Chapter 55: Happy Event in the Mountain Village 15 They are all dead
Su Ming worked in the yard for a long time, and finally successfully made a ball using various scraps. Although it was not as good as a real ball, it was almost kickable.
"Bang!" Su Ming "accidentally" kicked the ball into the door of a room on the first floor, causing the wooden door to shake several times. The little head behind the frosted glass window had been sticking to the glass, watching Su Ming kicking the ball in the yard for a long time. He must have been so greedy that he went crazy.
Su Ming immediately ran to the door, touched it with lingering fear, and muttered to himself: "I hope the door is not broken by kicking it? I have to try to open it. Make sure it doesn't break!" While speaking, Su Ming held the ball in one hand and tried to turn the door lock with the other hand. He heard a "click" and the door actually opened.
Standing inside was a little boy who looked not very smart, about seven or eight years old. He was huddled against the wall, wringing his hands, at a loss, but his eyes were staring at the ball in Su Ming's hand with bright longing.
Su Ming was secretly delighted, thinking that this should be the hidden little boy that the eldest brother mentioned.
"Little brother, do you want to play football?" Su Ming asked, tossing the ball in his hand.
"Yeah!" The little boy's eyes were glued to the ball and he nodded vigorously.
"Then come out, I'll teach you how to play football!"
The child was easy to coax. After a while, Su Ming and Zheng Duoyu became close friends. The two of them were happily playing football in the yard, which made Cheng Lin and Wang Quanmin, who were busy looking for a mirror, feel a little confused. However, Su Ming had no time to care about their feelings. Coaxing Zheng Duoyu was the most important thing now.
"Brother, which room do you live in?" Zheng Duoyu asked as the two men, tired from playing football, sat down to rest in the corner of the yard.
Su Ming hesitated for a while. After all, he didn't know whether this child who seemed to be hiding an Easter egg was a human or a ghost. If he really exposed his information, would he be killed?
Seeing that Su Ming didn't answer, the child didn't care. He shook his head and raised his chubby hand, pointing to the room on the second floor and said, "This room is full of Pikachu patterns. I really want to have a real Pikachu! This room is full of Ultraman. I love Tiga so much that the chandelier in the room is in the shape of Tiga!"
Zheng Duoyu described the origins of the interior decorations of all the rooms in detail, and Su Ming became more and more surprised. This did not sound like the language that a little fool could organize!
"Oh, by the way, this one is the most special," Zheng Duoyu pointed to Room 201 where An Rao and his friends lived. "This room is decorated with chess. I like playing chess. I even won a prize!"
Zheng Duoyu looked proud.
How could a mentally handicapped child possibly play chess?
"Wow, so amazing!" Su Ming praised sincerely, "Can you teach me?"
"Okay," Zheng Duoyu said, picking up the pebbles on the ground and drawing a chessboard on the ground. "The chessboard has sixty-four squares, and each side has sixteen pieces, namely a king, a queen, and two rooks..."
"Why are you out again, you little brat?!" Aunt Li, who was furious, appeared with a roar like a lion. She stretched out her hand and twisted Zheng Yuyue's ear to lift him up, "Get back here!"
The moment he saw Aunt Li, Zheng Duoyu was completely devoid of the lively and alert look he had when he was playing football and chatting with Su Ming. He just stared at Aunt Li without saying a word.
"What's wrong? Are you still stubborn?" Aunt Li raised her hand and was about to hit him.
"Hey, Aunt Li, I accidentally kicked the ball into the door and it opened. I saw that my brother wanted to play so I invited him to play with me. Don't be angry!" Su Ming hurriedly stopped Aunt Li, "I'll take him back right away!"
As he said that, Su Ming took Zheng Duoyu in his arms and walked towards the room, and secretly handed the ball to Zheng Duoyu.
"This ball is for you, you must hide it well!" Su Ming said in a low voice.
"Thank you, brother," Zheng Duoyu thanked him in a low voice, "Brother, I'm so scared..."
"What are you afraid of?"
"Aunt Li is dead. I clearly saw her die in room 201. How come she is alive again?" Zheng Duoyu blinked his eyes. His previous dazed look was not a disguise nor dementia, but the fear of seeing the dead resurrected.
Su Ming was startled, but he suppressed his fear and asked calmly, "Really?"
"Yes," Zheng Duoyu nodded seriously, and said calmly while counting on his fingers, "They are all dead. Brother Jun, the cook, Uncle Wang, and everyone who came to our house for dinner are all dead."
"You...do you mean they will die in the future or..." Su Ming's whole body was cold.
"They are all dead," Zheng Duoyu blinked and looked at Su Ming. The child said the most horrifying words with an innocent face, "The second floor is full of corpses, and the yard on the first floor is also full of them. There is so much blood and it stinks!"
*
Shi Yirou came to the entrance of the primary school which she did not have the chance to explore last time. After careful observation, she found that there was a couplet hanging at the entrance of the primary school which she had not noticed last time: "Be a soaring eagle instead of a frog at the bottom of a well; be a standing tree instead of a clinging flower." Although it is rough, it is quite suitable for inspiring children.
It was morning class time. Amid the sound of reading, Principal Li was strolling around the campus. Principal Li was a middle-aged woman who was dressed simply and had her hair neatly tied into a bun, looking very capable.
"Principal Li, last time I heard you say that our school's library is amazing and has a large collection of books. Can I go for a visit?" Shi Yirou tied her hair up and held a sketchbook and a pencil in her hands. She looked capable and energetic, which made Principal Li admire her very much.
