Setting aside the terror and panic brought by a corpse, on that very night of heavy fog, the local emergency response center received no fewer than twenty emergency calls related to supernatural incidents.
As for inside Mulian Village, things were turned completely upside down.
And for good reason: the old orange tree behind the Shi family's house had miraculously borne fruit overnight. Bright yellow oranges hung from the branches like tiny lanterns, weighing them down in abundance.
Most wondrous of all, fresh tender leaves and buds continuously sprouted from the bone-dry branches, blossoming into flowers at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Swarms of bees buzzed and fluttered among the white orange blossoms, carrying with them a rich, intoxicating floral fragrance.
A moment later, the branches were once again laden with thumb-sized green orange buds.
This cycle repeated again and again until the branches were bent low under the weight of the fruit, hanging all the way to the ground, before the tree's blooming speed finally slowed down.
Even so, it was terrifying enough.
People had seen diarrhea before, but nobody had ever seen a tree undergo “diarrhea-style” fruiting.
Mulian Village was only so big. If someone lost a chicken, a child wet the bed, or a dog barked, even the smallest detail couldn't be hidden from the neighbors.
Such a miraculous sight startled the hundred-year-old ancestor of the Shi family. The old man, trembling as he leaned on his walking stick, summoned the young, able-bodied men of his clan to stand guard in front of the tree, forbidding anyone from drawing near.
The ancestor was slightly over a hundred years old. He had outlived the Qing Dynasty, fought off Japanese invaders, and delivered grain to the Red Army. He had weathered every storm imaginable. Yet seeing this orange tree now, he gasped in excitement, nearly fainting on the spot:
“This is an auspicious sign! Our village is going to produce a person of great ability—a true master! Don't touch it! Don't any of you touch it! This tree is touched with spiritual energy. Eating a single bite will extend your life...
This is Shi Ping's tree. Go call him! Call the kids from Shi Ping's house over! It's your tree, so what do you say we do with it?”
Shi Ping was Grandpa Shi's formal name. Aside from this old ancestor, no one else in the village dared to call him that.
“My grandpa said we'll give half of the fruit on this tree to the people in the village. As for the rest, we'll keep it for now and decide later whether to sell it.”
Shi Hongjiang obediently walked over, holding the old ancestor's arm while bowing and scraping. However, the look in his eyes as he stared at the orange tree was somewhat conflicted.
He didn't dare say it out loud.
Last night, curious about what the health supplement Nan Zhi gave him tasted like, he had eaten his portion. As a result, he got diarrhea in the middle of the night. Unable to reach the outhouse in time, he had no choice but to relieve himself right under the tree...
He had no idea if it was related to that.
At the time, how could he have known a single dump of his would have such immense power?!
Where on earth did Sister Zhizhi buy that health product?
Did she really manage to buy an immortal elixir?
Looking at his ruddy-faced uncles and elders surrounding him, Shi Hongjiang was terrified of getting beaten to a pulp if he spoke up, so he had no choice but to keep his mouth shut.
The Shi family ancestor nodded, looked around at the villagers and tourists gathered around the house, and instructed:
“So many eyes watching... We won't be able to keep much of it. It's thoughtful of Shi Ping to still keep the villagers in mind. Go call your uncles and elders to come home later. This tree needs to be guarded; otherwise, by nightfall, even the branches will be snapped off and carried away.”
Shi Hongjiang's heart beat like a drum. He knew eighty percent of the truly good stuff had already been eaten by their family.
No wonder his grandpa's hair had turned darker over the past few days. He had assumed his grandpa was trying to be trendy and dyed it himself.
Did Sister Zhizhi actually know the effects of that pill?
When no one was around, he needed to make a quick phone call to ask.
Thinking of the remaining pill left in the bottle, Shi Hongjiang's heart pounded violently.
...
Such a strange occurrence as an old tree blooming and bearing fruit could never be kept hidden from the tourists in the village.
Tourists who heard the news rushed into the Shi family's backyard, crowding together and desperately standing on tiptoe to peer over, their faces filled with shock and wonder:
“Look, quickly! It bloomed! It bloomed again!!”
“Holy crap, these oranges are bending the branches low! Look, they're still growing!!”
