Doubts

"Third, Zhu Li. The person who helped him retrieve the hairpin wasn't Madam Zhao. She was trapped in Old Zhu's family home and couldn't leave her fixed location. So who was that woman? The answer is on Zhu Li's tombstone."

Before anyone could react, Zheng Wuyou told everyone present everything she had discovered.

At the same time, she wrote the key words for each point on the ground.

First, Mid-July.

Second, graves covering the back hill.

Third, Zhu Li.

This wasn't a secret. Other than the woman inside the house, she hadn't hidden anything from them.

At first, she hadn't been able to connect these questions.

If she hadn't found Zhu Li's grave yesterday, perhaps she never would have discovered what these questions had in common.

"What do you mean, Mid-July? How do you know about the nursery rhyme?" Hu Yu stared at the words on the ground, perplexed, her voice full of confusion.

Zheng Wuyou sighed softly.

She really had thrown too many questions at them all at once.

This time, Wansi was surprisingly eager. She rushed to be the first to explain excitedly on Zheng Wuyou's behalf. "Didn't you hear it at night? Every day, a nursery rhyme keeps echoing in your ears like a spell..."

"And as soon as night falls, all kinds of ghosts and demons come out! The desolate scenery at night is what Zhu Village really looks like!"

Wansi's reaction took Zheng Wuyou by surprise.

Her childlike voice was full of conviction as she expressed an opinion far beyond her years.

At that moment, the timid little girl Zheng Wuyou barely knew seemed like a sparkling gem. Zheng Wuyou looked at her in surprise, then gave her an approving glance.

Wen Dian shook his head thoughtfully. He really hadn't paid attention to what happened at night.

"The flower altar is the whole of Zhu Village. The first point includes the other two," Miao Laisheng said indifferently from behind them.

He stood over the group, who were crouched in a circle, his arms folded across his chest.

The navy blue pajamas made a faint rustling sound.

Compared with his usual cool demeanor, his arrogant air made him seem like a different person.

Zheng Wuyou nodded in agreement, adding to his point. "That's right. Once you put the first two points together, you realize that all the graves on the mountainside hold people from Zhu Village who are trapped in the present day."

Zheng Wuyou pointed to the ground and drew the shape of a tombstone.

She still hadn't understood why the sacrificial altar had been modeled after a sundial.

Now, she understood in an instant.

Here, the days repeated endlessly. The sundial was the key to the village's countdown.

Wen Dian thought back to the tombstones he had seen yesterday and remembered noticing Zhu Youcai's name on one of them.

He had assumed it was someone with the same name and hadn't paid it any attention.

The thought gave him goosebumps.

The sunlight outside had been warm, but after hearing this conclusion...

The sunlight in his eyes suddenly turned cold, as though a cloud had passed over it.

"So... we've been dealing with the dead this whole time!?" Guo Mu jolted upright on the ground, no longer caring whether the tea had soaked through his pants.

Even the Main Hall, with sunlight spilling through half its space, now felt filled with a chilling draft.

From the corner of his eye, he saw the person in navy blue pajamas calmly shake his head. "You're half right. The other half is plain to see from above, looking down at this Desolate Village."

His gaze drifted outside.

Everyone began to picture the whole village from above.

Only Zheng Wuyou quickly formed an image in her mind.

It was the place that had seemed strange to her from the moment she first arrived.

The houses stood in neat rows on either side of the Stone Path. Their walls were black, contrasting with the Wooden House at the end, which had been painted white.

At the entrance to Zhu Village stood a signboard.

It was black, too.

It looked just like...

"It's so similar..." Uncle Cai muttered from among the group.

Noticing everyone looking at him, Uncle Cai paused, then explained awkwardly, "I used to work in the funeral business. I didn't understand what you were talking about, but when that young man Miao said to look down at the whole village, it made me think of... Ah, this shape looks just like the bottom of a coffin with a white pillow laid in it."

The bottom of a coffin...

His words rang over their heads like a thunderclap.

"Could there be a Chu Renmei hiding in here, too...?" Guo Mu quickly turned to look at the corner behind him, as if something unknown were lurking in the shadows.

The thought made him shiver involuntarily.

"I told you we shouldn't have gone to 83 Shopping Mall! Our luck couldn't get any worse!" Hu Yu kicked the door, making it slam with a loud bang.

"At night, the whole village is covered with Yellow Paper, and countless White Candles appear in front of the doors. That's all the information I managed to get. Is there really nothing unusual about what happened to the rest of you?" As she spoke, Zheng Wuyou's sharp gaze swept, deliberately or otherwise, toward Wen Dian and Guo Mu.

Her meaning was clear. Anyone who understood should have caught it.

"I..." Wen Dian hesitated for a moment.

Of course there had to be something strange at night besides the Wooden House.

Zheng Wuyou stood up and stretched her numb legs, signaling for him to continue.

"Actually, I heard a nursery rhyme, too, but it wasn't quite the same as yours..." Wen Dian recalled the first night. Besides the snores, he had heard the faintest trace of a child singing beside his ear.

He had gotten up and searched several times, but without a light, he could only stumble through the darkness.

In the end, he had made out the words of the nursery rhyme by the west wall of the East Second House.

The tune had sounded very familiar, like "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star."

Relying on his hazy memory, Wen Dian hummed the tune he had heard.

Then, following the tune as best he could, he sang the words, "Roses grow together, brothers and sisters; the Judge weighs the scales askew."

"Mid-July, the flower altar's set~ King Yama gathers graves, wearing masks~"

Wansi sang the tune in her slightly childlike voice, calm and clear, as if the nighttime scene were unfolding before them again.

The two lines naturally joined together in the melody.

Guo Mu's eyes widened in disbelief.

What did roses growing together mean?

And where had the scales come from?

If these people weren't here, he really wouldn't have stood a chance at beating this game!

They hadn't even solved one problem, and now there was another!

[Roses grow together, brothers and sisters; the Judge weighs the scales askew.]

[Mid-July, the flower altar's set; King Yama gathers graves, wearing masks.]

Zheng Wuyou silently recited the nursery rhyme again.

She turned her gaze to the completely empty List, and an audacious guess suddenly came to her.

Almost instinctively, she turned to the person beside her in navy blue pajamas and saw that they, too, were staring intently at the blank sheet of paper.

Clearly, they had thought of the same thing.

Both of them focused on the List, which contained no tasks at all.

"So... what does this nursery rhyme have to do with whether we can get out of here?"

Uncle Cai looked at the others in confusion. He couldn't keep up with their leaps in reasoning, but he didn't want to seem too slow, so he asked along with them.

At that moment, all he could think about was getting home as soon as possible to look after his precious daughter.

Ever since his wife had been caught up in this strange place after something happened to her, his daughter had been left all alone at the police station. Just thinking of how lonely and helpless she might feel...

Uncle Cai's heart ached as if needles were pricking it.