“The village doctor has been here,” The man explained, “Hong Hong’s mother is fine. The doctor said that she needed to rest a lot before he left.”
“Is that so?” Jiang Cheng looked at the closed door. He nodded with some regret, “Then, we’ll be leaving.”
On the way back, Chen Xiaomeng glanced at Jiang Cheng. The latter appeared confident and inscrutable.
“There’s something wrong with that man.” Chen Xiaomeng began, “Hong Hong looks like she’s scared of him. Plus, a girl her age wouldn’t know about the distance between males and females. He probably taught her to say that.”
Jiang Cheng narrowed his eyes to block the setting sun. “Of course. Or else why would he choose this hour to work on the vegetable patch? Clearly, he saw us and hurried over to Hong Hong’s home.” The sun was setting, and the night would soon arrive. The night was a nightmarish existence for the villagers. However, the man chose this hour to come to work in the small field? Clearly, this was suspicious.
Chen Xiaomeng added, “Based on his appearance, he is not a farmer. His pair of leather shoes are practically shining.” A well-dressed strange man said that he came to Hong Hong’s place to help with the gardening.
At that point, both stopped talking. Since they had seen through the man’s fake identity, the next step was to predict his goal. This was very simple. He was there to monitor them. The man’s real goal was probably to prevent them from interacting with Hong Hong’s family to gain valuable information. The village head was most likely behind this.
Chen Xiaomeng paused and whispered, “Do you know…”
“I do,” Jiang Cheng interrupted.
“How do you know what I was about to ask?” Chen Xiaomeng gasped.
Jiang Cheng didn’t stop moving. “You can’t figure out why there are still so many men in the village if the ghost kills one to three men every few days for the past twenty years.”
Chen Xiaomeng widened her eyes.
“But you get it now, right?” Jiang Cheng glanced at her.
Chen Xiaomeng took a deep breath. She took in the village around her. “It’s the village head.” She looked at the courtyard of the Qian Family with the building that was conspicuously taller than the rest of the village. “The village head purposely situated us in the Qian Family’s courtyard because the ghost’s targets are the people from the Qian Family. Once we stay there, the ghost will murder us, thinking that we’re parts of the Qian Family. This will ensure the safety of the other villagers.
“That is the secret behind the survival of Little Ravine Village. I believe the village head will invite some outsiders to stay in the Qian Family yard at set intervals of time. In the end, they would be killed by the ghosts.”
This matched the information they gathered in An Ping Town. Outsiders kept going missing around Little Ravine Village. The woman who went to search for her husband at the inn didn’t dress like the locals. Her husband was probably an outsider tricked into entering Little Ravine Village.
This would explain why An Ping Town’s people detested Little Ravine Village’s people so much. Just as the elder from the town said, they should stay away from the people from the mountain village. They represented… misfortune.
Jiang Cheng studied the woman before him with interest. He was not averse to bad people because they had their reasons to walk on the other side of the law. He hated idiots because idiocy had no excuse. Thankfully, Chen Xiaomeng was not dumb. She was much better than the two dummies, Zhou Rong and Bei Qian. This was why Jiang Cheng chose her. In the nightmare realm, good people and bad people might die, but dumb people will definitely die.
“Do you know how to leave this village?” Chen Xiaomeng raised her brow.
“Interesting,” Chen Xiaomeng smiled, “Because I do.”
“Do you plan to leave now?”
“Do you wish for the villagers to turn on us first before leaving?” Chen Xiaomeng shrugged. She took out the fruit and took a bite. The fruit looked small, but it was very juicy. It made Jiang Cheng so hungry. “We can leave later. I want to check out Hong Hong’s home.”
“It’s your choice.” Chen Xiaomeng tossed the core away.
When they returned to the courtyard, it was already dark. The charcoal in the houses were still burning but there was no one around. Yu Man and Lee Lu hadn’t returned.
“Where are they?” Chen Xiaomeng asked.
“How would I know?” Jiang Cheng shrugged, “I wasn’t the one who was grouped with them this afternoon.”
Needless to say, something had happened to them. However, it was unclear if they encountered the ghost or the villagers. If it were the latter, they would have been detained.
Jiang Cheng had been pondering this issue of balance. So far, much evidence had proved that the ghost in this mission wouldn’t kill females. However, this didn’t mean that the female players were safe.
Based on Jiang Cheng’s understanding, the nightmare might seem absurd, but it ran on a complicated and careful mechanism. Every traveller had the same chance at survival. Perhaps the ghost would favour the fairer sex, but under the fairness of the rules, the female players would attract malice from other parties.
He could imagine the consequences of two beautiful young women losing their way in Little Ravine Village. They wouldn’t die, but they would wish that they had died.
Chen Xiaomeng realised that too. As a female, her face darkened. “When we return to Hong Hong’s place at night, pay attention to the surroundings. If we can save them, our risks at An Ping Inn will be lowered.”
Chen Xiaomeng was uninterested in Lee Lu and Yu Man’s survival. However, she did hate the villagers’ actions. She would choose to save them because they still had value as trap testers.
She valued rationality above emotions. Jiang Cheng was very satisfied.
In comparison, Jiang Cheng was reminded of the Fatty at home… He was often useless and stood in his way… But damn, was he a good cook.