Ye Tiancheng waited patiently for a while longer, but he could neither discern nor see anything else, only recognizing those two words.
He wants? What does he want to do?
Unable to figure out the answer himself, Ye Tiancheng directly asked, "What do you want to do? Speak louder."
He watched the little fox's lips move, and after a long time, it finally uttered a clearer sentence, "I want to go over, help her, and take her away."
Ye Tiancheng was now even more certain.
The little fox was clearly suffering from a severe nightmare. Help her? Who knew what this "her" was? And how could saving someone involve climbing out of a window and jumping from the fourth floor? The little fox wasn't a bird and couldn't fly, so how could it use the window?
If the little fox really jumped from the fourth floor, his brain would be no different from a watermelon falling from the fourth floor.
Could this person not be woken up?
Ye Tiancheng was extremely troubled, yet dared not let go. Seeing the little fox's disoriented state, he feared that if he slackened for even a moment, the little fox might run towards the window again or do something else to harm himself. What should he do?
He looked around, pulled the little fox to rummage through their belongings, and after a long time, pulled out a pile of talismans. Under the moonlight by the window, he identified them carefully for a while, then gradually lost patience and picked out different ones from the pile, slapping them onto the little fox one by one.
After slapping about twenty to thirty talismans, the little fox gave a jolt, shook its head violently, and saw itself sitting on the edge of the bed. Ye Tiancheng was half-squatting and half-kneeling before him, with a messy pile of talismans on the bedside table, and dozens more on the bed beside him.
Ye Tiancheng held his wrist with one hand, and with the other, he was picking up a talisman from the bedside table, about to slap a new one onto the little fox.
As soon as the little fox saw what kind of talisman Ye Tiancheng was holding, it shivered and instinctively dodged, "Brother, what are you doing?"
Ye Tiancheng paused his action of slapping talismans onto the little fox, looked up, and carefully examined the little fox's eyes and expression. Seeing the panic and confusion on the little fox's face, and the clarity in its eyes, he finally confirmed that the little fox was likely fine. He then put down the talisman.
However, the first thing Ye Tiancheng did after that was to confirm with the little fox again, "Are you awake now?"
The little fox blinked strangely. Still groggy, it didn't understand Ye Tiancheng's meaning, "Awake? Wasn't I just waking up? Brother, what were you doing just now? Why were you slapping talismans on me?"
"I, did I do something?"
The little fox looked at itself in confusion, trying to find anything wrong with itself.
He didn't think Ye Tiancheng was trying to harm him. It was likely that something was wrong with him. With his brain functioning normally again, the little fox could think somewhat normally and roughly guessed the reason.
Seeing that he was truly awake this time, Ye Tiancheng finally spoke, "You have no idea, you almost scared me to death just now!"
"As soon as I opened my eyes, I saw you by the window, with one leg already out of the windowsill, determined to jump down. If I hadn't heard the sound of you opening the window and woken up, rushed over immediately, and pulled you back, you would have already fallen to the ground!"
The little fox's eyes widened instantly upon hearing this, "Me? Jump off the building?"
This sounded utterly preposterous, but Ye Tiancheng's demeanor did not seem like he was lying. Ye Tiancheng had no reason to make such a joke, and he looked both angry and anxious, the fear on his face clearly not feigned.
The little fox felt a chill creep up its spine belatedly, "No... I, Brother, what happened just now? Why would I go and jump off the building?"
Ye Tiancheng looked at the little fox helplessly and replied, "I wish I knew what happened. You were really too scary. I was hoping you could remember something, to see when you were ensnared."
After saying that, he wasted no more words and recounted everything he had heard and seen since waking up, in detail, to the little fox.
After listening, the little fox was both scared and couldn't help but desperately try to recall what had happened before Ye Tiancheng woke up and found him by the window preparing to jump.
Ye Tiancheng told the little fox that while he was in the nightmare, he repeatedly seemed to be saying something about saving someone, helping her, and wanting to take her away from somewhere.
Ye Tiancheng complained to the little fox that the little fox's action of jumping out of the window seemed more like wanting to leave the human world and go directly to hell.
Of course, this was said out of fear and anger.
Evil spirits harm people by taking their lives, so saying this was not entirely wrong.
The little fox frowned and pondered for a while. Fortunately, the key information provided by Ye Tiancheng was useful. He had a moment of inspiration, as if he had truly thought of something. Ye Tiancheng's task was no longer so urgent, so he didn't rush the little fox, giving him ample space to think carefully.
After waiting for a long time, Ye Tiancheng finally heard the little fox exclaim in realization, "I know, I think I remember!"
Ye Tiancheng immediately looked at the little fox and asked, "What do you remember?"
The little fox replied to Ye Tiancheng, "I remember what happened before."
"I vaguely remember that I was sleeping soundly, and then I suddenly heard someone crying. I didn't pay attention at first, but then I don't know how it happened, I became possessed, walked off the bed, and went to the window."
