Island Mystery Domain: Mysterious Realm

Jiang Feng joins a month-long job on a mysterious island after answering an online recruitment by a man named Old Guo. The promised pay of ten thousand yuan draws thirty-one people, including a cheerful woman in red and a female student named Lin Yun. Jiang Feng keeps to himself, haunted by unknown worries.

The cargo ship sails into thick fog and reaches the island at dawn. Old Guo leads them to a camp of twenty-five empty tents, claiming this is the dormitory. The previous staff is missing. Old Guo seems uneasy but says nothing. Jiang Feng spots a corpse hanging from a tree in the west woods, but when he looks again, it is gone. He decides it is not his concern.

People begin to complain about the lack of food and the primitive conditions. Old Guo disappears for a while, then reappears and asks for volunteers to search for a red fruit that supposedly cures snake venom. Jiang Feng, Lin Yun, and three others follow him into the woods. They discover a fresh grave of dead leaves. Underneath lies a man with a twisted expression and a gaping wrist wound.

Old Guo identifies the body as a previous worker who killed himself after being abandoned by his team. He finds a diary in the corpse’s pocket, reads a few pages, and says the man wrote that the others left by boat without him. Old Guo buries the body and orders everyone to keep quiet to avoid panic.

Jiang Feng stays behind after the others leave to fetch shovels. He takes the diary and reads the last entry, which says the man was left to die in despair. But the handwriting in the last entry appears calm and steady, very different from the earlier frantic script. Jiang Feng also notices the corpse has no ligature marks on the neck, contradicting the hanging he saw earlier. Suspicion grows that the man was murdered and the suicide staged.

Back at camp, Jiang Feng buys mosquito repellent from the bald man named Liu Hong. While writing an IOU, he sees earlier IOUs written by others, including one signed by Guo Fu – Old Guo’s name. The handwriting is identical to the dead man’s diary, confirming that Old Guo had been involved with the previous team and had bought from Liu Hong before. This deepens the mystery: Old Guo knew the dead man and may have been part of whatever happened to the earlier group.

Jiang Feng keeps his discovery secret. As night falls, the camp settles into an uneasy routine. People still believe the simple cover story, but Jiang Feng suspects that the island holds a dark secret, that the previous workers did not merely leave, and that Old Guo is not telling the truth. The disappearance of the hanging corpse and the buried body suggest a deliberate cover-up. Jiang Feng resolves to stay watchful, determined to survive the month and uncover what truly happened.