The child appeared suddenly, and when Nan Yuanman subconsciously looked down, he suddenly realized that under the bright sun, there was no shadow under the child!
That's a little devil!
The child seemed unaware that he was dead, and looked at Nan Yuanman and Feng Congqian with great curiosity: "Hey, why aren't you saying anything?"
"We came out to collect folk songs and got lost, which is how we ended up here." Feng Congqian asked calmly and gently, "Would you mind having a glass of water?"
"We've run out of water."
The child was about to nod when an angry shout came from behind him: "Niu Zhu!! I told you to go to the fields and call Grandpa and Grandma to come eat! What are you doing!"
Along with the shout, a middle-aged woman with a ruddy complexion, dressed in gray cloth and wearing a patched apron, walked over menacingly, brandishing a kitchen knife.
Niu Zhu trembled slightly, then turned and smiled ingratiatingly at the person who had come, "Mother, don't be angry, I'll go right away, I'll go right away."
Upon seeing the strangers who had suddenly appeared, the middle-aged woman's anger instantly turned into wariness. She quickly shielded Niu Zhu behind her, her expression darkening slightly: "Who are you? What are you doing here?"
Feng Congqian repeated the excuse he had just given Niu Zhu to the middle-aged woman.
The middle-aged woman, however, wasn't so easily convinced. She narrowed her eyes, scrutinizing him from head to toe, her gaze finally settling on the longsword he was carrying. She sneered, "Do you think I'm stupid?"
"Who comes out to gather material and carries weapons? If you don't tell the truth, I'll have your men thrown out right now!"
"Pretty sister, don't be angry." Seeing this, Nan Yuanman climbed down from Feng Congqian's shoulder, blinked her clear eyes, and said in a childish voice, "My dad and I came to find you, sister."
“My sister said she was going to come here for a vacation to relax, but she didn’t contact us for a long time. We were worried about her, so we came here to help.”
As he spoke, Nan Yuanman did not forget to examine the middle-aged woman, and suddenly discovered that the middle-aged woman in front of him was actually a living person!
Not only that, her yang energy was extremely strong, even comparable to the pure yang body that her grandfather had once mentioned!
Strangely, this pure yang energy did not cause any harm to the little ghost she was protecting behind her.
Logically speaking, a pure Yang body is a living talisman against evil spirits, which is fatal to all demons and monsters.
That's strange, really strange.
No matter how fierce a middle-aged woman is, she can't be fierce when faced with such a soft, white little dumpling that looks like a small cake.
Especially since this little dumpling calls her "pretty sister"!
The middle-aged woman touched her rough face, her tense expression softening somewhat, but her tone remained fierce: "Your sister isn't here. You'd better go home quickly! Otherwise, you won't be able to leave the village before dark!"
"How could that be?" Nan Yuanman scratched his head and asked, "Pretty sister, has no one else entered the village these past two days?"
The middle-aged woman replied curtly, "No."
She chuckled, her gaze sweeping over Nan Yuanman and Feng Congqian, and muttered under her breath, "Not just any cat or dog can come into our village."
Feng Congqian heard her muttering and his eyes flickered slightly.
Nan Yuanman's eyes darted around, and she ran up to the middle-aged woman with her short legs, sticking to her with a thud. She raised her fair and cute little head and said, "Sister Piaoniang, Yuanman is so thirsty. Can Yuanman have some water before leaving the village?"
The middle-aged woman felt a warm and soft touch on her thigh, her vision blurred for a moment, and when she looked down at Nan Yuanman's sun-reddened face, a hint of reluctance flashed in her eyes: "Alright then."
She reluctantly said, "Come with me."
Nan Yuanman gave her a sweet smile: "Thank you, beautiful sister~"
Feng Congqian: "Thank you."
The two followed behind the middle-aged woman. Nan Yuanman subtly observed the village environment and the children running around outside, curiously watching them.
Upon this observation, Nan Yuanman was astonished to discover that nearly half of the people in this village were ghosts who had been dead for unknown years, and half of them... were living people with extremely strong yang energy, just like the middle-aged woman.
The dead ghosts seemed unaware that they were gone, and continued to work, eat, and chat as usual.
The living acted as if they didn't know they were ghosts, showing no fear of them and even joking with them...
The only thing that struck Nan Yuanman as odd was that when they saw her and Feng Congqian, no matter what the villagers were doing, they all stopped and stared at them with shocked and bewildered eyes, their eyes filled with a kind of fanaticism that Nan Yuanman didn't quite understand.
It's like... a dog that's been starving for a long time and suddenly finds a meaty bone.
Feng Congqian naturally sensed the strangeness of these villagers as well. He stayed close to Nan Yuanman, holding her hand tightly, afraid that she might be kidnapped if he wasn't careful.
The middle-aged woman, holding a small child's hand, yelled at the villagers who were staring blankly at them in the field: "What are you looking at? Haven't you ever seen a child before? Get back to work!"
"Sister Juan..." The villager's lips trembled as she was yelled at, her hands instinctively tightening their grip on the farm tools, but her eyes remained fixed on Nan Yuanman and Feng Congqian: "Out...outsiders..."
“It’s none of your business if they’re outsiders! Take your eyes off me!” Zhang Juan glared at him fiercely.
The villagers shrank back, reluctantly averting their gaze, and dutifully continued hoeing and working, but still occasionally glancing up to steal a glance.
Nan Yuanman felt a chill run down her spine from his gaze and couldn't help but move closer to Feng Congqian, whispering in his ear, "Dad, this village is so strange."
Despite the overwhelming aura of blood from the outside, once you actually step into the village, you find there's no blood at all.
The air here was so pure, as if it had been purified a hundred or eighty times. Moreover, the yang energy here was more abundant than she had ever seen before.
Aside from those strange ghost villagers, Nan Yuanman has never seen any other demons or monsters that can survive in this place full of yang energy.
Most importantly, she didn't smell Zhong Xueliu's presence here.
Was it that she had never been here before, or... that Zhong Xueliu and the others had been hidden by these strange villagers?
Nan Yuanman grabbed his hair, feeling like he was going to lose all his hair at such a young age.
This kind of mental work is really not suitable for her!
Feng Congqian nodded slightly and said softly, "Let's wait and see."
He noticed that the villagers' attitude towards them was strange, but there was no malice in it.
As the father and daughter spoke in hushed tones, they arrived at the middle-aged woman's house. She pushed open the door and called out to them in her local dialect, then turned to Nan Yuanman and said, "Sit in the yard first, I'll go get you some water."
Nan Yuanman nodded obediently: "Thank you, Sister Piaoniang."
The little boy she was leading sneaked up to Nan Yuanman and asked her curiously, "Are you called Yuanman? Yuanman, what's it like outside? Is it fun?"
Nan Yuanman tilted his head: "Haven't you ever gone out?"
Xiao Tong: "I..."
Before he could finish speaking, the once clear and bright sky suddenly darkened, and dark clouds quickly obscured the sun, causing the temperature to drop instantly.
The middle-aged woman, carrying a bowl of water, came out of the room. Her face changed, and she couldn't help but curse, "You damned bastard! You've done this heinous thing again! Why don't you just die!"
At the moment the middle-aged woman started yelling, Nan Yuanman suddenly felt a strong sense of unease, her heart ached, and her sun-kissed face turned pale.
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