The two finally managed to get Xiong Jiabao out, but they couldn’t drag him down the mountain in such a… position. In the end, it was You Yi who carried him back to the villagers’ home.
This was the first time Xin Meng saw the place where You Yi and Xiong Jiabao lived. It was not much different from the small storage room at the village chief’s house, filled with some miscellaneous items. However, the bed was a single bed, with only one pillow on it, the other lying on the ground, covered with a thin sheet.
As Xin Meng was wondering about the situation, he saw You Yi unceremoniously throw Xiong Jiabao onto the ground. Xiong Jiabao rolled over innocently a couple of times, his limbs sprawled out and unmoving.
Xin Meng: “…Pfft!”
Looking at You Yi, who naturally occupied the entire double bed while forcing Xiong Jiabao to sleep on the ground all night, Xin Meng suddenly found the man extremely amusing. That usually expressionless face seemed surprisingly cute to him at that moment.
However, he wisely kept this thought to himself, subconsciously feeling that complimenting a man on his cuteness to his face was… a rather dangerous thing to do.
“Xiong Jiabao! Xiong Jiabao!” He squatted down and gently patted Xiong Jiabao’s face, but no matter what, he couldn’t wake him up. You Yi went to the kitchen, got a cup of cold water, and splashed it directly on him. Xiong Jiabao jolted awake, wanting to turn over and sit up, but he fell back weakly. There was no pillow under his head, and this time the back of his head hit the ground, which was only covered with a sheet, making a “thud” sound. Xin Meng felt pain for him just hearing it.
“It hurts, it hurts, it hurts!” Xiong Jiabao grimaced, holding his head. “I’m dying of pain! Ouch!”
“Are you okay?” Xin Meng asked.
With Xin Meng’s help, Xiong Jiabao sat up, rubbing the back of his head and looking around. “Did we escape?”
“Yeah,” Xin Meng said. “I passed out at that time, and You Yi happened to carry me away. I didn’t see what happened afterward. Did you find anything later?”
“No…” Just as Xiong Jiabao was about to shake his head, he suddenly remembered something and immediately started cursing: “Those two bastards! I asked them to pull me up, but they ran away without looking back. That bastard Dong Xiu even kicked me, knocking me out! If I had died just like that, the ghosts wouldn’t let them off!”
Those two were always equally matched… Hearing this, Xin Meng was not surprised.
“This time it was still your recklessness. You kicked over the stones without thinking, which is why you got hurt so badly.” Xin Meng handed him a piece of paper. He was still covered in blood, mixed with dirt and rotten leaves, looking dirtier than a beggar.
Xiong Jiabao took the paper and wiped his face randomly, still cursing, “I won’t let them off!”
Seeing that he wouldn’t listen to reason, Xin Meng stopped wasting his breath. Xiong Jiabao didn’t see any useful information, and the matter of passing the level was still a mystery.
They had already made choices according to the hints on the card; what kind of result would they get?
Thinking about these questions, Xin Meng planned to go back and take another look, and You Yi naturally followed.
As they were leaving, Xin Meng’s gaze swept over Xiong Jiabao, and he suddenly asked curiously, “How many teeth are there on your necklace?”
“Ah?” Xiong Jiabao was taken aback. “Six, six of them.”
He looked down at the pile of necklaces around his neck, some with skulls, some with imitation human teeth, and others with crosses and cow bones, the standard equipment for a “Shamate” style. Was there something wrong with that?
“Oh, I must have remembered wrong,” Xin Meng scratched his face, casually walking out.
Xiong Jiabao twitched his mouth. Xin Meng’s observation skills were indeed sharp, even noticing his necklace, but wasn’t it a bit too fussy to pay attention to such trivial matters?
Unaware that he was being criticized for being fussy, Xin Meng chatted with You Yi as they walked toward the small grove. In fact, it was mostly him talking, while You Yi occasionally nodded to show he was listening, but he remained mostly silent.
When they reached the small grove, the two turned around several times, but aside from the traces they had left before, they found nothing and had to return empty-handed.
Upon returning to Xiuse Village, Xin Meng noticed something was off. The villagers seemed to have stopped napping for some reason, almost all of them had come out of their houses, and the entire village was in an uproar. Many faces were filled with anxiety, rushing back and forth.
Xin Meng grabbed a boy who was passing by. “Excuse me, what happened?”
The boy glanced at him, recognizing him as one of the outsiders, and patiently replied, “Aunt Cui is missing!”
Aunt Cui? Xin Meng had a vague impression of her; she seemed to be the neighbor of the family where Xiong Jiabao was staying. She was not young, her hair was already white. Although she was called an aunt, with Xin Meng’s age, he could even call her grandmother. She was very easygoing and always smiled at them whenever they met. How could she just disappear?
“What exactly happened?” Xin Meng asked again. The boy, anxious, wanted to hurry and find someone, so he simply pulled Xin Meng along as he walked, explaining, “She suddenly went missing. She was lying on the kang in her room while sleeping, but when we went in, only the quilt was left. Her family is frantic, calling everyone to search together.”
“Could she have gone out for something and forgotten to tell her family?” Xin Meng felt they might be overreacting.
“How could that be? Aunt Cui is not well, she would always tell her family wherever she went,” the boy explained. “Besides, our village is this small, there’s nowhere to go. At most, she would go up the mountain, but ever since she fell and broke her leg a few years ago, she hasn’t dared to go up the mountain again.”
