The three of us were all delighted. We looked in the direction of the sound and found that it came from an extremely dilapidated courtyard by the roadside.
The courtyard looked like it had been uninhabited for a long time; half of the walls had collapsed, and the gate was crooked, as if it would fall over with a gust of wind.
The yard was filled with rusty metal parts, discarded farm tools, and several badly worn tires.
A middle-aged man, quite burly and dressed in dark blue overalls stained with oil, was standing with his back to us, intently banging on a tin bucket.
"Excuse me, are you Old Chen?"
Suppressing my excitement, I tentatively asked.
If he really is Old Chen, then according to what Uncle Qi just said,
He might not only be able to fix our tires, but he could also tell us the real secrets of the village!
Perhaps the truth will come out eventually.
As I asked the question, the knocking stopped abruptly, and the person slowly turned around.
He looked to be in his forties, but his face was somewhat haggard, with sunken eyes and chapped lips. Only his eyes were unusually clear, even somewhat sharp.
Although his face was also a bloodless pale, it was completely different from the lifeless ashen gray of the villagers.
At least, he looks like a living person.
Most strikingly, a dark red hemp rope was tightly wrapped around his left wrist, as if it were soaked in blood, and the knot was tied in a very strange way.
Upon seeing the three of us strangers, surprise flashed in his eyes, followed by intense wariness and a hint of complex emotion that was difficult to detect.
"People from outside,"
His voice was terribly hoarse and he was stammering, as if he hadn't spoken to you in a long time.
How did you find your way here?
"It was our seventh uncle who told us."
I didn't try to hide anything; I told the truth directly and explained my purpose:
"Our car is at the village entrance, and someone punctured its tires. We heard you can repair cars, so we'd like to ask you for help. The price is negotiable."
"Seventh Uncle," Old Chen murmured when we said that, his vigilance lessening slightly, but he was still not completely relaxed.
He put down his tools, walked to the courtyard gate, looked around to make sure no one was following him, and then lowered his voice to say:
"Don't stand at the door, come in and talk."
We followed him into the messy courtyard. The air didn't have the stench of decay found elsewhere; instead, it was filled with the smell of metal and machine oil.
I took a deep breath; this unpleasant smell, however, made me feel exceptionally at ease.
The middle-aged man rubbed his hands together, hesitated for a moment, and looked at us:
Do you have any cigarettes?
We were stunned for a moment, but Luo Tianhe quickly reacted, took out a pack of cigarettes, and stuffed them all into the middle-aged man's hand.
The middle-aged man's expression immediately became excited. He shakily opened the cigarette case, took out a cigarette, lit it, and then held it to the blacksmith's stove next to him. After taking a deep breath, he lit the cigarette.
He wore an expression of enjoyment, exhaled a large cloud of smoke, and then looked at us again.
"Was the tire scratched by someone? It's quite deep, it doesn't look like a child's prank, it's almost totaled."
Old Chen asked directly, his tone full of certainty.
"That's right, it must have been done by an adult, and on purpose. That bastard would have loved to tear our car apart!"
Luo Tianhe cursed viciously. If he found out who scratched their car, he would definitely beat that bastard to a pulp.
"Hehe, it seems you know quite a bit, unlike those outsiders before who were so naive as to think everyone in the village is a good person."
Old Chen gave a cold laugh, but his smile was tinged with bitterness.
"What happened to the other outsiders?"
Upon hearing this, Li Huai couldn't help but ask further.
"What else can we do? We'll be stuck here forever, but we won't even be able to leave with a complete corpse."
Old Chen said meaningfully, and we were immediately shocked. It was obvious why those people couldn't leave behind a complete corpse!
They were all eaten by the villagers!
Soon, Old Chen continued to ask:
"You must have encountered something strange last night, right? Did you see them eating?"
Old Chen emphasized the food, clearly indicating that he knew what they were eating.
His words sent chills down our spines, but this guy seemed to know a lot and didn't like to talk riddles like Uncle Seven.
I took a deep breath: "That's right, we all saw it, and we were almost forced to eat those things at noon today."
Old Chen's eyes sharpened instantly, and he stared intently at us:
"You haven't eaten, have you?"
The three of us shook our heads in unison, and only after seeing us shake our heads did he relax a little.
"It's good that he didn't eat it. If he had, then there would be no hope."
After a pause, Old Chen continued to ask:
"Did they tell you that it was Tai Sui soup, and that it was a specialty of our Blackwater Village?"
When we nodded, the muscles in his face twitched, and fear and disgust flashed in his eyes:
"That's not some kind of Tai Sui at all. Our Blackwater Village's specialty isn't that either. Those things are all meat!"
"Meat?" Li Huai's voice trembled.
I was also a little excited. We had never heard of this term before, and it seemed that Old Chen was about to say something we didn't know.
"That's right, after being refined, what's left is human flesh!"
Suddenly, a flash of inspiration struck me, connecting everything together!
Our purpose in coming here is to investigate the Blood Servant.
Blood couriers are the walking corpses among ghosts; they only need souls and don't have much need for physical bodies.
I've figured out the truth, but some key details are still unclear, and I want to verify them.
So I pressed on and asked:
"Refine, refine what?"
My voice was unusually hoarse at this moment, not because I hadn't spoken to anyone for a long time, but because I hadn't drunk any water all day.
Old Chen could also see that our lips were chapped, as if we hadn't had water for a long time.
Instead of answering us directly, he walked to an inconspicuous water vat in the courtyard, scooped some water with a wooden ladle, and handed it to us.
"Have some water first, your throats are practically burning."
I didn't take any water; even though I was extremely thirsty, no one dared to drink it.
Seeing our wary look, Old Chen wasn't angry; instead, he smiled.
"It's good that you're so vigilant, but don't worry, there's something blocking my yard, so it's clean for now."
Actually, I already trusted Old Chen about 90%, after all, he was recommended to us by my seventh uncle, and he gave us a lot of important information as soon as he arrived.
Most importantly, he was different from those zombies outside; he was clearly a living person!
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