Chapter 44 Crazy Man
It's really a very welcome thing.
An old man walked out from among the villagers and clapped his hands at them: "Welcome, welcome! I am the head of this village, and I welcome you on behalf of the whole village. It must have been very hard for you all along the way, right?"
Xiao Liang jumped out of the car: "It's not hard at all. We have seen a lot of beautiful scenery along the way."
"The scenery here is very beautiful. If you like it, I will ask some villagers to accompany you for a walk tomorrow." The village chief's eyes lit up when he heard her praise the scenery. "Come with me into the village. We have prepared a banquet for you and arranged a room for you. Although it is not as good as a big city, it should be pretty good."
Xiao Liang was very sweet-talking. He followed up the village chief's words with a few compliments, and soon they were having a very pleasant conversation.
When Yu Leng heard that normal food was finally available, he swallowed.
The village chief led them all the way to his backyard and called on his family and the villagers who came to help to serve them food.
First, a large bowl of fried bugs, coated in either flour or breadcrumbs, was served until they were shiny golden.
Then they brought a plate of steamed mice and a plate of fried sparrows, each of which looked like a tragically dead chick.
Yu Leng took a closer look and felt at a loss as to whether to eat or not.
It’s not that he didn’t have the courage, but he just felt that this was not the same as the banquet he had imagined.
Lu Jiamu took out a worm wrapped in breadcrumbs from the basin without any psychological barriers and took a bite. Although it looked a little ugly, it tasted good. The village chief's family had good craftsmanship.
Xiao Liang, who was standing next to him, saw him eating this kind of thing, frowned and stepped back for a moment, then revealed an expression that was a mixture of admiration and indescribable emotion.
The village chief's eyes passed over Lu Jiamu's face, who was eating insects in a gentle manner, and then he looked at the others. Seeing that none of them had started eating, he rubbed his hands nervously and asked nervously, "I thought you city people like this? That's called... natural and pollution-free? Specialty food?"
Several people had the same thought at the same time: Uncle, do you have any misunderstandings about natural and pollution-free specialties and city people?
Lu Jiamu smiled as he held the fried bugs in his hands. “High in protein, very unique. Coat them with breadcrumbs and you can eat them even if you remove the head and the tail.”
The village chief's unspeakable embarrassment was relieved, and he couldn't help but have a very good first impression of Lu Jiamu.
The cameraman turned on the camera. Xiao Liang laughed and overcame his psychological barriers. He picked up a worm and took a bite. "Today I'm here to taste some special delicacies on behalf of everyone. Hmm... although I've never tried it before, it tastes really good."
After a while, the village chief's daughter brought them a pot of stewed chicken and a pot of braised pork. Yu Leng then revealed a bright smile.
Lu Jiamu stopped after taking two bites. After listening to others communicating with the village chief for a while, he looked at the village chief.
In a serious and official tone, he asked the condition in the task description: "Village Chief, what is the main wish of our villagers now?"
The village chief thought about this question for a while, organized his words and said: "The villagers now hope to build a road, develop our tourism economy and boost our economic level."
Such a serious, long-term, and scientific wish is definitely not what the Wheel of Time sent them here to accomplish.
"That's a great idea. The pristine natural scenery around the village really shouldn't be wasted." Lu Jiamu smiled and changed the question, "So what is your main wish for inviting our program team this time?"
The village chief clasped his hands and said, "Recently, many villagers in our village have reported seeing something crawling out of the well. Chickens raised in the village are also often lost, which makes the villagers panic. Many people think that there is a ghost in the well.
But you all know that we should follow scientific values now. How can there be ghosts in this world? So we hope to find a scientific explanation through the experts of the program team. "
Lu Jiamu drank a sip of fresh fruit juice, without commenting, but just smiled and asked: "Then can you describe it to us?"
The village chief nodded and began to describe in vivid detail what the villagers had seen and heard.
What black hair, wet all over the body, and resentful eyes.
The group listened carefully, and the more they listened, the more they felt that it was Sadako.
After listening to this, Lu Jiamu asked again: "When we came here, the uncle who picked us up said that there were drowned ghosts who didn't want to leave. Has anyone in our village ever fallen into a well and drowned?"
"You are listening to his nonsense and made-up stories, such as drowned ghosts and feudal superstition." The village chief waved his hand and said, "A few years ago, there were children in our village who were naughty and fell into the well, but they were all rescued."
"No one is missing either?"
The village chief answered decisively: "No."
Xiao Liang waited for a while, and when Lu Jiamu finished asking, he asked, "Village Chief, where is the underground fire?"
The village chief simply replied: "Underground fire only appears at night. I can't explain it now. You will know when you encounter it."
Xiao Liang asked again: "Do we have any suitable places here for filming? Somewhere with a good atmosphere."
The girl taking the picture added, "Like a cemetery."
I don’t know whether they are going to conduct a scientific exploration or explore ghosts.
The village chief said somewhat embarrassedly: "Burial is not popular here."
The girl taking the picture was stunned: "Anything else is fine."
But the village chief just repeated blankly: "Burial is not popular here, so there is no cemetery."
After the girl who was taking the picture said that a cemetery was not necessary and that it was just a metaphor, the village chief gave the answer.
The two girls asked some questions related to the filming, and the village chief agreed one by one, promising to cooperate with their filming if necessary.
Many curious villagers have gathered at the back door of the village chief's house, all peeking inside to see what the professional camera looks like.
Just as they were watching intently, a tall but sloppy man suddenly squeezed in among them, shouting.
The villagers did not curse when they were squeezed, but simply made way.