“Then where are we going now?” Xin Meng noticed that everyone was heading in the same direction, toward the foot of the mountain on the other side.
That place was almost the deepest part of the village. Xin Meng had only seen it from the mountain and didn’t think much of it, so he hadn’t considered going that way.
“To the reservoir. There’s a reservoir behind the village. When it gets hot, people like to go there to cool off,” the boy said. “But it’s deep and quite dangerous. Someone drowned there last year. However, they’ve searched everywhere else, and the only place left is the reservoir. Everyone is worried that Aunt Cui might have drowned there, so they’re all rushing there.”
It seemed that the villagers had a strong sense of community; when one person had a problem, the whole village was anxious. But Xin Meng noticed a detail: when the boy mentioned “someone drowned,” his tone was rather indifferent, as if it didn’t matter at all. Xin Meng couldn’t help but ask, “Was that person from your village?”
The boy looked ahead, and after a while, he said, “Oh, no, they were from outside. They didn’t know the reservoir was dangerous and drowned while swimming.”
A small sense of unease arose in Xin Meng’s heart, but it quickly faded, and he didn’t grasp it.
The two hurried along, with You Yi leisurely following behind them. The three finally reached the edge of the reservoir, where a crowd had already gathered, and a piercing cry could be heard from within.
“Aunt Cui!” The boy’s face changed dramatically as he squeezed through the crowd and rushed to the front. Xin Meng took the opportunity to pull You Yi along behind him, finally seeing the situation at the reservoir.
Rather than a reservoir, it looked more like a large puddle, not very big, only about two or three hundred meters in diameter, but the water in the middle had a deep color, indicating it was quite deep. At that moment, a white object was floating on the surface of the water. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be Aunt Cui’s… corpse.
She was already dead, but for some reason, her body floated on the water’s surface, her limbs swollen, face down, gently swaying with the waves.
Four or five young men had taken off their shoes and socks and entered the water, swimming to the middle to grab Aunt Cui’s clothes and pull her toward the shore. Her family knelt by the water’s edge, crying heart-wrenchingly.
This was not Xin Meng’s first time seeing a corpse. In the previous game world, aside from their small group, the world was filled with the most disgusting and terrifying corpses. However, in this scene, it made him feel a bit uncomfortable.
Thinking of the old lady who had shown him a kind smile at noon, now turned into a swollen, cold corpse, Xin Meng couldn’t help but feel a pang of sorrow and wanted to go comfort her family.
At that moment, the corpse was pushed onto the shore. Under the impact of the water, it accidentally turned over, facing up. Xin Meng happened to walk closer, and his gaze met Aunt Cui’s face, causing him to step back in shock.
That face was also swollen from the water, pale, with lips devoid of color, clearly having been dead for a while.
However, this was not the reason for Xin Meng’s shock. He was fixated on the… smile on Aunt Cui’s face.
Yes, she was smiling.
To be precise, it was a smile that seemed like a smile but wasn’t, a cry that seemed like a cry but wasn’t, filled with anger and resentment…
Xin Meng had no doubt that if Aunt Cui could open her mouth, the sound she would make would definitely be the kind of scream they heard in the woods!
Xin Meng was so frightened that he took several steps back until his back was supported by a warm hand. He jumped in surprise and turned around to see it was You Yi, finally letting out a sigh of relief.
You Yi whispered in his ear, “Something’s not right.”
“Yeah,” Xin Meng nodded, swallowing hard. “Why does she have that expression?!”
At this moment, the villagers also noticed the strange expression on her dead face, and they collectively fell silent for a moment. Then, a commotion erupted, and it was so noisy that they couldn’t hear what was being said, but occasionally, they would catch words like “water ghost” and “find a substitute.”
If it were any other time, Xin Meng would have thought these superstitions were ridiculous, but after experiencing the unscientific events of the previous world and hearing the ghostly cries today, it made him feel uneasy. Hearing these words even sparked the thought that “it actually makes some sense.”
Others were too scared to approach the water’s edge, but Aunt Cui’s two children were not afraid. While crying, they embraced Aunt Cui’s corpse. The son lifted the old lady’s armpit, and the daughter lifted her feet, carrying Aunt Cui back home. The village chief arrived at that moment, quickly directing everyone to help. As outsiders, Xin Meng and You Yi could only follow from a distance.
Xin Meng covered his mouth with his hand and quietly whispered to You Yi, “The timing of Aunt Cui’s death is too coincidental, just as the ghostly cries were happening. Do you think it’s because we knocked over the stones and released something that caused this?”
You Yi detected the guilt in his tone and rare offered a word of comfort, “This is just a plot requirement. They are NPCs and will never truly die. Besides, it wasn’t you who knocked over the stones.”
Xin Meng thought about it and realized it was true. After all, it was a game. No matter how realistic it was, it couldn’t be that only their small team reached this point, right? If others came, she would respawn. However…
Was this the first time You Yi had spoken so much? This surprised Xin Meng greatly.
“Are you trying to comfort me?” he joked.
To his surprise, You Yi showed no signs of embarrassment and openly admitted, “That’s right.”
Instead, Xin Meng didn’t expect him to be so straightforward. He pursed his lips, feeling a bit shy.
