Chapter Five: The Story

At around four in the afternoon, Meng Zu sped all the way there and finally arrived in Ravensfair according to the map. It was a small town, or perhaps a somewhat larger village.

He parked in front of a supermarket and headed inside. Just then, a burly middle-aged man came out. As they brushed past each other, a faint crackle of electrical static suddenly sounded in Meng Zu's mind. His pupils contracted, and every muscle in his body instantly tensed.

As Meng Zu focused his attention, he sensed a faintly sinister, icy aura from the man. However, as the man moved farther away, that aura disappeared, and the static in Meng Zu's mind vanished with it.

It actually triggered my danger sense. Could he be that dark wizard? Meng Zu turned to watch the burly man's retreating back.

However, Meng Zu did not follow him. Instead, he pushed open the supermarket door and went inside. Acting recklessly on a dark wizard's turf was practically suicide. He should gather some information first and figure out the situation.

There were only two people in the supermarket. One was a fat middle-aged woman in a blue vest behind the register, while the other was a young man in an identical blue vest stocking the shelves. Meng Zu took a bottle of water from the cooler and brought it to the register.

As Meng Zu took out money to pay, the middle-aged woman, Emma, looked at his unfamiliar face and asked, "You're not from around here, are you?"

"That's right. I came here to travel." Meng Zu handed Emma the money with a smile.

"Traveling? You'd better leave this place as soon as possible." Emma advised him.

Meng Zu's eyes lit up at those words. It seemed this middle-aged woman, Emma, knew something. He put on a curious expression and asked, "Why?"

Emma glanced toward one side of the supermarket, her expression turning serious. She did not explain. Instead, she lowered her head slightly and muttered in a low voice, "Don't be curious about why. It's best to leave before dark. If you stay, keep quiet when you're in the hotel at night. No matter what happens, don't make a sound."

Before Meng Zu could ask another question, Emma got up from the register and called loudly to the young man in the supermarket, "Chris, you're far too slow. I'll come help you."

Seeing that Emma was unwilling to say more, Meng Zu did not press her. He left the supermarket with his water, drove around town for a while, and found a hotel.

After Meng Zu paid, the hotel owner handed him a key and said, "Your room is on the top floor, the third floor. The room number is written on the key."

"Thank you."

After seeing Meng Zu disappear around the corner of the stairs, the hotel owner picked up the landline at the front desk and dialed a number.

"Donnie, a young Asian man from out of town just checked into my hotel. Come over and tell him about the rules here."

"Got it, Matthew. I'll be right over."

Meng Zu stood quietly around the stairwell corner, listening to the hotel owner, Matthew, on the phone. Looks like the people here all know something. He silently continued upstairs. Once he reached his room, he sat on the edge of the bed and quietly waited for the man named Donnie to arrive.

About ten minutes later, someone knocked on the door. Meng Zu went over and opened it, only to see a middle-aged man in a police uniform, around forty years old, standing outside.

"Hello. My name is Donnie, and I'm the sheriff of Ravens Fair Police Station. There are some things I need to discuss with you."

"Hello, Sheriff Donnie. My name is Meng Zu. What could possibly require you to come all this way to see me?"

Seeing Meng Zu stand in the doorway and block it completely without any intention of moving aside, Sheriff Donnie felt a little helpless. However, he was already somewhat used to such things, so he said, "May I come in? These matters aren't suitable for discussing outside your door."

"Of course. Please come in." Meng Zu stepped aside to clear the way. Once Sheriff Donnie entered, Meng Zu casually shut the door.

Sheriff Donnie asked, "Mr. Meng Zu, is this your first time in Ravensfair?"

"Yes. I'm traveling and happened to pass through here."

"Mm. Mr. Meng Zu, there are two things you need to remember in Ravensfair. Don't go out after dark; it's best to stay in your room. If anything strange happens in your room, cover your mouth and make absolutely no sound." Sheriff Donnie's expression was stern as he warned him.

"That's strange. When I bought something at that supermarket earlier, that woman told me the exact same thing. Why do I need to do that?" Meng Zu asked in confusion. Could it be that the dark wizard placed some kind of curse on this town?

"The supermarket? The person you mean is Emma. Emma is a kind-hearted woman." Sheriff Donnie sighed softly. "There's no why. It's for your own good."

That only made Meng Zu more curious. "Sheriff Donnie, I'm actually a private detective. I came to Ravensfair specifically because of this. This child is Sam. He lost contact with his parents three days ago. Yesterday, his parents came to our company and hired us to find Sam and bring him back. After investigating, I discovered that Sam was secretly sent to Ravensfair."

Meng Zu took out Sam's photograph and handed it to Sheriff Donnie. "The strange rules you have here make it easy for me to connect them to Sam's disappearance. In order to find this child, I'll definitely investigate in secret."

Sheriff Donnie looked at Sam in the photograph and sighed. "It's already too late. This child is probably dead."

"What?! This child only arrived in Ravensfair an hour or two ago at most." Meng Zu was immediately shocked. The dark wizard moved that quickly?

"An hour or two ago?" Sheriff Donnie froze in shock.

"Yes." Meng Zu (;￢＿￢)

"I thought he'd been sent to Ravensfair three days ago." Realizing he had made a mistake, Sheriff Donnie said awkwardly.

"Sheriff Donnie, you thought Sam was dead just now. Can you tell me why? Does it have something to do with the rules you told me about?"

Sheriff Donnie's expression turned unpleasant. He frowned and thought for a long time before finally letting out a powerless sigh.

"This child should still be alive. If you're going to look for him, you'll definitely encounter it. I might as well tell you. I hope that after hearing this, you'll be able to make a decision."

"It happened in the 1940s. Ravensfair built a theater, and there was a ventriloquist performer there named Mary Shaw. This woman was reclusive and lived alone. She had no husband and no children. Perhaps she was infertile, perhaps they died young—who knew? In any case, no one cared enough to find out."

"Only dolls were ever by her side. She always treated her puppet props as her own children. Perhaps because of the genuine emotion and devotion she poured into them, her professional talent far surpassed that of ordinary ventriloquists. That was why the theater was still willing to hire her, and she settled down in our town."

"Life had originally been peaceful and uneventful, until one day during a performance, a child said to Mary Shaw, 'Your act is fake. I saw your lips moving.' A few weeks later, that child mysteriously disappeared. The child's family was a local family with deep roots and great influence. They quickly found Mary Shaw and decided that she had kidnapped the child."

"They believed the child had already been harmed. The enraged villagers captured Mary, brutally cut out her tongue, and killed her. In the end, they buried her together with her puppets."

"They thought that was the end of it, but who could have known it was only the beginning of the nightmare? Over the following decades, the entire town seemed to have been cursed by Mary Shaw. The various dolls buried with her vanished from their graves and began appearing eerily in the homes of the town's residents. Whenever one appeared, someone would die, just like Mary Shaw had—brutally mutilated, their tongues torn out, dying miserably in their homes."

"There is a terrifying nursery rhyme passed down here: Beware the stare of Mary Shaw. She had no children, only dolls. If you see her, do not scream, or she'll tear open your mouth and rip out your tongue."

"Wait. If that's the case, why don't you leave this place?" Meng Zu asked. He believed in such bizarre matters. He had seen vampires and other strange things himself. Combined with the clues he had learned from the bartender and the burly man he had encountered at the supermarket, Meng Zu did not think Sheriff Donnie was making up a story to deceive him.

(This chapter was fairly complete; it was only just finished.)