vicious person

Na Duo's Notebook - The Murderer

More than 300 skeletons piled up in Shennongjia

Recently, people discovered layers of skeletal remains left more than a hundred years ago in a cave in Maoerguan Village, Xinhua Township, Shennongjia.

The cave, known locally as "Human Cave," is located on a cliff in Baojia Mountain. An expedition team organized by Xinhua Township, led by local villager Yuan Zuoqing, found the cave after a difficult trek. Upon entering, they were shocked to find the ground littered with bones.

According to research, these skeletons have existed for over a hundred years. Based on the existing skeletons, there are approximately 300 sets of male and female remains, as well as young and old. Many children's skeletons were found near the pool inside the cave.

A careful examination of the cave revealed traces of past human habitation. Fragments of cups, plates, bowls, and burnt wood and bamboo seemed to tell the story of a bustling scene in the past.

Why did hundreds of people live together in one cave? What caused their deaths? The answers await further investigation.

According to People's Daily

Nightmare Recurrence (1)

Human Cave!

Yes, it's the Human Cave.

I never imagined I would hear those two words again in my life. And it was less than a year after that incident.

I am certain that neither the expedition team nor the journalist who wrote this report had any idea how terrifying and frightening the words "human cave" were, far more bizarre and ferocious than the skeletons found inside.

One day in May 2002, in the reporter's work area of the Morning Star, I, Nado, saw the "human cave" again!

I saw this news while browsing the internet. The first thing I usually do when I get to the newspaper office is check the news from the day or the previous days online. Especially for a reporter like me without a specific focus, I have to pay attention to all sorts of news. This concern doesn't stem from any interest in the news itself; quite the opposite, sometimes I don't even bother to read my own newspaper, the Morning Star.

Whether a journalist can read news online and how they read it is a crucial indicator of their quality. I can shamelessly say here that I am very proficient at reading news online.

Many new journalists might not understand the relationship between reading news online and conducting their own interviews. Well, I think it wouldn't hurt to reveal a little bit of the secret, although I'll hold back. But if a new journalist has excellent potential, they'll gradually understand this principle without me saying much, or even if I don't explain it. But if they're dull-witted, no matter how clearly I explain it, it's useless to them. Many things are like this.

Some self-proclaimed clever people might think that online news is useful to journalists because the internet is borderless, so they can just copy it directly. It's not that no one does this, but it's mostly editors, especially when they're compiling tomorrow's newspaper and suddenly find they don't have enough news articles, so they have no choice but to copy from the internet. But they'll never credit the individual; it's usually titled "Comprehensive Report from This Newspaper." In reality, it's just copying; sometimes, using "comprehensive" as a title is a common tactic. However, if a newspaper were to publish such reports every day, not only would its reputation within the industry plummet, but its sales would likely also drop rapidly. Therefore, it should only be done occasionally as a last resort.

What I'm referring to is certainly not this extremely harmful method of using online news, and directly attributing online news to the reporter is a major taboo in the industry. The truly correct method is to use the information revealed in online news to conduct secondary interviews.

Forgive my bluntness, but the majority of people in this world are foolish, and this is certainly true in journalism, a profession that demands relatively high levels of judgment and cultural refinement. You often see news articles exceeding a thousand words that are practically empty, or filled with trivial and well-known facts, while glossing over truly newsworthy events. Conversely, news stories with potentially significant underlying themes are frequently reduced to mere two or three hundred words. If you see such news online, you're in luck. Based on the clues, a simple phone call can yield an excellent news report. I've even received bonuses from the newspaper twice for such articles—truly "effortless."

That day, I walked into the office around 10 a.m., made myself a cup of Tieguanyin tea, sat down in front of the computer, and browsed through yesterday's and today's news on various news websites. Finding nothing that would allow me to conduct a second interview, I started wandering around aimlessly. It was while browsing the "Oddities" section of S's travel channel that I came across this news article.

I rarely lose my composure like this—I had just taken a sip of tea when I saw the news; the tea was still very hot. Normally, I would have gasped for breath, but at that moment I was completely stunned. I felt a chill run down my spine, my scalp tingled, and I even stopped breathing. Lin Haiyin, the beautiful reporter from the Ministry of Economic Affairs, walked past me and greeted me, but I acted as if I hadn't heard her, showing no reaction whatsoever, my eyes fixed on the screen.

That memory I desperately wanted to forget, that was so terrifying that I didn't even want to write it down in my journal, suddenly came back to me.

It took me more than three minutes to take a deep breath; I'd never held my breath that long, not even while swimming. As the fresh air filled my lungs, my senses slowly returned. I swallowed the now lukewarm Tieguanyin tea with difficulty, my tongue stinging from the heat.

Following that news article, there were comments from netizens, many of whom firmly believed it was fake news. They thought it was absurd. They found the mere sight of over a hundred skeletons absurd; if they saw this note, I wonder what they would think. Fantasy novel? Let them think what they want. After all, there are only a dozen or so people in this world who know the truth. To be precise, fourteen people, plus you, the fifteenth.

It's all in the past now. I told myself.

That expedition team went there again, and a journalist wrote about it, which is enough to prove they are safe and sound. That nightmare will not repeat itself.

Really?

Will it really... really never happen again? Suddenly, I became uncertain. Because "it" might not have been truly eradicated; in a sense, "it" is still alive, living right here in the city where I live—Shanghai.

I'm determined to write this story down, and I believe that once I finish it, I can truly break free from the shadow of what happened a year ago.

So, let's go back to a year ago.

Summer of 2001.

