Chapter 7: Houwazi Village

  We used all our strength, and then we heard a "crack" sound. The rope made of camouflage cloth finally broke, and the three of us fell heavily to the ground at the same time. Lao Lu was pressed under the bottom and cried out in pain. I couldn't care about that much anymore, got up and ran to the side of the cave entrance, squatted down and shone my flashlight downwards.

  The scene in front of me almost made me laugh, I saw Liangzi and the strange corpse facing each other and circling around. Every time the strange corpse came forward, Liangzi would use the painting scroll in his hand to poke its belly with force. The strange corpse seemed to be stubborn and didn't change its tactics, it just kept coming forward and being pushed back, making it angrily shout and screech.

  "Hey, stop watching and hurry up to help me get on! If not, you can come down and play for a while too!"

  I only just realized he was still in danger, but the rope had broken and there was no other way, so I gritted my teeth and shouted at Liu Bao and Lao Lu: "Quickly, take off your pants."

  The three of them reluctantly took off their pants and twisted them into a rope, which they lowered down through the hole. At this point, they saw that the strange corpse was no longer in the revolving circle, and it had started to jump up and try to clear the obstacle in the middle.

  Liangzi saw the rope coming down and no longer entwined with it, grabbed the rope and wrapped it around his hand, shouting: "Use force, shine its eyes, shine it to death." Then, with both feet stomping wildly, he kicked the strange corpse that wanted to get close to him to one side again and again.

  I and Liu Bao pulled the rope with all our might, while Lao Lu held three flashlights to shine on the strange corpse's eyes. No matter what it was, after living underground for so long, it would be afraid of light. The strange corpse stretched out its dry arm to block the light, and for a moment, it gave up trying to grab the beam.

  After great efforts, we finally managed to pull the beam up, and Liu Bao and I immediately lay on the ground panting heavily. At this time, we heard Liangzi laughing loudly and saying: "I'm going to die, you're really avant-garde, these pants are incredibly sexy, not bad, not bad."

  I don't know what he's laughing at, I looked up and 'heh' also laughed out loud, just to see Lao Lu wearing a floral vest on his thin body, with a pair of triangular pants with a beautiful girl pattern underneath, it really makes people can't help but laugh.

  Then Liu Bao said: "This monster corpse below is a disaster, we must think of a way to kill it, otherwise it will come out and harm people sooner or later."

  We all thought it made sense, so we gathered some hay and dry wood, lit them on fire and threw them into the hole. Immediately, wailing sounds like a ghost's cry came from below. Although I felt that doing this was somewhat cruel, thinking of its terrifying appearance made me grit my teeth and continue to throw more firewood inside until no more sounds came from below. Only then did Liangzi cover the "well lid" again and put the broken, tattered armchair back on top of it. Everyone finally let out a sigh of relief.

  We really didn't want to stay in this place anymore, so we walked out of the house and vaguely followed the direction we came from back. Everyone was tired and hungry, just thinking about hurrying back to the car to find something to eat and rest well.

  The guy in front, Liang Zi, suddenly turned his head and looked at us three with a particularly arrogant expression, saying: "You three stay away from me, if you meet people on the road, don't say you know me. Looking at your three hooligan-like appearances, I would lose face."

  I looked around and found that I, Liu Bao, and Lao Lu were all left with only a vest and shorts. Adding to the absurdity was Lao Lu's ultra-trendy pattern. It was so ridiculous that it couldn't get any more ridiculous. Liu Bao went up and kicked Liang Zi: "Stop pretending to be a decent person here, if it weren't for saving you, would we have ended up in such a sorry state?"

  "Alas... this doesn't sound right, you're rescuing me with ulterior motives too, and this treasure map is still in my hands." Liangzi said, holding up the scroll in his hand with a smug expression.

  Liang Zi is indeed a man who values money over his life. Just now, in such a dangerous environment downstairs, he didn't even throw away the painting. But this is also good, after all, we have some comfort in our hearts. After encountering so many strange and bizarre things, it's fortunate that we've gained something.

  A group of people were still unclear about the direction and had been walking back and forth, east and west, until they returned to the car in the afternoon. Everyone quickly went into the car to find mineral water and leftover food from before to fill their stomachs. After eating and drinking enough and resting for a while, they started to feel anxious again. Although they were no longer in danger, the wheels of the car were still stuck in the mud, and they were unable to leave this desolate mountain.

  Just when everyone was at a loss, the car suddenly felt a jolt, and several people were frightened again. They quickly got out of the car to check, and what made me feel unexpected again was that a "native" slowly crawled out from under the car.

  Everyone immediately became tense, but soon discovered that this 'native' should not be in any danger. A young man covered in mud, estimated to be around 20 years old, had messy hair and a dull gaze, possibly due to having a runny nose for an extended period of time. There were even two 'snot rivers' on his lips.

  Liangelo pushed him and said: "Hey, what the hell are you doing? Running under our car, what kind of evil thing do you want to do?"

  I took one look and this guy is a total idiot, how can a normal person be in this state? I have no idea why this idiot was here, maybe it's because the weather was too hot and he crawled under the car to sleep, we just happened to wake him up when we came back to get on the bus.

