Chapter 234

Su Bei and Li Shu looked at each other, and mockery flashed in their eyes. He had no sadness at the death of his mother who had raised him alone, and was even willing to treat her as an evil spirit just to make a little money. This son really had no conscience.

Driver Wang, who was very filial to his parents, reacted much more violently than the other two. When he heard what the man said, he stood up angrily, his eyes wide open, and he seemed to be about to spit out some Chinese quintessence.

Before he could speak, Su Bei stopped him immediately: "Teacher Wang, you must be craving for cigarettes. Go out and have a cigarette to calm down."

These words interrupted Driver Wang's thoughts. He lowered his head and met Su Bei's slightly indifferent purple eyes.

I don’t know why, although there seemed to be no emotion in his eyes, Driver Wang felt as if a basin of cold water was poured down on him.

He finally calmed down and realized that he had almost ruined Su Bei and the others' plan by being emotional. Driver Wang was a little panicked and forced a smile: "I'm going out to smoke a cigarette."

After saying this, she seemed to be afraid that she would not be able to help but scold the man, so she quickly left the room.

Grandma Wang's son was a little confused by the driver's unusual reaction. But before he could ask, Li Shu seemed to have not heard the disgust for his dead mother in his words just now, and took the initiative to comfort him: "Please be patient, losing your mother is indeed a very sad thing."

Hearing this, the man sensed his attitude towards the matter and thought that Li Shu would sympathize with him because of his mother's death, and it would be easier for him to rent their house. So he immediately choked up like a drama queen and said, "My mother and I have had a deep relationship since we were young, but unfortunately our family is poor and we can't even afford a good funeral."

After agreeing with him for a few sentences, Li Shu asked another important question: "I heard that your mother was killed by a monster. The monster will not come to your house to kill people again, right?"

"Of course not!" The man answered firmly, fearing that he would no longer live in his house. Then, as if he noticed his attitude was different, he softened his tone, "The other two households only had one person die. I don't think that monster will come back to kill."

Su Bei raised his eyebrows at this attitude, and a hint of interest flashed in his eyes. This guy really knew something about Grandma Wang's death, and it was definitely not like what Officer Zhou said, that he only thought it was caused by a monster.

Next, Li Shu asked a few more questions about his mother's death, but maybe it was because the previous questions made the man alert, anyway, he didn't reveal any flaws in the following questions, and basically he didn't know anything.

Feeling that there was nothing else to ask, Li Shu and Su Bei stood up and said goodbye. They did not just walk away and tell him that they would not live in his house. Instead, they said they would talk to the village chief first, after all, it was the village chief who arranged this matter.

After leaving Grandma Wang's house, Driver Wang said embarrassedly, "I'm sorry, I lost my composure just now. I'm not as calm as you two students."

"Just be careful next time." Li Shu replied with a smile, but his pink pupils revealed an inorganic coldness like a venomous snake.

Driver Wang suddenly realized that Li Shu and Su Bei had one thing in common despite their completely different appearances, which was that they both had a kind of indifference that didn't concern them. To someone like him, with whom they had little interaction, their reactions were exactly the same.

They said they were going to the village chief's house, but in fact the three of them returned to Officer Zhou's house together. This was also the meeting place they had agreed on before. On the way, they met a few villagers again. Li Shu asked them about Grandma Wang's family and found that they were very secretive about the matter, and no one made any bad comments about Grandma Wang's son and daughter-in-law.

Their behavior was obviously very strange. Grandma Wang's son didn't even properly handle the funeral of his mother who raised him alone. If this kind of behavior happened in the village, everyone would condemn it. What is there to be afraid of?

It would be fine if we say that Grandma Wang was not a good person when she was alive, but from the words of those uncles and aunts, we can see that although Grandma Wang was a bit petty, she was actually a good person.

For a person like this, the neighbors would be willing to speak up for her. It's not like they are doing now, knowing clearly that there is a problem but keeping silent. This can only mean that they also have problems.

As the saying goes, when an avalanche occurs, no snowflake is innocent. When faced with evil, bystanders are like snowflakes, and are by no means completely innocent. Even from their behavior, they are likely to be the beneficiaries, otherwise they would not have remained silent when someone investigated afterwards.

When they returned to Officer Zhou's house, the other three people had already returned. Seeing them, Jiang Tianming started talking about their gains. Grandpa Zhou's family was very wealthy, and the population was also wealthy. There were three sons and two daughters, not to mention their own children. In short, it was a big family.

