Chapter 40: Teach this weirdo a lesson he deserves.
Before they could even leave the town, the guests received the message "Qian Qian is dead" in their earpieces.
This is the first guest to be eliminated in the "Qingyun Town" instance. It's a pity that he never met Qian Qian and we don't know why he was eliminated. There's no way to avoid it in advance.
The three had no choice but to continue heading out of the city to complete the task given by the magistrate. Chang Yi's starting point was outside the city, so he was more familiar with the terrain. With him leading the way, they were lucky enough to avoid encountering the Green-Faced Ghost.
However, they encountered Zheng Qiming on the ridge of the field.
"Teacher Zheng," Chang Yi said, "were you placed here by the program team?"
Upon seeing the organization, Zheng Qiming was quite happy: "No, I'm here to help Granny Wang find her son."
"What a coincidence, we're also looking for Wang Po's son. It's a pity that Brother Qian is out of the game, otherwise, with more people, we could be more effective."
At this point, Zheng Qiming frowned: "I don't know what rules Qian Qian broke. He was fine before I left."
Xia Mian: "You met?"
"yes."
It turned out that Zheng Qiming and Qian Qian were initially located close to each other, and the two quickly met. During their exploration, they saw an old woman with a worried expression and sighing. They went up to ask her what was wrong, thus starting the storyline before Xia Mian and the others.
The Wang family has always made a living selling sausages in town. Now that their son is missing, there's no one to help with the work. Qian Qian is overweight and not very strong, so the two of them divided the work: Zheng Qiming went to help look for their son, while Qian Qian stayed at the Wang family's house to help his mother-in-law dry the sausages.
"We'll probably have to ask Granny Wang how Qian Qian died," Zheng Qiming said, glancing up at the sky. "It's getting dark, and we don't know if we can find him before nightfall."
As soon as he finished speaking, a wolf howl suddenly came from afar, accompanied by rustling footsteps.
Chang Yi's expression changed: "Run! The Green-Faced Demons are here! If they catch us, given the show's production team's track record, we'll most likely be eliminated!"
Led by Chang Yi, everyone fled back to the town as if their lives depended on it.
After all this commotion, it was already 6 PM. They'd been recording since noon, and the mule was so hungry it was standing by the roadside, head down, munching on the grass. No matter how much they pulled on the reins, it wouldn't move, let alone the guests.
Zhang Yuno, who is not usually talkative, complained for the first time: "We've walked all this way and haven't seen a restaurant. Are the production team planning to let us starve to death?"
Zheng Qiming: "Come with me to Wang Po's place. She said we can eat at her house if we're hungry. I guess that's the canteen set up by the production team."
Almost all the clues pointed to Granny Wang, who was obviously a key NPC. They wanted to ask her, so the four of them hit it off immediately.
The Wang family lived in the most remote corner of town. When the group returned, the old lady was collecting sausages.
She must be a veteran actress. When she saw Zheng Qiming, a glimmer of hope first appeared in her eyes, but when she saw that her son was not among the people following behind, the light quickly faded.
The old woman greeted them with a smile, "You're back! It's good that you're back safe and sound. I just finished cooking, come and have some."
“Wang Po,” Zheng Qiming asked, “where is Qian Qian?”
"Shortly after you left, he said he would help you find someone, and he went out too. Didn't you run into him?"
They guessed he'd been captured by the Blue-Faced Demon before leaving town. The guests expressed their deep sympathy and went inside.
Grandma Wang cooks local home-style dishes, simple two dishes and a soup, not lavish, but very delicious.
At the dinner table, like all mothers, she patiently recounted amusing anecdotes about her sons. When she got emotional, she even showed them photos of them.
They were two boys, about thirteen or fourteen years old, thin and wearing blue diagonally-fastened long gowns.
"Oh, look at me, why do I keep telling you all this old stuff? Have some sausage," Granny Wang said, putting away the photo. "My sausages are the best in Qingyun Town, and people from other places always take a few packs home with them!"
After the meal, Granny Wang invited them to stay. There were three empty side rooms in her courtyard. The girls stayed in one room, the elder Zheng Qiming stayed in another, and the two men squeezed into the third room.
Since Zhu Ziqi was still in the county magistrate's hands, everyone planned to rest for a while and then go out to gather more information. The two young men couldn't have simply vanished into thin air; there must be clues, they just hadn't found them yet.
As a result, while Chang Yi and Xia Mian were chatting in bed, they received a second piece of bad news.
System notification: Zheng Qiming is dead!
Chang Yi and Xia Mian quickly jumped out of bed and ran to the next room, with Zhang Yuno arriving shortly after. Unfortunately, the room was empty; the large guest had vanished without a trace.
Xia Mian frowned: "We were separated for less than five minutes. In such a short time, he definitely couldn't have acted alone. What could have gone wrong... What did you all eat tonight? Did you have sausages?"
Zhang Yuno and Chang Yi shook their heads; she was a vegetarian. Chang Yi was about to release a new album and was in the process of managing her figure, so she could only follow the nutritionist's diet and dared not eat anything indiscriminately.
Xia Mian loves beef and is a staunch believer in beef; she has no interest in sausages. Only Zheng Qiming ate a few pieces of cured sausage and even praised Wang Po's cooking skills.
Thinking of Qian Qian's disappearance, Xia Mian had a sudden inspiration: "Given Wang Po's hospitable nature, she would definitely have offered Qian Qian sausages, and those who have eaten sausages are out of the game..."
Chang Yi: "You mean, the sausage is poisonous?"
Xia Mian: "That's right. And when Ming asked Qian where he went, Wang Po said that Qian had gone to help find someone. But if Qian really wanted to find someone, he could have just gone with Ming, why did they have to separate?"
Chang Yi: "...Wang Po is lying!"
Xia Mian: "When the guests of 'Carnival' were eliminated, at least they left behind a chalk drawing of a little person. But the guests of 'Qingyun Town' disappeared without a trace. Considering that the magistrate and others dared not leave the town, and the Blue-Faced Ghost outside the town could only chase them to the town gate but failed to enter twice..." Xia Mian paused, "Look beyond the surface and see the essence."
"Wang Po poisoned the guest with sausages, then dismembered him and made sausages for the townspeople of Qingyun Town to buy and eat. This is not something a human would do. Our town, Qingyun Town, is actually... not the mortal realm."
"The living can't get in, and the dead can't get out—this place is not a place for the living at all!"
Upon hearing this, Chang Yi and Zhang Yuno both shuddered. The live chat was instantly flooded with comments:
[Holy crap, I'm getting goosebumps. Xia Mian was right, the town is definitely not normal.]
[Wang Po was so kind; I was almost in tears when she was telling me funny stories about her son. Could she really be a ghost?]
[Summer hibernation is amazing! That's an incredible idea. How come I never noticed it before?]
Backstage, the director and assistant director exchanged a glance, their faces expressionless: "It's another case of looking beyond the surface to see the essence."
The assistant director lamented his hair loss: "Half a month! I prepared for a full half month! And he guessed it when the plot was only 30% complete. There are still so many highlights we haven't filmed yet, sob sob..."
“It’s alright, solving the mystery is just the beginning,” the director smiled slightly. “Later, he’ll know what the real ‘Infinite Escape’ is.”
Assistant Director: "Give this weirdo a good lesson, oh dear!"
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