"At that time, my mind was like it was awake, yet not awake. In short, I wasn't in control of myself, but I did see something."
"At the window, I saw another room on the other side of the window. In the room, there was a woman kneeling on the ground, crying, and she had many wounds. Perhaps because I wasn't awake, I didn't find it strange that the window was outside another room."
As the little fox spoke, his face turned a little grim, "Then someone seemed to be whispering in my ear, telling me to go and save her, to take that person out of the room, and then she would be fine. And then it was probably the scene you saw, Brother."
"Because in the eyes of my unconscious self at that time, I wasn't by the fourth-floor window. Outside the window was another room, so I didn't realize that climbing through this window would mean falling from the fourth floor. I didn't think there was anything wrong with my actions."
"This time it was really close. If you hadn't reacted in time, Brother, then I..."
Ye Tiancheng was indeed scared, but it was also out of concern for his brother. The situation at the time was truly perilous. Ye Tiancheng felt that he needed to recover, and he knew that the little fox, now that he was awake, was probably also quite frightened.
Therefore, he softened his tone and patted the little fox's shoulder, "If you survive a great disaster, you will have great fortune. You have great fortune, and nothing will happen. And it's all in the past."
"And it's also thanks to the old facilities of this guesthouse that the sound of opening the window was so loud, it woke me up."
Ye Tiancheng paused and said, "Speaking of which, since you remember, can you still recall the person you saw in the room outside the window? You said it was a woman, right?"
"What did she look like? Do you remember? Was she a normal person, or... not so normal looking?"
Upon hearing Ye Tiancheng's question, the little fox's expression changed.
Ye Tiancheng noticed this and couldn't help but say, "What? Is there a problem?"
The little fox pursed his lips slightly and finally spoke, replying to Ye Tiancheng, "She looked like a normal person. At first, I didn't realize it, but now that I think about it, it was, it was Boss Mei!"
Ye Tiancheng was surprised, "You mean Boss Mei?!"
The little fox forced himself to calm down and continued, "It was indeed Boss Mei, and she was wearing the same outfit as when we first met her, only she had many more wounds on her body, bruises and contusions, which were very horrifying."
Ye Tiancheng's expression turned serious, "So Boss Mei is the problem? Is she really the problem?"
They had originally thought Boss Mei seemed like an ordinary person and considered not judging by appearances and not wrongly accusing her. But it turned out Mei Mei was indeed not innocent?
The little fox hesitated and said, "Actually, I'm not entirely sure, but I vaguely feel that perhaps you've heard of an idiom, Brother – 'to act as a jackal for the tiger'?"
Ye Tiancheng was slightly stunned, "You mean... she's a ghoul?"
The little fox said, "Not necessarily an evil spirit, but she should be doing something similar."
Ye Tiancheng frowned deeply, puzzled, "Then why would she do this?"
In an instant, the little fox's words and Ye Tiancheng's subsequent thought coincided, "Boss Mei has a seriously ill husband."
Everyone in this village knew that Mei Mei had a seriously ill husband, and they had a very good relationship. Even though her husband was seriously ill and incurable, unable to bear the burden of the family, and even spent a lot of money every day, Mei Mei remained devoted to her husband, working hard to support the family and care for him.
Ye Tiancheng remembered his previous conversation with Mei Mei.
Mei Mei had refused his offer to help contact hospitals and experts, saying her husband's illness was beyond cure, purely a matter of counting down days, and would still cost a lot of money. She didn't want to go through any more trouble, seeming to resign herself to fate.
But if that were the case, could a person with such a severe and chronic illness, truly survive for so many years under the circumstances of resigning to fate?
Even if she could, what kind of means would be needed to achieve this?
What human power could not do, perhaps only some other extraordinary means could achieve. When it came to extending life, it was likely some crooked path.
Ye Tiancheng and the little fox looked at each other.
The little fox suddenly asked, "If our guess is correct, Brother, do you think this matter has any connection to the upcoming party event in two days? And how much does it relate to the fragment of the Fuxi Qin that you are looking for?"
Ye Tiancheng thought for a moment and said, "If there is a connection, and it's causing such a stir, it's likely inseparable. There must be some connection."
The little fox then said, "Then let's figure out as soon as possible what the upcoming party event is actually about."
"We couldn't ask directly before, so we only knew that this date was very important, and many outsiders would flock to this remote village every year at this time. The outside world knows very little about the inside story, and it's even more suspicious that Sister Mingzhu's investigation also found nothing about this."
"I think as long as we solve these mysteries, we will be close to the truth."
Ye Tiancheng also saw the obvious abnormality. They had really not found any problems when investigating this village before. Now that he thought about it, the village being too normal was the biggest abnormality.
He pondered for a moment and said, "Actually, the biggest breakthrough might still be the outsiders."
When investigating these matters, alarming the locals is often the most irrational approach. The strong cannot suppress the local snakes, and confronting them would be the most disadvantageous. They had to find another way.