Chapter 18 The Disappearance of People

"You're bringing fewer and fewer chickens. This time, you only brought one?" Huang Er said, his mouth full of oil, a toothpick dangling from his lips. "It's not even enough to fill a gap in my teeth."

As he spoke, he continued to pick at the roasted chicken, which had been reduced to a pile of bones, while picking his teeth. Mingmei, sitting across from him, sat quietly, ignoring his complaints.

When the two across from her fell silent, Mingmei finally spoke softly, "Didn't you go down the mountain yourselves for a treat? Weren't you full last night? You killed most of the chickens in the village, not to mention scaring the village idiot to death in the chicken coop."

Having said that, Mingmei felt they were lucky. Lu Xiaoyao and the others had come up the mountain early today; otherwise, if they had discovered this, there would probably have been another commotion.

Mingmei glanced at the two who felt guilty after being called out, then changed the subject. "You were quick on the uptake, though. As soon as that idiot said something about you, you took action."

"What? What did that idiot say?"

Huang Er's eyes suddenly widened, his muddy pupils turning into the vertical pupils of some wild beast. He seemed completely unaware of what had happened, but hearing Mingmei's words, he realized something was wrong and asked urgently, "What exactly did he say?"

"Hmm… he said many people in the village were gone, that they had disappeared." Mingmei extended a finger and gently tapped the table in front of them, then continued, "I've said it before, since you're wearing human skin and acting as humans, act like it. If someone calls out 'you're not human' one day, you know the consequences."

Mingmei smiled, looking at the "non-humans" in front of her who had long harbored rebellious thoughts and done many things behind her back. In her heart, she had already written their ending.

"Then what are you doing with these people you're guiding up the mountain?"

Unlike Huang Er, the guy wearing Wang Laosan's skin asked about something else. "Those few don't seem like simple characters."

"It's nothing much. Those few are just Wang's daughter's classmates, here for a summer vacation. It's just bad timing."

Mingmei sighed softly, "Who knew Wang Laosan would run up the mountain to look for people the day his daughter came back, and be seen by the villagers?"

As she spoke, Mingmei stared at "Wang Laosan" and asked, "How did you deal with Wang Laosan's body? You didn't hide it in this temple, did you? I've said, this is my territory, and I hate blood."

Seeing Mingmei's cold face, which was quite intimidating, "Wang Laosan" and Huang Er both cracked a smile and said, "How could we? Same as before, but this time we didn't have time to dig a pit, so we just hung him in a tree. Those with grievances and insincere hearts deserve to be left exposed in the wilderness!"

…

The rain grew heavier, and Lu Xiaoyao tightly held onto her umbrella, which was about to be blown away by the wind, closely following Julian and the others down the mountain.

"Ah!"

Her foot slipped, and Julian grabbed her waist to steady her.

"Hold tight." Immediately after, Lu Xiaoyao's umbrella fell, and she was soaked to the bone. However, her hand was now firmly held in Julian's palm. "We can't be as slow as we were during the day."

"Where are we going?"

"To the village."

Julian answered for Mu Chen, who was walking ahead.

"Huh? Why?"

"The village was too quiet this morning."

Although Cuihua had come to make trouble, Mu Chen and Julian felt something was wrong with the village before they went up the mountain. Mu Chen had reminded them that there had been many chickens in the village when they entered yesterday, but this morning there was no sound of chickens crowing at all.

"Huh? Just because of that?"

Lu Xiaoyao marveled at the two's observation skills, but also felt that it was a bit of an overreaction to come down the mountain at night just for this.

"There must be other secrets in the village." Mu Chen noticed that the two behind him had slowed down, so he slowed his pace slightly to wait for them to catch up.

This allowed him to hear their conversation.

So, Mu Chen added, "Besides, we don't even know if we can live safely until dawn."

As soon as Mu Chen finished speaking, a gust of wind blew through the forest, causing the trees on both sides of the mountain road to rustle. Then, to their horror, Lu Xiaoyao and the others discovered that the orange-yellow flames on their torches rapidly shrank when the wind blew, followed by an eerie blue-green flame that appeared on the torches, illuminating the surroundings once more.

At this moment, the rain stopped.

…

"Look, isn't this mural familiar?"

During the day, Wang Wenfei's attention had been on Wang Laosan, so she hadn't been drawn to the murals. But now, sneaking in with Merita, Wang Wenfei felt a sense of familiarity in her heart.

"Speaking of which, this mural looks a bit familiar…"

Using the light of Wang Wenfei's torch, Merita stared at the murals all over the wall. "Even if I've seen it before, I'm still amazed. This painting is really magical. The landscapes and figures are all lifelike."

"Yeah, this painting… isn't it painting our village?" Staring at the mural and realizing what it depicted, Wang Wenfei felt a chill rising from the bottom of her heart, making her tremble all over.

Merita was about to touch it when she heard Wang Wenfei's words and quickly took a step back, staring at her in disbelief. "Are you sure?"

"This… is my house, this road… isn't it the road leading to the inn? Didn't you take this road when you entered the village this afternoon?"

Merita didn't feel anything when Wang Wenfei pointed to her own house, but when she pointed to the road later, the familiar scenery on both sides, wasn't that the road they had walked?

"This… this!" Without Wang Wenfei pointing, Merita immediately recognized a courtyard. It was the one where she and Lu Xiaoyao had gone to buy vegetables.

"Why is there a map of the village painted here?"

Merita was puzzled, and Wang Wenfei was even more confused. The next second, Merita's gaze swept towards a corner of the mural, and her face instantly turned pale!

"People, people are gone!"

"What?"

Merita grabbed Wang Wenfei's wrist holding the torch. Before Wang Wenfei could react, Merita brought her torch closer to a corner of the mural, which depicted farmland.

She only heard Merita say in horror, "During the day, I, I even saw people standing in this field…"

But at this moment, how could there be any figures in the field?

As if thinking of something, without waiting for Wang Wenfei to ask again, Merita used the torch to illuminate the several scenes she had seen during the day, muttering, "Here, the children are gone too, the old man under the tree… the old man is gone too, and and the smoke from the kitchen chimneys! There's no smoke anymore!"

"Merita, calm down, tell me exactly what's… watch out!"

Just as Wang Wenfei was about to tell Merita to calm down, she turned her head slightly and suddenly saw a hand appearing behind Merita!