"The village doctor already came to see her," the man said. "She's mostly fine, but the doctor specifically instructed that Hong Hong needs to rest."

"I see," Jiang Cheng said, glancing at the closed door. He nodded slightly, a hint of regret in his eyes, "Then I won't disturb her."

"Safe travels, esteemed guest."

...

On the way back, Chen Xiaomeng kept looking at Jiang Cheng, who seemed unfazed, making it impossible to guess what he was thinking.

"That man is suspicious," Chen Xiaomeng said, "Hong Hong seemed very afraid of him, and the phrase 'men and women should not touch hands when giving or receiving something' doesn't sound like something she would say. The man taught it to her."

Jiang Cheng squinted, shielding his eyes from the setting sun, and casually replied, "Of course he's suspicious. Why else would he choose this time to tend to the vegetable garden? It's obvious he saw us coming and rushed out."

The sun was about to set, and night was approaching. The darkness was undoubtedly a nightmare for the villagers, yet this man chose to go out to tend to the vegetable garden at this time, making it hard not to be suspicious.

Chen Xiaomeng added, "And he doesn't look like he's here to do farm work. His leather shoes are brand new."

A strange man, dressed neatly and cleanly, yet claiming to be helping Hong Hong's family with farm work...

Thinking of this, both of them fell silent. Since they had seen through the man's disguise, the next step was to determine his purpose.

This was also simple: the pretense of working was false; surveillance was the truth.

The man's real purpose was to prevent them from contacting Hong Hong's family, to prevent them from obtaining any information.

It was likely arranged by the village chief and others.

Most likely, Chen Xiaomeng and her group's visits to the village had alerted them.

Along the way, although the houses nearby were visibly low and dilapidated, the vegetables in the gardens and the few pieces of clothing hanging out indicated that they were inhabited.

But they had never seen anyone come out and move around.

Chen Xiaomeng paused and lowered her voice to ask, "Have you thought about..."

"Yes," Jiang Cheng interrupted.

"You know what I was going to ask?" Chen Xiaomeng asked in surprise.

Jiang Cheng continued walking and casually replied, "You can't figure out why, if the ghost kills people at this rate, there are still so many men in the village after 20 years?"

Chen Xiaomeng's eyes widened.

"But you understand now," Jiang Cheng glanced at her, "don't you?"

Chen Xiaomeng took a deep breath, whether it was directed at Jiang Cheng or at this village, and then slowly said, "It's the village chief and the others."

She looked into the distance at the Qian family's abandoned building, which was noticeably taller than the other houses, and said in a meaningful tone, "The village chief invited us to stay in the Qian family compound because the ghost's target is the Qian family. Since we live here, the ghost will treat us as members of the Qian family and kill us, and the others in the village will be temporarily safe."

"This is also the secret to how this remote mountain village has continued to exist. I think that every once in a while, some outsiders are invited to Xiaoshijian Village for various reasons, and then they move into the Qian family compound and eventually die tragically."

Previously, the information they had gathered from Anping Town also confirmed this.

Outsiders often went missing after going to Xiaoshijian Village, and the woman who broke into the Anping Inn looking for her husband was also dressed differently from the people here, probably also an outsider who had been tricked into the village.

And the woman's husband had already died at the hands of the ghost.

This also explained why the people in Anping Town were so hostile to the people of Xiaoshijian Village.

Just as the old man raising livestock on the edge of town had said, don't get involved with the people of this village, they... represent misfortune.

Jiang Cheng looked at the woman in front of him with great interest.

He didn't reject bad people, because there was always a reason for their badness, but he hated idiots, because there was no reason for idiocy, they... were just stupid.

Fortunately, Chen Xiaomeng wasn't stupid. She was much stronger than the two self-righteous idiots, Pei Qian and Zhou Rong, combined, which was why Jiang Cheng had sought her out.

In nightmares, good people and bad people don't necessarily die, only stupid people die.

"Do you know the way out of here?" Chen Xiaomeng asked, raising an eyebrow.

"No."

"Rare," Chen Xiaomeng suddenly smiled, "good thing I do."

"You want to leave now?"

"Otherwise? Wait for the village chief to turn against us?" Chen Xiaomeng shrugged, then took out the fruit and took a small bite indifferently.

The fruit didn't look big, but it was very juicy, making Jiang Cheng feel envious. His throat couldn't help but move up and down. "If we're going to leave, we should leave at night. I want to go to Hong Hong's house and take a look."

"Suit yourself." Chen Xiaomeng casually threw away the fruit core.

By the time they returned to the courtyard, it was completely dark. Fortunately, the charcoal fire in the room was still burning, but the empty room was empty.

Li Lu and Yu Man had not returned.

"Where are they?" Chen Xiaomeng asked.

"Why are you looking at me?" Jiang Cheng hummed. "It wasn't like I went out with them this morning."

They hadn't returned by this time, so something must have happened.

It wasn't clear whether they had encountered a ghost, or whether they had also seen through the conspiracy of the village chief and others, and were then discovered by the latter, and ultimately controlled, or killed.

Jiang Cheng had previously thought about the issue of mission balance. According to the existing clues, the ghost in this mission did not kill women, but that did not mean that female players could rest easy in this mission.

According to Jiang Cheng's understanding, although the nightmare looked very strange, it was actually operated by a meticulous and complex mechanism. Each player who was matched had the same probability of survival at the beginning of the mission.

Perhaps the ghost's preferences would be slightly more favorable to women, but according to the rules of fairness, this aspect of friendliness would be compensated for by another part of malice.

He could almost imagine the consequences of two good-looking young women getting lost alone in this village.

They shouldn't die, but they would live a life worse than death.

Chen Xiaomeng also realized this, and her face darkened immediately as she was also a woman, "When you go to Hong Hong's house at night, pay attention to the surrounding movements. If we can rescue them, our trial and error costs at the Anping Inn will be greatly reduced."

"Tsk," Jiang Cheng looked at her expressionlessly.

Chen Xiaomeng was not interested in the life or death of Li Lu and Yu Man. She just mentally rejected the villagers' behavior. Her choice to find an opportunity to save them was only to squeeze out their remaining value and use them to test the waters for herself.

Reason prevailed over emotion. This was a woman who knew what was important, and Jiang Cheng was very satisfied with her.

In comparison, Jiang Cheng suddenly thought of the unpromising fatty at home, and... his irresistible braised pork ribs with Chinese cabbage.