Chapter 56 White Rabbit and Music Box
Amid the surrounding shouts, everyone knew that more than one person had died today.
Soon, several villagers came running along the road, trying to explain the situation to the village chief and ask him to go and have a look. But there was only one village chief, and he could not go everywhere, so he could only go one by one to see.
Lu Jiamu stood outside the house and listened to the villagers' conversation, and roughly understood the current situation.
He volunteered to go with them as he had done before, but the village chief just responded with silence.
In the end, the village chief rejected him on the grounds that there was danger outside, and arranged for a villager to stay and watch over them. The villager's eyes were filled with deep fear and distrust.
Several people retreated back into the house and closed the door.
Wang Biao said solemnly, "It really has doubled. Four people died... Will eight people die tomorrow?"
"It's possible."
There are only a few dozen people in this village. If the death rate continues at this rate, I'm afraid they will all be wiped out in a few days.
Once all the villagers who seemed normal on the surface died, it was unknown what terrible things would happen next.
Moreover, it was only the fourth day and the villagers had already begun to doubt them. If more people died, the remaining villagers would probably go crazy and all actions would become more difficult to carry out.
Wang Biao immediately said, "We can't waste any more time. We must find a solution quickly. Where do we start?"
He turned his gaze to Lu Jiamu seriously.
Lu Jiamu sorted out his thoughts.
The Wheel of Time asked them to investigate the truth of the village, but at present, they only had guesses about the beginning and the result of the incident, which were not necessarily accurate. The process was completely unknown.
The order in which the villagers died could only be determined after they were all dead. The most unclear thing now was what the well ghost was and how the final fire was started.
After thinking for a moment, he said, "Let's go around the village chief's house while he's away."
The villager outside was just guarding the door, and he could escape his sight by climbing out of the back window.
The others immediately agreed and waited to give him a heads-up.
Lu Jiamu opened the rear window slightly, then swiftly and silently climbed out of the window, quickly disappearing from the sight of everyone in the room.
Wang Biao walked forward and gently closed the window.
Xiao Liang wrapped himself in a quilt and asked blankly, "What...what is he doing outside? It would be bad if he was caught."
Yu Leng shook his head to indicate that he would not be caught: "He is very good at this kind of thing."
After Lu Jiamu went out, he carefully observed the surrounding environment. Seeing that there was no one around, he walked quietly along the shadows of the wall and soon came to the village chief's room.
This village is basically isolated from the outside world, the people are simple and honest, and coupled with its dilapidated state, no one bothers to lock their houses to prevent thieves.
Lu Jiamu waited until the villager guarding the door outside looked away and then went straight into the house.
He closed the door gently, looked around the room first, and memorized the original layout of the room.
The village chief's house did not look very wealthy. It just had a table, chairs, a bed, and some pots and jars whose uses were unknown, and a string of garlic hung on the wall.
There were two more of those strange statues in the room, placed in different directions. Lu Jiamu looked at them and saw nothing unusual, so he left them alone and went to the village chief's bed.
There was storage space under the village chief's bed. Lu Jiamu immediately opened the layers one by one and saw an old large wooden box underneath.
There was a small lock on the box, but because it was too simple, Lu Jiamu took out a small wire from his pocket and picked it open with two tries.
He opened it and saw that the top layer contained some relatively new-looking clothes. He flipped through them and pulled out a bag of White Rabbit candy.
Lu Jiamu held up his glasses, squinted his eyes slightly, turned over and carefully read the instructions on the package.
The product name, unknown place of origin, and production batch number are clearly written on it, but the expiration date is already one year past due.
I don’t know if this means that the abnormality in the village has lasted for more than a year.
Lu Jiamu put the big white rabbit back and continued to feel down there, and soon he found a hardcover notebook and a few pens.
Lu Jiamu thought there would be something written on it, but after turning the pages one by one, he found that it was blank and there was nothing written on it.
Reaching down further, he pulled out a heavy white box near the bottom of the box.
This small box is crystal clear, and its surface is cut like a gem, reflecting soft light. You can also see the small golden gears inside. It is very exquisite and beautiful, and it is out of place in this simple village.
It's a music box.
Lu Jiamu didn't dare open it, for fear of startling the villager guarding outside the door, so he put it back at the bottom of the box.
After searching around again and finding some miscellaneous little gadgets, Lu Jiamu put everything back in its original place, locked the box and pushed it back.
He put the village chief's bed and mattress back and smoothed them out one by one, stayed in the house for a while, and then returned to their room the same way.
Yu Leng looked at him and lowered his voice expectantly: "Did you find anything?"
