Chapter 95
Chapter 95
“You drank the hot spring water?” the old woman asked, her voice extremely low.
“No,” Wei Sen said flatly.
“Then what are you doing at my door?” As she spoke, the old woman moved to shut it.
Quick-eyed and quicker-handed, Xu You grabbed the door and held it open. “Wait, ma’am. Ever since I came to this village, I haven’t felt right anywhere. Since you’re the village doctor, why don’t you take a look at me?”
The old woman frowned and looked Xu You up and down, then said coldly, “If you don’t feel well, go home.”
“I’d love to go back, but the mountain’s snowed in.” As Xu You spoke, she forced one foot into the doorway.
The old woman had no choice but to let go. With her hands clasped behind her back, she turned and walked inside, muttering curses. “Strong as an ox. From the looks of it, what’s wrong with you is probably in the head!”
“Wow, ma’am, you should watch your karma with that mouth!” Xu You pushed the door open and walked in. The room was filled with the scent of medicinal herbs, along with a faint smell of rotting wood.
The old woman sat back down in her chair, a long smoking pipe in her hand. Her vertical pupils slanted toward them. “This old woman has done plenty of wicked things in her life. Cursing you a few times won’t make a difference!”
Weren’t doctors supposed to heal the sick and save lives?
Confused, the group entered the room. The old woman tapped her pipe on her own, showing no intention of receiving them properly.
“Enough nonsense. What exactly are you here for?” The old woman exhaled a mouthful of murky smoke, and the pungent smell of tobacco instantly filled the air.
Everyone could tell that this old woman was no kind soul.
Wei Sen said, “On our way here, we saw your granddaughter and heard her sing a very interesting mountain song. We came to ask you about the story behind it.”
The old woman looked at Wei Sen with a half-smile. “You look like an educated person. Don’t tell me you can’t even understand a mountain song.”
“It’s precisely because I understood it that I came to you,” Wei Sen said, meeting the old woman’s eyes without losing the slightest bit of momentum.
Xu You found herself a chair and sat down, looking at the old woman. “So everything in the song is true?”
An eerie light gleamed in the old woman’s vertical pupils. Instead of answering, she said, “Young people, you’ve come to the wrong place! This village is no good place!”
At that, a chill ran down their backs.
This old woman was clearly not on the same side as the village chief.
When facing tourists, the village chief always greeted them with a smile and seemed to care deeply about developing the village’s tourism.
But the old woman in front of them had shown them nothing but hostility. She had even made up a song like that and let her granddaughter sing it everywhere.
If ordinary tourists heard such a terrifying mountain song, they would probably feel uneasy at the very least. Some would likely leave as soon as possible.
What the old woman was doing made it seem as though she hoped tourists would never come to this village again.
“Can you explain it clearly? What exactly happened in this village?” Wei Sen asked.
The old woman glanced at her, then shook out the pipe in her hand. Her gaze grew darker and more sinister as she slowly began to sing:
“The Mountain God scatters Aurora, oh, lighting the graves a ghostly green;
The dead crawl out to beg for wine, oh, while jackals and Wolf revel in the mountains.
Who is laughing in the woods, oh? The Faceless Woman lifts her lantern to light the road;
Ask her for whom her wedding dress is red, oh, and she smiles softly toward the mountain.
Do not count the gold and silver piled like mountains, oh, do not stare as the rice jar fills itself;
Night after night, Aurora burns at the edge of the sky, oh, while the Mountain God counts the names of the living.
When the Mountain God calls a name, he peels off the face, oh, turning it to bloody mud to nourish barren hills;
Greed is never sated as it swallows gold and silver, oh, and white bones weigh heavy on the scale.
The forest path winds in a thousand loops, oh, and the Faceless Woman lifts her lantern to seal the way home;
Ask her how the word hate is written, oh, and her red sleeve points from afar to the Thirteen Villages.
Do not say copper coins can reach God, oh, do not blame the yellow millet dream for never ending;
Night after night, Aurora burns away sinful debts, oh, while the Mountain God laughs and counts the names of the newly dead.”
So the girl had only sung the first half. There was a second half to the song.
After Wei Sen heard the entire song, the chill down her back grew even stronger.