“Did this orange tree consume magical fertilizer or get watered with a potion of life? Is this exaggerated or what?!”
“At this rate, the soil's nutrients can't possibly sustain it! How can it grow so many fruits?!”
“Forget the soil nutrients for a second—just looking at this speed, you can tell it's completely abnormal!!”
“Can we pick one to taste?! I'll pay whatever it costs! I'll give you five hundred yuan, can you sell me one?!”
“Are these oranges real? Do they even taste good?”
“I don't know if they taste good or not, but I know for sure this stuff must be super nourishing!!”
If the young men of the Shi family hadn't been guarding the tree, those with impatient tempers would have already reached out to pick them.
Of course, most people chose to record the moment with their cameras, sharing this scene that defied common sense with the online world.
Once the videos and photos were posted, they immediately caused a massive stir on the internet.
Supernatural incidents had been occurring frequently in recent years, and urban legends that had vanished from the internet years ago were being dug up again. Topics like the “Shennongjia Bigfoot,” the “Loch Ness Monster,” and the “Shibuya Ghost Stories” remained hot subjects of discussion.
However, those urban legends and ghost stories were at best word-of-mouth tales accompanied by photos and videos shot in landline quality. Even if someone swore to Heaven that they had seen a ghost or a dragon, netizens treated it as mere entertainment, and nobody took it seriously.
But this old orange tree in Mulian Village was as real as it got.
It stood right there, sprouting, budding, blooming, and bearing fruit right before everyone's eyes.
Not to mention those oranges turning yellow at a speed visible to the naked eye.
When questioned, some people even started livestreams on the spot, broadcasting the old tree blooming and bearing fruit live.
As the photos and videos spread, within just a few short hours, tags like “＃MulianVillage＃”, “＃MulianVillageOrangeTree＃”, “＃OldOrangeTree＃”, and “＃SpiritualResurgenceOrangeTree＃” directly shot to the number one trending spot on Weibo.
Some people even traveled thousands of miles to Mulian Village just to see this miraculous orange tree with their own eyes.
...
While everyone's attention was captured by that miraculous old orange tree, the leadership team of Xixiang was wringing their hands over another major missing persons case related to Mulian Village.
Overnight, five people had gone missing within the perimeter of Mulian Village.
Among the missing were men and women, local villagers and out-of-town tourists. There was no connection between them, with the only commonality being that prior to their disappearance, all of them had been involved in some supernatural incident.
Some had called the police before vanishing, claiming to have seen a girlfriend who had been dead for years; others had run out onto the road before disappearing, shouting and claiming that a ghost was following them.
There was even an old man who had been paralyzed for years after a drunk-driving car accident. Let alone walking on his own, even getting out of bed was an issue for him.
Other eyewitnesses also adamantly claimed that the missing individuals were still in their rooms the night before, but vanished into thin air upon waking up the next morning.
Cash, mobile phones, and wallets were all left behind, and surveillance cameras captured no footage of them leaving.
It was as if they had evaporated into thin air.
The paralyzed old man's family did provide a slight clue—though it could hardly be called one:
“Last night, nothing felt unusual. If I had to say... the moon last night was yellow.”
The investigator was somewhat puzzled: “Isn't the moon always yellow?”
The family member shook their head and argued earnestly:
“That's different. Usually, the moon has a pale, pretty yellow light that shines bright on the road. But last night's moon was scary yellow. When I looked out the window, it was a hazy yellow mess—kind of like those sandstorms on TV.”
Where would Xixiang get a sandstorm from?
The investigator smiled bitterly with helplessness.
It felt as if overnight, all the monsters and ghosts in the nearby area had suddenly emerged.
A male corpse had been pulled from Mulian Lake, its appearance and clothing matching the description provided by a local inn's proprietress.
Someone reported that one of the missing persons named Zhang Awu had seen his old mother—who had been dead for five years—on the night he vanished, and had even spoken to her ghost.
Inside Mulian Village, an old tree bloomed and its fruit ripened at an unscientific speed, attracting vast crowds of tourists to watch, with the miraculous sight only barely fading by this afternoon.
An old man who was quadriplegic from a drunk-driving accident had mysteriously vanished, and his family swore they saw a sandstorm in the night that shouldn't exist in Xixiang.
Rate on N.U.
