"Southeast, white elephant, river..."

Nan Xian sat in front of a huge map of China and drew a large circle in the southeast with her pen.

The foolish woman would never exchange her soul for a trivial word. Her dying words must be extremely important, especially the last sentence, "There is what you are looking for." It's hard for Nan Xian not to think that it might be a fragment of her soul from her previous life.

But if the silly woman knew about the fragments of the soul all along, why didn't she tell me sooner?

What unspeakable secret is she hiding? Or is there more to the story?

Shaking her head to temporarily put these chaotic thoughts behind her, she continued to focus on the task at hand.

China is too vast, and these keywords are too general, making them difficult to find. According to Diao Yu, it's not just him; others are also searching for her soul fragments. If she can't collect them before them, it could be a major crisis.

Now that things have come to this, she really can't afford to be distracted any longer.

After a long time, she finally made some progress.

"There are dozens of places in the country whose names contain the characters for 'white elephant,' ten of which are in the southeast. But after excluding places without nearby rivers, only five remain."

She circled several of the place names in red and then put down her pen.

Just then, Diao Yu pushed open the door and came in.

He brought the village chief with him.

As soon as he entered, the village chief rushed forward to apologize to Nan Xian: "I've already given those four clueless bastards a good beating. They'll never appear before you again to upset you, you—"

Nan Xian waved her hand to interrupt him, "Let's not talk about that now. Do you know where this silly woman comes from?"

The village chief was taken aback. "Her? To be honest, I only took her in because I felt sorry for her. She's been mentally unstable and can't even speak. I don't know anything about her background."

"When did you meet her? Tell me in detail."

"Yes, yes." The village chief recalled for a moment, "I remember it was about half a year after our clan settled here. One day I went up the back mountain to collect herbs and saw a woman lying motionless in a puddle. I was startled and thought she was dead. But when I went closer, I found that she was still breathing... Actually, I didn't intend to help at first. After all, as you know, once outsiders find out our true identities, how can we survive? And this strange sight of a woman I've never seen lying on the mountain, barely alive, is probably not a good thing. I didn't want to get into trouble, so I just pretended not to see her and carried my medicine basket home."

However, what should have been a half-hour walk took me an hour that day. Using magic to test the way was useless. The road ahead seemed to have no end, and I could never finish it!

I panicked, thinking I had accidentally stumbled into some kind of strange formation. Then I suddenly thought of that woman. Could this strange thing be related to her? So I immediately turned back and walked towards the puddle. This time I arrived in no time. Then I realized that I had no choice but to get involved in this matter.

I used magic to save her life and secretly brought her into the village. A few days later, she woke up. Just as I was about to ask her about her background, she nearly scratched my face. That's when I realized she was a madwoman... I didn't know her background and didn't dare send her away easily, so I could only cautiously hide her in my house for half a month. Later, I found that no enemies came looking for her and nothing strange happened, so I settled her in an abandoned house at the east end of the village.

The village chief scratched his head. "For the past two years, some villagers and I have been feeding her to keep her from starving. But she is not only ungrateful, she has also destroyed villagers' farmland several times, and once she almost burned down someone's house. Yesterday she killed a lot of chickens and ducks from someone else's house... Sigh, we don't know her background or anything about her, and we are afraid that something will be discovered. I dare not take her to a big city hospital for treatment. I can only find a few doctors who are tight-lipped to come to the village, but they all said they could not find the cause of the old woman's mental illness, so we had to give up."

After listening, Nan Xian frowned and pondered for a moment, "When you first met her, what was the reason she was on the verge of death?"

"Sigh, speaking of this, it's something that I can't figure out!" The village chief suddenly remembered something, and his tone became urgent and excited. "After I pulled her out of the ditch, I examined her carefully. Apart from a long-healed scar on her stomach, she had no other wounds. There were no external or internal injuries, and no signs of being under a spell. She just inexplicably passed out. If I had arrived any later, she probably wouldn't have made it."

The scar appeared earlier than she had predicted? Nan Xian was surprised, but also puzzled.

"Did she offend you?" the village chief asked cautiously. "She's just a fool, please don't hold it against her. I'll compensate you for any losses!"

Nan Xian shook her head and sighed, "She's dead."

Caught off guard, the village chief nearly choked on his breath, his eyes widening in shock. "What! Dead? Dead?"

It wasn't until Diao Yu led him to the next room and he saw the corpse of the simple-minded woman on the bed that the village chief believed she was dead.

The village chief was stunned and didn't know how to react. He was also unsure whether he should ask if the death of the mentally challenged woman was related to Nan Xian.

Seemingly sensing his hesitation, Nan Xian took the initiative to speak: "I am still investigating why the silly woman suddenly passed away. Don't worry, I will take care of all her funeral expenses. It's just that I am currently recording a program and it is really inconvenient for me to do these things, so I can only trouble you to do it for me."

The village chief quickly replied, "No trouble at all, no trouble at all!"

Nan Xian nodded: "Keep the ceremony simple, but use the best of everything, and find a place with good feng shui... May she rest in peace."

The village chief agreed and went back to make preparations, leaving only Nan Xian and Diao Yu in the house.

Seeing her looking worried, Diao Yu advised, "My lord, the dead cannot be brought back to life, and besides, it was her own choice. You don't need to worry about it."

Nan Xian understood this principle, but the thought that the silly woman could have continued to live as a member of the witch clan forever, yet made such a sacrifice for her, still made her feel very uncomfortable.

"This is the second one already. Last time it was Lan Xing, and this time it's the silly woman... Diao Yu. I'm worried that more people will die because of me?"