When they followed him into the village, there wasn't a single person in sight.
"What happened to everyone in your village?"
Jiang You looked at the village curiously. It was surrounded by water, and they had come in by boat.
Rather than a village, it looked more like an island in the middle of a lake.
There was no denying that the village had an excellent location.
The lake was like a natural barrier, keeping the zombies out.
Zhang Long explained, "When we left, we moved the elderly and children into the cellar as a precaution, and left some of the younger people in the village.
They won't come out until we return."
Zhang Shuhui was puzzled. "Were you afraid zombies would break in while you were away?
But this lake can only be crossed by boat, and zombies can't swim."
Zhang Long shook his head. "It wasn't to guard against zombies. It was to guard against people."
There weren't just us survivors in this area. The geographical advantages of our village had made many people envious.
"Some outsiders broke in before, so from then on, whenever we leave, we put the elderly and children in the cellar.
Only the villagers know where the cellar entrance is. No matter what they try to steal, at least no one will get hurt."
Zhang Long led them to a small courtyard while the others went to notify the people in the cellar.
"No one lives in this courtyard anymore. You can rest here. I'll have someone come clean it up later."
Zhang Long pushed open the courtyard gate and carried several people inside.
Zhang Shuhui hurriedly shook her head. "No, no, it's fine. I'll clean it up. The adults are used to me doing it, so there's no need to trouble anyone."
When Zhang Long nodded, she secretly breathed a sigh of relief.
No one is taking my job!
Jiang You studied the red-brick courtyard in front of her.
It was obvious at a glance that someone had lived here. There wasn't a speck of dust on the table beneath the eaves.
Yet Zhang Long had said that no one lived here, which meant the owner of the house had only just died.
Perhaps those rotten corpses had killed them.
But she didn't ask.
Her purpose in coming to the village was very clear: to learn more about Huai Shan Farm.
Since those rotten corpses had numbers, that proved there were definitely more than just those few. There had to be many more.
When she imagined the possibility of a whole group of rotten corpses,
Jiang You seemed to see a pile of egg-sized crystal cores waving at her.
But if there were too many rotten corpses, she was afraid she wouldn't be able to handle entering recklessly.
Confidence was a good thing, but excessive arrogance and confidence could sometimes get a person killed.
Jiang You never did anything unless she was reasonably certain of success.
So she said, "I'd like to meet your village chief."
Zhang Long nodded repeatedly. "Of course. I've already sent someone to notify the village chief. He'll be here soon.
He's old, though, and walks slowly. Sorry for the trouble, but please wait a few more minutes."
After speaking, Zhang Long had someone bring food to entertain Jiang You, but she waved it away.
"There's no need to go to the trouble. We have food."
Zhang Long thought about it. Someone as powerful as her must have better food than they did, and probably wouldn't care for their humble offerings, so he didn't insist.
A few minutes later, Jiang You heard a burst of heart-rending wails.
Zhang Long's face was somewhat pale. "It's Auntie Li. Her son was also a member of our village guard team. This time... he died at the hands of the rotten corpses."
Jiang You glanced at his fractured arm and said, "You don't need to stay with us. Go deal with your arm first, or you might suffer lasting complications."
Only then did he nod and leave.
For a while, only Jiang You and Zhang Shuhui remained in the courtyard.
Da Zhuang lay sprawled on the ground. After eating his fill, his favorite thing to do was lie down.
The gray mouse busily hopped back and forth across Da Zhuang, massaging him.
The room was unbearably stuffy, so Jiang You took a chair from her space and sat beneath the shade of a tree in the southeast corner of the courtyard.
Before long, a young man of seventeen or eighteen appeared at the courtyard entrance carrying a pot of water and some food.
"Knock, knock, knock!"
"Come in."
The young man walked inside. "This is our Old Yin Tea, and the pickled-vegetable buns were just steamed. Please have something to fill your stomach."
The young man had a fresh cut across his face. He was thin and dark, but his eyes were bright.
Jiang You had seen him earlier at the lychee grove.
However, he had clearly changed into clean clothes and tidied himself up a little.
