"I'll drink it." Amidst the surprised gazes of the crowd, Su Cheng took the bowl, smelled it, and praised, "This soup smells wonderful!"
After saying that, she gulped down the drink and put the empty bowl back on the table.
This swift action surprised not only Su Xiaoxiao and the others, but even Xu Rong, who had thought that all the soup with triple the ingredients would be left uneaten.
Zhou Yang was the second person to pick up his bowl and drink the soup. After swallowing it in two gulps, he wiped his mouth and said, "Delicious."
Su Xiaoxiao, who was originally determined not to drink the soup, hesitated. Putting aside Su Cheng, based on her trust in Zhou Yang, she gritted her teeth, picked up the bowl, and drank it all in one gulp.
Since everyone else has drunk, Su Zhou and Keke decided to drink too!
The group drank the soup as if it were a farewell toast, their eyes closed as they swallowed, revealing a spirit of smashing the bowl and going into battle as they finished.
Xu Rong was taken aback for a moment, then her eyes crinkled into a knowing smile. "Then I'll take the bowls out first."
After Xu Rong left, Su Xiaoxiao looked at Zhou Yang with confusion, "Aren't you afraid there might be something in the soup?"
Zhou Yang looked at Su Cheng, "I think she should have kept drinking it."
Ever since he discovered Su Cheng's disguise, he has always felt that Su Cheng is the benefactor he was destined to meet in his tribulations, as his great-aunt had mentioned.
"..."
Su Xiaoxiao touched her throat. Zhou Yang's reason was too far-fetched. Maybe she should try to induce vomiting first...
Zhou Yang rummaged through his backpack, took out some water, handed it to Su Xiaoxiao, and reassured her, "Don't worry, my Third Aunt will come to rescue us."
"You made an emergency call?"
Zhou Yang shook his head, "My Third Aunt can Perception my danger; she must be on her way."
Perception?
This sounds a bit far-fetched...
Su Cheng looked at the group of people with varying expressions. "There is indeed something in the soup. They're making their move tonight, so remember to stay together."
Her words made the already worried group even more somber, and some even regretted following the trend of drinking the soup... The feeling of danger approaching step by step was unpleasant.
A note from the author:
none
Chapter 50
As night falls, all things become silent, as if the winter night itself has fallen into slumber.
The towering mountain stood silently in the darkness, as goose-feather-white snowflakes fell softly, draping the dark giant, which looked down in a pure white robe.
"Gurgle gurgle..."
The wheels rolled on the rough, muddy ground, making a labored sound.
The leader led the way with a flashlight.
The four men pushing the cart behind them, wearing headlamps, all breathed heavily as they pushed the flatbed cart, which carried five people, up the small slope.
They did not notice a thin silver needle appear out of thin air and stick into the woman lying on the flatbed cart.
The sharp pain brought Su Cheng back to her senses, but she did not move.
"You're awake? They're transporting you up the mountain."
Mu Ling's voice calmed her down.
Su Cheng kept her eyes closed and switched to Mu Ling's perspective.
Five little ghost children were each hanging on a villager pushing a cart. The children were in a strange state, with droopy eyes and a drowsy, confused look, as if they had a fever or were sick.
She didn't recognize the tall woman at the head of the group.
Among the four men pushing the cart, one was Old Zhao from the coffin factory, who was explaining things to them.
After drinking the soup laced with medicine, Su Cheng suddenly felt dizzy in the middle of the night. Before losing consciousness, she told Mu Ling to wake her up if the situation warranted it.
To unravel the Secret of Lin Family Village, she must get involved herself. Rather than exploring aimlessly, she should follow the flow and see what the villagers really want from tourists...
It now appears they were sending them up the mountain behind the mountain...
The mountain road was winding and twisting, and the car shook when it stepped on small stones.
The woman in the lead called out, "We're almost there. This snow isn't going to stop anytime soon, so let's hurry up and get home."
Old Zhao: " Yezi, come here and help me position this man's legs properly, he's about to fall."
"Good."
The man next to Old Zhao shouted, "I'm one of those people in this corner too..."
Another tall man chimed in, "I thought it would be a lot of work to catch them tonight, I even brought knives and sticks, but it turns out they've all taken drugs."
"Didn't Sister An say that these people realized something was wrong and were trying to run away?"
After pushing the people next to her inside, the woman named Yezi walked ahead and led the way, saying, "Who cares? If soft tactics don't work, we'll use hard ones. If they don't obediently drink their medicine, we'll break their legs and tie them up."
Old Zhao shook his head as if recalling something, "It's better to drug them. Those guys wouldn't listen last time, Zhuangzi had a lot of trouble catching them."
"The easiest way is to drug them so they just lie in bed and sleep, slowly waking up without ever waking up..."
Yezi brushed the snowflakes from her hair. "The woman from last month got pregnant, Sister An wouldn't let the wood be thrown into the mountains, which resulted in fewer people and a drop in the quality of the timber."
She smiled slightly, "With five people this time, we're sure to raise a batch of good timber."