The man danced and squeezed into the village chief's yard. He began to giggle and yelled incoherently: "There's a ghost! There's a ghost!"
Lu Jiamu took a quick glance and noticed that the man was not only extremely unkempt and looked like he hadn't taken a shower or washed his clothes for a long time, but his entire right hand was in a twisted posture and the bones were obviously broken and dislocated.
There were purple bruises on his wrists.
Lu Jiamu judged that he must have been tied up somewhere before, and he broke free from the restraints and ran away by smashing his hands.
The man danced and laughed while shouting, "There's a ghost! There's a ghost!"
Yu Leng suddenly froze, and the dishes in his hands fell to the ground.
When the village chief saw him, his face changed: "How did he get out? Isn't this embarrassing? Catch him back now!"
But the crazy man had already run in with his arms swinging, rushed to them with a chuckle, overturned the table, and the food, drinks and wine were scattered all over the floor.
The man waved his arms and tried to hit people.
Lu Jiamu had already realized that the situation was not good before he overturned the table, so he stood up quietly and dodged.
The village chief was furious: "What are you looking at? Take him back!"
Then several young and strong villagers came in and hugged the crazy man before he could hit anyone. Because he was still struggling, several people took a lot of effort to drag him out.
Before the man left, he stared at the people in the room and hissed, "Ghost...Ghost..."
The village chief looked back at the people in the room with some apology: "I'm so sorry, this is the idiot in our village. He is usually locked up, and I don't know why he ran out today."
He said, glancing at Yu Leng: "Did I scare you guys?"
Yu Leng seemed to be stunned. Even though the bowl and chopsticks had fallen to the ground, he was still sitting there blankly holding the bowl, with the soup splashed all over his body.
After being called, Yu Leng came back to his senses with a start and smiled awkwardly: "No. I just... suddenly had some hallucinations."
Lu Jiamu felt something was wrong. He silently withdrew his gaze from the village chief's face and opened the diary to take a look.
A line of small words slowly appeared on the first page of the diary: [Haha, he is really crazy.]
Lu Jiamu originally thought that he could get some useful information from that crazy man, but now that the diary says so, it seems unlikely.
The overturned table had been picked up by several enthusiastic villagers, but the mess on the floor had not yet been cleaned up.
The village chief sighed, "He's also a poor man. But you can see that our conditions are backward, and there's no hospital to send him to, so we can only keep him locked up like this. Don't you have that kind of money? If you can, help us spread the word."
Xiao Liang nodded obediently: "Okay."
The village chief sighed again: "You haven't eaten enough yet? I'll ask the old woman to make something else for you."
Xiao Liang shook his head: "Don't bother, we've almost finished eating."
The village chief said, "Then I will take you to the room."
Several people nodded.
When walking through the lobby, Lu Jiamu noticed that there was no statue of the God of Wealth in the middle of the lobby, but instead a messy-looking, irregularly shaped hollow round statue.
Lu Jiamu pointed and asked, "What is this?"
"This is the god we believe in in our rural area. Every family worships one."
It is normal for people in places that rely on the mountains for their livelihood to believe in something feudal and superstitious, but it is a bit strange to put such a messy thing that looks like a steel wool in a serious manner.
Lu Jiamu nodded: "There is a strange sense of charm. I wonder what the name of this god is?"
The village chief was very happy to hear this, and after thinking carefully, he said, "It seems that there is no name."
Lu Jiamu didn't ask any more questions and followed him into the room that was specially vacated for them.
Xiao Liang waited obediently until the village chief left, then looked at the photographer with excitement: "Did you record the moment when that idiot rushed in just now?"
The photographer nodded: "I recorded it."
"He just kept shouting about ghosts and so on." Xiao Liang put his hands together, "It's so interesting and full of atmosphere, and it fits the purpose of our program very well. It can also be used for charity, which is a great selling point."
Isn't the purpose of your program to go into science? Is it that contrast creates beauty?
Lu Jiamu glanced at her and smiled without saying anything.
Xiao Liang looked at Yu Leng: "We can only know the ground fire after exploration. This needs to be handed over to our technical consultant."
Yu Leng nodded absentmindedly.
Xiao Liang added: "As for the well ghost, the village chief also gave a very interesting and attractive story. But there are generally a few possibilities: the first is that someone is pretending to be someone else, it was man-made. The second possibility is that there are some small animals living in the well. The third possibility is that they have all seen Sadako, but the Internet is not well developed here, and the villagers' cognition is low, so they can't understand it and have collective hysteria."
"Our investigation is heading in this direction, but we need to learn more about the situation before we can determine which one it is."
"Now, let's go out and take some photos."
Xiao Liang said it lightly, as if he didn't take these things seriously.
But Lu Jiamu and the others knew that there was really a ghost here, and the crazy man just now made them very alert.
We haven't figured out the situation yet, so no one wants to go out.
The smile on Lu Jiamu's face slowly faded, the corners of his mouth slowly pulled downwards, and he frowned, revealing a somewhat painful expression.
He held his stomach and bent down slightly: "I... my stomach hurts..."
Xiao Liang saw that Lu Jiamu's face was painful and his face seemed to turn pale. He immediately became concerned and asked, "Brother Lu, are you okay?"
Lu Jiamu shook his head stubbornly: "I'm fine... I just have a stomachache... Maybe I ate too many bugs just now. Go and take the photo."
The photographer said worriedly, "Don't worry, it's the bugs that are dirty. Brother Lu, you are such a fool. Why do you eat everything you see?"
Lu Jiamu held his stomach and said nothing.
Yu Leng suddenly realized it and covered his stomach: "Ah... my stomach suddenly hurts too..."
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