Chapter 45
As soon as the sun rose, the barking of dogs in the village woke all four of them up from their sleep.
Gu Qingming opened the curtains and saw the snow still falling under the sky.
A few people had no choice but to get up and start collecting the firewood needed for the day in the snow.
When Chu Zhongyuan and Gu Qingming went out to pull the sled, the wooden door of Aunt Shen's house next door was opened, and they ran into two people wrapped up in balls who were also carrying firewood into the yard.
Chu Zhongyuan vaguely saw through the snowflakes that obstructed his vision that they seemed to be two guys whose facial features were so three-dimensional that they did not look like they were from East C District.
Allen Chu didn’t remember that there were two such people in Aunt Shen’s family.
He originally wanted to chat with the other party according to local customs, and ask them why they were living in Aunt Shen's house. Unexpectedly, the other party looked hurried, just said hello, and then went back to the yard.
The red hair of one of them hurt their eyes.
Chu Zhongyuan and Gu Qingming looked at each other and felt that something was wrong.
Chu Zhongyuan called Aunt Shen directly to confirm, and he was relieved when he learned that after Aunt Shen left, she rented the house to two international folklore students who came to study folklore.
The two men pulled most of the firewood on the sled back to the yard, and together with Luo Dong and Zheng Qiuji, they lit the boiler. The four of them discussed it for half a day and finally decided to stay at home and continue their homework.
The snow was so heavy that they couldn't go out to collect folk songs and experience the charm of the forest and mountains as originally planned.
Having slept late last night and been woken up early in the morning, coupled with the hypnotic effect of homework, the sleepy group of four could only choose to finish some of their homework in the afternoon before catching up on some sleep.
I slept until six in the afternoon, when it was getting dark.
"Bang bang" knocks were heard outside the yard, with a force that seemed to disregard the life or death of the owner of the yard.
The four people crawled out of bed and pulled open the curtains, only to find that it was not a knock on the door.
There was a noisy argument outside the door, the oil lamp was bright, and the pushing and shoving of people hit the wooden door, making a heavy muffled sound.
Chu Zhongyuan and his companions were in a position to neither intervene nor inquire about the conflict among the locals. Zheng Qiuji was about to close the curtains when a red, frozen hand suddenly slapped the window in front of him without any warning.
A hand, red from the cold and a little white due to being squeezed, outside is the dark night and the white snow.
Zheng Qiuji jumped up with a whoosh, his height being the highest among all the athletes in the Lantai No. 1 Middle School sports meet, and at the same time, a sharp explosion sounded.
But it is understandable that he was suddenly frightened like this in normal life. If there was no sharp explosion, it would prove that Zheng Qiuji was not pure, and the other three could use weapons.
The owner of the hand struggled for a moment, as if trying to support her body. Finally, the little girl poked her head out.
She looked to be only about five or six years old, with a pretty and cute appearance. She wore an equally delicate and small animal skin hat and a local ethnic robe, which was very warm.
It was just that the wind and snow outside were so strong that the girl's face and hands turned red and white from the cold.
Zheng Qiuji breathed a sigh of relief. He was almost scared to death by a little girl. If he told others about it, his colleagues in the Lantai branch would laugh to death.
Gu Qingming and Chu Zhongyuan quickly put on their equipment, pushed open the heavy door, walked into the yard, and prepared to pull the little girl into the warm house first.
The snow outside was very deep. The four of them had just cleared the snow in the yard that morning, but now it was already above their feet, making a crackling sound as they walked.
"Big brother, can you please save me!"
When the little girl saw the owner of the house coming out, her first words were an urgent call for help.
She spoke incoherently, with the confusion that is typical of children.
"Little sister, don't be afraid, tell big brother what happened?"
Gu Qingming was not very good at comforting children, so Chu Zhongyuan squatted down, put his hands on the girl's shoulders and asked.
Outside the courtyard wall, the dispute seemed to be continuing.
"I……"
The little girl seemed to be thinking about how to organize her words, but suddenly her face changed. She said, "Don't tell them I'm here," and then she hid in the corner of the firewood pile next to the house.
The next second, there was a real knock on the door and the bolt in the house made a clanking sound.
"Open the door! Open the door quickly!"
A strange voice sounded outside the door, as urgent as an evil ghost seeking revenge, making Gu Qingming and his companions afraid to act rashly.
“What is going on…?”
Zheng Qiuji and Luo Dong had just put on their clothes and rushed out when they saw this scene.
The noise outside the door became more and more intense, and then as if someone stopped it, angry curses rang out. Amid the chaotic shouting was Uncle Zhang's tired, familiar and kind voice.
"Xiao Chu, please open the door first. The people in the mountains suspect that a girl from the tribe has run to the village and is hiding, so they want to look for her."
Chu Zhongyuan noticed that the girl hiding behind the firewood pile was shivering. Just as he was about to reply loudly "Why?", he was stopped by Zheng Qiuji.
"There are too many of them."
Gu Qingming's eyes lit up slightly green, which was extremely conspicuous in the night.
