Der Weg der zu Unrecht behandelten Geister, Teil 1Der Weg der zu Unrecht behandelten Geister

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Asi Hell, by Cheng Gang

Introduction

Police officer Qin Ge, one of the fourteen, was tracking a group of corpses when he unexpectedly discovered a small town hidden deep in the mountains. There, they discovered they were also already dead… The fourteen people mysteriously appeared on a bus in the As Valley. A dark, rainy night was followed by a landslide, forcing them to abandon the bus and flee. In their desperate situation, the sound of drums from a cliff led them to a dark building. While resting inside, a rotting male corpse appeared in a girl's room. Many people who had been dead for some time seemed to be drawn towards the building, collapsing and dying again before it… A black-robed wizard began chanting ancient songs, and the chilling drumbeats sounded once more… Police officer Qin Ge, one of the fourteen, was tracking a group of corpses when he unexpectedly discovered a small town hidden deep in the mountains. There, they discovered they were also already dead…

Part 1, Chapter 1: Ten Years (1)

He has an enemy he must kill.

Killing can definitely be considered an art. Besides the method of killing, the most important thing is being able to extricate oneself from the situation afterward, leaving no trace. As the saying goes, "Kill one person in ten steps, leave no trace for a thousand miles," that is the highest level of an assassin.

He wasn't a killer, but he had meticulously planned this murder for ten years.

How many decades does a person have in their lifetime? The fact that he was willing to spend ten years plotting a murder shows how deep his hatred ran. The man who was once his brother not only took all his wealth but also married the woman he deeply loved.

He no longer wanted to recall the past. Now, the only motivation for him to live was that one day he could end the life of his enemy with his own hands.

As for how to kill that guy, he didn't think much about it. The only thing he did for the past ten years was create an alibi for his future murder. Anyone with a basic understanding of detective work knows that the police solve cases by examining traces left at the scene and the victim's social connections. If you have an alibi, the police will have no way to prosecute you.

He then realized that creating an alibi was not the best approach. If he severed all ties with the victim, the police would not even consider him in their investigation, allowing him to escape justice forever after taking his revenge.

The most difficult murder cases to solve in the world are those without motive.

However, it is common knowledge that he and his enemy were once brothers, but later became enemies. If the police launch an investigation, they will easily target him.

He was clearly a smart man, and he quickly found a solution to the problem for himself.

First, he had to completely leave behind his past life. This might be difficult for others, but it seemed quite easy for him. He had once been the youngest and most promising private entrepreneur in Haicheng, but was later sentenced to three years in prison for economic crimes. After his release, he didn't return to Haicheng, but instead wandered around a famous metropolis in the north. During his imprisonment, his elderly parents passed away one after another, and his other relatives wouldn't even think to visit a prisoner, even though they had swarmed around him like flies when he was successful.

While he was in prison, his brother seized all his property and sent wedding invitations to him in jail. He then realized that the person who had landed him in this predicament was none other than his most trusted brother, and that he had been plotting this all along.

He regretted his poor choice of friends, but it was too late to undo the damage. So, he began to fill his daily life with hatred. The murder that followed was already destined at that moment.

After his release from prison, he did not return to Haicheng, intending to completely sever ties with his previous life.

In China, it's not impossible to completely conceal one's identity, but while in prison, he met a man who had been on the run for seven years after committing murder and was eventually caught. He had concealed his identity in a remote western region, even marrying a local woman and having children, but his crimes were eventually exposed. A local policeman accidentally saw his wanted poster online, and while he was sleeping with his wife, he was tackled to the ground by a group of police officers who appeared out of nowhere.

Therefore, he felt that living in anonymity was not the best solution, since even coal buried underground for hundreds of millions of years can be unearthed eventually.

True anonymity means creating another identity for oneself. This is something he had to do after severing ties with his previous life.

He once read a report about a wanted criminal who, after fleeing, settled in another city and became the best chef at a hotel. He could have lived a peaceful life, but then he participated in a national culinary competition organized by CCTV and won the championship, attracting the attention of various media outlets. The police launched an investigation after seeing his photo in the newspaper.

The lesson he learned was that after changing his identity, he must find a way to change his appearance. This was especially important because he knew he wasn't the kind of person who could settle for a mundane life. If he gave up his hatred, he could make a comeback after his release from prison and return to his former self.

But because of hatred, he chose a different path.

For ten years, his plan progressed smoothly. In a northern city, he met a man of similar build and appearance. The man also knew that his hometown was a remote mountain village in the west, and that his parents had long since passed away. He had left his hometown more than a decade ago to make a living elsewhere and had lost contact with his family for many years.

This person perfectly met all his expectations, so he quickly reached an agreement with him.

