Chapter 214: Inhuman (22) (1st + 2nd) [VIP]
Until Bai Jinshuo and the others walked up the mountain road, they still had no conclusion as to who the person they bumped into in the fog was.
The passengers and the driver who woke up after leaving the fog all thought that the vehicle broke down. Xiao Tang made up an excuse and said that the driver hit an oncoming bird while driving, breaking the front windshield and losing consciousness. They were afraid of an accident, so they laid him flat on the ground and got out to check the vehicle.
The so-called "bird in trouble" was naturally the unlucky bird that the girl caught when she got off the car before making up her lie.
The driver had no recollection of this, but Xiao Tang made up a lot of lies, saying that the accident happened suddenly and the driver was not prepared, and that a mild concussion might cause amnesia after a head injury, and that there were no surveillance cameras on rural buses. In the end, although everyone found it strange, it was a fact that the front windshield was broken and that the driver had several bruises on his head. The only reason they were lucky was that the car didn't have any problems.
Finally, after communicating with the bus company, a new bus arrived and carried the remaining passengers on this bus to continue moving forward.
But this way, a lot of time was wasted.
"Yesterday the sun set after 6:30 p.m." Xiao Tang was walking briskly on the mountain road, holding a chicken in his left hand. "Going up the mountain is slower than going down. If we want to get down before the sun sets, we have to speed up our pace."
"Little...Little Sister Tang," the yellow-haired man complained, "Aren't you tired?"
"I'm tired," Xiao Tang said sincerely, "What's the point of being tired? Who knows what will happen tomorrow morning? I can go back early and find a chance to rest for a while."
What she said was true.
Originally everyone thought they had rested enough in the county town and on the buses going back and forth, but once they entered the high-temperature area that was like a hood, everyone started to gasp for breath not long after climbing.
Moreover, going up the mountain is definitely not the same as going down the mountain. The high temperature makes the air scorching hot with every breath you take, and the damage it can cause to a person is simply fatal.
Within ten minutes, everyone was sweating profusely.
Not to mention that they were carrying a lot of purchased things when they went up the mountain this time.
The chickens and sheep are living creatures. The two sisters who went to purchase them bought a wooden carrying pole from the boss, then tied the sheep's limbs on it and carried them one after the other.
To make matters worse, the two animals had been very quiet throughout the journey, but since entering this high temperature area, they began to flutter like crazy.
Xiao Tang was a brave and fierce man. He took a few steps forward, grabbed the neck of the chicken that was running around in the box and pinned it down. Then, holding the chicken with one hand, he asked for a rope from others with the other hand and tied up the unfortunate chicken.
After all the movements, her head was covered in sweat.
This is true for animals, not to mention humans.
By the end, everyone was silent, with only the increasingly heavy breathing and footsteps. Everyone took turns leading the way, and finally arrived at the village before 6:30.
However, once they arrived at the village, everyone was shocked.
"Another...another fire?" Xiao Tang put one hand on his waist, panting, pointing at the flames in the village, "No, this is the fire from yesterday that hasn't burned out yet, or is there another fire today?"
In the village, a beam of fire shot up into the sky, and rolling heat waves hit the face.
"It should be... another building has burned down." Bai Jinshu put down the herbs in his hand and determined the location. "That place is not the Xiaochuan house that caught fire yesterday."
Ogawa's house is located in the very center of the village, which is obviously a bit far from the outside.
"Oh my god..." Xiao Tang wiped the sweat off his face, "Another building burned down? Move quickly, what are you waiting for... I can't figure it out."
The group of people were dizzy from climbing the mountain, so naturally they had no intention of going to put out the fire.
Most of the people in the village were at the burning house, so they simply put the things in their hands into the ancestral hall, sat on the ground and took a rest.
It will open again once the sun sets anyway, so you might as well take the time to rest.
Xiao Tang half-lay on the table in the ancestral hall, propping up his chin to look at the fire scene in the distance, and suddenly said, "Hey, don't you think this fire is too big?"
