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 got out, walking toward it. Just then, a burly middle-aged man came out of the supermarket. As they brushed past each other, a faint crackle of electricity 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 eerie, chilling aura from the man. But as the man moved farther away, that aura vanished, and so did the electrical crackling in Meng Zu's mind.

Danger Sense actually activated just now. Could he be that dark wizard? Meng Zu turned to look at the burly man's receding back, pondering inwardly.

However, Meng Zu did not follow him. Instead, he pushed open the supermarket door and walked in. Causing trouble on a dark wizard's territory was tantamount to courting death. He should gather some information first and assess the situation.

There were only two people in the supermarket. One was a plump middle-aged woman in a blue vest at the register, while the other was a young man in a similar blue vest stocking the shelves. Meng Zu took a bottle of water from the refrigerator and went to the register to pay.

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

"That's right. I'm here sightseeing." Meng Zu handed Emma the money with a smile.

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

Meng Zu's eyes lit up upon hearing that. It looked like 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, "Don't be curious about the reason. It's best to leave before nightfall. If you stay, keep quiet when you sleep at the hotel. No matter what happens, don't make a sound."

Before Meng Zu could ask anything else, Emma rose from the register and loudly called to the young man in the supermarket, "Chris, you're far too slow. I'll help you."

Seeing that Emma was unwilling to say more, Meng Zu did not press her. He left the supermarket with his water and drove around town until he 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 watching Meng Zu disappear around the bend in the stairs, the hotel owner picked up the landline at the front desk and dialed a number.

"Donnie, an Asian young man from out of town just checked into my hotel. Come explain the rules here to him."

"Got it, Matthew. I'll come over now."

Meng Zu stood quietly around the stairwell corner, listening to the hotel owner Matthew's call. Looks like everyone here knows something. He silently continued upstairs. After entering his room, he sat by the bed and quietly waited for the man named Donnie to arrive.

About ten minutes later, there was a knock at the door. Meng Zu stepped forward and opened it, finding a middle-aged man in his forties wearing a police uniform standing outside.

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

"Hello, Sheriff Donnie. My name is Meng Zu. May I ask what brings you here?"

Seeing Meng Zu stand in the doorway and block the entire entrance without any intention of stepping aside, Sheriff Donnie felt somewhat helpless. However, he was already used to this sort of thing. He said, "May I come in? These matters are not suitable for discussion outside your room."

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

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 inside your room, cover your mouth. You absolutely must not make a sound," Sheriff Donnie instructed gravely.

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

"The supermarket? The person you mean was Emma. Emma is a kind-hearted person." Sheriff Donnie sighed. "There is 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 deliberately. This child is named Sam. Three days ago, he lost contact with his parents. Yesterday, his parents came to our company and hired us to find Sam and bring him home. Through my investigation, I discovered that Sam was secretly sent to Ravensfair."

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

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

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

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

"Yeah!" Meng Zu (;￢＿￢)

"I thought he had been sent to Ravensfair three days ago." Realizing there had been a misunderstanding, Sheriff Donnie spoke somewhat 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 became rather unpleasant. He frowned and thought for a while before finally letting out a helpless sigh.

"That child should still be alive. If you go looking for him, you will definitely encounter it. I might as well tell you, and I hope you can make a decision after hearing it."

"This is what happened. Back in the forties, Ravensfair built a theater. There was a ventriloquist performer there named Mary Shaw. This woman was reclusive and alone. She had no husband and no children. Perhaps she was infertile, or perhaps her child had died young. But who knew? No one cared enough to find out."

"The only things that ever kept her company were dolls. 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. So the theater was willing to hire her, and she settled down in our town."

"Life had been calm and uneventful until one day, during a performance, a child said, 'Your act is fake. I saw your lips moving.' A few weeks later, that child vanished under mysterious circumstances. The child's family was a long-established local family with many members and considerable influence. They quickly found Mary Shaw and decided that she had kidnapped the child."

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

"They thought that was the end of it, but no one knew 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, their tongue brutally ripped out just like Mary Shaw's, dying miserably in their own home."

"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 will 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 after hearing this. He believed in such strange matters. He had seen vampires and other bizarre things before. Combined with the clues he had learned from the bartender and the burly man he had encountered at the supermarket, Meng Zu did not doubt that Sheriff Donnie was making up a story to deceive him.

(This chapter was written rather completely, having just been finished.)

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