"You were the one who saved us. We don't have much worth offering. Although you told us not to bring you food, Brother A Long still instructed us to prepare something better.
If you're worried, I can eat it first to show you it's safe!"
As he spoke, the young man swallowed.
There was no meat in the village, but they had dried pickled vegetables. The kitchen had used its last bit of flour to make several baskets of buns.
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This was the best food their village could currently produce.
The young man tried hard to suppress his salivation, afraid the person opposite him would notice.
Jiang You waved her hand. "You can eat it yourselves. I don't eat other people's food."
"But Brother A Long had it made for you. How could we eat it?"
"If you won't eat it, throw it away. I don't have a habit of eating food from strangers."
Jiang You wasn't a particularly patient person either, and she was getting tired of going back and forth.
Her expression turned cold.
Although she knew that this refined flour must be precious to the villagers,
Jiang You's principle was that whenever she was away from home, she absolutely wouldn't touch anyone else's food.
It was an experience born from countless painful lessons.
You could never know what might be in the food someone gave you.
The young man sighed.
Just then, an old man with a full head of white hair and beard appeared at the entrance, leaning on a cane.
"Pingwazi, take those things back. The people in your guard team should divide them among themselves. Everyone's injured and needs to build up their strength. It's too hot; this food won't keep and will spoil."
"But..."
The young man hesitated. It was such good food—what a waste to eat it all in one meal!
Still, he obediently carried the food away.
The Old Village Chief leaned on his cane and slowly walked inside. Jiang You took a stool from her space and placed it beneath the shade of the tree.
After the Old Village Chief sat down, she asked directly,
"I heard that you know about Huai Shan Farm. Could you tell me about it?"
The Old Village Chief sighed and spoke in his aged voice.
"The story of Huai Shan Farm goes back more than a decade..."
From the Old Village Chief's account, Jiang You heard an incomplete story.
About twelve years ago, the large tract of land behind Yuge Village, extending to two mountains, was leased by a private party and turned into a farm.
The farm was owned by a couple with two sons.
They scattered thorn seeds all along the boundary near the farm. Thorns grew very quickly.
About half a year later, the thorns had grown extremely tall, like a natural wall.
The couple rarely interacted with outsiders.
People outside were blocked by the thorn wall and couldn't get in.
The only reason the village chief had met them was because of the original leasing agreement.
The couple had leased the farm to raise a type of goat.
At the time, no one around there raised goats on a large scale.
The villagers didn't think much of them, but more than a year later, the farm's male owner accidentally revealed while drunk that they earned several hundred thousand yuan a year.
That single slip of the tongue brought disaster upon them.
The Old Village Chief still felt a lingering dread whenever he recalled what had happened.
To villagers who could save only ten or twenty thousand yuan after meeting their basic needs all year, nearly a million yuan a year was an enormous temptation.
He looked at Jiang You, a trace of tears glimmering in his cloudy eyes. "You didn't eat our food just now because you were afraid we'd poison you?"
His sudden change of subject caught Jiang You off guard.
She nodded frankly. "I don't eat food handled by outsiders. It's better for everyone that way."
The Old Village Chief nodded. He wasn't angry. Instead, he sighed.
"Yes... yes... Don't eat food given to you by strangers. The farm's male owner ate too much food given to him by others, and said... too much..."
The farm couple had originally come from elsewhere. No one knew them, and they had nothing to do with one another.
The female owner was usually quiet and withdrawn, and the male owner didn't talk much either.
But the male owner had one hobby: drinking.
Once he got drunk, he became like a completely different person.
He became extremely talkative.
After he drunkenly revealed that they earned several hundred thousand yuan a year,
he suddenly discovered that the villagers around the farm were exceptionally warm and simplehearted.
It seemed that everyone welcomed them.
Sometimes, villagers would bring homemade food to visit them.
Children would also go to the farm to play with their two sons.
They seemed to have completely integrated into the surrounding community...
But before long, things changed.
The Old Village Chief stopped speaking.
It was as though he were recalling something.
He looked at Jiang You, his voice trembling slightly. "Child, do you know what the most terrifying thing in this world is?"
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