Chapter 42:

Xu Erya’s story

Lu Lingxi asked, “Now the question is, how we are going to find that weird little girl? I don’t know if the village chief knows about Xu Erya—”

Before Lu Lingxi could finish his words, he noticed that all his companions were looking at him in unison, with a hint of expectation in their eyes.

Lu Lingxi: =口=!!! “What’s going on with you? You want to scare me to death!”

Jing Qizhen directly raised his hand and patted Lu Lingxi on the shoulder. “Remember, the last two times the weird little girl appeared, it was when you were alone. She specifically came to find you…”

“She seems to be particularly fond of you! I mean, both you and your last name.” Manman nodded in agreement.

Even Yan Hong, who had always been taciturn, pointed out, “The first time the weird little girl appeared, Little Jing wrapped her in his windbreaker. When she vanished, his windbreaker was left behind. This afternoon, after you mended her cotton-padded coat, she took it with her and left neither the cotton nor the rags behind.”

Lu Lingxi looked shocked at first: =口=??? “But the cotton was sewn inside the coat’s padding and the scraps were sewn outside!”

“It seems Little Lu is quite popular with children,” even Grandma Fang chimed in.

Jing Qizhen said, “But given the current situation, we don’t know what might happen next, so let’s try not to split up.”

With a slightly lifted spirit, Jin Guijuan, who had been feeling down, finally spoke up, “So I guess we can only hope that weird little girl shows up on her own and comes looking for Little Lu again.”

After hearing his companions’ reasoning, Lu Lingxi was rendered speechless and fell into a long period of silence.

As they continued, Jin Guijuan glanced around the oil pan hell surrounding them with a trace of worry. “Now, the village has directly turned into an oil pan hell with the eerie nursery rhymes in the background. I hope nothing has happened to the weird little girl.”

Before the conversation could continue, Lao Xiao suddenly spoke up, “We’re here!”

The group was walking in a hurry as they chatted and had crossed most of the village. Now, they stood in front of the village chief’s house.

Jing Qizhen avoided the oil pans around him and walked directly forward to knock on the door.

He tried his best to tune out the noise of boiling oil and crackling flames around them as he listened closely. After a while, a look of hesitation crossed his face and he shook his head before he said, “It doesn’t sound like there’s any movement inside.”

Yan Hong reached into his pocket for his tools, ready to pick the lock and pry the door open but Lu Lingxi had already taken two steps back. With a slight run-up toward the wall of the village chief’s house, he nimbly climbed up and said, “I’ll go in and open the door for you!”

Without a change in expression, Yan Hong simply put his tools back in his pocket.

When a group of action-takers got together, things like this tended to happen.

With a faint sound, Lu Lingxi had already flipped over the wall and landed smoothly, then opened the courtyard door from the inside.

Lu Lingxi: “All the lights in the village chief’s house are off! Come on in!”

Jing Qizhen closed the door behind them.

The group walked through the village chief’s courtyard and reached the front door of the house, where Jing Qizhen raised his hand to knock again.

As a result, as soon as the sound of their footsteps reached the house, the people inside were nearly scared out of their wits. The footsteps coming straight to their door pushed the already tense village chief to the edge of a breakdown.

“Knock, knock, knock!” The sound rang as Jing Qizhen knocked a few times. Just as he was about to ask if there was anyone inside, the door suddenly burst open from within.

The seemingly old and frail village chief, who had once been strong from the years of hard labor in the fields, now had bulging veins on his thin arms. With his eyes wide and neck veins pulsing, he charged menacingly at Jing Qizhen while waving a wooden pole in anger.

The village chief roared, “I’ll fight you all to death!”

“What the—?!” Jing Qizhen, caught off guard by the sudden assault, quickly stepped back to dodge the incoming wooden pole. At the same time, he instinctively raised his hand to grab the village chief’s wrist from the side.

Although Manman was not walking at the front, her sharp eyes noticed right away that while the village chief was wildly swinging the pole, he was attempting to shield his family behind him in the house. Despite his frantic and somewhat reckless action, it was clear he was willing to sacrifice himself to divert attention to protect his family.

Both Lu Lingxi and Yan Hong, trained in self-defense, reacted quickly and with great coordination. Yan Hong struck the pole to deflect it against the door, reducing its momentum. Lu Lingxi took advantage of Yan Hong’s action to grab hold of the pole and immediately started a tug-of-war with the village chief.

They could have subdued the village chief more easily but Lu Lingxi was wary of using too much force on the elder that might knock him unconscious—they still needed to question the village chief after all.

Without a second thought, Manman let out a loud and clear scream that sounded even more panicked than the village chief’s. “Village chief, we are the travelers from outside! Something terrible happened, so we rushed over in a panic to ask for help! You’re scaring us to death! What’s going on here?! You have to help us!”

A young woman on the other side suddenly screamed in ‘terror’ and shocked both the village chief and his family.

Surprisingly, Manman’s voice, even more fearful than the chief’s, actually calmed him down a bit.

Village Chief: “…?”

Nonetheless, seeing that the strangers seemed more frightened than he was eased the village chief’s tension, if only a little.

And since neither Jing Qizhen, Yan Hong, nor Lu Lingxi had made any move to harm him, the village chief and his family were finally able to calm down and take a closer look at the group standing by the door. They then realized those people were just the travelers, not the malevolent spirits or terrifying monsters they had imagined.