They exchanged identities.

The photos on the ID cards were already blurry, and given how similar they looked, it was really difficult for the average person to tell them apart. He then adopted a new name and used it to start his business anew.

Ten years later, his business had grown significantly, and he even frequently appeared in various media outlets.

Because by then, he believed that even if his enemy stood in front of him, he would not recognize him.

Over the past decade, he lost his ID card four times, and each time he underwent cosmetic surgery before renewing it. Because each surgery changed very little, renewing the ID card was a piece of cake for a successful entrepreneur. However, the four surgeries actually changed his appearance significantly, but because the time span was so long, almost no one around him noticed.

Asi's Hell: 773 Horror Series 12, Part 1, Chapter 2: Ten Years (2)

The person who swapped identities with him has now vanished from this world completely. Two years ago, he lived a comfortable and peaceful life in a northern city—the price he paid for exchanging his identity. He owned a clothing store, got married, and had a daughter. Although he remained silent about his past, many people later learned that he had served time in prison, though no one knew the specific reasons for his imprisonment.

Two years ago, he was in a car accident, and his body was quickly cremated.

The car accident happened suddenly, but it was definitely an accident. Afterwards, his wife found the bankbook he had left behind, with enough money in it for her and their daughter to live on for the rest of their lives.

No one knew that his death was related to another person.

Now, he could carry out his murders with complete peace of mind, and no one in the world knew his true identity anymore. Even so, he waited another two years.

Two years later, he secretly returned to Haicheng alone.

He used a fake ID to stay in a small hotel because no one believed someone of his status would stay in such a place. Then, he followed the dying man and, after confirming that he was home alone, knocked on the door of his eleventh-floor apartment.

The enemy looked puzzled when facing a stranger. He didn't hide anything and revealed his identity after closing the door. Caught off guard, the enemy appeared flustered and wary. But he told his enemy that ten years was enough time for people to forget many things, and he no longer intended to pursue the grudges of ten years ago. He only wanted some money to live a peaceful life. As he spoke, he deliberately feigned embarrassment, letting his enemy guess that he had had a difficult time over the years.

As he had predicted, his enemy's expression softened, and he even showed a hint of chivalry when writing the check.

"If you ever encounter any difficulties in your life, just come to me. We're brothers, and I'll definitely help you," he said.

As he looked up to hand over the completed check, he was suddenly struck hard on the forehead and lost consciousness. In the instant he lost consciousness, he had already sensed a strong presence of death.

He didn't know how much time had passed when he suddenly opened his eyes and saw the man he had taken away from his property and wife smiling at him. Just as he was about to say something, his body suddenly fell heavily backward.

He fell out of the window.

The ten-year murder plan came to an end here; pushing his enemy out the window was a very satisfying thing. Death was inevitable; now, all he had to do was leave Haicheng as soon as possible and return to his own city.

The police could determine from the wounds on the victim's head that it was a murder, but he had no connection to the victim. With a population of over a billion in China, it would be virtually impossible for the police to find him among that population.

He left no fingerprints or other clues at the murder scene that could identify him. After glancing around briefly, he left the room. Downstairs, a crowd of onlookers must be gathered, their eyes fixed on the victim, oblivious to a stranger hastily departing. He had to leave before the police arrived; perhaps some astute officers would consider sealing off the scene.

The crowd had surrounded the dead man, and he could even smell a strong stench of blood as he passed by.

What a perfect murder! It should be studied. He felt a pang of regret, because no one in this world would ever know the truth about this murder.

He is about to leave Haicheng and will never return in this lifetime.

Leaving Haicheng was an easy task, and in fact, he did it effortlessly. Two days later, he was already in a northern city thousands of miles away. Now, he is the CEO of a well-known private enterprise that has no business ties with Haicheng, and he has never even been to that coastal city in northern Jiangsu.

His life remained unchanged, and he felt no unease. His enemies, whom he had murdered countless times over the past decade, resided in his heart; in other words, his enemies had already been killed countless times. Murder had become a habit, unaffected by his current life.

It wasn't until three months later that the police came knocking on his door.

In addition to the arrest warrant, the police also had a portrait of him.

He was utterly bewildered, even forgetting his fear. It was such a perfect murder, one he'd planned for ten years—how could the police have found him so quickly?

He eventually found out the answer, of course.

No one can survive a fall from the eleventh floor, but his enemy was the only one who survived. He lay in the hospital for over two months before finally waking up. He recounted the events in great detail, and the police created a composite sketch based on his description, which bore a striking resemblance to the killer.

He also learned why his enemy hadn't died after falling from the building: he had landed on a boy. The boy was only thirteen years old; he had just been passing by when the falling man landed flat on his head.

