This was a rather interesting coincidence.
He had only visited the Half-Treant Hu Yongchang that morning and taken an interest in the mysterious channels connected to him. Now he had run into a foreigner who happened to be linked to one of those channels.
The other end of that channel is over a hundred kilometers away.
Not that far, really.
Has this foreigner been there?
Jiang Qiao swept his gaze over the foreigner, easily picking up on his weakness, terror, relief, and the relaxation that came only after surviving a brush with death.
There were also obvious cracks in his Black Cross.
And those cracks were fresh.
They had appeared within the past few days.
Did he experience something terrifying in that village and escape with the help of that cross?
Jiang Qiao pondered this.
He did not approach the foreigner named Richard to strike up a conversation.
He glanced upstairs.
His gaze immediately pierced the floor above, revealing the foreigner's room. A backpack sat in one corner, containing quite a few rolls of undeveloped film and some notes.
An adventurer?
A folklorist?
With a beckoning gesture, he brought two thick notebooks and a pile of film rolls onto his table.
Then he began reading, paying no mind to anyone around him.
[November 16, 1920]
I arrived in Blue Village.
The village was tiny, with only a few dozen households and a little over a hundred residents, surrounded by jungle on all sides.
The villagers were friendly but somewhat wary of outsiders.
My guide, Ah Wang, said the village rarely received visitors. The village chief agreed to let me stay for a few days, provided I did not disturb their daily lives.
I agreed.
That night, I dreamed of a school.
The school was dilapidated,
and a wooden sign