"By the way, what should our true identities be in this instance?" Cheng Shuang suddenly asked. Like in the ancient tomb, she carried the title of a student from Peking University; could she really just be a virgin here...?
Du Jun said indifferently, "There are men and women, old and young, which makes it more like a tour group."
"A tour group?" She originally wanted to ask how there could be tour groups in this era, but in the ancient tomb, when she used the card, neither the professor nor the bodyguard had any questions. It was as if she was meant to be like this, possessing some magical things to save everyone.
Therefore, NPCs don't care where players come from; they automatically obscure that fact.
"NPC... could it be a wanderer?" the little girl wondered with suspicion.
"It's hard to say." Du Jun lowered his eyes and ruffled her hair, reminding her, "Want to go take a look at the courtyard with the crescent moon hanging in the sky?"
“I’m going. I suspect there are those children hiding in the Crescent Moon Courtyard.” Cheng Shuang shook off the doubts she couldn’t figure out for the time being, turned around to look at the old man and the young man walking behind her, and said goodbye to them for the time being.
The old man led Lianrong toward the stream at the foot of the mountain, while Cheng Shuang and Du Jun headed straight for the narrow dirt road, intending to randomly find a house to explore.
This small mountain village was clearly not a place where doors were left unlocked at night; every house had its gates tightly locked, making it impossible to climb over the walls. In the real world, apart from homeowners who didn't have their keys, the only person who could climb over the walls would be a morally corrupt thief.
The only consequence for maintainers who try to bypass the Great Firewall in the Death Realm is that they are scammed and lose everything, even their lives.
So Cheng Shuang and Du Jun encountered several people on tiptoe trying to peek into the yard along the way, but few of them easily climbed over to check.
The two tried to avoid the players and maintainers who were tirelessly peeling away the walls of the courtyard, until they reached the crescent-shaped courtyard where Cheng Shuang had stayed.
The little girl looked around to make sure no one was there, then knocked on the courtyard gate.
After a long silence, she didn't get annoyed. She knocked again and then took out a small children's corn sausage and dropped it in.
After waiting quietly for a moment, Du Jun raised an eyebrow slightly. He heard someone quietly open the door. The little girl took the opportunity to climb onto the wall, and whispered with a smile, "Ah, I see you!"
The little figure wrapped in a patched quilt, bending over to pick up sausages in the yard, froze. Just as she was about to turn around and run back into the house, she heard that sweet voice inviting her in a friendly way, "Come out and play with me! I have lots of delicious food! I can share some with you!"
The little bundle hesitated and stopped, wanting to turn back but not daring to, frozen in the doorway, extremely conflicted.
"What are you afraid of? My brother and I can't eat you." The little girl continued sweetly, "If you don't want to go out, we can always come and play with you, right?" She glanced at the slingshot on the windowsill and added, "My brother is really good at games, even better than me!"
The little bundle finally turned around, gradually revealing its face from under the blanket. It was an eight or nine-year-old boy, thin and dark-skinned, with no indication of whether he was good-looking or not. Only his eyes were surprisingly large, and when he looked at the little girl on the wall, his expression was blank and numb.
But he held the sausage tightly in his hand, suggesting that the allure of delicious food was just as effective on a child.
"Do you want to play with us? If not, I'll go find other kids. Otherwise, the adults will be back in a bit..." Cheng Shuang hesitated, glancing towards the mountain. She mischievously called out to Du Jun, "Oh, right, brother, can you let the new kid play with your toy gun?"
Before Du Jun could reply, the little girl took out a brand-new toy gun box and shook it, feigning regret, "I hope the next child will like to play with us siblings!" As she spoke, her hand wobbled, and the toy box fell into the yard with a thud.
The child was startled and took a step back, but his gaze quickly locked onto the box on the ground. He stared at it for a long time, then slowly raised his head and asked the little girl in a soft voice, as if cautiously, "Do you really want to play with me?"
His voice was still childish, but unusually hoarse, as if he had been thirsty for days.
Cheng Shuang licked her lips, then suddenly remembered that her red cloak had an aura that attracted bosses. She immediately tilted her head and winked at Du Jun before replying, "I want to play with you. My brother is a big kid and has serious things to do."
Du Jun's cold and stern brows furrowed slightly. Although he couldn't see the scene inside the courtyard, the fact that the little girl would find an excuse to let him leave meant that she must have thought there was something wrong with the people inside.
Logically speaking, it is most appropriate for someone to act independently and adapt to changing circumstances.
Emotionally, he wanted to go in with Cheng Shuang, but the NPCs inside were clearly only interested in the young girl. If he rashly followed, it would be very easy to offend the NPCs and lose more than he gained.
Before Du Jun had much time to think, the little boy moved. He stepped over the toy box, slowly walked to the door, and opened the gate.
Cheng Shuang then noticed that he had a key hanging around his neck and the gate was locked from the inside.
Could it be that the person living in the crescent-shaped courtyard doesn't want to go out?
The door opened, and the little boy didn't even glance at Du Jun, his eyes fixed on Cheng Shuang, who was standing on his courtyard wall.
The little girl chuckled and jumped down, waving to Du Jun and saying, "Brother, come pick me up in an hour!" She then followed the little boy into the yard, watching him lock the gate again.
Since things had come to this, Du Jun no longer hesitated and turned to look for other ancestral halls to see if there were any clues that had not yet been discovered.
In the courtyard, Cheng Shuang picked up the toy box and handed it to the little boy. The boy pulled his hand back slightly, but his eyes were fixed on her hand. The little girl quickly opened the box, took out the bag of building blocks and reference pictures, and said, "Put it together, and you'll have a new toy."
The boy's pupils were deep, and when he looked up at people, there was always a sense that time seemed to stand still. His numb expression revealed no emotion, but if he really wasn't interested, he wouldn't have paid attention to this toy for so long.
Cheng Shuang stepped forward, grabbed the hand that was clutching the corner of the blanket, ignoring the dirty black fingernails, and handed him the reference diagram and building blocks.
This time the boy did not refuse. He lowered his head and his stiff neck made a creaking sound.
"Can we come inside and fight?" the little girl asked in a softer voice, trying to sound more harmless. "It's very cold outside."
There was a small, bare tree in the yard. To the left were small huts, like woodsheds or warehouses, but no kitchen or outhouse, so there was no sign of human activity.
The boy nodded slightly, wrapped himself in the floor-length blanket, slowly walked to the front of the house, stopped, turned his head, and asked again, "Are you really going to come inside?"
Cheng Shuang pursed her lips. "Can't I come in? Is it inconvenient for you?" She didn't sense any danger in the house; the only strange thing was the little boy in front of her. She asked this because she was afraid that going in would offend the boy, but thankfully he shook his head. "No, it's not inconvenient."
As he spoke, he pushed open the door.
A strong smell of blood wafted over.
The thick, heavy substance seemed to have been soaked in blood plasma for days and nights.
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