I Won't Stay in a Village Like This!

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"": ""It's getting dark. If you're going, hurry up," Old Kong urged.

Without another word, Luo Bin dashed out the door.

He raced onto the concrete road, reached the front of the car, then stepped forward and grabbed the door handle.

It wouldn't open. The car was locked from inside.

Zhang Li sat in the driver's seat, his face slightly pale.

Beside him, an oil lamp hung where a car ornament would normally hang.

Zhang Li met Luo Bin's gaze, beads of sweat as big as beans forming on his forehead.

Luo Bin's eyes swept across the back seat. Gu Yiren was unconscious, ropes tied around her body and binding her hands. Zhu Qianqian sat trembling on the other side, her eyes filled with unease.

"Get out! It's almost dark. Get inside the house!" Luo Bin said firmly, giving the handle a hard tug.

"What are you going to do to him?" Zhang Li stared fixedly at Luo Bin, stealing glances at Zhang Jun in the Prisoner Cart.

Zhang Jun had beaten Zhang Li badly. He was certainly no good person, and Zhang Li had wanted Luo Bin to tell the village chief what Zhang Jun had done so he would be punished.

But Zhang Li had never imagined the punishment would be this severe.

It was almost dark, and they had locked a man in the Prisoner Cart. The evil spirits would emerge soon. What would happen then was obvious.

"There's a reason for this. Hurry up and get out. It's almost dark." Urgency filled Luo Bin's eyes. "Today's the third day. After tonight, you'll be assigned places to live. Come inside with me, now!"

"You're insane! All of you! Don't you have laws anymore? Even if he went too far, he doesn't deserve to be killed!" Veins bulged in Zhang Li's neck.

"You don't know the full story. I told you, there's a reason!" Luo Bin was getting desperate. He banged on the window twice.

"I won't stay in a village like this! You can't leave because you're all insane!"

Zhang Li stared coldly at Luo Bin and rolled up the window.

Luo Bin: "..."

He immediately tried the rear door handle, but that wouldn't open either.

"What's wrong with you? Can't you understand plain words?!" Truly frantic, Luo Bin raised his leg and kicked the door with a bang.

In his previous life, he had seen people who knew nothing beyond their books, and he had seen stubborn people, but never anyone this stubborn.

Honk, honk!

The piercing horn suddenly blared, making Luo Bin's ears ache.

"Xiao Shan! It's almost dark!" Gu Ya shouted from the house beside the archway.

"The car isn't safe! Even with an oil lamp, you won't survive the night. Get out, now!" Luo Shan banged on the window again.

Honestly, if not for wanting to save Gu Yiren, he wouldn't have bothered with Zhang Li at all.

Zhang Li remained unmoved. The horn kept blaring until Luo Bin's head buzzed and his ears rang.

At that moment, someone stepped out of the house. It was Luo Feng.

Luo Bin knew they were out of time...

Anger simmered in his chest, along with a deep unwillingness to give up.

But the setting sun sank steadily behind the mountains, and dusk began swallowing the last remaining daylight.

"Fuck!" Luo Bin swore and kicked the front of the car hard before running toward the house.

Luo Feng grabbed his arm, dragged him inside, and slammed the door shut. Old Kong quickly slid the bolt into place.

"Stopped hanging around thugs and started being a good person, huh? A bit too good, though." One villager shrugged, a hint of teasing amusement in his eyes.

"Luo Feng, doesn't this give you a headache?" another remarked snidely.

"It'd sure give me one. Like father, like son. First, his son refused to act like a decent human being and was a rotten little bastard. Now he's decided to be decent, and he's so good he'll even rescue outsiders. Trying too hard. He's bound to cause trouble," a third villager said pointedly.

Everyone who had survived in this village had been tested and tempered by a brush with death.

Were any of them truly stupid?

There probably wasn't a single fool in the whole village.

Even someone like Zhang Jun had his own petty cunning, along with malice hidden deep in his heart.

Luo Bin said nothing.

Luo Feng paid even less attention to the villagers' remarks.

Gu Ya's ears flushed red. She pressed her lips together without speaking. Zhang Yunling kept holding her arm, the two standing close together.