Although the mountain roads are difficult to walk on, most of the houses in the village are the common two- or three-story villas. Logically, there should be much less flammable materials in such houses than in traditional earthen houses, and the burning time and burning flames should also be much smaller.
But the strange thing is that so far, the fire in the two houses that have caught fire has been burning extremely vigorously.
This is no longer an ordinary fire.
Everyone followed her gaze.
In the distance, the burning house seemed to be a small three-story villa. The flames shot up into the sky. From this angle, it was terrifyingly high.
"Look at this fire..." Xiao Tang gestured, "Yesterday we were all around the fire scene and didn't notice it. Don't you think something is wrong today? The flames are more than twice as high as the building itself. How can there be such a fire?"
In this case, what caught fire was not a small house made of steel bars and cement, but some flammable material.
The flame was so fierce that the word "burning" could not be used to describe it; it seemed to be "bursting out".
It was like something from underground was gushing out through the location of the house.
"Hiss..." Shi Xiulan shuddered, "This fire... no wonder we couldn't put it out yesterday."
No amount of water can put out a fire like this, right?
The only way is to wait for it to burn out bit by bit.
Apparently, most people in the village thought so too.
After everyone was sure that the fire could not be extinguished, they immediately took the same measures as yesterday.
People were left in batches to keep watch all night to prevent the flames from spreading to the neighboring buildings. Then the original owner of the house was arranged to live in someone else's room. By the time all the arrangements were completed, the sun had only half set.
Bai Jinshu and his friends found an opportunity to blend into the crowd and said that they had placed all the purchased items in the grain field where the ritual was being prepared. The busy adults had no time to pay attention to them. After a few cursory confirmations and finding that everything had been bought, they no longer asked any questions and asked their fourth uncle, who raised poultry at home, to raise the purchased chickens and sheep so that they would not die before the master arrived.
"Uncle," Bai Jinshu couldn't help but hold on to his uncle's arm, "Why do we have to go down the mountain to buy chickens when there are chickens in the village?"
This village is indeed strange.
They clearly raised poultry, but they still forced them to go down the mountain to buy them.
"It's a ritual, so it's only right to be polite." When the fourth uncle saw that it was Xiaochuan who was holding him, his expression softened a lot, "Xiaochuan, are you tired from going to the town to buy groceries today?"
"It's OK," Bai Jinshu answered truthfully, "It's much cooler down in the town than in the village. Why don't we move down there?"
He pretended to be a little impatient, and it looked like he was just complaining casually.
"What do you know, kid?" Fourth Uncle waved his hand. "Can you just move a village? All right, go back with Xiaobo and have a rest. We adults will take care of the cleanup here."
"Hey, uncle," Bai Jinshu quickly pulled him back, "How is my family doing?"
"Your house..." A trace of helplessness appeared on Fourth Uncle's face. "The fire burned all night and was only stopped this morning. There is nothing left in the house. You can live comfortably in Xiaobo's house for the next few months. When we get back, we will ask the village to send a renovation team to build a new one for you somewhere else."
Burned all night?
Bai Jinshu decided to go to the fire site to take a look.
Seeing that he stopped asking questions, Forty hurriedly ran towards the grain field.
Most of the adults around were preparing to go back home to continue their evening work. Bai Jinshu had sharp ears and heard everyone talking.
"It was Xiaoxue's house that was burned today?"
Xiaoxue and Xiaoling are the identities obtained by the two sisters Shi Xiuzhu and Shi Xiulan.
Tonight these two people were assigned to live with a girl of the same age who was not a newcomer. However, it made no difference to the newcomers who they lived with. Anyway, once the sun went down, it would be a new day for them as soon as their eyes went dark.
The surrounding environment was noisy, and some people were shouting slogans and digging fire-prevention trenches. There were many people talking, but Bai Jinshu still managed to extract a key sentence from them.