Lu Jiamu shook his head, indicating that he had not found anything special. He then explained the wooden box under the village chief's bed, the production date of the candy, the blank notebook, and the music box that he dared not open. He also said that he did not know if there was anything strange in the music box.
Xiao Liang felt that he was just burglarizing, and replied suspiciously: "These should be the things brought back by the village chief's son."
Several people looked at her: "Village chief's son?"
Xiao Liang nodded. "The day before yesterday when we wanted to leave, the uncle who drove the cattle said that the village chief's son went to the city, but sometimes he would bring back some good things. The village chief liked us because he was very interested in things outside the mountains. Among them, the village chief's favorite was a music box."
Lu Jiamu pinched his chin and said, "The old lady whose head was chopped off also mentioned this matter. She said that the village chief's son didn't like to stay in the mountains. But we have never seen his son."
Xiao Liang said, "Maybe he's in the city and hasn't come back yet."
Lu Jiamu smiled and said, "But the candy has been expired for more than a year."
The villagers at the door stared at the wooden door vigilantly, as if they were afraid that the person inside would suddenly rush out.
The village chief came back after a while, and with him came several villagers who were cursing at him.
They were shouting all sorts of nonsense, like "outsiders have angered the mountain god", "this is a curse", "people die as soon as they come here, they are ferocious beasts!", "get them out, they are not welcome here" and so on.
The village chief closed the door as soon as he entered the yard, but the cursing outside could still be heard into the house even through the door.
The villagers' panic, anger and pain merged together and filled the entire courtyard.
The village chief signaled to the villager guarding the yard that everything was fine. The villager looked at the village chief worriedly before opening the door a crack and leaving.
Lu Jiamu went over to ask about the situation.
When the village chief saw him coming, he subconsciously stepped back a little, as if trying to avoid him, but in the end he restrained himself and answered his questions properly.
I learned from the village chief that four people had indeed died in the village today, and I also learned about the circumstances and manner of death of those four people.
One of them was the woman who lost her child yesterday, two were neighbors of the old lady and her granddaughter, and the last one had no apparent relationship with the previous ones. He was just an old bachelor in the village.
After Lu Jiamu understood the situation, he asked again: "Can we still go out today?"
The village chief hesitated for a moment, then shook his pipe and said, "Well...if you have any urgent matters, you can go out. But it's a little dangerous outside."
Lu Jiamu responded with a polite smile, then asked, "I suddenly remembered that you said before that a foreigner in the village had died of a fever?"
"Yes, that's what happened."
"Where is her body buried?"
If Lu Jiamu hadn't asked about it before, the village chief wouldn't even remember such an incident, so how could he remember how to deal with the other party's body?
He thought for a long time and shook his head: "I forgot too. I threw it into the mountain."
The things he couldn't remember were usually strange places. Lu Jiamu smiled and sighed.
The village chief still couldn't understand how all this happened, but several people here already knew that this was most likely a ghost village.
If all this is really just as imagined before, and the ghost village is just acting out its previous life experiences, then why are these eight people the first to die?
In the past two days of death, it has been obvious that there is a trend of one taking one at night. That is, each ghost can only act once at night and take one person away.
For example, the old lady died on the first night, her granddaughter died on the second night, and two of their neighbors also died on the third night.
The little boy died on the second night, and his mother died on the third night.
If we follow this one-to-one model of exponential growth, there must have been another person who died before the old lady, and it should be the outsider who died first.
But if the whole village was constantly replaying its past experiences, and all the residents were oblivious and had no memory, there was no reason not to start from step one, completely ignoring her part, and even forgetting about the attic.
Then there are only two possibilities.
The first is that the program crew that came into the mountain from outside are the new old characters who replaced the outsider. Their arrival itself triggered the conditions for the past to repeat itself.
The old lady and the little boy died first, one because he liked to gossip about family matters, and the other because he was easy to be bossed around, so it was inevitable that they would take the initiative to approach outsiders.
Another possibility is that in addition to the above basis, there is a dead ghost existing in this village in some form. It is more awake than other villagers and can realize that it is dead. It will cover up this fact, so the village chief doesn't even know where the body of the outsider has gone.
If this is the case, it may be worth thinking about why the old bachelor who was found dead this morning died, because he was different from the previous two people, he had not yet contacted the program crew.
He may have been chosen for other reasons.
After Lu Jiamu finished talking with the village chief, he suddenly asked Xiao Liang a question he had never asked before: "Which enthusiastic villager called our program team to inform us that there was a strange incident here?"
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