The murdered man woke up two months later, but the boy is still in the hospital.

The doctor said his chances of waking up were slim, but as long as he was alive, there was still hope. Who would give up hope, even if it was extremely faint? So, the boy remained in the hospital for several years.

Several years later—

Asi's Hell: 773 Horror Series 12, Part 1, Chapter 3: The Cave (1)

His mother said not to go up the mountain. Alang knew he should listen to his mother; not only his mother, but every adult in the town told their children the same thing. But this didn't stop the children from secretly going up the mountain together, and in all this time, no one had ever been heard of having any accidents on the mountain. Alang liked going up the mountain, always alone; he didn't want to hang out with those annoying kids at school.

Of course, nobody at school paid him any attention.

For a long time, as far back as Alang could remember, no one in the town was willing to approach him, not even the children his age at school. He could sense their dislike for him, but he didn't understand why. From childhood to adulthood, he had always been an ordinary child. He stood confidently among the group of children of all shapes and sizes, so much so that he himself would almost forget his own existence.

He only truly stood among those children once, when he was just thirteen years old. At first, no one noticed him, but then someone suddenly shouted his name, and all the children's eyes fell on him.

He felt a pang of panic, but more than anything, he was at a loss. He tried to say something, but the words that came to his lips turned into muffled sobs. He knew he was crying then, and he was terrified when the group of children surrounded him. He felt like a lamb caught in a pack of wolves, about to be torn apart in a moment.

The children certainly wouldn't actually tear him apart, but someone pointed at his nose and cursed at him, and then countless fists came flying at him. Although he was inexperienced, after being knocked to the ground, he instinctively covered his head with his hands and curled up into a small ball.

After that incident, he lost all hope in those children.

He knew he was different from them and that they would never accept him.

He went back and asked his mother why the children in town discriminated against him. His mother stared at him blankly, speechless for a long time, tears streaming down her face. His mother's heartbroken appearance pained him, and he went over to wipe away her tears, deciding not to ask any more questions.

In his memory, his mother was always the one he relied on for support.

From then on, he began secretly going up the mountain, hiding it from his mother. The rolling Asi Mountains, like the waves of a legendary sea, undulated and rippled into the distance. Even with the richest imagination of a young boy, Alang couldn't fathom what kind of world lay at the end of the mountains. The small town nestled in the embrace of the mountains seemed to thrive only because of their protection. Alang loved to climb Black Eagle Cliff at dusk, standing atop its beak-like protrusions and overlooking the entire town. In Alang's eyes, the town became a tiny speck, as if he could crush it to pieces with a single step. This destructive thrill made him feel exhilarated, but at the same time, he became restless, as if some power within him was accumulating, ready to be unleashed, but he didn't know how to release it. This was a troubling thing; each time, before descending the mountain, Alang would let out a desperate scream into the empty valley. The screams were carried away by the wind and eventually disappeared into the distant mountains.

Many years have passed, and Ah Lang has grown from a boy into a young man.

Young Alang grew increasingly taciturn, rarely interacting with anyone in town, spending his days tending the few acres of mountain land with his elderly mother. Years of labor had made him exceptionally strong; in the summer, his dark, muscular physique often drew whispers from passing girls as he worked in the fields.

But his situation remained unchanged. No one in town wanted to approach him, though he sensed that their dislike for him was gradually turning into fear. The thin, frail boy of yesteryear had grown into a strong man, and no one could bully him as before. Moreover, his strength made the townspeople feel a sense of crisis, because they sensed his hostility in his silence.

Ah Lang still loves going to Black Hawk Cliff. The town, like a sand table, lies at his feet, and every time he feels the urge to stomp on it, to shatter the entire town into pieces with a single step. Black Hawk Cliff is at the highest point of the mountain. In his childhood, his mother warned him that Black Hawk Cliff was an absolute forbidden zone, that it harbored some kind of soul-stealing power, and if that power chose you, you would be doomed.

Asi's Hell: 773 Horror Series 12, Part 1, Chapter 4: The Cave (2)

His mother's admonition seemed somewhat amusing to young Alang. He had often come to Black Eagle Cliff alone since he was a teenager, and many years had passed, yet he was still alive and well. If there really was such a legendary power on Black Eagle Cliff, it should have taken Alang's soul long ago. How could he still be standing on Black Eagle Cliff unharmed?

Alang now knew Black Hawk Cliff as well as he knew his carefully cultivated acres of land. He had tried to find the root of the townspeople's fear of it, but apart from some scattered rubble at the base of the cliff, he found nothing unusual. The rubble was clearly quite old; some were mostly buried by the mountain soil, overgrown with weeds, and the broken sections were smoothed by time. Alang could see no other clues beyond concluding that the rubble was man-made.

