Chapter 5 Dry Well
The snow was so heavy that it was almost impossible to walk on the narrow mountain road.
Lin Qiushi was worried that Ruan Baijie wouldn't be able to handle it, so he protected her all the way. Xiao Ke said indifferently, "You two have such a good relationship."
"Girls," Lin Qiushi said, "you should always take extra care of them."
Ruan Baijie leaned weakly against Lin Qiushi, glanced at Xiao Ke with a pitiful expression.
Xiao Ke looked away expressionlessly, looking like he disliked her very much.
Finally reaching the tree-cutting area, everyone got to work again. This time, they chose two smaller trees, intending to chop them all down in one go. Although the weather was cold, he felt a bit warm after chopping trees for a while. Lin Qiushi unbuttoned his coat and stood to rest for a while.
Ruan Baijie leaned against the tree next to her, looking at Lin Qiushi thoughtfully.
Lin Qiushi glanced at her and asked, "What are you looking at?"
Ruan Baijie: "Your butt is so perky..."
Lin Qiushi nearly buckled from the axe in his hand. He turned and stared at Ruan Baijie: "What did you say?"
Ruan Baijie: "I didn't say anything, you must have heard it wrong."
Lin Qiushi was filled with suspicion.
Ruan Baijie: "Why don't you repeat what I just said?"
Lin Qiushi: “…” This guy just calculated that he would be in trouble, right?
The two men chatted while chopping trees, occasionally taking turns to rest with other men in the team. Before it was completely dark, they had chopped down two trees.
There was nothing wrong with cutting down trees, but transporting them became a thorn in everyone's side.
The two teammates who were crushed to death by a tree yesterday have been buried under thick snow, but even though their bodies are no longer visible, their miserable appearance is still vivid in my mind.
"Don't carry it anymore." Xiong Qi said, "Put a rope around it and drag it along."
"Then who will drag it?" asked Zhang Zishuang.
Xiong Qi said, "The men are divided into two groups, and both are dragging."
This method is very fair. Everyone is doing the same thing. If you die, it is simply your bad luck and you cannot blame others.
Lin Qiushi said little as he reached out to take the rope from Xiong Qi. Following another teammate who hadn't spoken much, he diligently began dragging the heavy timber. Dragging timber on the narrow mountain path was more difficult than using a pole, but at least it was safe and wouldn't cause the same kind of accident that had happened before.
Having learned from the previous experience, everyone was very vigilant along the way. They only breathed a sigh of relief when they left the mountain road and arrived at the carpenter's house.
"Old man," Xiong Qi called out, "we've delivered the wood."
The creaking sound of wood being processed inside the door stopped. After a moment, an old face with wrinkles appeared from the crack of the door. The carpenter slowly pushed the door open and signaled them to bring the wood in.
"Old man," Xiong Qi said, wiping the white foam from his face. "We've delivered the wood. We'll go to the temple to worship later. Do you need anything to bring?"
The old man took a puff of the long pipe in his hand, exhaled thick white smoke, and said vaguely: "Just take the people with you."
Xiong Qi frowned when he heard this.
"You have to go at night," the old man said. "After dark, enter the temple one by one and come out after you finish your worship."
Ruan Baijie's expression changed slightly when she heard this request. Lin Qiushi expected her to say something, but in the end, she said nothing and simply smiled subtly.
"We have to go in one by one?" Xiong Qi seemed to find this request a bit strange. "Can't we go in together?"
"Let's go in together?" The old man sneered, "You can try."
"Thank you." Xiong Qi didn't ask any more questions. He turned around and asked everyone to leave the carpenter's house.
Lin Qiushi always felt that this person was strange. He asked, "Wouldn't the people in the village lie to us?"
"Some will," Xiong Qi said, "but key figures generally won't lie. If the key clues they give us are wrong, then what else can we do?"
Just wait to die.
Lin Qiushi said "oh".
After delivering the wood to the carpenter, everyone returned to their residence, lit a fire to keep warm and discussed what to do next.
Ruan Baijie said she wanted to go to the bathroom and went out, but she didn't come back for a long time.
Lin Qiushi waited for a while and was really worried about her, so he ran out as well. However, he didn't see anyone in the toilet. After looking around the house, he saw Ruan Baijie sitting alone next to the well.
She seemed to have been sitting by the well for a while, her body and head covered in a layer of white snow. Lin Qiushi tentatively called her name, but Ruan Baijie seemed not to hear him and didn't even turn around.
"Ruan Baijie?" Lin Qiushi walked towards her. "What are you doing? It's so cold outside."
"Don't move." Ruan Baijie suddenly spoke.
Lin Qiushi stopped dead in his tracks.
Ruan Baijie said, "Don't come near me." Her tone was extremely cold, completely lacking her usual gentleness. "Stay away from me."
Lin Qiushi said, "What happened?" He keenly noticed that Ruan Baijie's sudden change in attitude was closely related to the well next to her.
Ruan Baijie shook her head and did not answer.
Lin Qiushi bravely took two more steps toward Ruan Baijie, until he was within a clearer view of the well's mouth. It would have been fine if he hadn't looked, but after seeing it, goosebumps spread all over his body. He saw a layer of black substance covering the inside of the well. At first, Lin Qiushi thought it was water, but then he noticed it was slowly wriggling, and he was sure he wasn't mistaken—the well was filled with black hair.
Ruan Baijie's feet seemed to be entangled by the hair and her body could not move at all.
"Don't come over here, Lin Qiushi," Ruan Baijie said, "You'll be dragged down with them."
"It's okay." Lin Qiushi spoke softly, afraid that if he spoke too loudly, he would disturb the black hair. "It's okay, don't be afraid. I'm here to help you."
