Chapter 11
Xiao Tangqiu turned pale, his stomach queasy from watching a man burn to death right in front of his eyes. But he still managed to maintain a calm demeanor. Lu Xiaotao had already started vomiting by the side.
The calmest person amongst them was of course Luo Mansu; he seemed to have gotten used to seeing such a thing. He looked the corpse up and down and said, “He’s dead; died the same way as the other guy.”
“Why?” Tang Mianmian’s face was pale with horror, “Why did they die? What’s the trigger condition?”
Xiao Tangqiu was also wondering the same thing. As live streamers for horror games, they were used to this train of thought. Since Zeng Jinping had reached the BE, he must have triggered one of the death conditions…….. Then, what is the death condition?
“Why?” Luo Mansu laughed coldly, “Why must there be a reason? This place is haunted. What reason does a ghost need to hurt someone? Don’t tell me you want to reason with a ghost?”
Tang Mianmian was left speechless. Yang Bing carefully asked, “What should we do with the body?”
“We don’t need to do anything. It’ll be gone by tomorrow,” Luo Mansu’s sounded uninterested. “Didn’t you guys notice that the other body has…….. disappeared?
n.o.body wanted to say anything. Finally, Xiao Tangqiu asked, “Should we check if there’s really something in the well?”
Luo Mansu asked, “Who’s going to go check? Didn’t you see what happened to him?”
Xiao Tangqiu laughed dryly, “Forget it then. Should we talk to the village chief?”
Luo Mansu nodded; the others didn’t have any objections either. As they were about set off to look for the village chief, Xiao Tangqiu couldn’t resist turning around to look at the well.
There was a red figure crouching beside the well.
Xiao Tangqiu screamed in surprise, giving Tang Mianmian a shock, “What’s wrong?”
“There’s someone!” Xiao Tangqiu exclaimed.
“There’s someone there?” Tang Mianmian turned his head and asked in confusion.
When Xiao Tangqiu looked again, that red figure had disappeared.
They soon reached the village chief’s house. Ding Tiantian and Ding Mimi were already waiting outside.
“Older brother Luo!” The twins immediately greeted Luo Mansu upon seeing him, but only got a cold response in return.
Luo Mansu went up to the village chief but before he had the chance to speak, the village chief repeated without emotion, “I’ve already said that I don’t know anythingk2026;k2026; I don’t know anythingk2026;k2026;..”
Lu Xiaotao laughed bitterly, “Every time we speak to the village chief, he repeats the same sentence over and over again, just like an NPC in a game.”
Xiao Tangqiu contemplated for a second, then removed the handkerchief from his pocket. He waved it at the village chief, “Village Chief, do you recognize this?”
The village chief raised his glazed eyes. As soon as he saw the handkerchief, he emotions were like a stagnant pool of water that started to bubble and boil. He agitatedly cried out, “This…… this…….. this handkerchief!”
“Do you know who this handkerchief belongs to?” Xiao Tangqiu knew he was onto something.
“No! I don’t know anything! I don’t know anything!” The village chief wanted to walk away but Luo Mansu pushed him back onto his seat.
Luo Mansu eyed the village chief, flashing a sly smile, “Village Chief, I think it’s better for you to start talking. Or else, we’ll throw you into the well!”
“The well! The well!” The village chief started to twitch violently, as if he was going through an epileptic episode. Xiao Tangqiu was worried he would start to thrash about. Fortunately, the village chief regained his calm. Rather, it was this sort of eerie calmness that resembled the stillness of death.
“Fang Lan….. Fang Lan….. Fang Lan must be back!” The village chief’s glazed eyes turned red and teary. “She’s back for revenge! We’re all going to die!”
“Fang Lan?” Xiao Tangqiu frowned, “Who is she?”
“She’s going to kill Xiaohai….. Xiaohai…….. My poor child……. She is a woman who brings misfortune……..” The village chief mumbled those words over and over again. Xiao Tangqiu tried to remain patient as he repeated his question a few times. The village chief eventually narrated what happened in that fateful year.
It turned out that the village chief’s son, Zhou Hai had a childhood sweetheart named Fang Lan. They promised to be together but when Fang Lan turned eighteen, Yunjia Village’s most influential family, the Yun family, came to ask for her hand in marriage. They wanted to arrange a ghost wedding for Fang Lan and the Yun family’s oldest young master who had died prematurely.