The man said, "Have Xiaohe's mother and the others started moving things today?"
"They've moved," said another person. "As soon as Xiaoxue's family moved, Xiaohe's father went back and hurriedly packed up."
*
Until he returned to Xiaofei's home and the dark scene flashed back to the beginning of the third day, Bai Jinshu was still going over these words in his mind.
He originally thought that the fire in Zhoufu Village was because the leader of Zhoufu Village who was exterminated that year died in a fire. Zhoufu Village had been unable to suppress this anger for so many years, and it finally backfired on itself. Whoever's house caught fire was just unlucky.
But these two sentences revealed that the people in the village actually knew who the next one would be.
"As soon as Xiaoxue's family was moved, Xiaohe's father went back and hurriedly packed up."
Xiao He's parents knew very well that after Xiaochuan's house and Xiaoxue's house were all on fire, their house would be the next to catch fire.
They have an order in mind.
This order of fire... must be related to something.
Aunt Rong downstairs had already prepared breakfast and called the two children who had gone upstairs to come down to eat.
"Let's go," Bai Jinshu and Xiaofei chose a more comfortable angle to sit before the black curtain arrived. Bai Jinshu stood up from the stool and waved to Xiaofei, "Let's go to Xiao He's house. I have a new discovery."
"New discovery!" When Xiao Fei heard there was a new clue, he immediately followed Bai Jinshu out the door.
The two had just taken a short nap and were in good spirits. The sun wasn't very strong in the morning so it wasn't too hot if they went out.
"Aunt, let's go out for a while!" Bai Jinshu changed his clothes and waved to Aunt Rong as he walked downstairs.
"Hey? Breakfast!"
"Let's go find Xiao He and eat at Xiao He's house!"
Aunt Rong's tolerance for Xiaochuan was unexpectedly high. When she heard that the two were going to someone else's house for dinner, she glared at Xiaofei who was following behind them, then raised her voice and gently reminded him, "Be careful on the way."
Bai Jinshu went out in a hurry.
However, when he arrived at Xiao He's door, other people were already standing there.
"Sister Xiao Tang?" Xiao Fei called out first.
"Well," Xiao Tang stood there with his arms folded, followed by Huang Mao, "Do you think there's something wrong with this family?"
"We... I don't know. Er Ge said he found something again," Xiao Fei said sincerely, "Sister Xiao Tang, did you find anything?"
"I had nothing to do last night before sunset so I wandered around the village," Xiao Tang stretched lazily, "and saw Xiao He's family moving things. I was curious and wanted to go over and ask."
"Then what?" Xiao Fei asked.
"And then nothing happened," Xiao Tang shrugged. "I forgot to check the time. Just when I was about to ask, the sun had already set. When it got dark, Huangmao and I were standing at the door."
The two of them actually spent the last night in front of Xiao He's house.
"What about you guys?" Huangmao yawned loudly.
"We are here for this too," Bai Jinshu knocked on the door and whispered, "I heard someone ask yesterday if Xiao He's family has started preparing."
He did not come last night, but chose to wait all night, because the sun was about to set at that time yesterday, and if he didn't have time to go back, he would probably have to enter darkness outside.
I didn’t expect that Xiao Tang was worthy of being Xiao Tang. She actually dared to spend the night outside.
"Wait a minute..." The brave newcomer Xiao Tang immediately realized that something was wrong. "Asking Xiao He's family whether they have started preparing, doesn't this mean that there is a sequence?"
"Yes," Bai Jinshu nodded, "There is an order."
If there is no order and it all depends on luck, then why are Xiao He's parents the only ones in the town moving things, while no one else is moving?
"What should we do now? They are hiding something from us!" Xiao Tang made a gesture of scratching his neck, "Should we tie them up? If they don't tell us, then 'click'."
"Xiao Tang..." Bai Jinshu was lost in thought for a moment, "Do you still remember that you can't let others see that you are not yourself in this strange story?"
