Chapter 120
Chapter 120
The little girl saw Wei Sen and Lin Ze to the door, smiling as she waved at them.
“Thank you for bringing me the Snow Lotus, big brother and big sister. Once I’m better, I’ll be able to go into the city and find my mom and dad. Remember, my name is Zhang Zhaodi. See you in the city!”
An indescribable emotion quietly took root in Wei Sen’s heart, leaving her unable to force even the faintest smile.
Lin Ze reached out and indulgently rubbed the little girl’s head, his smile gentle. “All right. We’ll wait for you.”
“Let’s go,” Wei Sen said flatly.
“Mm.”
From the village doctor, they had learned that the Snow Lotus was meant to treat Zhang Zhaodi’s illness, an illness the village doctor called a “curse.”
After the Aurora first descended upon the village, the previous village chief had enshrined Mahakala at the village entrance to thank God for His blessing. Every so often, a young virgin girl would be chosen to perform Gilding the Statue for Him.
And every girl chosen would end up contracting a strange illness.
At first, it was nausea and fatigue. Then all the bones in their bodies would begin to ache, and the pain would only worsen as time went on.
In the end, within less than a year, the girls would die from the unbearable torment.
They said those girls had not died, but had been taken by Buddha to Mount Ling to continue serving Him.
The villagers, who had believed in gods and Buddhas to begin with, all accepted this explanation.
Everyone except Zhang Zhaodi’s grandmother. She had once been a barefoot doctor herself, and the girls’ symptoms were clearly those of an illness.
But this illness was not something an old woman like her could cure.
If they wanted treatment, they would have to go into the city and visit a major hospital.
But after Zhang Zhaodi’s parents gave birth to her younger brother, they took him to live in the big city. When they learned Zhang Zhaodi was sick, they refused to bring her there for treatment. They believed being taken by Buddha to Mount Ling was her good fortune.
The village doctor grandmother had once thought about taking Zhaodi and leaving the village herself, but the entire village stopped her.
They said that ever since the Aurora had appeared decades ago, this was how the village had always done things. They needed young girls to make offerings to Mahakala. Only then could they ensure God would not take back the Aurora He had bestowed upon the village!
They should follow the village’s traditions. They should not question them, much less run away!
The grandmother was old, and with everyone standing in her way, all she could do in the end was keep treating Zhaodi with the Snow Lotus that grew in the forest.
But she knew it would not cure Zhaodi. It could only slow her march toward death and ease her suffering a little.
So both Wei Sen and Lin Ze understood perfectly that, no matter what, they would never have another chance to meet the girl again.
After leaving the village doctor’s house, the two headed in tacit agreement toward the entrance of Aurora Village.
“What do you think?” Lin Ze asked, looking at Wei Sen.
From the village doctor, they had obtained the most important clue of all… The witness who had seen Gao Lei murder Li Shuhan back then was Meiya, who had been only twenty years old!
Meiya was the village chief’s niece, so for Meiya’s safety, the village chief had kept the witness’s identity secret.
But was that really the truth?
“I think there are too many contradictions,” Wei Sen analyzed.
“First, judging from both the skeleton’s sex and its habit of delivering gifts to the innkeeper every day, the skeleton in the cave should be Gao Lei.
“Second, the photo in Meiya’s room and Meiya’s footprints in the skeleton’s cave both show that Meiya and Gao Lei had an unusual relationship. From the photo of Meiya with Gao Lei and Li Shuhan, it’s obvious she had feelings for Gao Lei.
“Finally, Meiya was the witness to Gao Lei murdering his wife.
“Think about it. If she personally saw the man she liked push his wife off a cliff, would she be afraid that he was a monster in human skin, or would she be happy that his original wife was no longer standing between them?
“Since she liked Gao Lei, why would she make his murder of his wife known to everyone?”
After listening to her analysis, Lin Ze took a deep breath and said, “So Meiya may not have been a witness at all, but… an accomplice!
“The villagers finding out about this may not have been because Meiya spread it. Perhaps there was a real witness. Or perhaps… it was Gao Lei, or Li Shuhan after she became an Eerie Human.”
