Chapter 6: The Devil's Village and the Mansion of Murder

  Before long, the two of us went down the slope and arrived at the village. From a distance, this village was just pitch black, but when I really stood among them, I felt that something was even more wrong.

  The village was abnormally quiet, and it's no exaggeration to say that it was a deathly stillness.

  I walked on the bumpy dirt road in the village, and I don't know if it was my intuition that was playing tricks on me, but I always felt like someone was hiding in a dark corner, peeking at us. I looked around several times to verify my guess, but there was nothing to be found.

  Pan Zi was also slightly startled, his eyes darting back and forth, extremely tense.

  The woman in white led us to a tile-roofed house. The house was very dilapidated, the windows had no glass, and were covered with plastic sheets, some of which were torn open. After we entered, by the faint light of the candles, I saw that inside the house there was only one large round wooden table and several old-fashioned long benches, and in the corner a stove.

  I thought this should be a small canteen in Suiyuan Village. The woman asked us to sit down first, and she would prepare food for us.

  This long bench is very uncomfortable to sit on, and it creaks loudly with every slight movement, making me afraid to sit firmly on it for fear that it will collapse.

  Pan Zi didn't want to talk, so he put his hand on the round wooden table and tapped out a rhythmic "da-da-da", "da-da-da". I ignored him and took the opportunity to chat with the woman for a few sentences.

  After all, I've come this far with her, so I should at least know what she's called.

  She told me her name was Liu Huai, and asked us to call her Xiao Huai. She ladled out two bowls of soup from the pot and handed them over to us.

  I took the bowl and found it was still warm, but when I stared at the inside, my mind became confused. Because this soup looks strange, yellowish, mixed with some black particles, like a thick paste.

  I recall that I really couldn't think of what this was made of. I looked at Panzi, and he was really hungry, so he picked it up and took a sip early on.

  Look at me staring at Panzi without drinking the soup, Liu Hui muttered and said that this soup was made from potatoes, the environment around Weihai Village is poor, only crops like potatoes are easy to grow, let me not be picky, bear with it for a while.

  I wasn't as delicate as she said, I was just new to Suifang Village and everything seemed strange, so it's natural to be a bit cautious. Now that she mentioned it, I felt like I was being overly suspicious, so in the end, I followed Panzi's example and drank the soup.

  Then she took us to the edge of the village and stopped in front of another tile-roofed house.

  She pointed at this tile-roofed house and said to us, "This is where we two will live in the future."

  According to Liu Wei, this is what they call a faculty dormitory. But when I looked at the house, my eyes almost popped out. It's small and narrow, not to mention that the tiles on the roof are all broken. If it rains on a cloudy day, I suspect that even if it doesn't rain heavily outside, there will still be a light drizzle inside the house. Or if a strong wind blows by, the whole thing might just collapse.

  Liu Wei didn't mean to take us in, and she also reminded us of two things. One was that my friend and I must not wander around the village at night. The other thing she specifically pointed out to us, gesturing towards the mountain behind, was that no matter what time it was, we were never allowed to go wandering on the mountain behind.

  These two rules have left me bewildered, especially the one that prohibits going to the back mountain. It suddenly reminds me of that fragmented stone tablet, which says "Forbidden Land: Danger". Is this forbidden land referring to the back mountain?

  Liu Mei didn't stay for long, she asked us to get some rest early and that she would come pick us up again the next morning to take a look at our school, then left on her own with those small quick steps.

  I saw her off, and when only Panzi and I were left, I went to open the door of the tile house first. As soon as the door was opened, I smelled a strong musty smell, guessing that this house had not been inhabited for a long time.

  I and Panzi couldn't just go in like this, we both stood at the door, thinking of opening it for a while first, letting out some air before speaking. At this time, Panzi stared into the house, muttering softly to himself again.

  I asked him what he was muttering about, and he replied, "Du Rui, have you noticed that all the trees planted in this village are pagoda trees? This kind of tree has a very heavy yin energy. Also, look at this house, the windows are directly opposite the door, even the bed is placed directly opposite the entrance. In Feng Shui, this is considered an unlucky house, it's easy to attract ghosts."

  I don't understand those Feng Shui things, hearing Panzi say that, I also don't know if he's right or wrong, but this is what I think: whether this house is auspicious or not, no matter how bad it is, it's still a place to live, otherwise we'd be sleeping on the streets.

  When this moldy smell was almost gone, I took Panzi and walked in. It just so happened that there were two wooden beds in the house, one for each of us.

  I chose the bed closer to the inside, put down my luggage, took out a towel and prepared to wipe the bed thoroughly.