"How come it's not me anymore? It's not acceptable for me to be an ungrateful bastard..." Xiao Tang muttered, but it seemed that he had really given up on the tactic of forcing a confession through words and actions.
Among so many triggerers, there are always a few who are not good at disguising themselves. None of the villagers in this village have been able to identify any of them, which shows that their sensitivity to identity is very low.
But no one has ever done anything as outrageous as she did.
Xiao Tang sighed with some regret: "What should I do? I hate those adults who leave things unsaid and wait for others to figure it out. What's the big deal about living another twenty years?"
"It's been several minutes, and no one has come to open the door. Xiao He probably left last night," Bai Jinshu touched his chin, "but I do have a solution."
"The weather is just right at this time," he looked in Xiao Tang's direction, "How's your physical strength now?"
Xiao Tang: “…Is it okay?”
"Well, I'll leave it to you then." He handed Xiao Tang a pen and a piece of paper. "See that street? You and Huangmao go to each side of it, look at each house one by one, mark which house has which person, and mark the whole village."
"Hey..." Xiao Tang was holding a pen and paper, bewildered. "No, you want to know this. I've done it all. What are you going to do?"
"I'll draw a topographic map," Bai Jinshu waved his hand, "The sun will rise at noon, you and Huangmao should hurry up. If we really don't have enough manpower, we can just recruit a few other team members."
After saying this, he left Xiao Tang confused behind him and left with Xiao Fei.
"Brother Er?" Xiao Fei followed him, "Where are we going? To the mountain?"
He had climbed the mountain twice yesterday and had enough, and now his legs go weak when he sees the mountain.
"Well, on the mountain," Bai Jinshu said calmly, words that made Xiaofei's knees weaken, "Let's draw a topographic map."
If there is a pattern to the houses that catch fire, then the easiest thing to think of is that there would be a sequential connection between them, either the house or the owner.
Or it could be the order of certain things that happened that year, or a certain item that existed in the homes of all the people whose houses caught fire. But these two items are hard to verify, as the middle-aged people in the village deliberately kept it a secret from the younger generations, and they also didn’t know the size and location of the item. Every household in Zhoufu Village has a two- or three-story self-built house, so it would take a long time to find it.
Therefore, the most urgent task is to look in these two directions first.
If it is related to the homeowner, then the order is most likely a blood relationship. If the three people who own the burning house, such as Shou Xiaohe, Xiaochuan, and Xiaoxue, are related by blood, it can be said that the fire was caused by blood relationship.
But this situation doesn't work in a small mountain village like this.
The village is so small that if you really look into it, most people's ancestors are all related, and there are complicated kinship relationships between everyone. Even an extremely authoritative figure like the village chief, in addition to this position, is also the "seventh uncle" or "seventh grandfather" of all the people of the same age in the village.
If we really talk about family relationships, there is no end to it.
The only thing left that might be connected is the house.
According to this logic, the geographical location of the house becomes extremely important.
Bai Jinshu climbed to the middle of the mountain, found a suitable place to sit down, and began to write and draw on paper.
Zhoufu Village is not very large in area, and in order to make room for farmland, the entire village's shape is actually not regular.
From this angle, the roads in the village are not straight, but rather, they are arranged in rings, forming a radial structure with the ancestral hall in the middle as the center.
Roads extend from the ancestral hall in four directions, and houses are built along these four roads. There are countless small paths connecting the rooms built on both sides of the roads, and finally expanding outward bit by bit.
The closer the houses are to the outside, the longer the paths connecting them are. When they reach the outer ring, other buildings appear on the paths connecting the houses.
Looking from this position, there are two most special locations among the houses in Zhoufu Village.
The first one is Xiaochuan’s home, which is also the home of Bai Jinshu.
The three-story villa has turned into a black ruin. Perhaps someone cleaned it up and took away all the garbage that fell outside after the house was burned. Now, looking down from the top of the house, through the roof that was basically burnt to only a few beams and steel bars, you can still vaguely see the rooms inside that have been burned to the point where nothing is left.