Those whose names were called by the Mountain God would have their faces peeled off. The Faceless Woman held resentment toward the people of the village. Terrifying things would happen whenever the Aurora appeared…
These were some of the clues Wei Sen could glean from the lyrics.
Among them, the Mountain God, the Faceless Woman, and the Aurora were all keys to unraveling the village’s secrets!
“If I were you…” The old woman smiled eerily. “When the Aurora appears, I’d run south through the forest and keep running. No matter what you hear, don’t look back. And… you must be faster than it.”
“Who is ‘it’? If we do what you say, can we leave the village?” Wei Sen asked.
The old woman only smiled without answering. Her pair of vertical pupils made their skin crawl.
Chen Lin said quietly, “The song says that on the night the Aurora appears, there are dead people, the Faceless Woman, and the Mountain God counting the names of the dead. Running into the forest at a time like that… isn’t that just a dead end?”
The old woman took a deep drag from her pipe, then slowly exhaled smoke from her mouth and nose. “You have long been inside death. Which road isn’t a dead end?”
The three of them fell silent for a long time.
What did she mean, they had long been inside death?
Could it be that they were all already dead?
Impossible!
They were all living, breathing people in the Real World, and they hadn’t violated any rules after entering the Instance. There was no way they were already dead.
Wei Sen’s gaze darkened slightly.
Inside death… Could the Eerie World be this so-called “death”?
“Old lady, if you can just explain things clearly, then stop singing about them. You’re making my head spin!” Xu You braced both hands on her knees and leaned her whole body toward the old woman, carefully studying her eyes.
She was certain the old woman was alive. Those vertical pupils weren’t some eerie phenomenon either, but a pathological change of some kind.
So why had this old woman been sitting here pretending to be mysterious and spouting all that nonsense? Was she trying to help them or hurt them?!
“Hmph!” The old woman turned aside in disdain and gave Xu You a sidelong look. “Young people these days. No money, no manners!”
“Ohhh, so you wanted money! You should’ve said so earlier!” Xu You suddenly understood. Then she patted her pockets and smiled awkwardly. “Sorry. Don’t have any.”
Wei Sen held her forehead.
The three of them really had been careless. As it turned out, even in the Eerie World, one still had to observe the rules of social courtesy.
They had come empty-handed and immediately bombarded the old woman with questions. The fact that the old woman had at least sung them a song already counted as conscientious of her.
Back at the inn, Wei Sen had lent out all her Merit Points and paid for her own room. Right now, she only had 870 Merit Points left to use.
Unless she had no other choice, she didn’t want to spend any more Merit Points. After all, of her two items classed as Anomalous Artifact, one was temporarily useless, while the other was an offensive item meant to kill an Eerie Entity.
She had to accumulate more Merit Points to avoid the outcome of dying together with an Eerie Entity after killing it.
After thinking it through, Wei Sen took a light breath and said, “Ma’am, we want to know what exactly happened in this village. We truly don’t have money at the moment. As a trade, you can name your condition. If we can do it, we’ll definitely help you accomplish it. How does that sound?”
The old woman looked Wei Sen up and down. After a moment of silence, she slowly said, “Don’t say this old woman won’t help you. East of the forest, there’s a cave. Snow Lotus flowers grow at the entrance. Go pick a few for me. If you can do that, we’ll talk.”
By the time they left the old woman’s house, it was nearly noon. The homes in the village still had their doors tightly shut.
“Sister Sen, where do we go next? Back to the inn for lunch, or straight to the eastern side of the forest the old lady mentioned?” Chen Lin asked.
“If you’re hungry, go back to the inn first. I’ll head to the forest.”
Xu You stepped forward. “How is eating more important than clearing the Instance? Besides, it’s not like we’d necessarily get anything good if we went back. Who could stomach it if they served up more human-meat buns?”
Chen Lin nodded. “Mm. I’d rather go to the forest first too. It’s always better to get more clues!”
Wei Sen nodded. “All right. Then let’s hurry to the forest and look for Snow Lotus flowers. If we make it back before Lili leaves at three o’clock, we can still investigate the fourth floor.”
Xu You stretched and yawned. “What a packed day. Let’s go!”