Bai Kelan was very competent in transmitting the surrounding information to his master's mind. There were too many people in robes gathered in groups outside, and they could not use their supernatural powers on ordinary people, so a direct confrontation would not give them an advantage.
[“The Master said: Do not look at what is not proper, and do not listen to what is not proper.”]
Zheng Qiuji did not hesitate and directly gave the girl a level of Word Spirit skill. Chu Zhongyuan saw this and his eyes turned. While answering Uncle Zhang, he opened the door.
The moment the bolt was pulled open, the door was pushed open by the force from outside, and several mountain people in long robes filed in. The leader was actually a teenager about the same age as them.
Uncle Zhang stood at the back, looking guilty for not stopping these people.
The young man and the people behind him had dull expressions, which reminded them of Heshu Town, which had almost become a puppet with psychological trauma.
The shadowy night left a black imprint on the sides of the men. The roe deer horn hats on their heads seemed to have transformed into hideous and terrifying monsters in an instant, pouncing towards everyone with bared fangs and claws.
"Excuse me—have you seen my sister?"
Different from the rough sound of the knock on the door, the boy's voice was as cool and clear as a mountain spring in the winter forest, crystal clear.
He had a handsome appearance, and his features were very similar to those of the girl who had just come running to ask for help. It was obvious at first glance that they were a family relationship.
But the weird feeling lingered. Although the boy's words were very polite, there was still a dissonant stiffness in them.
Gu Qingming could even faintly smell a strange smell coming from the few people, a bit like... the smell of something rotting.
"City people are always procrastinating."
A burly man behind the boy whispered mockingly, with the fat on his face piled up, making him look disgusting. It seemed that the person who had just knocked on the door frantically was him.
The young man, whose face was so pale that he didn't look like a normal person, waved his hand gently, stopping the latter from saying anything else.
He raised his eyes, which were so dark that they looked inhuman, and looked straight at Gu Qingming and Chu Zhongyuan.
"I'm really sorry. We stayed in the room the whole time. After all, we city people are delicate and timid. We don't have eyes as sharp as yours in the dark. We didn't see anything. You should ask somewhere else."
Chu Zhongyuan seemed to be completely unaware of the boy's oppressive gaze and spoke in a sarcastic tone.
"With a strong body like yours, it will be no problem for you to find someone."
"you--"
The big man was about to take action, but was stopped by the young man. His movements were light, but they carried a certain unquestionable power.
Even the violent men could not resist.
"I'm sorry that we disturbed the guests' rest, but my sister is very important to me and I can't lose her. Can you please help me?"
The young man took two steps forward, but Chu Zhongyuan frowned.
When a person's emotions change, their facial expressions will undergo some subtle changes uncontrollably, but he noticed that no matter what the boy said, his expression remained the same, as stiff as a dead person.
They secretly made up their minds not to hand the little girl over to this group of strange-looking people.
The people of the Tree God Tribe in the mountains don't often come out. Chu Zhongyuan has only seen them twice in his childhood memory, but most of them are outgoing and cheerful. Even though they are full of foul language, they can't cover up the heroic spirit of those hunters who rely on the mountains for their livelihood. They are not like the few people in front of him, who are rigid and full of malice.
"OK,"
To the surprise of those people, Chu Zhongyuan shrugged his shoulders and agreed easily.
"After all, I'm a good person. Even though you guys are so...tsk tsk tsk, I still hope you can find it."
Chu Zhongyuan smiled and clicked his tongue twice. The vague hints were more damaging than the overt sarcasm.
The big man's face had turned red and green, and he was about to turn on the signal light, but he was still stopped by the boy's cold eyes.
"Don't forget, you are just an escort."
The boy walked forward.
He was just a monitor sent by the "guest".
Of course, Zheng Qiuji's words were as effective as ever. Several people searched aggressively, almost digging three feet into the ground, but still found nothing.
"What is going on..."
Uncle Zhang muttered to himself.
The young man didn't say anything else. He apologized and left. However, Uncle Zhang stayed and comforted the four people for a long time with a guilty look on his face, completely unaware of the smiles on their lips.
After Uncle Zhang left, the four high school students couldn't help themselves and burst into laughter in the snow.
Zheng Qiuji released the spirit of words and fished out the little girl hiding behind the firewood pile. In the overwhelming snow, they all went into the house together.
Chu Zhongyuan closed and locked the door. A warm breath blew over his face, gradually warming up his numb hands and feet.
Gu Qingming poured the little girl a cup of ginger tea to warm her body and prevent colds. Considering the little girl's taste, he also added a piece of rock sugar.
"Well, now that those guys who worked for nothing have left, can you tell the brothers what happened?"
Chu Zhongyuan turned into a gentle older brother at this time and asked in a soft voice.
The little girl was holding the ginger tea, her fingers were still shaking, and it was obvious that she had not yet recovered from the fear and coldness.
"They, they were all deceived... wuwuwu——"
The girl seemed to suddenly realize something and burst into tears.
The body's survival instinct helped her to suppress her fear until now. In the warm house, facing several older brothers who seemed strange but normal, the girl finally couldn't hold back her fear and burst into tears.
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