Under the tyranny of Yun family, Fang Lan had no choice but to marry into Yun family despite being unwilling. Not long after, she got pregnant. Although the pregnancy was a strange matter, the Yun family was actually very happy about it……. But the day before she was supposed to give birth, the Yun family discovered that she was having an affair. Fang Lan was immediately tied up, stuffed into a pig cage and drowned in the river.
Xiao Tangqiu frowned, “Ghost marriage? Pregnant with a ghost’s baby?” No wonder Fang Lan’s coffin had a paper doll dressed in a red wedding dress. The customs for ghost weddings differed from place to place; perhaps this was the custom in this fishing village.
“But that’s a pregnant woman!” Tang Mianmian argued against the injustice done to Fang Lan, “Even if that child was fathered by someone else, the Yun family’s oldest young master was already dead. Did they expect a young and beautiful woman to live as a widow? How can they drown a pregnant woman to death? It’s so cruel!”
“What else? Just now, you said Fang Lan was back for revenge. What do you mean by that?” The village chief had been quiet after talking about Fang Lan’s death. Lu Dadong anxiously pushed the village chief, trying to get him to speak, but he used too much strength and pushed the chief onto the ground. Suddenly, Lu Xiaotao let out a shrill scream.
The moment the village chief’s body touched the ground, it ruptured into pieces; his flesh and bone fell apart and his head rolled off. Coincidentally, when the head finally stopped rolling, the village chief’s face was turned towards them, a look of disbelief plastered onto it.
A second later, he stopped breathing and his face was forever frozen in that look of incredulity.
“Ahhhhhhh!” Lu Xiaotao and Lu Dadong screamed at the same time.
“I didn’t kill him! It wasn’t me! I didn’t kill him!” Lu Dadong was frightened and speaking incoherently, “I had only pushed him gently earlier…… I didn’t kill him! I’m innocent!”
“Calm down!” Luo Mansu shouted. “There’s no way that push killed him. He must’ve already been dead.”
“He was already dead?” They all shivered uncontrollably.
“I’m afraid Fang Lan already came back for her revenge.” Luo Mansu laughed coldly, “This guy probably didn’t realize he was already dead. When he recounted Fang Lan’s story, he probably remembered that Fang Lan had already returned and killed him……”
He paused before continuing, “This also means we’ve completed the task involving this NPC. Let’s go, we’ve unlocked the next map.”
Tang Mianmian gulped and asked knowingly, “Yun Manor?”
“No! We don’t want to go!” Ding Tiantian and Ding Mimi were trembling.
“You can choose not to go, but let me tell you this…..” Luo Mansu flashed a sinister smile at the twins. “Another person has just died.”
Both girls looked ashen, but went along with it when they saw everyone leaving as well.
After leaving the village chief’s house, Xiao Tangqiu immediately perceived an eerie change in the fishing village. “The villagers have all disappeared……..”
“They’re probably dead,” Luo Mansu seemed to disagree. “The village chief was so frightened. Fang Lan must’ve turned into an evil spirit.”
Xiao Tangqiu frowned, “If everyone is dead, then where are the bodies? If they didn’t realize they were dead like the village chief……. then where did the bodies go? Did they disappear into thin air? Are NPC bodies not subjected to the same rule of disappearing after a day?
“Kid, you’re overthinking it,” Luo Mansu looked at Xiao Tangqiu in surprise. “But then again, this world is very strange. Not everything has cause and effect.”
Xiao Tangqiu didn’t think so, but he was suddenly hit with a sinking feeling in his chest – this was the exact feeling he felt whenever he was about to trigger a death condition in a horror game. Whenever he was about to select a choice in-game, his intuition would always point him in the right direction. This jinxed mouth of his was never wrong.
“I have a bad feeling about this…….”
“f.u.c.k!” Tang Mianmian was extremely clear about Xiao Tangqiu’s mystifying ‘gift’, “Stop raising Flags ah!”
Then, Luo Mansu widened his eyes, turning to run without a moment’s pause. “Quickly, run!!!”
Xiao Tangqiu couldn’t resist turning back. The paper doll had exited the village chief’s house, carrying the village chief’s head in one hand and dragging the shovel they dug the grave with, in another.
A pair of lifelike eyes stared straight at them; its gaze mournful, and br.i.m.m.i.n.g with bitter resentment.