Sui Chengguo realized sothing was amiss, and couldn’t stay there for another second. He imdiately turned around to flee, taking care to lower his footsteps.
On his way back, as he passed by the ancestral hall, Sui Chengguo’s steps involuntarily paused for a mont. The chaos of recited scriptures that filled the hall before was now eerily silent.
No, it wasn’t just silent, it was a stillness so deep it made one’s heart panic.
Even though Sui Chengguo thought it was too risky, opportunities were hard to co by. If he wanted to survive, so risks had to be taken. He stopped in his tracks and quickly approached a window of the ancestral hall. The window was shut tight, but there was a narrow gap between the two panes.
He pressed his face up to it, peering through the gap, and in the next second, Sui Chengguo felt a chill over his entire body. He saw the vast ancestral hall was empty, without a single person in sight, only a few red candles burning faintly in front of the hall.
Where are the people?
Where did they all go?
Sui Chengguo was a man with nerve, but this scene truly frightened him. From the previously heard scriptures, he had judged that there must have been at least a hundred people inside the hall. Even if they had left after their recitations, the commotion from such a number of people would not have been small, yet he was nearby and hadn’t noticed anything at all.
He withdrew his gaze and looked around the vicinity, not a single silhouette in sight. A sense of despair suddenly spread through Sui Chengguo’s heart, as if he had been abandoned by everyone. The Du Family Village he was in now was no longer the sa Du Family Village where Yang Xiao, Cheng Cha, and Tong Han were.
Without hesitation, Sui Chengguo imdiately turned to flee. Following the path he rembered, he found that overgrown patch of grass. When he pretended to have finished his business and erged from the brush, the spot where Yang Xiao and Du San had stood was long since empty.
In that mont, Sui Chengguo started to panic, as if his previous ominous premonition had beco reality and he was the only one left in the entire Du Family Village.
Had he been targeted?
That was Sui Chengguo’s first thought, but... where exactly had the ghost set its sights on him?
The answer was rather singular: either the ancestral hall or that shed resembling a livestock pen behind it. Sui Chengguo was more inclined to believe it was that dilapidated and eerie shed.
There, he had heard the Du Family Patriarch’s voice, and he ntioned a na, Ning’er. Sui Chengguo had heard Tong Han and Mi Shu ntion this na before—it was the na of the Du Family Patriarch’s daughter. But the patriarch’s daughter... was already dead.
Why would he be talking to a dead person?
What chilled Sui Chengguo to the bone even more was that he had also heard a woman’s laughter, laughter that belonged to a very young woman.
Sui Chengguo forced himself to calm down and walked in the direction of the Du Family Ancestral Ho, recalling the way from mory since that’s where his teammates should be.
If... if the Du Family Ancestral Ho was also empty, with no one there, then it ant the problem was with him. He must have been haunted by the ghost.
What puzzled Sui Chengguo was that Cheng Cha had been targeted by the ghost before, but why was he unhard?
But these were questions he was dood to never have answered. To survive, he could only rely on himself. As Sui Chengguo walked along the silent village path, his heart sank deeper into the abyss.
"Sui!"
Suddenly, a call ca from behind, and Sui Chengguo imdiately stopped in his tracks. He recognized it as Yang Xiao’s voice, but he didn’t turn around or respond right away.
The reason was simple: he was afraid it was a trick played by the ghost.
For all he knew, he could fall right into the ghost’s trap by simply looking back.
Sui Chengguo pursed his lips, but the footsteps behind him kept getting closer. He couldn’t help thinking of Liu Haiping, who had been decapitated from behind, and a cold sweat stread down his back.
But soon, a figure appeared in front of him. It was indeed Yang Xiao. Yang Xiao smiled at him and, with a very low voice, mouthed, "Don’t be afraid, it’s a person, not a ghost."
At the sa ti, Sui Chengguo heard two sets of footsteps rapidly approaching from behind him. Hu Yanming’s voice ca through, "Sui, you sure made us look for you!"
"Sui, if you can’t rember the way, just call for us. We told you not to wander off; look, you got lost and even made Du San join us in the search," Yang Xiao criticized with slightly furrowed brows in a blaming tone.
True enough, when Sui Chengguo turned around, he saw Hu Yanming and Du San walking toward him, with a very dark and displeased expression on the face of Du San, who was at the back.