They were not as enthusiastic as others about the arrival of Jiang Tianming and others, after all, they did not need to make money from these three people. But they agreed to let Su Bei and others visit the mourning hall, after all, more people can show their family's high status.

"I think they seem to know something about Grandpa Zhou's death. Not everyone in that family has good acting skills. Some of them look unnatural." Jiang Tianming thought for a moment and added, "The sadness is also fake."

His words were ruthless. Officer Zhou coughed twice: "Ahem, actually the relationship in their family has always been bad. When he was young, Grandpa Zhou didn't care about his children and his wife. His wife's death seemed to have something to do with him. It is said that she was mad to death because she knew he was having an affair..."

Jiang Tianming and others were unaware of this background. This was the advantage of having someone close to you in the village. Although Officer Zhou had been working away from home for a long time, he still had some knowledge of some of the old stories in the village.

"It sounds like there is a motive for murder." Li Shu said thoughtfully, and then briefly described what they found at Grandma Wang's house.

He didn't notice the problem with the cigarette box and cosmetics at first, but Su Bei told him on the way back. Li Shu's understanding of these details is that the poor have suddenly become rich.

They suddenly got a lot of money, but because they couldn't spend it all in a short time in the isolated village, they only improved their quality of life in small ways.

With this conclusion, the common point between the two parties is very obvious, that is, they both benefited after the death of the elderly in their families. Grandma Wang's family got a windfall, and Grandpa Zhou's family lost a father who had always been bad to them, and they also got a large inheritance.

In addition to this, there is another thing in common, that is, the two deceased, even including the first deceased Xiao Chen, these three deceased had no one who was truly saddened by their deaths.

After they finished speaking, Ling You, who was always silent, revealed his own discovery: "The second daughter of the Zhou family must be seriously ill."

Her ability is [Plague]. Although it is not a healing ability, she is very sensitive to diseases. Although she cannot tell what the disease is because it is not an infectious disease, she can still tell how serious it is. It is at least at the level of mid-stage cancer.

Jiang Tianming, the second daughter of the Zhou family, recalled: "The one wearing a black long skirt"

When the other brothers and sisters occasionally quarreled, this person never said a word. She stood in the corner with a pale face, and she was silent. Those who didn't know her thought she was a maid who was about to be liquidated. If it weren't for Officer Zhou's introduction, they wouldn't have known that she was also the daughter of that family.

"I didn't expect that she would be sick. However, if she is sick, she should need to fight for the family property. But I saw that she was allocated very little property when the village chief notarized it. Could it be that she has given up?" Officer Zhou also heard the news for the first time and asked in surprise and confusion.

"No, there is another possibility." Jiang Tianming replied calmly, "She has already got what she wanted."

If she had already given her property distribution requirements before, which was to cure her illness and not ask for anything else, then she would not get much when her property was notarized.

Treatment matters can be agreed upon privately and do not need to be written on the property notarization.

"They really acted quickly." Li Shu's expression was not sarcastic, but it was not kind either. "It's as if they knew something in advance."

Yes, it seems that they knew in advance that their father would die, so they divided the property in advance. Otherwise, such a big family might have been arguing for several days just over the distribution of property. How could the formalities be completed so quickly?

It was obvious that everyone living in Grandma Wang's or Grandpa Zhou's families knew something. And not only them, but probably all the villagers in the village knew something too.

But they couldn't just tell the truth to Jiang Tianming and others. If they wanted to know the truth, they had to find a breakthrough.

"Let's visit the village chief and ancestors' houses tonight," Jiang Tianming suggested.

Li Shu immediately raised his hand: "I'll go with you."

He was so positive, no matter whether Jiang Tianming was happy or not, Su Bei was happy to see it happen: "Then you two go to the village chief's house, and Ling You and I will go to the ancestor's house."

After saying that, he looked at Ling You and said, "Is it okay?"

This distribution plan was not purely because he wanted to have fun, and it was indeed the most suitable. There were people at the village chief's house, and Li Shu's ability could just control them, allowing Jiang Tianming to search thoroughly. And there was no one at the ancestor's house, so Su Bei only needed to adjust his luck so that they would not run into others when they went out.

"No problem." Ling You certainly had no objection.

Seeing that they had already finished discussing it, Jiang Tianming could only accept the grouping plan helplessly: "Then let's go to the village chief's house now. He should have arranged a place for us to stay."

As he said, the village chief had already made arrangements. The five of them were divided into two families, two in a group, and were assigned to three relatively wealthy families in the village.

