"Hello? Is this Rabbit Ear Village?"
Seeing that I didn't speak, Niu Hongsheng asked again.
I nodded: "Yes, it's Rabbit Ear Village!"
"Thanks, bro!"
I remained in a daze for a long time after watching the car drive away.
"What are you looking at? You seem so engrossed." Luo Tianhe walked over.
I said I'd look at Niu Hongsheng.
"Niu Hongsheng? Oh... what's that?"
Luo Tianhe suddenly realized what was happening, his eyes widened, and he stammered, "Niu... Niu Niu Niu Hongsheng isn't... isn't that... he..."
I said he was dead.
"Good riddance! No!"
Luo Tianhe swallowed hard. "What I mean is, he's dead. How did you see him? Wasn't that like seeing a ghost?"
I said it was definitely a ghost story. He had just asked me for directions, asking if this was Rabbit Ear Village.
As soon as he finished speaking, Luo Tianhe turned and left.
Where are you going?
Luo Tianhe didn't even turn his head: "I suddenly remembered that I still have some things to do. Well, I won't go into the village. I'm allergic to villages."
Su Meng was unaware of Niu Hongsheng's situation, and since she had been walking slowly, she hadn't heard our conversation.
Seeing Luo Tianhe walking away without stopping, she was a little confused: "Brother Luo, where are you going?"
Luo Tianhe waved his hand and walked even faster.
I shouted at Luo Tianhe's retreating figure, "Stop running! We're still in a hallucination. Right now we're only seeing Niu Hongsheng, but we might see Xiao Ying soon."
Luo Tianhe paused, then jogged back, asking earnestly, "When are we going into the village?"
...
In the village, every household was decorated with lanterns and colorful ribbons, as if someone was celebrating a happy occasion.
I noticed that the house I had seen earlier, which was almost entirely covered with white funeral couplets, had its doors open, with red lanterns hanging on them, creating a lively scene.
On the street, people carried slaughtered pigs and sheep through the crowds, their blood sloshing in basins, emitting an indescribable fishy smell.
As I walked, I searched for Liu Junming and the others.
But there wasn't a soul in sight.
As we were looking around, we saw the village chief jogging towards us from afar.
"Are you Manman's friends?"
"Village..." Su Meng was about to speak when I quickly stopped her with a look.
"The house is just ahead, in that three-story building. You can go over there first; dinner will be served shortly..."
Before the village chief could finish speaking, he turned to a villager herding sheep and shouted, "Sanqian's dad, what's wrong with you? Why isn't there a red cloth tied to the sheep's horns?"
The villager looked bewildered, scratched his head, and said, "I don't know, what's the point of tying that thing up?"
Upon hearing this, the village chief's smile vanished instantly: "You! You're all so old, how come you don't know anything? Hurry up and tie them up!"
Su Meng nudged my arm and whispered in my ear, "Why doesn't the village chief recognize us?"
I replied, "Because we haven't arrived yet."
Su Meng tilted her head, looking completely bewildered, her eyes full of confusion: "Didn't we already arrive?"
I had no interest in paying attention to her and turned to tell Luo Tianhe to hurry up and leave.
But they found Luo Tianhe staring wide-eyed straight ahead, his forehead covered in large beads of sweat, and his body trembling slightly.
"What's wrong?" I waved my hand in front of his eyes.
Luo Tianhe swallowed hard: "There...there's a woman who...has no face."
"No face?"
Luo Tianhe nodded: "I was absolutely not mistaken. She was wearing a red Xiuhe dress and had a great figure. She just walked past us. I... I glanced at her a couple of times, and then when she... when she turned around, she... she had no face. She had no eyes, nose, or mouth."
Upon hearing this, Su Meng was so frightened that she quickly grabbed my arm and dared not look around.
"Did you see where she went?" I asked.
"Look... I saw it. She just walked into the crowd and then disappeared."
Disappeared?
I looked around but didn't see the faceless bride that Luo Tianhe had mentioned.
At the same time, I also felt a little depressed.
When I met Niu Hongsheng at the end of the village, and then when the village chief mentioned Shen Man, I guessed that the illusion we were in must have been the day Bai Su died.
But now Luo Tianhe says he saw a faceless bride dressed in a traditional Chinese wedding dress.
That doesn't match up.
By this time, the village chief and the villager had already tied cloth around the sheep's horns, but it wasn't red cloth; it was white cloth.
"Remember this: during happy occasions, whether it's a cow or a sheep, you must tie red cloth around their horns. This red cloth can ward off evil spirits and disasters, keeping all unclean things out."
The village chief tugged at the white cloth on the sheep's horn, his face solemn.
Su Meng frowned and muttered, "Is the village chief colorblind?"
I said that perhaps in their world, this is what red truly means.
Su Meng shivered violently: "Then...then should we still go into the village? I'm a little scared, what if we run into that faceless bride?"
Actually, by then I already regretted it; the situation in this village was more complicated than I had imagined.
I looked back at the road I had come from and found it blocked by a thick, milky white fog.
Now, the only option is to go into the village.
Following the village chief's instructions, we arrived at a three-story Western-style building.
At this time, the courtyard was almost entirely occupied by young people.
Those heavily made-up young girls and those hooligans were laughing and playing around in the courtyard, oblivious to everyone else.
One couple even embraced each other without any regard for others, their hands even inside their clothes.
They made the whole courtyard a mess.
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