The other is Xiaoxue, which is the residence of the two sisters Shi Xiuzhu and Shi Xiulan.
The flame at that location had not yet gone out, but when the sun rose during the day, the flame suddenly became much smaller, but it still burned stubbornly.
From this position, nothing can be seen from Xiao He's house. After Bai Jinshu copied the topographic map of the entire village one by one from this position, the sun had slowly risen to mid-sky.
"Brother Er..." Xiao Fei stood behind him, fanning himself with an umbrella, and leaned over to take a look. "I feel like this is..."
"It looks like a formation." Bai Jinshu also frowned.
You can't tell just by looking down from the mountain. The roads in the village are made of self-poured cement roads, many of which are not straight. In addition, the houses are lined up in rows, so at first glance it looks like an ordinary village.
But once these lines are simplified, the uneven roads are straightened according to the original construction structure of the village, and the connected houses are marked as dots, they can be clearly seen.
The terrain of this village is a formation of some unknown nature.
In the very center of the village, which is also the very center of the formation, is the ancestral hall when viewed from the naked eye, because the ancestral hall is at the center of all the buildings.
But this formation is missing a part. At the six o'clock direction directly below is a flat valley.
Judging from the simplified diagram of the formation, there is a corner missing at this position.
"This grain field... should be the hole that Fourth Uncle mentioned before where they chose to 'leak' things out," Bai Jinshu pointed at the location thoughtfully, "This time, the ritual they are preparing in the village will also be held here."
Including this gap, the center of the entire picture is actually the Ogawa family home that has become a ruin.
With Xiaochuan's family in the center of the four lines, the house that is still burning is on the east road, and Xiao He's family that moved away overnight is on the north road.
In addition to these four main roads, there are four secondary roads, a total of eight.
"Then according to this logic..." Bai Jinshu gently tapped the other two roads with his pen, "The next order should be the main road in the west, and finally the main road in the south, and then the auxiliary road."
This is a counterclockwise order. If you use the position of the dial as the center mark with Ogawa's house, the order of the burning houses is three o'clock, twelve o'clock, nine o'clock, and six o'clock.
Extending downward in the direction of the last six points is the valley field, which is also the location of the "gap".
"Let's go back and see if Xiao Tang has finished his inquiries," Bai Jinshu put away the map in his hand, "Let's find out who lives on the streets to the west and south before Xiao He's house burns down."
"See who's planning to move."
There were not many people of his age in the village. Among the three houses on fire, one belonged to him, one to Shi Xiuzhu and her sister, and one to Xiao He. He suspected that the houses that caught fire actually belonged to the triggerer's family.
In other words, all the triggerers of this strange story will obtain a core identity that is very likely related to the incident.
This can explain the emergence of several families with multiple births. It is not because there are not many families with children of the right age, but because there are not many core families involved in the incident.
Therefore, in order to allow everyone to obtain a core identity, three families with multiple births appeared. The two sisters Shi Xiulan and Shi Xiuzhu, the three boys in a dormitory in Shi Pang's team, and Xiao Tang and Huang Mao, the three groups of triggerers, were forcibly tied into one family.
Only in this way can we accommodate everyone.
If the triggerers only count the blood relations that gave them their identities, there are eight families in total. If we go by the gossip, they fit perfectly.
Now, among all the people, three houses are about to have accidents. The sooner we determine who the next one will be, the more opportunities we will have for the trigger person to find key clues before the house burns down.
not to mention……
"Building houses according to the formation..." Xiao Fei muttered as he walked down the mountain, "Isn't this Zhoufu Village suppressing something?"
Otherwise, why should it be built according to the formation?
Although he couldn't tell what kind of formation it was, no one would build a house like this, right?
"Wait..." Xiao Fei suddenly stopped, "Zhoufu Village? If you put the name backwards, it's..."
Bai Jinshu frowned slightly: "Talisman...Village?"
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