China's education system has long suffered from various problems, with students often bearing several times the academic burden of their peers in other countries, yet their actual abilities lag far behind. In light of this, educational reforms have intensified in recent years, with calls for reducing students' academic burden and promoting "quality education" growing louder each year. These reforms cover a wide range, from preschool to university.

Nightmare Repeats Itself (2)

In the summer of 2001, during a peak of the promotion of holistic education, the media had an undeniable responsibility to pay attention to and promote it. However, newspapers like the *Morning Star*, whose main readership was office workers, couldn't dedicate a large portion of their coverage to holistic education for primary and secondary school students. Therefore, besides reporting on the overall educational reform, they could only focus on holistic education for university students. As a freelance reporter, Na Duo was also instructed to keep an eye out for news leads in this area and to develop and publish any valuable stories thoroughly.

As luck would have it, the biology department at F University, promoting "holistic education" and "hardship training," organized a field trip to the Shennongjia region during the summer vacation. The aim was to cultivate students' willpower and survival skills through long-distance treks through the primeval forest. The reason it's considered a coincidence is that the teacher leading the team was named Liang Yingwu, a good friend and old classmate of mine. So, quite naturally, I applied for a twenty-day business trip from my workplace to join this student expedition team to Shennongjia. Of course, I wouldn't be paying; the newspaper would cover the travel expenses. All I had to do was submit a 4,000-word feature article upon my return. That's the advantage of being a journalist—often getting to travel for free.

Liang Yingwu was a lecturer at F University. Apart from being a bit better looking and having more engaging lectures, he was no different from any other young university teacher. But I knew that was just an illusion. If I hadn't stumbled upon him in another capacity during a chance encounter, I would never have known that such a large and mysterious organization as the X Organization existed in China, let alone that Liang Yingwu was a researcher at the X Organization.

In fact, Liang Yingwu held a PhD in Bioengineering from Harvard University, an academic qualification that, given his young age, fully demonstrated his exceptional academic abilities. However, because he was so outstanding, someone with such a background would typically be offered a professorship at even the most prestigious universities in China, if not a dean or vice-dean position. But Liang Yingwu's other identity prevented him from being too ostentatious in his daily life, so he slightly altered his academic credentials. To F University, this young lecturer merely possessed a bachelor's degree from Harvard.

Organization X exists outside the perception of ordinary people; even among journalists, few are aware of its existence. Although it's a semi-military department with a high rank, its nature differs significantly from the National Security Bureau. From what I understand, while this organization is incredibly powerful and has a vast and pervasive reach, it's essentially a research institution. In this world, events often occur that are unacceptable to most people, even completely deviating from existing scientific norms. Some of these events have no lasting consequences, while others have far-reaching impacts. In China, Organization X is fully responsible for handling such extraordinary events; I believe every other major power has similar organizations.

I don't know if it's luck or bad luck, but I always seem to experience strange, even bizarre, events one after another. Perhaps this is due to my excessive curiosity. After a chance encounter with something extraordinary during an interview, I became extremely attentive to all sorts of unusual news and situations. Even things that seem perfectly normal to ordinary people often leave me wondering, "Is that really the truth?" or "Is that all there is to it?" So, most of my strange experiences are, in a sense, self-inflicted. With so many of these experiences, dealing with Organization X became inevitable. However, this story has little to do with Organization X, so we'll stop here.

The Shennongjia region is shrouded in mystery due to the legends of the Wild Man and various other myths. As someone with an insatiable curiosity, I was naturally quite excited to go to such a place. After purchasing a powerful flashlight, insect repellent, compressed biscuits, and other necessities, and packing a sleeping bag, I met up with Liang Yingwu and the 12 members of the expedition team at the train station on the night of my departure.

The plan was to take a train from Shanghai to Wuhan, and then transfer to a bus via Badong to Shennongjia. Seeing the university students who were even more excited than me, I was momentarily stunned. I thought I had enough luggage, but it turned out there were plenty of people here with more stuff than me. One girl even brought two large travel bags, two small travel bags, and a handbag, which her parents helped carry onto the train. It seemed the guys in the group were in for a tough time.

We'd be spending nearly 20 days together, and I also had to conduct interviews and write articles. In the Shennongjia primeval forest, we'd inevitably need to support each other. So, regardless of my initial impressions of these university students, I needed to get to know them as quickly as possible. My years as a journalist hadn't been for nothing, and these students were also quite curious about the profession. So, by the morning of the second day, when we boarded the bus to Wuhan, I had basically gotten to know these 12 university students and we were already chatting and laughing.

There were 12 students, five girls and seven boys. Among them, one boy and one girl were the most eye-catching.

The man's name was He Yunkai. His arms were incredibly muscular, as thick as my calves, and his pectoral muscles were astonishing. I glanced at the group of five girls, and none of them seemed to have a chest as large as his. I heard he was a bodybuilder, and his skin was tanned dark. However, in my opinion, bodybuilding to this extent is already a bit frightening, but judging from He Yunkai's expression, he seemed quite proud of his muscles.

The woman's name was Liu Wenying, and the reason she attracted attention was simple: she was beautiful. She had a round face, big eyes, a straight nose, and her daring crop top made her even more vibrant. She was a very outgoing girl, always the center of attention wherever she went. However, it seemed to me that she always seemed to be intentionally or unintentionally getting closer to Liang Yingwu, and her smile was always the brightest in his presence.

Liang Yingwu could be considered a rising star. His overseas experience, coupled with the mysterious aura naturally cultivated by his different background, and his handsome face already admired during his university days, made it strange if no girls had a crush on him. Frankly, I wouldn't find it strange if he had a bunch of teacher-student relationships. It's just that this guy is actually completely devoid of fun and incredibly rigid-minded; being his girlfriend wouldn't necessarily be a good thing.

N

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