Old He squatted to one side, gently probing the corpse's jawbone with his fingers, then flipping it over to inspect the back beneath the torn clothing. He remained utterly silent, his expression stern, clearly puzzled by something about this particular body.

After a long silence, my patience waned, and I finally asked, "What's wrong with this corpse?"

"How long has it been since you were last here?" Old He queried while continuing his examination.

"Probably ten or twenty days. What puzzles me is why it hasn't decomposed like the others."

"That's what puzzles me too. Look here, this body is still in rigor mortis. That suggests the deceased died less than a week ago. Generally, rigor mortis sets in one to three hours after death, spreads throughout the body in twelve to sixteen hours, at which point the entire carcass is as stiff as this one—the jaw cannot be opened, the limbs cannot bend or straighten, and the muscles are rock hard. See how rigid the neck is, making it difficult to turn left or right? The arm muscles feel like bricks to the touch, utterly devoid of elasticity. Those are the hallmarks of rigor mortis." Old He manipulated the corpse's neck and limbs, pointing out the signs of stiffness for me to observe.

"However," he continued, "rigor mortis should completely subside three to seven days after death. After that point, the entire muscle group should be slack. Furthermore, decomposition should already be quite advanced by this stage; the soft tissues should be full of putrefactive gases, the face swollen, the eyeballs bulging, and the lips thickened, with the tip of the tongue protruding—what we professionally call bloating should be evident."

"Hua Jinlan's body shows absolutely no signs of that." Before Old He could finish, I summarized the issue for him.

"Exactly," Old He turned to me with an understanding smile. "You are sharp. Calculating from the presumed time of death, this should be a highly decomposed body right now. Yet, judging by the actual state of the corpse, I suspect she died less than a day or two ago."

Old He's conclusion was chilling—a body dead for over ten days looked as if it had only died a day or two ago! Had we stumbled into some kind of fortress outside of time, where one hour here equaled a dozen hours outside? If that were the case, before we could even leave, Hua Jinlan might have possessed Wang Jue’s body and slaughtered the entire village without mercy. If that were true, all our efforts just now would have been utterly wasted.

So, I countered, "Perhaps it’s the environment. Look around—besides the two of us, there’s no other living thing here. Grass is withered, trees are dead, and we haven't seen a single insect or ant. I estimate bacteria would have immense difficulty breeding on a corpse here."

Old He nodded affirmatively. "That might be a contributing factor, but we are not the only living things here; Xiao Shu still has a breath left. Let’s think about how to save him."

Mentioning Xiao Shu tightened the atmosphere again. Old He and I brushed the dead leaves and dry grass off the body, one taking the head and the other the feet, and moved it out of the tangled weeds to place it before the large stone where Xiao Shu was sitting.

After setting the body down, Old He pulled a facial tissue from his pocket, meticulously wiped his hands clean, sat down next to Xiao Shu, gently supported his head, and examined the wound thoroughly.

"What do we do now?" I asked, my anxiety mounting as I watched.

But Old He spoke unhurriedly, "If this thing was triggered by an activation mechanism, then the mechanism must be that strange branch you touched just now. The real question is: what will happen to Xiao Shu if we trigger the mechanism again?"

"You mean, if we touch that branch one more time, the mechanism won't necessarily retract?" I caught the implication in Old He's tone.

Sometimes the unknown is the most terrifying thing. Just like when I touched that branch, the entire world became saturated with murderous intent, and Xiao Shu was impaled on the stone. If we touched it again, conservatively speaking, no one knew what the outcome would be. Everyone knows that a hairdryer usually has three settings: 'high,' 'low,' and 'off.' If it's already on 'high,' moving the switch in either direction will decrease the airflow. But what if it isn't on 'high'—what if it's currently on 'low,' and moving the switch left or right results in completely different effects?

Who could tell which setting this branch was currently on? Who could guarantee that one more touch wouldn't retract the spear lodged in Xiao Shu’s body, but instead cause it to advance further, piercing through his entire skull?