall.
"Actually, I didn't tell you last night, but I happen to like places that are... well, a bit terrifying." She smiled with a touch of bashfulness. "If only I'd said so earlier, maybe you would have recommended a few places for me so I could come take a look sooner."
Zhang Shutong actually knew about this little hobby of hers. In the past, they had gone to photograph everything from a moonlit desolate wilderness to the props inside a mobile haunted house.
"But it's a dead end up ahead," Zhang Shutong said deliberately. "We're just about to head back."
"Could I take a photo?" Su Yunzhi asked very politely.
Zhang Shutong instinctively wanted to refuse, but on second thought, given his understanding of his Senior, if he really refused her, she wouldn't drop the matter. If she ended up taking a ferry to sneak back over next weekend, that would be the real problem.
He glanced at Lu Qinglian's expression again. Lu Qinglian still bore no expression, merely stepping aside to clear the way.
It seemed the two of them were thinking along the same lines; the other side was the key focus.
Seeing this, Zhang Shutong also stepped aside to create a passage, telling a lie:
"The other end is blocked completely solid. Don't stay down here too long, there might be a lack of oxygen."
Su Yunzhi was receptive to advice, nodding her head as she agreed.
"There are rocks on the ground ahead, be careful not to trip." Zhang Shutong reminded her anyway.
Taking advantage of the moment his Senior went to take photos, he pulled out his phone and typed on it:
"Her breaking in here was just an accident. I'll just persuade her to leave in a moment."
Lu Qinglian glanced at it, took the phone, and wrote in the memo app:
"Is this the person you went to look for at noon?"
Zhang Shutong nodded, which amounted to a silent admission.
"Senior?" After typing the words, Lu Qinglian cast a expressionless gaze over.
Well, his cover was blown a bit.
Where on earth would he get a "Senior" from the city?
Just as Zhang Shutong was wondering whether to use yesterday's excuse to smooth things over, Su Yunzhi let out another exclamation of surprise:
"There really are foxes."
The two of them turned their heads simultaneously. It turned out she was leaning out over the platform, shining her light into the interior of the cavern.
The young girl didn't mind the dirt. She was wearing a long dress today, but at this moment she leaned over the platform, snapping a photo of the relief carving.
Zhang Shutong wasn't particularly surprised by this. Since he had allowed her to go over, he wasn't afraid of her discovering that rock relief. But why did she say...
"Really"?
As if she had long anticipated it.
"What do you mean 'really'?" Zhang Shutong asked in bewilderment.
"I just saw a small fox this morning, did you forget? It's the one you told me about, the one in the photo."
"Where?" Lu Qinglian asked, beating Zhang Shutong to the punch.
"Right on the mountain," his Senior said, leaning back as if sensing the gravity in her tone. "Oh, I didn't make myself clear. Did you mean this kind of rock relief? This is the first time I've seen something like this. I was referring to a live fox. It was very cute."
Lu Qinglian turned her head around, looking toward Zhang Shutong.
Zhang Shutong pretended not to see.
"So does this place have something to do with the local legends? It looks... not quite like an air-raid shelter," Su Yunzhi asked again.
"Uh, what legends?"
For the first time, Zhang Shutong failed to keep pace with her train of thought.
"Well, I also heard it through word of mouth," his Senior said, doing her best to gesture with her hands, tracing the shape of a fox's ears. "It says that a long, long time ago, there was only a single mountain here. The people back then established a settlement at the foot of the mountain, and there were five foxes on the mountain. Because it was ancient times, living conditions were very harsh. These foxes helped the people capture prey, find wild fruits, and locate water sources. They were enshrined by the inhabitants as guardian beasts, and from then on, everyone lived and worked in peace and contentment... The version I heard should be the most accurate one, right?"
Su Yunzhi was a little excited.
It was as if she, a student from the city, had come to compare notes with an island child to check for the standard answers.
Yet Zhang Shutong froze once more. Leaving aside whether there were discrepancies in the details, this was fundamentally and utterly wrong. That mountain was called Green Snake Mountain; as the name implied, there was only a green snake, and any existing legends were strictly about snakes. Where on earth did foxes come from?
The surroundings were too dark, so his Senior didn't catch the astonishment on his face, continuing:
"The topic for the club this year... oh, I almost forgot. You'll find out later, School Junior. The clubs in the school have a project to complete every half year. I'm in the photography club, and our topic this year is animals and historical monuments. Coming to the island was actually just to gather material. The other senior school brothers and sisters are also from the photography club; it would be great if we could capture something. When you initially told me there were foxes on the mountain, I thought I could discover..."
"Where did foxes come from?" Zhang Shutong couldn't help but interrupt. "Apologies, I mean, why is it a legend about foxes?"
