Chapter 93
Chapter 93
Xu You stepped forward and shielded the other two behind her. “Careful!”
The three of them fixed their eyes on the forest. A girl in a red floral padded jacket came walking out from between the trees, singing as she went.
Her hair was tied into two little pigtails, and she carried a small basket on her back. Her black cotton shoes left a trail of footprints in the snow. She looked no more than twelve or thirteen.
Xu You glanced at the compass in her hand. Only then did she relax slightly and say in a low voice, “She’s human.”
“Huh? Are you tourists here to see the Aurora?” the girl asked.
“Yes. Are you from Aurora Village?” Wei Sen asked.
The girl nodded. “Yep!”
“What were you singing just now?”
“Oh, that? It’s a mountain song passed down in our village.”
Chen Lin asked, “Why does that song sound so creepy?”
The girl flicked her braids. “Does it? Grandma taught me to sing it. I don’t know what it means either.”
“Your grandma? Is she in the village?” Xu You pressed.
“My grandma is the village doctor. Aren’t you heading to our village from this direction?” the girl asked innocently.
Wei Sen responded, then looked at Xu You and Chen Lin. “About the song, maybe we can ask this village doctor.”
Xu You nodded. “Sounds good!”
“Just keep going down this road and you’ll reach the village soon. I still have to go make a golden body for the Buddha, so I won’t take you there!”
“Make a golden body?” Xu You asked in confusion. “Where is the Buddha? The one at the village entrance?”
The girl’s eyes lit up. “Yep!”
“Why are you the one going? Where are the adults?”
“Uncle Village Chief told me to. Ah, I can’t keep talking to you. If I waste time, Uncle Village Chief will scold me!” With that, the girl bounced away through the snow with the basket on her back.
Chen Lin pushed up her glasses and said, “Did you see what she was carrying on her back? It was black mud.”
“Using black mud to make a golden body?” No matter how Xu You thought about it, it felt strange. “Looks like we need to meet this village chief too.”
“This village is creepy in every possible way.” A chill ran down Chen Lin’s spine. “The lyrics that girl sang just now-the dead, the Wolf, the Faceless Woman… Those things aren’t all going to exist in this Instance, are they?”
“So far, we’ve only seen one Broken-leg Ghost. I want to see just what kind of person this grandma is, teaching such a young child a terrifying mountain song like that!” Xu You let out a light snort.
Wei Sen said, “Let’s go. We’ll find the village chief first and ask about making a golden body for the Buddha and the village, then go find the village doctor and ask about the story behind that song.”
“Mm.”
The group continued toward the village.
Wei Sen looked doubtfully at the compass in Xu You’s hand. “By the way, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you. In this Instance and the Infinite Flight Instance, we didn’t appear the way we looked before going to sleep, so why is your compass still with you?”
Xu You said, “I’ve been wondering that too! It seems like no matter what identity I enter an Instance World with, whatever I had on me before I fell asleep gets carried into the Instance World.”
Chen Lin pushed up her glasses. “Like my glasses… Actually, I’m not nearsighted.”
“Huh?! You’re not nearsighted?!” Xu You stared at Chen Lin in surprise.
Chen Lin nodded slightly. “Mm. They’re just decorative…”
Wei Sen thought for a moment. “I checked the security footage at home. Our ‘souls’ come to the Instance World, while our bodies remain in the Real World, sleeping normally. But our personal belongings can be transmitted to the Instance World? That doesn’t make sense…”
Xu You looked at her own hand. “But the us here are also living people with physical bodies and senses. If what came to this world is our souls, then who did these bodies originally belong to?”
Wei Sen had already thought about these questions long ago, but the result was that she simply couldn’t find an answer.
There were too many mysteries now, and they had too little information. If they wanted to understand the truth of this world, perhaps they still had a long road ahead of them.
“Next Instance, I’ll try bringing an item with me. If it vanishes from thin air after I enter the Instance, then that proves it really was transmitted to the Eerie World. But if the item in the Real World doesn’t disappear, and the me in the Eerie World also has that item…”
Wei Sen fell silent.
If that was really the case…
Perhaps the two worlds were two sides of the same coin. The people and things that existed in the Real World had corresponding counterparts in the Eerie World itself.
Or perhaps everything in the Eerie World was a ‘projection’ of the Real World. These Order Keepers and the items they carried were all ‘projected’ into the Eerie World by God.