With the pole held firmly by Lu Lingxi and Yan Hong, the chief couldn’t swing it anymore. Yet, he still clung to it tightly, watching Jing Qizhen and the others without blinking.

Jin Guijuan glanced at Manman who had managed to calm the village chief down with her ‘terrified’ act but Jin Guijuan was aware that people like Manman weren’t the type to go on a full-blown rant…

Manman blinked back at Jin Guijuan, a bit confused.

Jin Guijuan gave her a meaningful look and blinked twice as if to say, ‘Watch me!’

Manman: “…?”

The next moment, Jin Guijuan stepped forward in a couple of quick strides and stood beside Jing Qizhen and the others. She grabbed the village chief by the collar, mimicking the fierce attitude of the village shrews she had seen as a child, and fired off a barrage of words in angry cries, “What is wrong with this village of yours?! We’re just friends and family traveling together and got lost! We only asked for shelter for a few days! What on earth are you people doing here? Are you trying to get us killed?!”

Jing Qizhen and others: =口=!!!

Manman, who had just received an early warning from Jin Guijuan, was truly shocked.

The village chief: “No, I—”

Jin Guijuan slapped the door panel hard and made a loud ‘bang’ that caused the old-fashioned thick wooden door panels to shake slightly.

The village chief was instantly silenced out of fear.

Jing Qizhen and his group continued to have ‘=口=’ expressions on their faces.

Lu Lingxi stared at Jin Guijuan in a daze of shock.

Although he had seen Jin Guijuan’s fierce side before when she fought with Xu Siya’s mother, he had always considered it as her caring and attentive motherly love, so Lu Lingxi didn’t take it seriously. What impressed him more was how gentle Jin Guijuan was when she took care of Xu Siya but now, he never expected her to have such a bold and aggressive side.

Jin Guijuan continued her loud accusations, crying as she yelled, “Look at what’s happening outside! If you don’t give us a clear explanation today, I won’t let this go! Let me tell you, if anything happens tonight, I won’t spare you even if I die and become a ghost!”

The village chief was completely flustered as his words were snatched away by Jin Guijuan. He struggled to explain, “I, I—”

Seeing this, the village chief’s wife, who had been protected inside the house, rushed over to help and explained, “No, no, it’s really not us! Let’s stop shouting outside. Everyone, come in, come into the house so we can talk this through!”

Now that the village chief’s wife also appeared and since she was older, she instinctively glanced at Grandma Fang to seek help to mediate as a peer.

Grandma Fang naturally joined in the performance and hesitantly called, “Guijuan…”

Finally, Jin Guijuan let go of the village chief’s collar while breathing unevenly and huffed in dissatisfaction.

The group squeezed into the village chief’s house.

This time, when Jing Qizhen and others asked about the Xu family’s affairs, no one cared about whether Xu Erya’s past was disgraceful or not. The village chief shared the story directly.

“Xu Erya got close to a young man from the neighboring village. His family used to be very well-off and everyone in the surrounding ten miles envied them. Naturally, the Xu family was happy too. Since Erya was still young, they planned to formalize the engagement and get married once she turned sixteen.

“But later, misfortune struck the young man’s family. His parents both fell seriously ill one after another and even their abundant savings couldn’t withstand the expenses. In the end, his parents passed away. The young man was left alone and there was barely any money left. Of course, Erya’s parents were unhappy about this…

“Yet Erya was stubborn and insisted on being with that young man. The young man even went to the Xu family’s house to plead with her parents to let them be together. But Xu’s parents cursed him, calling him shameless and accusing him of ruining Erya’s reputation, even getting physical with him. Erya tried to step in to stop the fight and that’s when things accidentally got out of hand… Alas…”

Everyone frowned when they heard this and Manman couldn’t help clenching her fists in irritation.

Jing Qizhen frowned slightly. “Xu Erya was killed by her parents? What about the young man?”

“From what I’ve heard from the neighboring villages, the young man was quite unfortunate. After losing his parents and then Erya, he was devastated, lost his sanity, and later ran off from the village. No one has seen him since,” the village chief sighed.

Jing Qizhen asked, “What’s the story with those oil pans in the village?”

Before Jing Qizhen could mention Xu Siya, the village chief honestly explained, “It’s been years since that incident and people say Erya’s death was unjust. That’s why, every year on her death anniversary, strange things happen. But Erya was a good girl. While things may seem frightening, she’s never really harmed anyone in the village, so people just lock their doors and wait until morning.”

Everyone: …???

Manman couldn’t help but ask, “So earlier, when you were waving that pole around, you really want to fight us?”

The village chief explained, “In the past, it only looked scary but everything was fine when everyone closed the door tightly. I didn’t expect that today, I suddenly heard footsteps in the yard when I didn’t even open the door. I thought something had changed outside, like ghosts or monsters emerging.”

“It’s usually silent at night,” the village chief’s wife added in a shaky voice.

Lu Lingxi, who took the initiative to climb over the wall and open the door: …

Jing Qizhen, who was suspected as a monster and nearly got hit on the head by the village chief’s swinging stick: …

The others: …

“If this happens every year on Xu Erya’s death anniversary, then chief, you should’ve warned us.” Jing Qizhen rubbed his forehead.

The village chief was also on the verge of crying. “But Erya’s death anniversary is in July, not today!”