Su Yunzhi straightened her body in confusion. "Is it wrong?"
"Completely wrong. There are only legends of snakes here," Zhang Shutong said in astonishment.
Su Yunzhi was equally astonished. "What is a snake then? Didn't they say there is also a fox shrine on the mountain? Although we didn't manage to reach the summit today, it seems they said some places on the island still preserve small shrines. Of course, we didn't find any of those either..."
The hairs on Zhang Shutong's arms suddenly stood on end. He instinctively turned his head, only then realizing where the danger this time was stemming from—
He saw Lu Qinglian narrow her eyes, staring at Su Yunzhi without uttering a single word.
Zhang Shutong's heart also skipped a beat. He had almost forgotten that a shrine maiden maiden was standing right beside him. So what did his Senior's behavior equate to?
It was like going into the Shaolin Temple and asking in a thoroughly confused manner:
"Hey, how come I don't see the Supreme Old Lord?"
Yet his Senior failed to notice Lu Qinglian's reaction at all:
"What about the shrine maiden on the mountain then? Is that part real? I heard the island still has the profession of shrine maidens today... Although it's a bit hard to imagine, is it similar to a Japanese miko? I was just discussing it with my classmates today, the kind with fox ears, a very cute little girl?"
Zhang Shutong had never discovered that kind of thing on Lu Qinglian's head.
Which gentleman had imagined this version of a shrine maiden? He couldn't help but complain in his heart. Was she supposed to have a fluffy tail as well?
Zhang Shutong thought helplessly that his Senior had likely been misled by some rumor. In this day and age, online communities were still an important channel for people to acquire information. There was even an internal school forum at the First High School; Zhang Shutong had seen plenty of outrageous rumors back then, ranging from urban legends to celebrity gossip, which would turn into reality the more they were passed around. He broke in helplessly:
"It's fake. There is only the Green Snake Temple on the mountain."
As he spoke, Zhang Shutong recounted the legend he had originally heard from Lu Qinglian to his Senior.
Yet his Senior became muddled as well:
"But I feel like the legend I've heard since I was a child has always been this one?"
"Since you were a child refers to?"
"My parents, the friends around me, everyone seems to say so."
Hearing this, Zhang Shutong fell silent for two seconds.
If he hadn't known what kind of person Su Yunzhi was, he would probably assume this was a practical joke—the kind of April Fool's prank where you wake up and everyone tells you that what you believed to be common sense has been completely overturned.
"School Junior, are you... playing a joke on me?" Su Yunzhi tucked away her smile.
Her tone was filled with incomprehension, and it carried a trace of earnestness. Zhang Shutong knew this was no joke.
Or rather, this was no longer a mere issue with online communities.
Who exactly had the problem?
He began to recall exactly when he had first heard the legends of the island.
Regarding the Green Snake Temple, and even this small island, before he transferred schools, let alone understanding it, he hadn't even heard of it. His family was from the provincial capital, unlike his Senior who was in the city, which was reasonably close. If it hadn't been for his parents' work, he might never have crossed paths with the small island in his entire life.
And after arriving on the island, the first thing he cared about wasn't any green snake; he was entirely focused on fishing at the time. It was also thanks to becoming classmates with Lu Qinglian and hearing his classmates talk about her that he learned of the Green Snake Temple's existence.
Furthermore, his family didn't believe in any Green Snake God, so despite staying on the island for over three years, they had actually never visited the temple.
Of course, he had certainly heard some rumors, such as the festivals at the temple or that the incense offerings were very prosperous.
Thinking carefully about it, in the original timeline, Zhang Shutong had never gone to anyone to carefully inquire about the Green Snake Temple. Even later when he went to the city for high school and chatted with some people about matters on the island, they only occasionally brought up their middle school "adventures."
The only time he actively cared about the island's legends was after the regression, when he asked Lu Qinglian about the origins of the green snake, but the version she told sounded like a compendium of mythological stories.
So where exactly did the problem lie?
Where did the foxes come from?
He glanced at Lu Qinglian's reaction. Lu Qinglian was also looking at him. Zhang Shutong seemed to understand her meaning; previously, she had also assumed it was Su Yunzhi's practical joke, but listening further, she realized the counterpart genuinely believed it to be true.
Then where did the rumors he heard come from?
Du Kang, Qingyi, and Ruoping all seemed to know, or rather, who among the island residents didn't know?
But what about his Senior?
She was from the city.
She said she had grown up hearing stories about foxes since childhood.
A conjecture suddenly surfaced in Zhang Shutong's heart:
The people on the island, and the people in the city.
Could it be that the legends heard by the two sides had been different all along?!