Human bone cart
At this time, Cheng Jialu had just turned around, and Ding Can finally saw his current appearance clearly.
Xiaoshui's description was not wrong. Maybe it was because he didn't get enough rest or for some other reason, but he looked much more haggard than when they just separated in the afternoon. His eyes were bloodshot. They were more than ten meters away, but he could still see very clearly, to the point where he couldn't be ignored.
I guess given Xiaoshui's height, looking from below would make it seem more horrified, so it's no wonder she behaved like that.
Gao Wenwen curled his lips and said, "What was he doing this afternoon? It looked like he was doing some intense training. Was he running cross-country around the entire village?"
"Isn't it possible that he's having trouble acclimatizing here? But we all ate lunch together, and no one else has had any problems."
Yu Fu looked at the other people in the yard, and they all seemed fine. He guessed that the problem was with himself.
Yang Qi looked over and noticed that there was a slight twitch in the corner of Cheng Jialu's eye, but his current reaction clearly showed that he didn't realize that there was something wrong with his body from the inside.
When Cheng Jialu was about to return to his room, he saw someone in the front hall of the ancestral hall looking at him. The man who almost quarreled with his girlfriend by the lake was also there, so he smiled politely and greeted him.
But he would never have thought that his current expression would make his smile look much uglier than crying in the eyes of others. If someone saw him alone, they would definitely turn around and walk away.
Xiaoshui was still standing behind him, daring to only show one eye. She felt relieved when she saw him disappear from her sight: "It's getting dark. If I don't go home soon, my mother-in-law will come looking for me. See you tomorrow."
Before leaving, he stuffed a few more candies into Ding Can's hand as if paying the final payment.
Although there is water and electricity in the ancestral hall, it is only limited to each house. The external circuit is not complete, and there are no lighting lamps, only the oldest old-fashioned lanterns.
When it was just getting dark, the village chief came over to light it. The candlestick and the candle on it were specially designed to ensure that they would automatically go out after a few hours.
This way, there will be no trouble of wasting candles still burning until dawn, which can be regarded as wisdom from the ancients.
When choosing a room during the day, the three of them chose a family suite with a bed each.
It was almost late at night and the lights in many rooms were off. The air conditioners were working diligently. The outdoor unit was only separated by a wall, and the old house was not tightly sealed, so the buzzing sound was not soundproof at all.
Ding Can turned over in bed, quietly waiting for sleepiness to come. Feeling dizzy, he suddenly heard the sound of a door opening.
It was obviously much quieter than the sound of the operating external unit, but she accurately captured this sound in this gap.
I turned on my phone and saw that it was almost one in the morning. Every room has its own bathroom, so who would go out at this time?
After getting out of bed quietly, she walked to the window. The curtains were not drawn tightly. Through the gap, the first thing she noticed was the small courtyard, which was cast a dark red by the candlelight of the lanterns.
With the addition of a layer of glass, the picture appears blurry, as if shrouded in blood.
Perhaps the village chief thought that hanging white lanterns in the ancestral hall would make people feel unlucky and affect their mood, so he placed red lanterns here.
The result was, of course, counterproductive, raising the atmosphere to an inappropriate level. It was even more creepy to be in it, and if you wanted to leave, you had to prepare yourself mentally in advance.
Before I could think about it, a figure came into my sight. He didn't walk very fast, so it was easy to confirm that it was Cheng Jialu.
I don’t know if it was due to the contrast or for some other reason, but he looked even more terrifying at this moment. His face was coated with a light red glow, while the side of his face that was backlit had a very dark shadow.
His face seemed to be covered by black air, especially since Ding Can wanted to see more clearly and moved very close to the glass. At that moment, it was almost as if he was touching his face.
Her heart began to beat faster unconsciously, and she looked at Cheng Jialu's back. This man was not sleeping so late at night. What was he doing out here?
And it wasn't an illusion. He looked even more haggard and worse than he did in the afternoon. His walking posture was a bit hunched, no longer the posture of a normal young man.
Ding Can watched the man walking towards the main hall of the ancestral hall. Could it be that he was not feeling well, or that living here disturbed the ancestors in the ancestral hall, so he wanted to go and pay his respects?
It's late at night, but I don't feel scared at all.
The corner of the window was just big enough for her to see Cheng Jialu's movements clearly, but he did not stay in the ancestral hall, nor did he even enter the main hall.
Instead, when it reached the stairs, it turned directly and went to the corner of the wall, and then walked into the corner of the sight, and could not be seen clearly from the window.
What's over there... Ding Can thought about it carefully. The ancestral hall only has one main entrance and exit, and there is no back door or anything like that in that direction.
Wait, isn’t the house behind the ancestral hall the one we saw the bone cart in the daytime?
Could it be that Cheng Jialu was planning to climb over the wall at night when no one was watching and take another look at the human bone cart? But thinking about it, the condition he showed during the day was indeed very interesting.
