First Night

"Everyone has to get up early tomorrow to help out. Can you take responsibility if the wedding preparations get delayed?"

The old man's impatient urging sounded again from outside.

After putting the bowls back in the kitchen, he had not expected this group to still be lingering in the room where they had eaten.

Just how much did these helpers have to say that they absolutely had to get it all out tonight?

Though there were still many doubts that had not been discussed, the old man's impatient tone reminded everyone of the short woman's friend. They each picked up their things and hurried out of the Black Soil house where they had eaten.

With a displeased expression, the old man held up a torch and led them from the Backyard to the Main Hall, all the while continuing to bark at them not to look around.

What could anyone see in the dark?

Still, according to the horror novel plots Old Yuan had always told her about,

horror elements were never absent at night.

Thinking of that, Zheng Wuyou quietly reminded everyone to stay alert through the night before they left the Wooden House.

Sun Wu and Uncle Cai in particular, since they would be staying alone, needed to be especially careful.

Everyone nodded in tacit understanding.

In a mountain village without any source of light, apart from the moonlight overhead, they could only rely on torches to light the way ahead.

But the old man had not prepared any for the rest of them.

Outside the only Wooden House with a light source, it was now so dark that nothing could be seen. Looking up, they could barely distinguish which patch was mountain and which was sky.

The entire village lay silent in darkness.

"Cough, cough... I told you, I don't care where you sleep. Once it's dark, that's your own problem." Seeing the people who should have left gathered uncertainly at the Wooden House entrance, the old man shakily approached the door, grabbed half of it with his left hand in an obvious gesture of dismissal, and closed it.

As for those shut outside, whether fortune or misfortune awaited them, no one knew.

Zheng Wuyou pulled Wansi back a step.

So the door would not catch them in the middle.

Only after the old man firmly slid the bolt into place did Zheng Wuyou ask, "Village chief, where are we staying?"

Upon hearing the words "village chief," the old man turned back thoughtfully to look at the girl behind him.

His cloudy eyes sized up her body.

For once, the old man showed a satisfied expression. Holding the torch, he headed for another door leading toward the Backyard and waved for them to follow.

"You know I'm the village chief?"

"Who else but the village chief could have a say in every household?" Following behind him, Zheng Wuyou had only wanted to test whether these NPCs could answer questions beyond their preprogrammed lines.

Unexpectedly, this old man seemed to have thoughts of his own.

He was unlike the fixed game NPCs in games.

"I don't allow men and women to share rooms, cough, cough... So you two will share one room, and he'll have one to himself." Standing before the first room on the second floor, the old man pulled out a large jangling bunch of keys from his tattered pocket.

Squinting, he searched through them for the key to the first room.

Zheng Wuyou had one foot on the second floor while the other still rested on the stairs.

The narrow hallway on the second floor made it impossible for several people to stand together at once.

So the other door in the Main Hall was the only way to reach the second floor.

The corridor outside the second-floor rooms was so narrow that only two people could walk abreast through it.

Though the corridor was cramped, what drew even more attention was the row of windows along it. Without exception, they lacked glass to keep out the wind, leaving only bare window frames standing there alone.

Whenever night fell, the cold wind mercilessly poured in through those empty windows, blowing straight into people's bones and making them shiver.

That bone-piercing chill could penetrate their clothes and reach deep into their skin, giving them an indescribable feeling of coldness.

Not only had the outer walls of the second floor been carefully coated in white putty, but so had the interior.

Compared to the exposed wooden structure of the Main Hall, it was like the difference between a fully renovated home and a Rough House.

Everything about it screamed incongruity.

With one foot on the stairs and one on the second floor, Zheng Wuyou felt as though her body were in two different worlds.

With a click, the rusty iron lock on the first room was opened with a key.

Holding up the torch, the old man went inside and lit the candle in the room.

Flickering candlelight filled the room. The old man came back out, passed four rooms in a straight line, and went to the last room at the end of the corridor to continue searching for keys.

Zheng Wuyou did not follow him. Instead, she peered inside from the doorway of the first room.

Like the Main Hall, every layer of its wooden structure was clearly visible.

There was no white putty. The original color of the wood displayed a plain, rustic air.

Only the second-floor corridor of the entire Wooden House had been painted with white putty.

What strange decorating.

The only wooden bed was covered in dry grass, with a grayish-black piece of cloth draped over it.

That cloth looked like it was tonight's bedsheet.

The candle stood on a table beside the wooden window. Since the open half of the window faced the door, the draft blew the candle flame about.

The room therefore flickered between light and darkness.

"You'll stay in this room. Remember, don't listen to or look into the other rooms."

The old man's aged voice echoed from the end of the corridor.

He was speaking to Miao Laisheng in Navy Blue Pajamas.

It seemed she and the Little Girl, Wansi, had been assigned this room.

The old man's footsteps came closer and closer. When Zheng Wuyou turned around, the old man standing in the doorway with a torch gave Wansi a fright.

Wansi clutched the hem of her clothes and hid further behind Zheng Wuyou.

"Remember to close the door when you go inside." The old man's stern face, deeply etched by time, looked rather frightening in the torchlight.

After saying that, he directly pulled their door shut.

Zheng Wuyou could clearly hear him hang the unlocked iron lock on the doorknob outside.

Then came the heavy sound of his footsteps on the stairs.

Oh no, Miao Laisheng had the List!

If some emergency happened in the middle of the night, with four rooms between them, how were they supposed to communicate?

"Big Sister, look at the window!" Wansi felt waves of chill behind her. Turning around, she saw it was the cold wind occasionally blowing in from outside.

At that moment, a wavering beam of light occasionally shone onto the other half of the window, which had been pushed outward.

The old man had only said to close the door! He had never said they had to close the window!

Zheng Wuyou quickly pressed herself against the window and looked toward the light.

At the far end of the second floor, another half-open window could be seen. A hand holding a candle occasionally extended from it.

Though Zheng Wuyou knew they could not communicate much with candles, she still cooperatively and carefully held the candle from inside the room to the window.

Until a huge shadow was cast upon the wooden window opposite.

It was a thumbs-up made with a hand.

Only then did Zheng Wuyou pull the candle back.

The view from the second floor truly was different.

Zheng Wuyou could even smell the muddy scent carried by the wind from the riverbank.

The people shut outside had long since vanished. When she followed the stone path with her eyes toward Sun Wu's room based on her memory, she saw the faint light of a candle appear inside from time to time.

Following that faint light into the distance, she found the same was true of the other houses.

It seemed everyone had safely made it into their own rooms.