Chapter 48: Happy Event in the Mountain Village 8: The Haunted House Seems to Be Abstract
Everyone's expression changed. Overnight, the NPC's memory was tampered with. He clearly counted eleven people and gave them keys to six rooms yesterday, but how come it was assumed there were only ten people this morning!
"Ah, no wonder you asked me for the key to Room 206 today. Is there a new guest?" When Aunt Li saw An Rao, she immediately slapped her forehead and suddenly realized something.
"No, no," An Rao waved his hands quickly, "It's my fault, I remembered it wrong. A friend was supposed to come, but she couldn't come because of something else. I kept counting her in. I'm sorry!"
"It's okay!" Aunt Li waved her hand, "Just tell me if you need anything, everyone, eat and drink well!"
"Oh, by the way, Aunt Li, after dinner, can we go for a walk nearby?" An Rao continued to ask.
"Of course you can," Aunt Li waved her hand cheerfully, then her face suddenly turned serious, "But the depths of the mountains are not as safe as your city, you must not leave the village."
"Got it!"
After the meal, the villagers who came to eat also dispersed in twos and threes. An Rao and everyone gathered at the gate of the Zheng family mansion: "It is now 8:30 in the morning. Let's go back to the courtyard for lunch at 12 noon, and then share the results of the exploration. Aunt Li just said that we can't leave the village. This should be the range limit. Let's talk to the NPCs in the village as much as possible to see if we can learn about the bride's situation from the side. It should be noted that the third rule of the haunted house game requires integration into the atmosphere of the haunted house and prohibits creating chaos. I think this means that we must not let the NPCs in the haunted house find out that our true identity is not the city friends invited by the bride, so we must not show that we are not familiar with the bride in the conversation."
Soon, An Rao and Bai Chuan were the only ones left in the Zheng family mansion.
"Do you think they will tell all the clues they have obtained?" Baichuan asked.
"Of course not." An Rao smiled. Under the still bleak sunlight of Xingfu Village, Baichuan even felt that this smile was much brighter than the sunlight.
"But what does that matter?" An Ran shrugged. "I didn't tell them all the clues and information I had."
Baichuan lowered his eyes and looked at the slender pale hand of the handsome young man hanging by his side. From morning to now when he came to Room 206, when he was not speaking, his fingers had been tapping the same rhythm over and over again. This seemed to be his habit when he was thinking.
"Baichuan," An Rao's smile disappeared and his expression became serious, "In addition to the shoe prints and the strange circular mark, there is another strange thing."
"What?"
"There is no mirror," An Rao said. "When Yirou was looking for a mirror because of the red spot between her eyebrows, I suddenly remembered that there is no mirror in our room 201, 202, 206, or even in the bathroom. This is very strange."
“Is a mirror necessary?”
An Rao frowned and looked at Bai Chuan. The confused and puzzled expression on the face of this extremely handsome man did not seem fake. His facial features were handsome and sharp, and his somewhat messy hair added a unique temperament to him. It might be a kind of laziness on others, but on him it inexplicably became pride. An Rao realized that apart from cleaning himself, he did not take any extra care of himself.
He looks like he hasn't taken care of himself yet? !
"Of course a mirror is a necessity. Everyone can know if there is anything wrong with their appearance by looking in the mirror!" An Rao asked curiously.
Baichuan hesitated for a moment, then nodded: "Since mirrors are a necessity as you said, and there are no mirrors where we live, then the mirror is very suspicious."
The analysis is very good, but what does it mean to follow what I say? Do you understand?
"The function of a mirror is to adjust one's clothes and appearance. Do they not want us to see ourselves in the mirror?" An Rao thought this was a bit strange. "But there is no point in doing so, because we can see ourselves through the eyes of others. For example, although Shi Yirou cannot see the red dot between her eyebrows, we will naturally tell her if we see it."
“This is a haunted house, and we need to think about this from a haunted house perspective.”
"If that's the case, mirrors are indeed an indispensable prop for creating a terrifying atmosphere in Chinese horror."
"What do you mean?" Baichuan was very clear about knowing what he knew and not knowing what he didn't know.
An Rao has basically adapted to Bai Chuan's sometimes powerful and sometimes outrageous state. He didn't even bother to be surprised and started to explain directly: "In general Chinese horror, mirrors are often used to communicate yin and yang. Mirrors can not only reflect people's appearances, but also show the original form of monsters and demons, or they can show the cause and effect of an event or a person's past and present lives. In horror stories, mirrors generally mean horrible truths or unknown answers."
