It was still drizzling outside the car, the rain pattering softly. William Clark pulled up his hoodie and was about to keep walking when George Miller hurriedly grabbed his shoulder, asking in a panic, “Where are you going, Mr. Clark? I—I’m too scared to run around.”

“Oh.” William Clark finally responded, stopping and turning his head, only to see George Miller’s feet still inside the car, with just his upper body sticking out, a few drops of rain on his face, falling onto the scar at the corner of his eye.

“Why should I care whether you run or not?” William Clark looked at the faint scar and said, “You’re not even human.”

The George Miller leaning out of the car suddenly froze, and said softly, “Mr. Clark, what do you mean? I don’t understand.”

William Clark pointed at the corner of his eye and said, “The scar is on the wrong side.”

The space fell into dead silence again.

William Clark stared at “George Miller” for a moment, then reached out and pressed the emergency switch outside the door. The bus door creaked shut, trapping that thing in the gap.

“George Miller”: “……”

As he walked down the road, only faint, unreal screams were left behind him.

The road was very straight, with trees on both sides all the same height and density, making it impossible to tell whether it was sloping up or down. It seemed to have no end at all.

But William Clark didn’t care, he just kept walking forward.

This kind of narrow, silent environment was like a deserted alley. After a while, even his footsteps began to echo.

But soon he realized that the echo was out of sync with him.

He stopped immediately, but the “echo” kept going, getting faster and closer…

Right behind him!

As William Clark turned around, someone slapped his shoulder hard.

“Who is it?” He looked closely and saw another George Miller.

This time, George Miller’s mole and scar were both correct, and most importantly, he seemed very much alive—he started crying as soon as they met, the kind of gut-wrenching sobbing.

William Clark was experienced and could tell at a glance that this one was real. The only problem was… this George Miller couldn’t make a sound.

Both sides of his mouth had been drawn with lines, like an extended smile stretching to his ears, with two crosses at the ends, both comical and eerie.

This was drawn with incense ash, though sometimes people used dead twigs. If drawn well, it could silence a person, essentially sealing their mouth so they couldn’t make a sound.

“Who did this?” William Clark frowned, found some wet mud by the roadside, and wiped off the two lines for him. “Alright, you can talk now.”

George Miller sobbed a couple of times, and sure enough, his voice returned. He stared blankly for two seconds, then collapsed to the ground, slapping his legs and wailing, “Bastard—”

“Who did this to you?” William Clark asked.

Before George Miller could answer, someone else replied, “I drew it.”

William Clark looked up and saw Henry Baker had somehow caught up with them.

He was holding a dead twig, brushing aside the vines blocking the path so the muddy leaves wouldn’t touch him. He was almost excessively particular.

As soon as William Clark saw him, his face fell.

Henry Baker walked closer and explained unhurriedly, “I picked him up along the way. He was screaming so miserably and loudly, running around in a panic with his head in his arms. You can’t make such a fuss in this kind of environment, so I drew two lines for him to help out.”

He spoke slowly and gently—under normal circumstances, you might call it “elegant.” But at this moment, especially in the eyes of George Miller and William Clark, it only made him seem more unfathomably dangerous.

Henry Baker was still smiling, as if he had a very good temper. He glanced at George Miller, then asked William Clark, “Not even a thank you, and he curses me instead. He’s your brother—are you going to do something about it?”

George Miller looked at him in disbelief.

Henry Baker added, “Why are you looking at me? Was anything I said wrong?”

George Miller wanted to argue, but for some reason, when Henry Baker glanced at him, he felt like a low-level demon being stared down by a great monster—he could only shrink back.

Compared to George Miller, William Clark understood much better. He knew very well that Henry Baker was right; you really couldn’t scream and cry in this kind of environment.

Just like when he’d run into the fake “George Miller” on the bus—if he’d panicked and lost control, more of those things might have appeared, and he could have been trapped there forever.

Of course, knowing was one thing—he just didn’t want to agree out loud.

Henry Baker expected this reaction and wasn’t angry.

There were no vines blocking the main road. Henry Baker tossed the dead twig back into the bushes and said to William Clark, “Fine, don’t bother then. Do you have any wet wipes? I want to clean my hands.”

Wet wipes? What’s that?

William Clark was puzzled, but said, “No.”

Henry Baker: “Then what do you have? Tissues are fine too, as long as I can get clean.”

William Clark pulled a lighter from his pants pocket and said, “Burning is the cleanest. Want to try?”

Henry Baker was taken aback, staring at the lighter without saying a word.

After a moment, he suddenly turned his head and laughed, but after just two chuckles, he caught a chill and quickly started coughing. Normally, someone would flush red after coughing, but not him—he was still as pale and sickly as ever.

A random thought popped into William Clark’s mind: someone as pale and sickly as Henry Baker would look like an immortal in white, but in red… probably like a vengeful ghost.

Henry Baker glanced around, found a nearly dried-up mountain spring ahead, and washed his hands in the trickling water.