"I’m really sorry, I have no sense of direction, and once it’s convenient, I start to lose track of southeast and northwest. It was no easy task finding my way back here."
Sui Chengguo sincerely apologized to Du San with a clasped fist. He understood the hint in Yang Xiao’s words. Du San had previously gone looking for him in the overgrown fields and knew he wasn’t there, so he had to co up with a new excuse, and the excuse was readily provided by Yang Xiao—stick to the story of getting lost.
It was clear that Du San was skeptical and probably didn’t quite believe him, but he didn’t say much, just led Yang Xiao and the others towards the Du Family Ancestral Ho.
Halfway there, they encountered about a dozen villagers crowded at an intersection, where two big wood carts loaded with firewood were parked. The villagers were split into two groups, having a fierce argunt, neither side yielding.
"Instead of looking for firewood, what are you all blocking the road for?!" Du San, who seed to have much authority among the villagers, shouted and strode over.
Seeing Du San approach, the villagers pulled him aside to diate, bombarding him with their own sides of the story in their thick local accents. It took Yang Xiao a while, but he eventually grasped the crux of the issue—it was a quarrel over a large log each side claid to have spotted first and thus believed should belong to them.
"All this over just a log?" Hu Yanming couldn’t understand it.
Du San first scolded the heads of both groups, using the ugliest curses for whatever was hearable, effectively silencing both parties. Then he had people pull the log in question out.
Both groups worked together to drag off a log over four ters long and as thick as the rim of a bowl from the cart. Du San put down his bundle of firewood, reached his left hand into it, and pulled out a nearly one-ter-long, black, wide-backed chopping knife. After a brief gathering of strength, he swung the knife fiercely downwards, splitting the bowl-thick log in half with a single chop, followed by another two chops to break it into two pieces. "Split it half and half, take your things and scram!"
The people each took a piece, loaded the log onto their carts, and quickly dispersed, while Du San put away the chopping knife into the bundle of firewood and hoisted the whole bundle onto his back.
At this mont, Yang Xiao and Sui Chengguo took a deep breath, their gazes fixed on the bundle of firewood on Du San’s back, or to be precise, on the chopping knife.
The left hand wielding the knife—particularly a substantial one with a wide back and long blade, and the great strength—these points all matched up.
It had to be said that Sui Chengguo’s earlier conjecture was remarkably accurate.
And to have cut through a bowl-thick log with just three chops, the strength involved was imaginable. Yang Xiao was convinced he had found the murderer of Liu Haiping.
Du San.
They hadn’t expected that the first character they t in Nightmare World, the honest man who led them into the village, would turn out to be the murderer.
On the way back, Yang Xiao and Sui Chengguo continued to chat casually with Du San, as if they hadn’t noticed anything, soon bringing up the subject of firewood. Out of curiosity, Yang Xiao asked, "Brother Du San, why do the villagers chop so much firewood?"
"For cooking," Du San replied.
"Brother Du San, you must be joking. What al needs so much firewood? I saw at least two large carts earlier," Sui Chengguo said, playing along with Yang Xiao, continuing to probe, "And you’re also carrying a bundle on your back."
The answer Du San gave sent a chill down the spines of Yang Xiao and the others, "So food is hard to cook thoroughly, so it needs to burn longer, which ans more firewood is required."
Hu Yanming felt like crying. The only food he could think of that required a large fire to cook was themselves.
It made sense that the villagers, having no at to eat, would set their sights on passing rchants and disaster victims.
Finally, they returned to the Du Family Ancestral Ho. As soon as the three arrived at their lodgings, they were t by an anxious Tong Han, "Why were you gone for so long?"
"Is sothing wrong?" Yang Xiao beca alert imdiately, noting that only two people remained in the room—Tong Han and Mi Shu, with the others nowhere to be seen.
"They were called away by Patriarch Du, said there was sothing very important to explain, related to tonight’s task," Tong Han spoke quickly, "And stated to head over as soon as you returned."
"Patriarch Du?" Sui Chengguo was startled, "When did this happen?"
"A while ago, at least an hour," Mi Shu sighed, seemingly worried about those who had been summoned.
At these words, Sui Chengguo’s head buzzed. An hour ago, he was near the ancestral hall and that big shed for the animals; he even heard the voice of Patriarch Du himself.
And that strange, eerie laughter of a woman.
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