Wei Sen nodded. “Mm. Which brings us to the contradiction. Why would the village chief cover for Meiya? Just because she’s his niece?
“You have to remember, the village doctor said that when Meiya was still a little girl, she was chosen to be offered to Buddha too.
“The village chief and Meiya’s parents all knew that if she went, it would be a dead end, but none of them objected. That proves Meiya was never that important in their eyes.
“Meiya hasn’t gone home in all these years, and her parents have never once thought of asking her to come back. That only proves it further.”
The only people left in this village were the elderly and women. Almost all the young people had moved to big cities after Aurora Village began making money.
And even knowing that offerings to Mahakala would end in death, every household had still given up their daughters. Why?
It definitely wasn’t just because of ignorant faith.
It was because… of an extreme preference for sons over daughters.
Sacrificing daughters they already looked down on, offering them to God and Buddha in exchange for greater wealth-why wouldn’t they do it?
Wei Sen and Lin Ze both understood that although equality between men and women was being advocated, Dragon Nation had, after all, upheld male superiority for thousands of years. On top of that, this was a remote rural area, so the bias against girls was severe.
If a girl was born, being named things like “Bring a Brother” or “Hope for a Brother” was already considered merciful. In worse cases, baby girls were strangled to death the moment they were born.
A trace of anger, so faint even Wei Sen herself might not have noticed it, hid in her voice. “In this village, a girl’s life isn’t a life at all!”
She looked into Lin Ze’s eyes. “Under circumstances like these, how are we supposed to believe that everything the village chief and the others did was to protect Meiya?”
Lin Ze’s expression was grave. “Yesterday, I heard something from the other villagers. Not long after someone saw Gao Lei kill his wife, Meiya brought a dying man out of her house on Aurora Night.
“My guess is that Gao Lei was being imprisoned in the basement of Meiya’s house, and Meiya rescued him.
“But in the end, for some reason, Gao Lei still died. Then, over the long years that followed, he became what he is now.”
Wei Sen slowed her steps as she thought. “Meiya’s parents imprisoned Gao Lei in the basement. If it wasn’t for Meiya’s sake, then what was it for?”
Lin Ze said, “A reason they absolutely couldn’t let him leave.”
The same guess formed in both their minds.
And in this entire matter, there was one extremely easy detail to overlook.
That was the identities of Gao Lei and Li Shuhan.
They were researchers left in Aurora Village by Ether Group to study why the Aurora appeared.
Wei Sen’s face turned solemn. She lifted her head toward the thick clouds and swirling snow overhead, then slowly said, “The Aurora may be the key to unraveling every mystery!”
The Aurora was the key to this village’s wealth. Without the Aurora, the village would go back to being a remote countryside no one cared about. The people who had built comfortable lives off Aurora Village’s tourism industry would lose a substantial source of income.
So someone clearly knew the truth behind the Aurora’s appearance, yet used the lie of a Divine Gift to mislead everyone, and used faith as an excuse to cover up the truth.
And Li Shuhan and Gao Lei stayed in the village to investigate. They must have discovered the Aurora’s true secret, but someone didn’t want that secret getting out.
So the events that followed happened…
Lin Ze rubbed his chin and continued thinking. “Who would have been the first person to learn the Aurora’s secret?”
The two looked at each other and instantly thought of the answer, speaking in unison. “The previous village chief!”
Lin Ze sighed. “But he’s already dead, so he can’t tell us the truth. If we want to unravel the secret of the Aurora and achieve Perfect Clearance, we can only start with Li Shuhan and Gao Lei!”
“One is an Eerie Human, and the other is an Eerie Shadow. I’m afraid neither of them will tell an Order Keeper this secret easily.”
“I have a way to make them talk on their own.” Wei Sen sounded completely confident.
Lin Ze looked at the confidence in her eyes and suddenly realized what she meant. “You want to use… Meiya?”
Wei Sen smiled faintly. “Mm. We move tonight!”