"Of course, the library is the highlight of our school. The village committee will borrow our library to store information. Please follow me." As he said that, Principal Li took Shi Yirou towards the library.
The library of the rural school was very small and the entire layout was visible at a glance. Shi Yirou easily found the place where the village committee kept its archives - on the innermost bookshelf in the library's only reading room, there was a row of blue hard-shell folders neatly arranged that were obviously not children's books.
Shi Yirou's pencil was swishing non-stop, and soon a beautiful sketch of a rural primary school library appeared on her sketchbook. Someone called Principal Li outside the reading room, but Principal Li didn't want to disturb Shi Yirou who was concentrating on drawing, so he quietly walked out.
When Shi Yirou heard the sound of work discussion outside the reading room, she immediately put down her sketchbook, ran to the row of blue folders, pulled out the folders one by one, and began to flip through them quickly. As she read, Shi Yirou's expression gradually became very subtle.
*
"This Mr. Guo is the one who feeds the snake god with blood. His house has the same strange fragrance as the temple." An Rao said firmly.
"Yes," Baichuan agreed, "but we can't ask him yet, so as not to alert him."
"I can't say I can't ask. This is not easy to do..." An Rao frowned.
The two of them walked again on the path from Guo's house to Lao Zheng's house when An Rao first entered the game. They had just walked around Uncle Guo's yard, and a small part of the hemostatic herb in the yard had been consumed. This time they went around to the back of the house, and through the small window they could clearly smell the strange fragrance in the house that was exactly the same as the one in the temple.
"It's getting late. Let's go back and listen to everyone's achievements this morning." Baichuan was decisive.
An Rao was speechless and quickly followed the pace of the tall-legged man in front of him.
When they returned to Zheng's house, Su Ming and Shi Yirou were already waiting for them in the yard. Shi Yirou seemed to be in a good mood, while Su Ming had a blank expression on his pale face and his eyes were wide open.
This time the four people went to room 202. When passing the bathroom, An Rao saw the scarred man threatening Cheng Lin to pour water on the wall with newspapers posted on it. An Rao, Bai Chuan and Shi Yirou looked at each other silently. It seemed that they had found the mirror.
"I found the introduction to Xingfu Village and a map of the village at school," Shi Yirou took out her sketchbook and opened it for everyone to see. "In fact, the administrative division of this village is much larger than the area surrounded by the wall. Because this village is located deep in the mountains, it has been very isolated since ancient times. The village was formerly called Zhengjiazhai, so the original residents were all surnamed Zheng. Later, due to natural disasters such as famine and war, some people with other surnames gradually came to settle here. The Zheng clan members were xenophobic, so they built a wall by themselves to separate the Zheng and other surnames. Although they are no longer xenophobic, the wall has been preserved because it can be used to resist wild beasts in the mountains. This also explains why the ancestral hall is outside the wall. In fact, it is not that the ancestral hall is outside the village, but that the ancestral hall is built in the best place in the village for feng shui."
"Interesting, it seems that this village is not a paradise." The sound of arranging tables, chairs and tableware began to be heard downstairs, and it was almost time for lunch.
"Have you seen the genealogy of this village?" Baichuan asked.
Shi Yirou shook her head: "I looked through all the folders and didn't see anything like the family tree."
"We must go to the ancestral hall in the afternoon," An Rao decided.
"I played with Zheng Duoyu the whole morning today and made a very important discovery!" When Su Ming thought of what Zheng Duoyu said, his face turned pale before he even opened his mouth.
"The decoration of the rooms on the second floor is actually based on Zheng Duoyu's preferences, and the chess decoration style of the boss's room 201 is also because Zheng Duoyu is very good at playing chess."
"No wonder. I thought no girl would like Ultraman." Shi Yirou suddenly realized.
"This is very contradictory," An Rao frowned, "A family that values daughters over sons sent their son to school but their daughter never had a record of admission. Although the soft furnishings in the house are all pink decorations that the daughter likes, the hard interior decoration is all in the style that the son likes."
"Everyone here says they love their daughters more than their sons, but their bodies are very honest." Shi Yirou sneered.
"Inconsistency between words and deeds is a very important discovery." Baichuan thought thoughtfully.
"There's something even scarier!" Su Ming's face turned pale, and his lips trembled as he spoke, "Zheng Duoyu said that everyone in the yard is dead!"
"Ah?!" Shi Yirou and An Rao widened their eyes, but Baichuan didn't seem surprised.
"Did he say where they died?" Baichuan asked.
"They're everywhere," Su Ming suddenly began to look around nervously, "Zheng Duoyu said that every room and the yard on the first floor are filled with corpses!"
"What about the corpses?" Shi Yirou asked curiously, "Then what are we seeing and touching every day?"
"There are two possibilities. One possibility is that we are now in an illusion and everything here is fake. Another possibility is that what Zheng Duoyu said is fake and it is the NPC who is confusing us." Baichuan said.
"Which one do you prefer?" An Rao asked directly. Bai Chuan was not a person who would make random assumptions.
"I tend to lean towards the first one," Bai Chuan said in a cold tone, "but there is no evidence yet. I just think that only the first hypothesis can explain our current situation."
"What situation?"
"The situation where these NPCs don't act the same as they say, and there's a strange situation where there's no other sound in the mountain village except human voices."
An Rao pondered Bai Chuan's words and said, "I think what Bai Chuan said makes sense, but we cannot completely deny the possibility that Zheng Duoyu, as an NPC, deliberately spoke to mislead us. Let me tell you what Bai Chuan and I found in the temple and the village."
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