  There's nothing on the bed, I don't mind sleeping in my clothes tonight. I'll go to the village tomorrow and ask around to see who has extra bedding, and buy two sets.

  When I was wiping the bed board, I found a scratch on the edge of the bed board. The scratch is not deep or shallow. After measuring it, it seems to be scratched out by fingernails. This makes me quite puzzled, thinking that this bed had slept with what kind of person before? How can someone have the habit of scratching the bed board? Moreover, I also tried using my fingernails and found that the bed board itself is quite hard. If you don't use a lot of force, it's really impossible to scratch it out.

  After wiping the bed, I took out my mobile phone again to take a look. There was no signal in the village and it wasn't charging, so I had to turn it off to save power. Then I took out a recorder pen, this kind of recorder pen is specially made for our informants by the police station, with a built-in password, in other words, I can use it to record, but if you want to listen to the recording content, you can only hear it on a special device plugged into the police station, and when you turn on the recorder pen, it will automatically record the time of the day.

  Every day when I'm on a mission, I have to make a report in front of the recorder, talking about the progress of the investigation and what happened that day. Today's recording time was longer than usual because we encountered too many unexpected events, and I also measured my tone, subtly mentioning that my partner and I almost lost our lives on the way to Suifeng Village. By saying this, I wanted to let Officer Li know how hard we worked, so that in the future when it's time to record our merits, he can add a few more points for us.

  During the recording, Panzi walked to the door again, squatted in front of the door, and seemed to have taken two pieces of paper to stick on the door.

  What are these guys up to now? After recording the sound, I went over to take a look, and it turned out that these two pieces of paper were actually two door god paintings. He stuck these two door gods on the door, just wanting them to ward off evil spirits.

  I wanted to tell Panzi to stop bothering, but then I thought, he had brought these two door gods from afar, it would be a pity not to stick them up, so I didn't bother him.

  It wasn't until midnight that Panzi and I finally had a chance to lie down after being busy all day.

  I was extremely tired, thinking that as soon as I closed my eyes, I would definitely sleep soundly until dawn. But in reality, I couldn't fall asleep at all. In a daze, I felt an unusual heat inside my body, and I couldn't stop sweating profusely. This wasn't the worst part - what really annoyed me was that I heard singing in my ears, it was that old-fashioned song from the mysterious CD.

  I wanted to open my eyes but it was extremely strenuous, my body felt numb like I had been anesthetized, so I struggled secretly for a while, and finally somehow managed to break free after one last effort, I kicked my legs and freed myself.

  I sat up abruptly, panting heavily. At this moment, my forehead was forgotten, as if it had been washed with sweat. What I didn't expect was that the singing voice wasn't a dream, but a real existence, faintly coming from outside the door.

  I glanced at the watch, 2 o'clock in the middle of the night. It's already strange that someone can sing a song at this hour, especially when this singing voice was also predicted by that mysterious light disc.

  I looked at Panzi again, thinking that he must have been woken up by the singing too, but unexpectedly he was lying on the bed, sleeping like a dead pig.

  Pan Zi is also a reduced sentence informant like me, and he's also a survivor of various tasks. Although he's a bit timid, his vigilance won't be so weak.

  I called out softly a few times to Panzi, but he didn't respond. I suppressed my curiosity about the singing and quietly got down from the bed, coming to stand in front of Panzi's bed.

  Under the faint moonlight, I saw that he was also covered in sweat, especially his lips were dry, so I pushed him hard.

  Pan Zi suddenly woke up, and as soon as he opened his eyes, he had a terrified expression on his face. He abruptly sat up, and if I hadn't been quick to dodge, he would have definitely bumped into my head.

  Pan Zihao panted heavily, his hands still waving around as if to confirm that he was still alive.

  I let him slow down for a while and asked him what's wrong?

  Panzi said that when I called him just now, he heard it clearly, but his mother was unable to move. This situation is the same as what happened to me earlier.

  Panzi concluded that we were being oppressed by a ghost, but I didn't think so in my heart. I thought of the strange crows I encountered last night and wondered if there was something dirty on their claws? Were we infected?

  This time we came and also brought some medicine. Although it's uncertain whether the symptoms match, I still picked a few medicines to take with Panzi.

  Next, the two of us shifted our attention to the singing voice, which had been continuous all along. The woman who was singing really didn't seem tired at all. Panzi and I discussed it briefly, although Liu Wei had specifically told us not to wander around at night, but Panzi and I didn't care about that, planning to break this rule and go out to investigate.