One of the houses was the village chief's, so Jiang Tianming and his companions naturally stayed there. Driver Wang was assigned to stay at another villager's house. Su Bei and Ling You stayed directly at Officer Zhou's house, which was convenient for them to travel at night.

As for the hint to Grandma Wang's son, Su Bei said that he did not lie. He could only blame the village chief for not including their family in the selection. They couldn't go against the village chief's wishes.

Among the three places to stay, Officer Zhou's home was undoubtedly the most comfortable. Officer Zhou knew their identities and the purpose of their visit, so there was no need to hide anything in his home and they could do what they usually did.

After 12 o'clock in the morning, Su Bei and Ling You set out. Mountain villages usually don't have any entertainment facilities, and most villagers usually go to sleep at this time. As the saying goes, dark and windy nights are the time for murder and arson. Now is the right time to go out.

After adjusting their luck, Su Bei walked out slowly with Ling You. As expected, they didn't meet anyone along the way. The village was so quiet that it seemed like no one lived there.

"Su Bei." In the silent night, a quiet and cold voice rang out.

Hearing the call, Su Bei stopped and turned to look at her: "What's wrong?"

Ling You's brows slightly wrinkled, and her purple eyes looked at him intently. After a moment, she asked concisely: "You look a little strange."

Hearing this, Su Bei raised his eyebrows and asked with interest: "Why is it strange?"

This question seemed a little difficult to answer. Ling You thought for a while before answering: "You seem to attach great importance to your ancestors' house."

According to the past habits of northern Jiangsu, they should try to do nothing instead of taking the initiative to search the ancestral house.

"Well, there might be something good there." Su Bei had no intention of hiding it, but he did not mention the "Life Stone". Nightmare beasts, like the mutants, have all kinds of abilities. Maybe a casual word he said could be noticed by the other party, and then the Nightmare beast army would be sent to attack.

Although the villagers of Changsheng Village were going to die, their own death was different from their death because of Su Bei. It was equivalent to Su Bei taking the cause and effect on himself, which was the same as if he had saved these people.

Su Bei had never saved so many people at once, so he didn't know what the price would be. But with Feng Lan's reminder, he would never try unless it was necessary.

If the people in this village were very kind and simple, maybe Su Bei really couldn't help it. In essence, he is not the kind of fun person he appears to be. He can bear to save one life, but with so many lives, even if it costs him some money, Su Bei will try his best to save everyone without being OOC.

However, are the people in this village really worth saving? At least after today's understanding, Su Bei cannot give a definite answer.

He now seriously suspected that the dead people and these villagers were not unrelated. Even if some of the dead people were at fault, they did not deserve death. Even if such a group of people died, it was probably their own fault.

"Good stuff" Ling You showed a puzzled expression, "What is it?"

"You'll know when I find you." Su Bei did not give a clear answer. He put his hands in his pockets and walked slowly into the ancestor's room.

Unexpectedly, the ancestor's house was not the well-kept former residence they had imagined, but was in a mess everywhere, as if it had been robbed.

Both of them were a little surprised and walked forward to check. There was a thin layer of dust on the furniture, and it looked like no one had cleaned it for a while. Judging from the time, it should have been about a month ago.

Could it be that there was something wrong with the ancestor's death? Was it not a natural death, but a robbery?

This shouldn't be the case. Officer Zhou said that the old ancestor was highly respected in the village. A 150-year-old man would be respected wherever he was. If someone in the village killed him, it's impossible for everyone to help cover it up.

So it is very likely that the villagers waited until the ancestor died of natural causes before searching his room. The reason why we are sure that it was the villagers who searched the room is because the ancestor's room is still in such a mess. If this matter has nothing to do with them, I am afraid that someone would have discovered that there was a thief in the ancestor's room, and even if they did not call the police to investigate, they would at least help clean it up.

Ling You suddenly thought of something and immediately looked at Su Bei: "Could they have found what you are looking for?"

"It's possible." Su Bei nodded. He also suspected that the 'Life Stone' had been taken by someone else. But what would a group of villagers want with this thing? You know, the appearance of the "Life Stone" is just an ordinary stone. Even a superpowered person may not be able to detect the problem, let alone ordinary villagers.

"Let's look for it again." Instead of leaving, Su Bei started to search on his own. If the villagers had missed something, it might be a key clue.

Thanks to his good luck, Ling You found something useful not long after: "I found something."

Su Bei went over to take a look and saw Ling You standing in front of the desk, holding a piece of wrinkled draft paper in his hand. There were some scattered words written on it, but it looked like a scrap, otherwise it wouldn't be crumpled up and thrown under the desk.