But the timing seems to be inappropriate.
She lifted the curtain of the inner room and walked out, and saw Yu Fu's head leaning against the window outside. On the other side of the bed, Gao Wenwen was sleeping soundly with his head buried in the quilt.
Yu Fu turned on the bedside lamp, and the warm yellow light filled the entire room: "Did you see it too?"
"Well, it started to act strange during the day, and now I don't know what it's doing."
The sound of the two people talking and the dazzling light woke Gao Wenwen slowly. He asked drowsily, "Sister Can, why are you here?"
After hearing what just happened, he propped himself up and sat up, feeling a little more energetic: "Shall we follow and see?"
Yu Fu disagreed: "Don't they have free time to walk during the day? If he really wants to go and see, and there are no villagers watching, he has every chance. Why does he have to take advantage of now?"
Although they had many speculations about Cheng Jialu's behavior, they still chose not to go out and find out.
They could only guess what he was going to do next. At this time, it was obviously a wise choice to stay in the room. No one would want to explore such an ancient village in the middle of the night.
But it became even harder to fall asleep afterwards. Ding Can lay in bed, thinking about waiting to hear Cheng Jialu's footsteps coming back. The first half of the night was almost gone like this, and only later did he finally fall asleep again.
The next morning, after waking up, Ding Can left the room and saw Yu Fu was the only one there. "Where's Xiao Gao?"
"Just after he left, he wanted to go to Cheng Jialu to sound out the situation and see if he could find out what he had done yesterday."
Ding Can nodded: "Let's go out and take a look together."
It was still early and not many people were awake. Yang Qi was already in the yard, practicing Tai Chi. When he saw them come out, he finished the last move and came over.
Gao Wenwen was still standing under the eaves of Cheng Jialu's room. He knocked on the door several times but received no response. However, he woke up the people in other rooms. They came out to see what was going on, still sleepy.
"No one here?" Gao Wenwen wondered. Could it be that he didn't come back all night? But wasn't Cheng Jialu the only one who went out yesterday? Her girlfriend should be here.
"Who is this? Can't we sleep so early in the morning?" An angry voice came from inside. Half a minute later, Zhai Ting came out in pajamas.
Seeing that it was the boy she had argued with yesterday, she didn't hide her already ugly expression at all and asked impatiently, "What's wrong?"
Gao Wenwen groaned inwardly and glanced around the room. "Where's your boyfriend? He looked unwell yesterday. I have some nutritional supplements here and wanted to give them to him."
"What do you care?" Zhai Ting turned around, thinking of asking Cheng Jialu when he became so close to this annoying guy, but she saw only a messy quilt on the bed, and her boyfriend was not there at all.
When I was woken up by the knock on the door just now, I was in a bad mood and wanted to argue with someone, so I didn't notice that there was no one around.
Zhai Ting was obviously stunned for a moment. She called her boyfriend's name several times but received no response.
Gao Wenwen stepped over the threshold very smoothly and confirmed that Cheng Jialu was indeed not in the room. "Where is he?"
"I don't know either……"
Yu Fu appeared at this time: "I saw that the door was still locked, so no one should have entered or exited through the main gate."
The door of the ancestral hall can be locked from both inside and outside. Before entering the house last night, everyone locked the door out of habit. If someone went out, the latch should have been open.
Originally just expressing his doubts, Ding Can noticed that Zhai Ting's expression changed very obviously for a moment, as if she was hiding some secret.
He went from looking furious to being a little timid: "I don't know when he went out. Haven't you seen him today?"
"No, you two who live in the same room don't know, how can we know?"
Zhai Ting had just gotten up, her hair was messy and she was still wearing pajamas. She didn't care about her image at all. She looked around the yard in disbelief. When she really couldn't find anyone, she remembered to go into the house to get her cell phone to make a call.
After dialing the number, he looked at the screen and couldn't help complaining, "This crappy place doesn't even have a signal."
After trying a few more times, he still couldn't make the call. Mu Mu couldn't bear it any longer and stepped forward to comfort him: "Don't worry too much, maybe he went out for something this morning."
Zhai Ting suddenly widened her eyes and pointed at the door: "Isn't it true that no one has ever left the yard?"
Mu Mu pursed her lips and said, "Maybe, maybe after he left, someone in our yard bolted the door again."
"You're right, I have to ask them." Zhai Ting knocked on the rooms where no one had come out one by one and asked everyone, but everyone said that no one had done this before, and no one had even gone out at night.
Seeing Zhai Ting pull out her phone again to try, Ding Can walked over, grabbed her hand, and asked, "What are you worried about?"
Zhai Ting turned her head to look at her, her eyes blinking nervously, her lips moving. Before she could say anything, she heard a heavy knock on the door of the ancestral hall.
After opening it, the village chief stood at the door with an anxious look on his face. He probably hadn't expected so many people to be in the yard, but after glancing around, he stopped at Zhai Ting and said, "Something happened."
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