Now the village is shrouded in gray fog, the wind is biting, every household has closed its doors, and the whole village is shrouded in cold fog.
After Liang Qing investigated the situation of the gray fog, he went home with Song Yao and met a patrol team spontaneously organized by the village.
The leader was the village chief. Upon seeing the two, he greeted them, "Xiao Liang, are you out investigating too?"
Liang Qing nodded. "Yes, I went to see if the fog had dissipated. If it continues, something dangerous might emerge from the fog. I'm not too sure."
The village chief took a puff of his pipe and sighed, "That's true. The fog has been lingering these days, and even the gray sky is invisible. Sigh, I don't know what year it is, but there are always so many strange things happening."
The village chief has been extremely busy these days and has lost contact with the outside world. He has to make decisions on many things by himself.
Fortunately, two young men, Liang Qing and Song Yao, were in the village. Before the volcano erupted, they collected various information and let the old village chief know the situation outside.
Suddenly, a shrill scream came from the west end of the village, "Help!"
Hearing this, everyone became anxious and hurried to the west end of the village.
There was originally a primary school at the west end of the village. However, as the population moved out, the school lost its function and was converted into a place for elderly people to gather. Now, it is home to several families whose houses collapsed due to floods and heavy rains.
Liang Qing and Song Yao looked at each other and rushed over to see what was happening.
When they arrived, dense swarms of black crows flew low in the sky and landed on the eaves. In the thick fog, they looked extremely terrifying.
The person who sent the call for help was a middle-aged woman who was sitting on the ground crying while holding her husband.
When she saw the old village chief arrive, she seemed to have regained her resolve and tears began to flow.
"Village chief, you have to make the decision for us. My husband and I are honest people. We only sent one child to college, and we haven't done anything wrong. But my son, Lao Liu, was suddenly targeted. While he was out chopping wood, he was hit on the head with two claws. Not long after he came back, he fell into a coma."
"I don't know who it is, someone who has a grudge against our Lao Liu, who actually did such a cruel thing. Woo woo woo, how can I live like this?"
Her voice was filled with sorrow as she cried, but the body of her husband in her arms slowly grew colder.
The old village chief consoled her, "Don't worry, Liu's wife. Let's see what's going on first. Although this is a natural disaster, everyone has stored food at home, so we won't be short of a bite to eat."
"Besides, I warned you not to leave the village to work in the fields, especially when there's fog. You didn't obey, and now that something's happened, who can you turn to for justice?"
The Liu family's wife slowly wiped away her tears: "I don't know either. During the heavy rain, some of our food was ruined. Old Liu saw that the weather was getting colder, so he wanted to chop more firewood and exchange it with other families in the village for some food, so he sneaked out."
The old village chief didn't know what to say.
Ever since Liang Qing showed him the tragic situation outside, he had to believe that something good would happen after the gray fog came, so he told the villagers not to go out to work. Only after the gray fog disappeared could they go out in groups to chop firewood.
He knew that Lao Liu was a stubborn person who usually didn't listen to what he was told. He didn't expect that he would be so confused at this time and lose his life in vain.
He called Song Yao over and said, "Xiao Song, you studied medicine. Let Uncle Liu see what's going on. And let Aunt Liu understand too."
Song Yao stood up, and Aunt Liu slowly let go of her hand. Several people from the patrol team slowly lifted her up and helped her back to the house.
Old Liu's body was also carried to the door.
The Liu family's wife sobbed, "When your Uncle Liu came back, he said he saw several figures dancing around. He initially thought they were just other people chopping wood and were just trying to scare him, so he started yelling at them. But who would have thought those things would slap your Uncle Liu? That's why he has these three claws on his head. It's obvious they were scratched by humans."
Song Yao carefully observed the wounds of the middle-aged man on the ground. There were three black and red scratches on his wrinkled brow, as if he had been suddenly scratched by someone's claws.
But modern people generally don’t have such long nails, and this depth of nearly two or three centimeters looks like some kind of claws.
Liang Qing also squatted down and observed Uncle Liu's injuries. He had no other wounds on his body, only three on his forehead. Even if it was scratched by someone, it shouldn't have killed him so quickly. It must have been caused by something else.
"What on earth is this thing? Could it be brought from the gray fog?"
Song Yao shook his head. "Not necessarily. Maybe it was just some wild beasts from the mountains that came out and scratched Uncle Liu. But ordinary wild beasts wouldn't be so aggressive, unless they were some large brown bears."
"But there are no such large wild beasts in Yuanshan. If there are, there are only some small animals, such as wild monkeys."
Liang Qing compared them and found that these three claw marks were relatively narrow, so they were most likely from a monkey.
So he nodded and said, "That's possible. Maybe because there's no sunlight and no food in the mountains, these monkeys in the deep mountains have to go further away to find food, and then they ran into Uncle Liu and got into a fight."
However, small animals should not cause death to humans. There is only one other possibility, that is, the monkeys have also mutated.
While avoiding Aunt Liu, Song Yao told the old village chief about his guess.
The old village chief puffed on his pipe and sighed, "That should be it. We originally planned to build a nature reserve in the mountains, but it was abandoned due to some reasons. I do know there are some monkeys in the mountains. The older generation also heard that they would come out to forage for food during years of disaster, and sometimes they would rob the villagers' granaries like bandits."
At this point, the old village chief slapped his thigh and stood up. "Oh no! I have to inform every household in the village immediately. The places where the food was originally stored will definitely not be safe anymore. Those monkeys have very sensitive noses and can find any food."
Liang Qing nodded. "Okay, I'll go help too. And these monkeys might be mutants. Uncle Liu was injured by their claws, so they might be poisonous. I must remind everyone to be more careful and avoid confronting these creatures head-on."
The other patrol members also understood the importance of the situation and quickly took action. (End of this chapter)
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