"All of this is based on the premise of being able to reflect oneself?"
"Yes, first you need to reflect yourself. Let's put it this way, the mirror in Chinese horror is similar to our screen."
"In this case, we need to expand our observation scope to everything that can reflect a person's shadow, to see if all the things that can reflect a person's shadow are hidden. If so, we can confirm that the mirror is an important breakthrough point in solving the mystery of the Zheng family mansion."
An Rao nodded in agreement: "Mirrors, glass, tiles, and smooth metal surfaces all need attention. So let's get started. I'll take the first floor and you'll take the second."
An Rao did not choose to explore with Bai Chuan. He didn't know why, although he avoided this man as much as possible, he had an inexplicable sense of trust in him, as if this man was born to be worthy of his trust. If he really encountered danger, he even felt that Bai Chuan would not abandon him.
"Bang! Crash! Crash..." Along with the sound of something being tripped, the cutlery on the table was thrown to the ground and smashed into pieces. An Rao and Bai Chuan looked back, and saw a boy about six or seven years old crawling up from the smashed dining table, running towards them in the yard, and then being grabbed by a young man by the arm.
The plump Aunt Li then ran over breathlessly, snatched the struggling boy from the young man's hands, and fiercely scolded the young man: "Who let him run away?! How do you look at him?!"
The young man didn't argue, he just looked down at the ground.
Aunt Li turned to look at An Rao and Bai Chuan, smiling, "Excuse me for making fun of you two distinguished guests. This is the youngest son of the Zheng family. He is eight years old this year and has some mental problems, so we usually lock him up in the house and don't let him out to prevent him from getting into trouble. Usually I ask Ah Jun, who helps with cooking, to watch him, but I don't know what happened and he ran out today."
“Ahhh—ah—ah—” The boy looked at Aunt Li with horror in his eyes and shouted incoherently.
"Is this kid the bride's brother?" An Rao asked. The boy in front of him was dressed in tattered clothes, with snot hanging from his dirty face and his hair was matted into wisps. It was obvious that he did not receive the most basic care, which was almost unimaginable in the countryside. Even if a farmer loved his daughter, he would definitely treasure a boy more - even if the boy had defects, there was no reason for him to treat the sister and brother in such a different way.
"Brother, can I treat you to some candy?" As he said that, An Rao took out a candy from his pocket like a magician, peeled off the red paper wrapping, squatted down and handed it to the little boy.
"Why are you here again! I don't want to see you!" The child saw that An Rao had returned to normal, so he stretched out his dirty hands and knocked the candy out of An Rao's hand.
An Rao:?
Aunt Li felt a little embarrassed by the boy's rudeness. She smiled at An Rao and the others and then dragged the boy away regardless of his struggle.
"Have we seen him?" An Rao rubbed his hands that had been hit by the child, feeling a little strange.
"No," Bai Chuan's eyes darkened. "This Zheng family is very strange. Did you notice the route the boy took when he ran towards us?"
"I noticed that he went around the middle of the yard. This is totally inconsistent with the characteristics of a child running around, not to mention that he is a disabled child."
"Not only him, but the Zheng family's courtyard has such a large open space in the middle, but they would rather squeeze in a little bit than put a wine table there. In addition, the little boy just ran over and deliberately avoided that area, as if there was an invisible roadblock there."
"I'll try." Before An Rao could say anything, Bai Chuan raised his leg and walked towards the center of the yard. It was an open space that was no different from the ones next to it. But just as Bai Chuan was about to step on it, Aunt Li jumped out from nowhere.
"Oh my, distinguished guest!" Aunt Li hurriedly stopped him, "You are not allowed to step on this place!"
"Why?"
"This is where our daughter's wedding ceremony will be held in six days. Before the wedding ceremony, you must remain pure and cannot be stepped on by anyone!" Aunt Li explained.
"Sorry." Baichuan retracted his legs.
"This haunted house is so weird. They are all too reasonable. It looks too much like an ordinary farmyard. Even the NPCs are friendly. It's as if the haunted house is abstract." An Rao muttered.
"Because you didn't break the death rules."
"But the consequence of breaking the rules of death is to disappear, which is too soft."