"Maybe it's because we fed one less person last time that an extra one came this time."
The man in the upper right corner, who had been silent all along, frowned. "Stop talking. It won't be good if they hear us."
The tall man scoffed, "What's there to be afraid of? They're all asleep! And even if they heard us, so what? Once they enter the mountains, that thing won't let them go. They don't have any protective spirits..."
Yezi interrupted the tall man, "Alright, alright, let's hurry up and go. We can chat all the time after we finish our work. Sister An is still waiting for us to go back down the mountain."
The group said no more and focused on pushing the cart.
Su Cheng pondered their words repeatedly and finally found the connecting thread.
The villagers don't raise ghost children for money or good fortune, but rather to help them ward off the negative energy from contact with wood.
This explains why villagers don't carry ghost children with them when they walk around the village, while everyone at the coffin-making factory carries a ghost child, and now even people going into the mountains do.
The villagers obtained the special coffins by feeding the locust trees with human blood and flesh.
The Coffin Keeper... the name is aptly derived.
"Click!"
The flatbed truck suddenly stopped in front of two trees tied with red ropes.
Despite it being winter, the trees in these mountains are growing exceptionally lushly.
The villagers carried the people down one by one and threw them over the red rope tree.
As if they were wary of something, they acted swiftly, throwing the person inside and then pushing the cart away without stopping.
Su Cheng rubbed her sore buttocks and took out silver needles to prick Su Xiaoxiao and the others.
"Ah!"
Ouch... something's stabbing me!
Where is this?
The group groggily opened their eyes, but they were all awake. Su Cheng was slightly relieved and took out a few flashlights to distribute to them.
"We were sent to the mountains; the villagers wanted to feed us to something there."
"Hello?" Su Xiaoxiao seized on the key phrase, "Are there wild animals in these mountains? Why would they do such a thing!"
Su Cheng looked into the depths, "They're not feeding them to wild beasts, they're feeding them to trees. They use man-eating wood to make coffins."
"The villagers are at the foot of the mountain. You all find a place to hide first. I'm going to see what this man-eating tree is..."
Su Cheng spoke, she turned her head, and all of Su Xiaoxiao and the others who had been standing together disappeared.
Where are they...?
More importantly, she could no longer sense Mu Ling!
What happened?
Su Cheng took a moment to calm herself down.
The snow had stopped sometime ago, and all around were trees, utterly silent, as if she were the only living thing in the entire mountain.
And the two trees with red ropes tied to them were also gone.
Su Cheng felt her pockets; thankfully, the Smart Bag was still working. She immediately took out the boning knife.
The blade gleamed with a silver light, appearing incredibly sharp.
This boning knife has dismembered the corpse of Vengeful Ghost before. Unlike ordinary knives, it is better suited to deal with the current unfortunate situation.
"Sough"
The sound of leaves rustling in the wind.
Su Cheng looked in the direction of the sound and saw a figure flash by.
Who's there?
She gripped the boning knife tightly and quickly caught up.
She walked behind the tree and suddenly heard a familiar voice:
How did I end up back where I started?
It's Su Xiaoxiao's voice!
Su Cheng quickened her pace toward the sound, but when she saw "them" in the distance, her feet seemed to freeze in place.
Four people were hanging from a tall, dead tree; their necks had become elongated after their cervical vertebrae were broken.
His entire face turned purple due to lack of oxygen, his eyeballs bulged, and his tongue was protruding due to the force, the dark purple tongue stretched out very long...
Their bodies hung limply, lifeless.
A cold wind stirred the corpses, causing the four bodies to sway slightly like objects...
Aren't these four people Su Xiaoxiao, Keke, Su Zhou, and Zhou Yang?
Su Cheng's pupils contracted slightly. They... were dead?
Su Cheng approached the withered tree, looked up and carefully examined the four corpses; they couldn't have committed suicide.
Could it be that there's another hidden "person" in these mountains who strangled them and hung them from the trees? Or is it all a hoax?
Before Su Cheng could figure it out, she suddenly felt a burning gaze on her head.
She looked up and met Su Xiaoxiao's bloodshot eyes.
Su Xiaoxiao painfully shed a tear of blood, which landed on Su Cheng's brow; it was icy cold.
" Su Cheng, I'm in a little pain, can you put me down?"
Her voice seemed to awaken Keke beside her. Keke gripped the rope around her neck with both hands, painfully opening her mouth to gasp for air, her body thrashing about in mid-air like a fish.
"Help! Help!"
Su Zhou and Zhou Yang opened their eyes one after the other. They seemed resigned to their fate, offering no struggle, but simply looking at Su Cheng, and murmured in unison, " Su Cheng, turn around and look..."
Su Cheng turned her gaze and saw a corpse on the ground with its heart pierced by a boning knife.
--It was herself.
Su Cheng's breath hitched, and the hazy memories in her mind gradually became clearer.
After Su Xiaoxiao and the other three disappeared, no matter which way she went, she would always return to the same spot.