Ruan Baijie turned to look at Lin Qiushi. Her eyes were no longer as tender as before. Instead, they had become like a bottomless lake, dark and gloomy, making people inexplicably frightened. She said, "Why bother?"
Lin Qiushi said, "Wait for me for a moment, hold on." He remembered something and ran into the house.
Xiong Qi, who was sitting in the living room, saw Lin Qiushi running wildly and asked him in confusion what happened. However, Lin Qiushi ignored him and went straight to the kitchen.
When he arrived at the kitchen, he picked up some firewood, quickly lit it with a flint, and turned and ran out of the house.
Just a few minutes seemed like centuries. Lin Qiushi's hands were shaking as he lit the fire. He was afraid that when he returned to the wellhead, there would only be an empty well.
Fortunately, when he came back with the torch, Ruan Baijie was still sitting there.
"I'm back." Lin Qiushi panted. "I'll come over later and throw the fire into the well. Hold my hand...don't let go."
Ruan Baijie: "Aren't you afraid?"
Lin Qiushi was stunned: "What are you afraid of?"
Ruan Baijie said: "Of course I'm afraid of death."
Lin Qiushi smiled. "Who isn't afraid of death? But there are always things more terrifying than death." Although he still had some doubts about this world, he could still feel that Ruan Baijie had saved him several times. If it weren't for Ruan Baijie, he might have been one of the bloody corpses on that first night.
"Okay, I'm coming over." Lin Qiushi was afraid that if they delayed for too long, Ruan Baijie would be exhausted, so he slowly moved his feet and walked towards Ruan Baijie.
When he was close enough, he grabbed Ruan Baijie's hand and threw the torch in his hand into her still tumbling hair.
"Ah—" A shrill scream, a woman's voice echoed from the wellhead. The hair, ignited by the fire, began to wriggle violently. In a trance, Lin Qiushi unexpectedly saw a pale face in the well. Although it was only for a moment, Lin Qiushi recognized it. He had seen it in the house before. It was the female ghost who had disguised herself as Ruan Baijie's voice that night.
"Run!" As soon as the hair on Ruan Baijie's feet broke, Lin Qiushi pulled her and started running wildly.
Ruan Baijie did not resist and let Lin Qiushi do what he wanted. The two of them rushed into the house, gasping for breath frantically.
"What's wrong?" Everyone in the room was surprised.
"There's something in the well..." Lin Qiushi panted, "Everyone stay away from the well. Bai Jie was almost pulled in just now." After he finished speaking, he turned to look at Bai Jie and asked her if she was hurt.
"No." Ruan Baijie said, "I'm fine."
Upon hearing this, Lin Qiushi cast his gaze towards her feet. He saw a bloody mark on Ruan Baijie's ankle, which was still slowly dripping with blood. He said, "You mean you're fine? Sit down quickly. I'll bandage you."
Ruan Baijie seemed to realize belatedly that she was injured. She tilted her head, but finally listened to Lin Qiushi and sat down obediently on the chair.
Lin Qiushi found some medicine in the room, half-knelt in front of Ruan Baijie, let her foot rest on his knee, and began to slowly tend to the wound. His movements were gentle and careful, as if he was worried about hurting Ruan Baijie.
"Are you so cautious with girls?" Ruan Baijie suddenly asked.
"What does this have to do with girls?" Lin Qiushi replied casually. "Even if you were a man, would I be rough with you?"
Ruan Baijie: "Hmm..."
Lin Qiushi casually said, "You can't really be a man, you're so tall and your chest is so flat." But Ruan Baijie was indeed beautiful. At least Lin Qiushi didn't believe that there was a man like this in the world.
"Yeah." Ruan Baijie sighed, "My breasts are not as big as yours."
Lin Qiushi: “…”
Ruan Baijie added: "My butt isn't as perky as yours."
Lin Qiushi: "...Why do you talk so much?"
Ruan Baijie giggled.
Lin Qiushi helped Ruan Baijie treat her wounds before telling Xiong Qi and the others what had happened. The others' reactions were fine, but Xiong Qi and Xiao Ke looked unhappy, clearly remembering the last step in making the coffin the old man had told them—filling the well.
What was the connection between the coffin and the well? Was it a custom unique to this village, or was it a trap set by the carpenter?
Ruan Baijie seemed to know what Xiong Qi was thinking and smiled, "Don't think too much. Just do what you have to do. Fate is predetermined."
Xiong Qi sighed slightly: "We plan to go to the temple tonight, do you want to come?"
"Me?" Ruan Baijie said, "My foot is injured and I can't walk. Qiushi, please carry me."
Lin Qiushi nodded.
Xiao Ke said beside him: "How come you can't walk with such a minor injury?"
Ruan Baijie was not angry when she heard this, but just smiled sweetly and said, "Sister, please be more tolerant. I am spoiled at home, so naturally I have to be a little spoiled when I go out."
Xiao Ke said, "Just keep messing around with Lin Qiushi because he's good-tempered. No one in this world knows who is who, so why should I spoil you?"
"Oh, I thought you and Xiong Qi knew each other." Ruan Baijie said this nonchalantly.
Who knew that as soon as these words came out, Xiao Ke and Xiong Qi's faces changed, and there was a look of vigilance in their eyes.
Lin Qiushi instantly sensed the change in atmosphere.
"What do you mean?" Xiao Ke asked back.
"It's nothing special." Ruan Baijie said, "I just thought you two had a good relationship... You don't really know each other, do you?"
"How is that possible?" Xiao Ke looked very uncomfortable.
Ruan Baijie smiled but did not continue the topic.
Of course, Xiao Ke did not hold Ruan Baijie back. She did not stop Ruan Baijie from letting Lin Qiushi carry her to the temple. She turned around and left with a gloomy face.
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