Chapter 2: The Mysterious Village (12) Human Skin Envelope Sohu Read Book Digging for a better look at Sohu

  It had been like this for about a week, and finally, the strange noise at night stopped. However, just as I was slightly letting my guard down, I discovered that every household in the village would turn on their lights after midnight.

  "It was similar to the scene tonight, when I didn't sleep all night until the lights went out after the sky turned white in the east. During the day, I thought of exploring those abandoned courtyards to see what's going on. I walked from house to house, but they were already in disarray, and there was no sign that anyone had been there, let alone any lamps."

  Those lights had been on for about a month, and finally everything returned to normal. However, Hongying's body was getting weaker by the day. One evening, when I came home, I found that Hongying had disappeared." Old Jin said this, his eyes already overflowing with tears.

  I can understand Old Jin's feelings at that time, "When was Hongying found?"

  As soon as I uttered this sentence, I noticed a hint of despair on Old Jin's face, his eyes staring blankly out the window.

  Silence... Old Jin's face was gloomy as he stared out the window, while I kept staring at him. The rain had stopped by now, and all that could be heard was the sound of water dripping from the eaves, a crisp "patter" in my ears.

  After a long while, Old Jin finally came back to his senses and let out a deep sigh. "In the following months, strange things happened again," he said. "During the day, Tang Jun and I did almost nothing but search for our daughter and Jindouzi's whereabouts. At first, we looked in abandoned houses in the village, then gradually expanded our search to all possible places, even including that deserted grave mound. And at night, we would return home with empty stomachs, hastily cook a meal, eat, and then sleep with our hunting guns in our arms."

  It had been about half a month since such days passed, one night, I suddenly heard my daughter's exclamation by my ear, and vaguely also heard the cry of Jin Douzi. I sat up from bed with a start, and in front of me was a complete darkness. When I woke up, my daughter's exclamation disappeared, and at that time, I thought it was just myself missing my daughter too much to have had a nightmare. But when I lay down again, the cry of my daughter came to my ear once more, the voice as faint as a strand of silk.

  My heart tightened, and I quickly woke up Tang Jun. The two of us held the shotgun and followed the sound out, pushing open the door. My daughter's voice seemed to be coming from the south side of the village. I rushed in the direction of the sound while loading the gun.