Chapter 508: The Small Village at the Foot of the Mountain
Fu Miaoxue said, “This opera is one of the early classics of Fujian opera’s “Scholar Forest” troupe. It tells the story of a man named Hua Zhou from Qi Country during the Spring and Autumn period. He led a military expedition against Lu Country, but unfortunately met his end on the battlefield. His wife, Jiang Ji, went to Lu Country to retrieve his remains and buried him in his hometown after facing many difficulties. On her way back, she encounters bandits, but her husband’s spirit appeared and saved her.”
At this point, she paused briefly, then added, “However, the Inspector just mentioned that the woman who transported the corpse was a Mrs. Li, which probably has little to do with this story. It may just be that the game’s theme chose this name because of the similarity in carrying the remains.”
“The game won’t give useless clues, let’s keep it in mind for now,” said Bai Youwei. “We might need it later.”
“What are we supposed to do now?” Fu Miaoxue looked around. “It’s pitch black here, we can’t see anything, and it’s raining, so how are we supposed to investigate clues?”
She grabbed Du Lai’s hand and asked, “Speak up, what do we do next?”
Just a minute ago she was screaming at Du Lai, now she’s acting as if nothing happened.
Du Lai seemed unfazed by Fu Miaoxue’s fast changing temperament, and calmly suggested, “Let’s get off the mountain and find shelter from the rain. We can enquire information from the villagers along the way, they should know something.”
His plan aligned perfectly with Shen Mo’s thoughts.
The four descended the mountain together and saw an old willow tree at the eastern end of the village.
On the muddy ground next to the tree were several deep wagon wheel tracks – some overlapped, some intersected, but all were the same size – as if the same wagon had repeatedly passed over and over the same spot.
Shen Mo raised his eyebrows and looked around, “These must have been left by the corpse-carrying woman.”
From the eastern side of the village, she would transport corpses to the west, then from the west she would transport corpses to the east, day in and day out, without rest.
Hence the tire tracks left on the road.
Du Lai also became alert, observing the surroundings and calmly stated, “The rules tell us to make the corpse-carrying woman stop, but they don’t say what will happen if the players encounter her.”
“The corpse-carrying woman is key to the whole game. Until we find out more, it’s better not to make direct contact with her,” Shen Mo continued to plod forward. “The rain is getting heavier, let’s find shelter as soon as possible.”
Du Lai and Fu Miaoxue followed him.
The village was small, with only twenty or so households, and most of them had no lights on, as if they were already asleep.
Shen Mo approached one of the houses where a light was on and knocked on the door.
There was no response from inside.
Du Lai and Fu Miaoxue similarly knocked on several other doors, all with the same result.
Some even turned off the light immediately after they knocked, as if they were fearful of something and wouldn’t open the door no matter what.
They took shelter from the rain under the eaves of a house, then Du Lai tried pushing the door, saying, “This door latch structure is simple. It wouldn’t be too difficult to get in.”
For Du Lai, picking door locks was as easy as eating a meal, no challenge in the slightest.
“There’s no need.” Shen Mo said lightly, “Even if we break in, we may end up getting driven out by the owner. There’s another house up ahead, let’s try there instead.”
The house Shen Mo referred to was clearly owned by a wealthy family in the village. There were two stone lions crouching by the gate, and the mansion was many times larger than the other houses in the village, set apart at a far distance.
It was likely that the owner didn’t want to live next to the poor, or found them noisy, so they chose such a secluded location, with no neighbors around, and only flowers, trees, and a large lotus pond nearby.
Shen Mo was about to knock on the door when he found it already open—
The gate to the outer courtyard was not locked.