"Stubborn outsiders die. Almost without exception. Even if we leave the door wide open, they won't come in. Maybe they don't want to stay with people like us. They still think they're special. Those who can't become villagers can only become a handful of ashes in the mountains," Old Kong said gravely. "Do you understand now?"

Luo Bin's heart seemed to skip beat after beat. He forced a smile.

Staring blankly out the window, he suddenly noticed that from this angle, he looked straight toward the Santana's rear window. A pale face was pressed against it, a small tear mole at the corner of one eye.

Gu Yiren, who had been unconscious, had woken up!

Her lips were moving.

His view was already rather blurry, but Luo Bin could still make out what Gu Yiren kept repeating with her lips: "Help me."

"Maybe... we should get out and go inside first..." Zhu Qianqian whispered, drawing her arms inward. "There might be lots of evil spirits coming out soon... what... what are we going to do..."

"No! Listen to Yiren! She said we can leave the village if we follow the evil spirits!"

Any villager present would have been utterly shocked by those words.

Zhang Li had a reason for insisting!

That morning, when he saw Luo Bin run toward the village, he had left the Mountain God Temple after much hesitation and followed at a distance.

The quiet village had told him his opportunity had come.

He found the spot where the car's tire had first burst, then followed faint traces to work out which direction it had been pushed in. Finally, he found the car, took the spare tire out of the trunk, then used some wires inside the car to start the ignition and get the engine running.

Without anyone noticing, he drove the car to the Mountain God Temple.

He took the dry flatbread and water flask Luo Bin had left in the little wooden hut, removed the oil lamp from the Mountain God statue, and helped Zhu Qianqian get Gu Yiren into the car.

Zhang Li had planned everything well. He gave up on leaving Cabinet Mountain and intended to retrace their route back to the landslide first. Two or three days had passed. Perhaps someone had climbed out, or perhaps there was another way to contact a rescue team.

Of course, finding the archaeological team's members and reuniting with them would have been the best outcome.

Zhang Li had also considered the worst possibility: that they couldn't even make it back.

In that case, they would return to the village before dark and stay safely in the Mountain God Temple.

Indeed, things had developed in the worst possible direction.

Only, the unexpected factor had come from Gu Yiren.

Along the way, Zhu Qianqian kept trying to talk to Gu Yiren, asking whether she knew how to leave the village.

Although Zhang Li feared Gu Yiren's behavior after her seizure, he still clung to a little hope. Gu Yiren was somewhat different here. What if she really could tell them something useful?

Sure enough, Gu Yiren finally spoke.

She said they could leave the village by following the evil spirits.

Because of that, Zhang Li gave up on taking a detour through the mountains and returned to the village!

When darkness fell, the evil spirits appeared. When daylight came, they left!

The car had windows, doors, and an oil lamp. It met every condition for leaving!

"Everyone in this village is insane. That fat guy's offense wasn't

serious enough to deserve death, yet they're going to kill him. We can't judge what they do by the standards of normal people." Zhang Li turned to look at Gu Yiren, whose head was almost pressed against the window, and said hoarsely, "Yiren's condition is unstable. I'm afraid that if she goes inside the house later, she'll tell other people how to leave the village too. Then we might not be able to get away."

"Look... Yiren's awake now. She keeps facing the window, trying to say something..." Zhang Li's eyelids twitched violently.

"But what's she saying? Why can't I make it out? It sounds like she's delirious." Zhu Qianqian shivered, then whispered, "Should we let the fat guy out of that cart? I remember his name's Zhang Jun. He might be a bit of a thug, but he..."

"No. We're not going. This is the villagers' doing. We're not the ones killing him. It's almost dark."

Zhang Li shook his head rapidly and carefully lit the oil lamp.

He was the one who had condemned Luo Bin and the villagers, yet he was also the one washing his hands of anything that didn't concern him.

He stared blankly out the car window, watching the last trace of dusk swallow the daylight. Night fell completely!

The cawing of crows mingled with the rustling calls of insects peculiar to country roads.

The noisy quiet left their hearts in turmoil.