We quickly made our way into the village, which was eerily quiet; there wasn't a soul in sight on the streets.
The three of us, however, moved cautiously, like ghosts, along the shadows of the village houses toward Old Chen's yard.
The air still carried a faint, sweet, earthy scent.
We were somewhat surprised to find that all the doors and windows of every household were tightly closed, but we could see dried, dark red stains in the cracks of the doors, and we didn't know what they were.
"It seems that old man..."
Luo Tianhe instinctively opened his mouth, but quickly realized that Old Chen was still there, so he changed his words:
"Pah, Seventh Uncle is right, those things were probably busy last night, they're all resting now."
Luo Tianhe's eyes showed relief, relief that we had seized the opportunity.
I patted him on the shoulder and whispered:
"Don't be too happy yet. Opening champagne at halftime is a big no-no. Wait until the car is fixed and you've driven out of the village before you give your victory speech."
We soon returned to Old Chen's yard, which was filled with scrap metal.
The yard was a mess, clearly thoroughly searched by those ghostly things, with almost everything moved.
Old Chen's lips twitched, clearly indicating that he was also somewhat angry.
However, if it was a person rummaging through his things, he could argue with them, but if it was a group of ghosts, there was nothing he could do but swallow his anger.
"Alright, hurry up. I'll find the spare inner tube first, and I should be able to patch your tires by tomorrow. Don't just sit there, help me find some useful parts. This village is a bit eerie. Even if the car is repaired, whether we can drive it out is another matter."
Old Chen seemed somewhat pessimistic, having clearly made several attempts to leave the village, but ultimately none of them succeeded.
Seeing him like this, I casually said:
"This situation is different from before. Maybe we can really leave here."
Hearing me say that, Old Chen curled the corners of his mouth and forced a smile.
And so we began rummaging through the jumbled parts.
After flipping through the pages for a while, I felt a bit tired, so I sat down and looked around.
Suddenly, my gaze was drawn to something that was half-buried in the ground and looked like an old pickling jar.
I was drawn to it because it looked familiar, like I'd seen it somewhere before, but definitely not at Old Chen's house.
I racked my brains for a while, and suddenly a flash of inspiration struck me—I remembered where I had seen it before!
In the house under the locust tree at the east end of the village!
Did Seventh Uncle put it here?
And it was placed quite obviously, probably to make us notice it.
Just then, Luo Tianhe noticed my unusual behavior and walked towards me.
An idea struck me, and I gestured for him to come and help.
We worked together to move the wooden planks and the heavy objects pressing on the mouth of the cylinder.
A musty, stale smell of paper wafted over us, and after seeing what was inside, we couldn't help but widen our eyes in surprise.
There were no pickled vegetables in the jar, but rather a thick stack of things wrapped in oilcloth.
"What's this?"
Luo Tianhe asked with some curiosity.
"I don't know, but we'll find out once we open it."
I shrugged, then carefully reached out and took out a notebook wrapped in oilcloth.
Li Huai and Lao Chen also noticed the strange thing about us and came over to take a look.
Old Chen was even more puzzled:
"Where did that big sauerkraut jar come from in my yard? Did those ghosts come looking for us and casually bring the jar with them? And then accidentally leave it here?"
I ignored Old Chen's utterly absurd statement and instead opened the oilcloth, only to find several old, thread-bound booklets inside, some of which had even yellowed with age.
Several booklets also had names written on them, in calligraphy.
The Heishui Village Chronicle, the Heishui Village Genealogy, and some scattered letters with somewhat illegible handwriting.
Now we all know who put it here; it must have been Seventh Uncle.
Generally speaking, village chronicles and family genealogies are kept by the village head.
According to what Uncle Qi said yesterday, he is the village chief of Blackwater Village.
The family tree isn't very interesting; it's mostly just about generational rankings and such.
However, the contents recorded in the village chronicle are shocking.
It turns out that a hundred years ago, almost all the villagers of Blackwater Village died due to a rare plague!
Later, the villagers who moved there, in order to pray for peace, actually began to worship a wild god and worshipped him in a special way for generations.
This included selecting boys and girls with special destinies as "earth guides," burying them alive to appease the earth's veins and purify impurities.
"We actually had this kind of tradition in our village!"
Old Chen looked shocked; as a native of Heishui Village, he had no idea about such a thing.
I think this must have happened a long time ago.
It shouldn't have happened in at least the last decade.
After a cursory glance at the village chronicle, we found that apart from knowing that the villagers had a history of being buried alive, we hadn't gathered any more useful information, so we opened the envelope and began to read it.
The handwriting on the letter was sometimes neat and sometimes chaotic, clearly indicating that it was written at different times.
The document was signed with only two names: Chen Hua and Chen Zhen!
I don't know Chen Hua, but who exactly is this Chen Zhen?
Meanwhile, Old Chen, who was standing to the side, trembled upon seeing the signature at the end of the letter, and disbelief appeared in his eyes.
"You know him?"
I held up the envelope, which was neatly signed "Chen Zhen".
Old Chen's lips trembled for a long time before he finally stammered out:
"Chen Zhen is Seventh Uncle's name!"
What? These are letters between Seventh Uncle and Chen Hua! We all stared wide-eyed.
My first instinct was that this was evidence of collusion between Chen Hua and Seventh Uncle, but I quickly realized:
This letter was personally delivered by Seventh Uncle!
So how could it be that kind of thing?
If I'm not mistaken, it was probably used by Seventh Uncle to clear his name!
At this point, I was torn between wanting to watch and not wanting to watch.
The reason for wanting to see it is out of curiosity; people want to know what's written inside.
I don't want to watch it because watching it might shake my beliefs.
I personally don't think that old man, Seventh Uncle, is a good person.
After hesitating for a long time, we finally opened the letter.
The letters were arranged neatly in chronological order, so we didn't have to search for them anymore.
The earliest letter was signed by Chen Hua. His handwriting was quite neat, much better than the scrawled handwriting of Li Huai and Luo Tianhe. The letter conveyed the enthusiasm and ambition of a young man.
Li Huai, Luo Tianhe, and I exchanged glances. When Chen Hua was young, he seemed to be a very ambitious young man.
How could he have become a demon in human skin in the days to come?
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