The shopkeeper was startled and quickly asked, "Has someone gone up the mountain?"
Cheng Chi looked surprised. He never expected that an innkeeper could know so much. The innkeeper, seeing Cheng Chi's expression, knew what was going on. He said, "I told them long ago not to go up the mountain, not to go up the mountain! Why don't they listen to me! I've already stopped them!"
"When they came back, they lied to me and said no one went up the mountain! Why did they do that? Why?" The boss pounded his leg with one hand, his face showing regret. He should have been more perceptive, much more perceptive, and kept asking them questions. That way, he could have found out what had happened and maybe even saved the little girl. Now, it's all too late.
The boss looked up at the sky, and after venting his anger, he noticed that it had started raining without his noticing, as if the sky was crying and grieving for them.
Bai Sha already knew this outcome, but hearing it again now still made her heart ache. She looked at Hei Sha beside her with a hint of confusion in her eyes, "Do you think things would have changed if I had insisted on keeping Xu Yuehuai back then?"
Hei Sha glanced at her and then said, "Some things are predetermined. No matter what you do, the other party will eventually go down that path. Besides, this isn't your fault. You already tried to persuade them, didn't you?"
Bai Sha didn't answer Hei Sha's question. She knew that this matter had little to do with her, but she couldn't stop blaming herself, thinking that she hadn't done a good job. We call this kind of emotion "internal friction".
Bai Sha didn't have many friends. She genuinely liked Xu Yuehuai. At first, she thought this woman was very beautiful, more beautiful than any woman she had ever seen. Later, she discovered that this woman was not only beautiful, but also very individualistic. This personality made her fascinated and follow in Xu Yuehuai's footsteps, wanting to know what she had done.
By the time the translation was completed, it was too late. She had already fallen hopelessly in love with Xu Yuehuai and kept trying to get closer to him. When she later learned that Xu Yuehuai was going to that dangerous forbidden area, her first reaction was to object.
As for the reason, she couldn't say, nor could she. It wasn't that she didn't want to say, but that she couldn't. This was something that could only be buried deep in her heart.
When Cheng Chi realized that his boss seemed to know something else when he said those words, he pressed him for details: "Boss, do you know something? Can you tell me everything? This is very important."
Cheng Chi stared intently at his boss, wanting to learn something from him. His intuition and the boss's demeanor told him that this boss was not as simple as he appeared, and that he probably knew quite a lot.
The boss snapped out of his daze, shook his head, and repeated only one sentence: "I don't know anything, I don't know, I don't know anything! Don't ask me, I really don't know anything."
The boss muttered to himself. Cheng Chi watched from the side, frowning. He felt there was something fishy about this, and the boss's state was really strange. He didn't let the boss off the hook and continued to press him, "Are you really unwilling to talk about it? Do you know how many people have died because of what happened in the back mountain? If you keep quiet, even more people will die. Is that the scene you want to see?"
Cheng Chi was adept at interrogation, proceeding step by step and skillfully analyzing people's weaknesses. The boss covered his ears and yelled at Cheng Chi, "Shut up! I don't want to hear it, I don't want to know! What does this have to do with me! I don't want to know anything about it!"
The boss's voice was heart-wrenching, as if something had exploded in his chest and then burst into flames in the air.
Seeing his expression, Cheng Chi knew that his words had worked, so he continued, "Why did you tell me to shut up? You did these things, and you didn't want to admit it after you did them, which caused so many people to die because of them. So you feel guilty. You always remind everyone, but you don't explain why. At first, you watched everyone walk into the abyss and did nothing, and then you started to save people in your own self-righteous way. In reality, you didn't save anyone, including yourself."
Cheng Chi kept talking, which provoked the boss, who then squatted on the ground.
His eyes were glazed over, and he shook his head. "No, you're talking nonsense! I didn't do this at all! I warned them, but they insisted on doing it anyway. What does it have to do with me? What did I do wrong? You're framing me!"
After saying his last sentence, the boss suddenly stood up, grabbed Cheng Chi by the collar, and said to Cheng Chi with a hint of anger in his eyes, "You're talking nonsense! You're framing me! I didn't kill those people at all. They brought it on themselves! I clearly warned them, but they still went. Who can they blame? I didn't kill them, I didn't harm them, so why are you saying this to me!"
Cheng Chi looked at his boss calmly, showing no intention of moving or getting angry. After the boss finished venting and saying those words, Cheng Chi loosened his collar and took two steps back.
Cheng Chi then straightened his collar and said, "Then why won't you tell them the truth behind this? If you explain everything clearly, why would they choose to go back in?"
The innkeeper gave a mocking smile, his gaze towards Cheng Chi filled with contempt. He snorted and said, "I don't know. How would I know what's behind this? I'm just an innkeeper, guarding this shabby little inn, waiting for others to come in, until someone can open this place up and let us out, then I can be free."
Cheng Chi watched as his exasperated expression transformed into his current state, his eyes filled with confusion. He wanted to know what had happened to this boss, why such a drastic change could occur in a person, whether it was a distortion of human nature or a decline in morality!
After calming down, the innkeeper glanced at Cheng Chi, nodded slightly, and said, "Young master, if there's nothing else, I'll be leaving now. The other inns are waiting for me."
After saying that, the innkeeper turned and left. Back in the inn, everyone had different emotions. The innkeeper acted as if nothing had happened, talking to everyone with a somewhat ambiguous look in his eyes, "What would you all like to eat today? You need to be well-fed to have the energy to work, right?"
Chapter 1871 A Heart That Harms Others
The boss addressed everyone, saying that Xuan Chi was relatively calm and told the boss to bring out whatever he wanted. The boss acknowledged and left. Just then, Cheng Chi came in from outside, and the two happened to brush past each other. The boss's gaze didn't linger on Cheng Chi for even a moment, but Cheng Chi, on the other hand, didn't take his eyes off the kitchen door for a single second after the boss went into the kitchen.