So, these pebbles might hide some secret, or they might be related to the townspeople's fear of Black Hawk Cliff, but no one could tell Alang, and Alang wouldn't care about these pebbles that had nothing to do with him.

His elderly mother finally passed away, and Ah Lang had no more relatives in this world. He buried his mother on Black Eagle Cliff, a solitary grave surrounded by pine forests, with a tall, fluttering banner trailing a long tail all the way to the top of the cliff. Whenever Ah Lang had free time, he would sit alone in front of his mother's grave, convinced that his mother must have been hiding something from him, a secret she refused to tell him until her death.

Now, those secrets will rest in peace with their mother in the ground.

Those secrets might be very important to Ah Lang, and perhaps that's why the townspeople discriminated against him. After much thought, Ah Lang concluded that it must be related to his background, but none of that mattered to him anymore. What mattered was that he had grown up and had enough power to fight against the townspeople's hostility.

He never imagined that one day those secrets would become his entire life.

In spring, Mount Asi is lush and verdant, and the once quiet town begins to come alive under the warming sun. The changes of the outside world inevitably affect the town. First, a few outsiders carrying large bags appear, showing great interest in the town's ancient architecture and inquiring about its past. They tell the townspeople that the town is the best-preserved Ming Dynasty town in China, possessing immense research value. They buy some daily necessities from the townspeople and leave quickly. Soon, more people arrive, bringing many rare and exotic items that the townspeople have never seen before. The lives of the townspeople undergo a dramatic transformation, suddenly filled with new experiences. Some restless young people follow the outsiders and leave the town; some never return, while others, even those who do, are no longer content with their mundane lives. They share information about the outside world with the town, planting seeds of hope in the hearts of its inhabitants.

The changes in the town were irrelevant to Alang. He still lived in his two single-story houses in the southwest corner of the town, and continued to cultivate his few acres of mountain land. Now, as he walked along the town's cobblestone streets, he would coldly observe the changes on both sides. The shops along the street had planted brightly colored flags, and at night, their gleaming signs would bloom in the darkness. Some songs he had never heard before drifted slowly through the town, and women from other places, dressed in bright clothes, swaggered through the streets, their skin as smooth as jade in the sunlight.

Ah Lang felt a little itchy inside, but he could only keep a cold face and remain silent.

The changes in the town were torture for him. He couldn't bear to see the town he hated become prosperous, to see the people who were hostile to him living happily every day. He was forever excluded from the town; those changes meant nothing to him. He knew that his heart was filled with longing, but his only refuge in this town was his home and those few acres of mountain land. And Black Hawk Cliff.

He screamed more and more on Black Hawk Cliff, and later he even shed tears amidst his screams.

He thought he might spend his whole life like this, and he never imagined that his life would change so much later.

A gleaming car pulled into town that day, and the two men and one woman who stepped out immediately gave the impression of being someone of importance. Their clothing wasn't particularly flashy, but their every move exuded an air of wealth that bewildered the townspeople—the kind of wealth that the townspeople desperately longed for in their dreams.

The car drove straight to the house of the town's oldest resident, Hawkeye Seven. Two men and a woman got out, followed by the driver carrying many gifts. Hawkeye Seven's eyebrows were already white, but he was still very healthy. He always wore a loose white robe, which, combined with his white beard and hair, gave him an air of otherworldly wisdom. Hawkeye Seven held a very important position in the hearts of the townspeople, not only because of the local legend that he had traveled extensively and was very knowledgeable, but also because he was exceptionally skilled in martial arts. A steady stream of children in town vowed to become Seventh Master's last disciple. Many claimed to have seen him, dressed in white, standing tall on the rooftop on a moonlit night, his movements as agile and swift as a night hawk. Some children even sneaked into Seventh Master's courtyard at night and stepped on piles of scorching hot sand, which everyone guessed must have been left by Seventh Master after practicing Iron Palm. A secret technique for practicing Iron Palm had long been rumored: constantly plunging one's hands into a pot of boiling iron sand. It was precisely because of these many legends surrounding Seventh Master that he gained immense popularity in town.

Asi's Hell: 773 Horror Series 12, Part 1, Chapter 5: The Cave (3)

The arrival of this visitor from out of town with generous gifts has earned him even more respect from the townspeople.

Seventh Master talked with the two men and one woman inside the house for about half an hour. When he came out, his expression was somewhat blank. He said expressionlessly to the group of children guarding the door, "Go and find Ah Lang for me."

The children screamed and ran off, feeling extremely honored to be able to do things for Seventh Master.