“It’s not necessarily soft, we just don’t see it.”
"But the problem is that we are not allowed to see this, and we should be able to see it."
Baichuan looked at Aunt Li, who was mumbling to herself and looking for things everywhere to try to fence off the center of the yard. He thought of the cold and terrifying corpse lying on the floor of Room 201 and felt that this haunted house had a kind of weirdness that made it impossible to touch or attack.
Soon, An Rao and Bai Chuan swept the first and second floors of the Zheng family mansion. In the hall facing the courtyard gate on the first floor, red candles were burning. The high chairs and square tables representing the parents were covered with red cloths embroidered with flowers and wedding characters. Three trays were neatly placed on the red cloths, with apples, peaches and bananas stacked on them. Baskets of red flowers were placed on both sides of the hall, which looked extremely festive and lively.
There are many rooms on both sides of the first floor. In addition to the bathroom, kitchen and storage room for daily use, there are the bedrooms of Old Zheng and Sister Wang, Aunt Li's room, the room of the hunchbacked old servant, and the bedroom of the man named Ajun and his younger brother.
"There is nothing unusual on the first floor. The owner, Lao Zheng, is the head of this Xingfu Village. I have checked several open rooms and found that there are indeed no mirrors. Even the glass on the windows is frosted."
"There is nothing unusual on the second floor. Room 206 has been locked. They have locked the other rooms and we can't get in. But the corridor has been mopped. I don't know if there are any embroidered shoe prints. There are no mirrors like on the first floor, and the glass is all frosted."
"Can I get into the eldest lady's study?"
"I can't get in. It's locked," Baichuan shook his head. "And the room where the bride is has been quiet the whole time. There's no sound at all. I didn't see anyone knocking on the door."
"Besides," Kashiwa added, "I didn't find the pink notebook that was on the floor last night."
"It seems that the strangeness of the haunted house mainly appears at night. Judging from the dream that Shi Yirou told me today, the haunted house should kill people through mental attacks, such as luring Zhang Yong's parents to Shi Yirou, and luring my notebook, so that we can fall into the trap and then kill them."
"But if that's the case, why isn't there a red dot between your eyebrows?"
An Rao: ...
"Don't jump to conclusions yet. There are still many things that don't make sense," Kashiwa said to comfort him. "I know you're worried about your teammates. Worrying about them can lead to confusion. And if you kill people by making them disappear out of thin air, that doesn't fit the style of the amusement park at all."
Indeed, a haunted house can obviously create all kinds of ghosts and monsters at any time and place to eat players alive and make players live in fear all day long. Why create such a peaceful and harmonious atmosphere and kill people invisibly?
There is absolutely no need for that.
The morning passed quickly, and the smell of food began to waft through the Zheng family mansion again. Villagers came in groups, talking and laughing, and after greeting Old Zheng and Sister Wang happily, they sat down at the table without any hesitation. For a while, there was toasting and the atmosphere was very lively.
Village chief Zheng enjoys a high reputation among the villagers, and everyone toasts him.
An Rao and Bai Chuan sat at their own wine table, listening to the villagers chatting with Village Chief Zheng while waiting. Most of them were about village affairs, such as land reclamation, which species of fish fry would be more profitable to release into the fish pond this year, whether to plant fruit trees or landscape trees, etc.
"Old Zheng, how are we going to hold the ancestral worship ceremony at the ancestral hall this year?"
"It's still the same as before, but the family tree needs to be revised! We need to write down which family has had a baby, which family has lost a baby, which family has married a wife, and which family has recruited a son-in-law in the past three years!"
"Hey, Lao Zheng, you are secretly taking advantage of your privilege! This year your family has a son-in-law, so you should quickly write down the daughter and son-in-law, right?"
"Hehehe, it's just a coincidence!" Old Zheng scratched his head honestly.
This village is interesting. In general, if a couple gives birth to an only daughter, then their family tree ends there. Who the daughter finally marries will not be recorded in the family tree, because the married daughter will be included in the family tree of another family. Men with other surnames are even less likely to appear in the family tree, unless the man changes his surname to marry into the family. But here, when a daughter gets married, the son-in-law's name needs to be written in the family tree!
Is this village a matriarchal society?
"Boss! We're back!" Su Ming's voice interrupted An Rao's thoughts. The boy sat down next to An Rao and hurriedly poured himself a glass of water and gulped it down.
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