After a while, even the third brother couldn't help but ask, "Captain, is there something wrong with him?"
Cheng Chi pursed his lips. "I'm not sure, but at least for now, he's a pretty good suspect."
For an innkeeper to survive in this place for so long, who would believe it if he didn't have some secret? Besides, when he was talking to the innkeeper just now, he could clearly sense that the innkeeper was acting strangely, although those emotions didn't necessarily mean that the innkeeper had any malicious intentions.
You could even say that the boss always chooses to save those people, but there are always some who don't listen to advice and want to die, just like Xu Yuehuai and the others. They had already been warned by many people not to go in, but they still went their own way and made such a choice. In the end, who can be blamed for this?
Cheng Chi stood to the side, and after saying those words, he remained silent. Looking at the five people in front of him who were in low spirits, he had no expression, but he felt that this matter was probably not so simple.
The tree spirit was depressed all day long. Xu Yuehuai and Nangong Yu were the only two humans he knew. So many days had passed, and people were still coming in from outside, even more frequently than before. He muttered to himself, "Liars, they're all liars. There isn't a single good human!"
The tree spirit's words were slightly biased, but they reflected his true feelings.
To be honest, it's not that no one wants to communicate with the demons, it's just that these demons are too resistant to humans. Before they've even said anything, the demons have already shown their dislike and are preparing to take action. Just in this situation, how can they possibly cooperate? It's practically impossible.
Only Xu Yuehuai and Nangong Yu succeeded. The only difference between them and the others was that Xu Yuehuai grabbed the tree spirit by the neck as soon as he entered, forcing him to release the other humans. These two were enemies.
"Tree spirit, there are humans looking for you at the door." A flower spirit used its pollen to transmit its message to the tree spirit.
The tree spirit flipped down from the tree and strode towards the door, muttering to itself, "If it really is the two of you, I'll skin you alive! You dare come looking for me? I'm being lenient by not even settling scores with you!"
The tree spirit strode aggressively to the door, only to find that the woman who had choked him was not there. There was only another man present. He glanced to the side and said with a puzzled look in his eyes, "Why are you alone? Where is that annoying and hateful woman? Why didn't she come with you?"
Nangong Yu was taken aback. If he hadn't been at his wit's end, he wouldn't have come to bother the tree spirit. He and Xu Yuehuai knew that these spirits didn't like humans. If they came to see the tree spirit too often, it would cause the tree spirit to suffer discrimination from other spirits of its own kind.
“She…Senior Sister has temporarily disappeared. She went up the back mountain. We’ve been searching here for so many days, and the only place that seems a bit unusual is the back mountain. But everyone says the back mountain is off-limits, yet no one has ever said why…” Nangong Yu, not expecting the tree spirit to ask, directly told everything he knew. His hands, hanging by his sides, trembled slightly. “That’s why I came to ask you this time, to know if you can save them. They are truly innocent!”
The tree spirit hesitated before answering, but the other fairies spoke first. The first to speak was a rather unattractive scallion. Nangong Yu was taken aback when he climbed down from the tree. "Tree spirit, you're not really going to trust humans like that? You can't trust anything they say. Humans are cunning creatures. Who knows what tricks they might play? If you really believe them now, you'll really be fooled!"
A scallion wanted to help the tree spirit overcome his emotions, to make him lose all hope in humans, and to make him feel that humans were evil and shameless.
The tree spirit hesitated for a moment, "But I don't think that girl would lie to me. She said she would give us back a home where no one would fall in. I believe her, so..."
"I'm telling you, you're completely naive. How do you know that human went to do what you said? Maybe she went to complete her own mission, encountered danger, and came back to tell you she went to do what you said. Only you would believe such a low-level lie!" Onion was not a pleasant speaker. Many of its kind had been eaten by these despicable humans, and it was very angry.
Humans are the least trustworthy creatures in the world!
When the tree spirit heard the scallion say its last words, it looked to its side and saw that many of its friends had come over. They were hiding in the shadows, worried that the human in front of it would harm them.
Seeing the tree spirit's troubled expression, Nangong Yu had a fleeting thought of giving up and trying to find a solution himself. However, when he thought of Xu Yuehuai's uncertain fate, he didn't have the courage to say it. Perhaps just because of his words, Xu Yuehuai would miss the chance to be rescued. He couldn't bear the responsibility if he found out about this later. The only thing he could do was to try his best to find rescue and save Xu Yuehuai and Fu Ziyi.
Nangong Yu lowered his head, and he could see the demons around him. His hands hung at his sides, clenched until they were white. He felt that this matter could not be borne by the tree spirit alone, so he raised his head and looked at the demons around him. "Please rest assured, everyone. I, Nangong Yu, swear on the generations of my Nangong family that everything I, Nangong Yu, have said is true. If I have lied, may my cultivation be completely destroyed, may I lose all senses, and may I die a terrible death!"
After he finished speaking, a ray of sunlight shone on Nangong Yu's forehead. He immediately spat out a breath, slightly unsteady on his feet, and braced himself with one hand on the ground. His eyes were bloodshot as he looked at the tree spirit, "Tree spirit, please, save my senior sister... okay?"
The tree spirits couldn't bear it, and even a single scallion couldn't say anything. Although they were demons, they had some understanding of the human world and knew the significance of Nangong Yu's actions.
"Young man, you have great courage! I, Ai Cao, like people with your kind of personality. Tell me what's wrong, and I, Ai Cao, will go and save your senior sister for you!" A fragrant scent wafted over, and a girl with a sprig of mugwort in her hair and clothes the same color as the mugwort appeared.
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