By the time Du Xiaoyu and Shang Qingbei returned to Xi'er's house, it was already three in the afternoon.
Du Xiaoyu took the lead in pushing open the door and saw a woman in red bridal robes sitting on Li Yao's bed, sobbing quietly.
Seeing them return, the woman cried, "Liu Bingding is dead... It was all my fault. He was caught by those paper figures because he was trying to save me..."
Shang Qingbei felt that something was off.
The Li Yao in his memories had remained fairly composed most of the time. Why was she crying so helplessly now?
Keeping his expression calm, he said, "Xu Yao, calm down first. Tell us exactly what happened."
Shang Qingbei himself had no idea why "Xu Yao" had slipped out instead.
But thinking back carefully, this teammate did seem to be called Xu Yao. He must have been muddleheaded earlier and remembered wrong.
"Yeah, Xu Yao, we looked everywhere for you and couldn't find you," Du Xiaoyu chimed in. "Brother even went down the well specifically to look for you."
Lowering her head, Xu Yao said, "Liu Bingding and I were sent to Double Happiness Town from a hundred years ago. We ran into so many paper figures... They called me 'Miss Xu' and said Liu Bingding was the county deputy magistrate. They wanted to capture us... We ran to the mourning hall together. At the last moment, Liu Bingding shoved me into a coffin, but he..."
She did not continue. The ending spoke for itself. Liu Bingding had not returned. Only she was sitting here, having survived.
"My condolences," Shang Qingbei offered, without feeling much grief.
They had merely crossed paths by chance, and he had not held much fondness for that socially adept man. Under the Minimum Death Quota