  I pushed Liangzi and told him to stop messing around, then walked up to the fool and asked: "Little brother, what's your name? Where are you from?"

  That silly guy hehe smiled for a while and stuttered: "I... I'm called Hei Dan, my home is in Hou Wai Zi."

  Several people immediately came to their senses when they heard the three words "Hou Wai Zi". I thought that we were worried about not being able to get out, but if we found Hou Wai Zi, it would be easy. After all, we knew the old man who sold 'ashtrays' on the old road, how could he not entertain us?

  So I continued to ask the fool: "Is your home far from here? Can you take us there?"

  The fool didn't even look at me and went straight to snatch the chicken feet from Lao Lu's hand, snatched it over and stuffed it into his mouth before saying: "My home is not far, but my mother doesn't let me bring strangers back."

  I was listening to this fool and he actually listened to his mother's words, I was thinking about what to say next when I saw Liangzi walking over and patting the fool on the shoulder saying: "Brother, let me ask you something, did you pay for sleeping under our car? You need to pay 100 yuan to sleep here."

  I couldn't help but burst out laughing when I heard this, Liangzi really isn't a thing, actually using this trick to scare this fool, and still learning from others with a stutter.

  However, this trick was quite effective. When he heard Liangzi say that he wanted money, the fool retreated a few steps and said: "I, I don't have any money."

  "No money, no problem. You take us to your home and let your mother cook for us, I don't need any money." Liangzi directly attacked his weakness, I think this is also a good idea, only someone like Liangzi can come up with it, so I didn't stop him.

  The fool hesitated for a long time, and after the chicken feet were finished eating, he said: "Well, well, I'll take you back to the village, but you can't go to my house, go to the village chief's house, the village chief's house has good food."

  Liangzi turned around and gave us an OK gesture, then happily started packing things up. This time we were prepared, putting everything that could be carried into a bag. I held the painting scroll while Liangzi carried the backpack, and I also gave the two remaining chicken feet to Shaizi. Then everyone followed him in one direction.

  The fool led the way, gnawing on chicken feet, and after about two hours of walking, I saw a very deep small basin appear in front of me. In the basin, there was a village with about thirty or forty households, surrounded by dense mountains and trees. If no one had guided us, we would have absolutely not seen it from where we parked our car.

  As we approached the village, a small path appeared between the woods, and it was much easier to walk. The few of us followed the fool down into the basin and arrived at what is called Houwanzi Village.

  After entering the village, I found that the local houses are particularly old and simple, basically made of earth and wild grass. In the middle of the village, there is only one road with houses on both sides. Maybe due to the hot weather, I didn't see anyone, but vaguely saw a few dogs rushing across the road.

  The fool led us to the front of a house that looked bigger than the others and said, "This is the village chief's house, they eat better than my family." After finishing speaking, he ran away without looking back and disappeared in no time.

  I thought I'd just run, guessing that Liangzi had scared someone. Anyway, we've arrived at the destination, so I smiled and went to knock on the village chief's door. After knocking for a while, I heard a voice saying "Who is it?" Then the door was opened, and a woman in her 50s stood behind the door, staring at us with strange eyes.

  I suddenly realized that she was right, we four men had three of us wearing shorts, this would scare people in anyone's home.

  I was just thinking of how to go up and explain when I heard Liangzi say: "Auntie, we are from the Shenyang Treasure Hunting Biological Research Institute. We came here to investigate new species. Previously, one of our colleagues fell into a mountain ditch, so everyone used their clothes to make a rope to pull him up. Don't be surprised, this is Professor Lu from our research institute." After finishing speaking, Liangzi pushed Old Lu forward. This old man was quite quick to get into character, puffing out his chest and extending his hand: "Hello, hello, sorry for the disturbance."

  I almost burst out laughing at that time, this old man looked like a professor in his age group, but he was wearing those **women's triangular briefs**, no matter how I looked at it, it felt especially ridiculous.

  This woman should be the wife of the village head, and her vision is obviously much higher. She smiled and said: "Ah, you're from Shenyang, welcome, welcome! Hurry up and go inside, Old Lin, Old Lin, we have guests at home!" We looked at each other and followed the woman into the yard led by Old Lu.

  As soon as I saw the door open, a man with a tobacco pouch and wearing an old shirt came out. I thought this must be the village chief without a doubt. Although he was wearing typical rural attire, his temperament was obviously much higher than that of ordinary villagers.

  The village chief was also stunned when he saw us, a few half-naked weirdos. The woman went over and said something to him, and then the village chief seemed to understand and nodded, quickly walking over to shake Old Luo's hand: "I represent all the villagers of Houwanzi Village, welcome leader to come and inspect!"

  The old man was also a deep strategist and, after exchanging a few pleasantries with the village chief without being polite, he led us into the house.

  This is a fairly typical rural family, with no extra decorations or living room. The group directly entered the relatively large bedroom, and the village chief ordered the woman to quickly boil water and pour tea. As soon as she left, he called her back and whispered something in her ear.

  Not long after, the woman brought in a few pairs of pants and we immediately understood what she meant. We didn't stand on ceremony anymore, took the pants and quickly put them on. Although the sizes were all wrong, wearing something was much better than being naked. The three of us quickly put on the pants and felt much more at ease.