"Only my special ability can seal the aura of this thing, but what will happen when I die?" Su Bei read the first sentence word by word, and his expression became serious.

There is no doubt that the "this thing" mentioned on the paper refers to the Life Stone. This also explains why the Life Stone was taken away for so long without being discovered by the Nightmare Beast, because the ancestor's supernatural power can cover up its aura.

When the ancestor died, the aura of the Life Stone naturally dissipated, which caused the Nightmare Beast to riot.

There were two other sentences on the paper: "Maybe I should hand it over to the government in time, this is the best solution..." and "If only I could stay alive, then there wouldn't be any problems."

These two sentences do not contain much information, although they are very suggestive. However, Su Bei does not intend to interpret them casually without other evidence.

So the question is, why did our ancestors hide the Life Stone for so long? That thing is in the information given by the Knowledge Nightmare Beast and is of almost no use to humans. Even if we get it, it will only be a piece of waste stone.

Even if he kept the Life Stone because he didn't want to increase the size of the Nightmare Beasts, he could have joined the government and worked with the government to protect the Life Stone. At worst, when he realized that his life was about to end, he could have handed the Life Stone over to the government. Judging from the notes on the paper, the ancestor had thought of this method.

What made him abandon this plan?

Another point is, what did the villagers want to do by stealing the Life Stone? They must have done it for the sake of gain. They took the Life Stone because they thought it would be useful to them.

"Changsheng Village..." Su Bei muttered to himself.

Hearing his words, Ling You repeated what Su Bei had said before: "The life of the village chief Changsheng."

That's right! The life span of the whole village is much longer than that of normal people. Especially the ancestor, who lived for 150 years. Even if the supernatural person has good physical fitness, they usually don't live that long.

If it is the effect of the Life Stone, then it makes sense. Su Bei speculates that if humans come into contact with the Life Stone for a long time, they will probably benefit from longevity.

Although the Nightmare Beasts said that the Life Stone has no effect on humans, they probably would not use such a precious thing to experiment on humans, and it would take many years to see results. Therefore, they do not know the effect of the Life Stone.

The ancestor found out about this from somewhere and settled down in the village where he had lived since childhood, saving his own life while benefiting the villagers.

Su Bei felt that he should have guessed the truth. If he continued to infer based on his guess, then the villagers' motive for coming to the ancestor's room to steal things would be clear.

After all, the ancestor had lived in the village for so long, and the matter of the Life Stone was probably not hidden. The villagers knew that he had such a treasure, so they naturally wanted to take it for themselves after his death.

As for how they blocked the aura of the Life Stone and why they killed those people, Su Bei felt that there might be a causal relationship, but to confirm his guess, it depends on whether Jiang Tianming and his team can find something.

Unlike him, Ling You didn't know there was a life stone here, so she could only come up with a relatively one-sided guess: "This ancestor had a treasure that could make people live longer, and it was taken away by someone else."

His guess was the same as what he thought. This was the most basic logic. Su Bei nodded: "That should be it."

Ling You asked hesitantly: "So it has nothing to do with the case."

"That may not be the case." This time Su Bei shook his head but did not say much. He would not talk about the Life Stone at this time. Since he could not talk about it, it would be equivalent to taking away the most important part of the inference, and naturally he would not be able to come up with a conclusion.

Seeing that Su Bei did not continue to explain, Ling You knew that he did not want to talk, so she did not ask again. But she still had another question: "Are you pursuing immortality?"

This question made Su Bei silent for a long time, and then he tilted his head: "In a sense, yes."

Ling You is actually a very smart girl. Although she hides this fact because she doesn't talk much, at certain moments, her smartness always pops out: "Whose immortality are you pursuing?"

If Su Bei was only pursuing his own immortality, he would have just nodded directly. Su Bei was not the kind of person who would be secretive about such things. Since he gave such an ambiguous answer, it proved that Ling You's question was only half right.

In that question, only the subject was ambiguous. So she thought it was the subject that was wrong. Su Bei did not want to be immortal himself, but wanted others to be immortal.

But who could have made him have such a goal? His parents, close friends or lover?

The question that was closer to the truth made Su Bei silent for a longer time. He was hesitating whether to tell the truth. Is it really necessary to talk about this now? How to explain it later?

Forget it, he had to reveal his purpose. Thinking of the foreshadowing he had made before, Su Bei finally chuckled and gave an answer that was completely beyond Ling You's expectations: "Human immortality."