Chen Lin asked in a low voice, “If that happens, what would it prove?”
Wei Sen drew in a light breath. Seeing the village that had already appeared up ahead, she said, “We’ll know once we test it in the next Instance. For now, let’s find the Village Chief first.”
Deep in the forest, the village huddled beneath a gray-white sky. Thirteen squat wooden houses creaked under the weight of the snow, and the thin wisps of cooking smoke rising from their chimneys had barely poked out before the biting north wind tore them to shreds.
There were clearly people inside the houses, yet every single door was shut tight. Some even caught sight of them and immediately closed their windows.
“This village feels strange too. It’s like everyone is guarding against something,” Chen Lin said, looking around.
Xu You said, “The only question is whether they’re guarding against people, or ghosts.”
Following the map, Wei Sen and the others found the Village Chief’s home. It was the largest wooden house in the village. Two strings of gold ingots hung by the door, and a big black dog was tied up with a rope two or three times thicker than ordinary hemp.
When the three of them arrived, the leashed black dog suddenly became alert.
Its paws were wrapped around a large bone. It lazily glanced at them, seemed to decide they were no threat, then leaned back against the bone and went on sleeping.
Chen Lin stepped forward and knocked. “Hello?”
A moment later, the old wooden door opened from within, and the smell of rotting timber rushed out to meet them.
The Village Chief was over fifty, his temples graying. He wore a blue padded jacket, and the sharpness in his eyes instantly turned kindly once the door opened.
“You must be this round’s travelers, yes?” the Village Chief said with a beaming smile.
Chen Lin nodded. “Yes. Would it be all right if we bothered you for a moment?”
The Village Chief opened the door wider. “Come in, come in and sit! We country folk don’t stand on ceremony, so don’t mind us!”
The group followed him inside. The interior was dimly lit. In the center was a fire pit burning with firewood, and a kettle set above the flames was rattling with the sound of boiling water.
“This has to be Daliang Mountain!” Xu You said with certainty to Wei Sen and Chen Lin after seeing the layout inside. “This fire pit and these wooden houses are exactly the style from that region where I’m from!”
Wei Sen had originally guessed that Aurora Village’s true geographical location should be somewhere in the northeast. After all, within Dragon Nation, only places near Mohe could see the Aurora.
But now it seemed Xu You was right. This Daliang Mountain truly did belong to Sichuan. The style of the houses was completely different from the red-brick homes and heated earthen beds of the northeast.
“Who would’ve thought you’d run into something like a snowstorm sealing off the mountain!” the Village Chief said as he brewed each of them a cup of hot tea.
“Thank you.” Wei Sen looked at the tea in the enamel cup in her hands. There was nothing unusual about it.
She surveyed the room. That smell of rotting wood was still thick in the air, yet she couldn’t find its source. Everything clearly looked perfectly normal, and the wooden house showed no sign of decay at all.
“Village Chief, why has every household shut its doors? Are there wild beasts in the forest?” Wei Sen asked.
The Village Chief smiled. “What wild beasts? This place is a tourist destination! They’ve got their doors and windows closed because it’s too cold. It keeps the warmth in.”
Was that really it?
Wei Sen didn’t believe the Village Chief’s explanation. The people who had shut their windows after seeing them earlier had clearly shown a trace of disgust in their eyes.
“Do a lot of tourists come here every year?” Xu You asked next.
The Village Chief sat down and said, “Plenty! They all come because they’ve heard of the Aurora!”
“Is this place part of Sichuan?” Xu You asked tentatively.
The Village Chief gave them a strange look. “Of course.”
Xu You grew even more confused. “No, then why can you see the Aurora here? Can you really see it???”
The Village Chief burst out laughing. “Lots of people don’t want to believe it when they first arrive. Stay a few more days and you’ll definitely see it! The chances of seeing the Aurora here are much higher than at that Arctic Village!”
Xu You asked, “How much higher?”
“All year round, on average, you can see it once every two or three days!”
Wei Sen blew gently on the tea in her hands.
That was too outrageous. Where on Earth could you see the Aurora all year round?!
“Did the Aurora phenomenon in this village begin around 2029?” Wei Sen asked, her gaze fixed straight on the Village Chief’s eyes.
That point in time was exactly when Ether Group had funded the villagers’ road paving and inn construction.
The abnormal Aurora and Ether Group-there had to be some connection between them!