The scream that nearly burst from his mouth was forcibly trapped in his throat. Xie Fan felt as though his brain had been struck by a heavy hammer, everything inside his head churning violently.
The person who had just been talking to him, standing perfectly fine right here, had turned into wood?
The hand holding the candle trembled slightly. He took a step backward, almost unable to bring himself to look at that featureless face again.
The dark-skinned man still maintained the posture of someone searching for something, seemingly completely unaware that anything had happened, frozen motionless in place.
Xie Fan's mind roared. After returning home, he couldn't hold it back any longer and started vomiting.
How could this happen?
Zhang Hai had clearly been a person just now. He had even gone out to search for the protagonist group before.
But... the image of that featureless face flashed before his eyes again. Xie Fan gripped the edge of the table tightly, completely at a loss.
What the hell was going on?
The candle... Right, the candle!
As though something had suddenly occurred to him, his eyes widened slightly: Zhang Hai had just said that he'd lost his candle.
Could it be that because he didn't have his candle, he had suddenly turned into wood?
Or were these villagers made of wood to begin with, only maintaining a human appearance because they had candles?
A whole string of thoughts flashed through Xie Fan's mind, and he had absolutely no idea which one was right. All he knew was that his entire body felt cold. What he'd just seen was practically guaranteed to become a lifelong trauma, no less terrifying than a jumpscare in a horror movie!
His stomach cramped painfully again and again. It wasn't until Xie Fan had vomited until there was practically nothing left to throw up that he finally stopped and walked out of the washroom while supporting himself against the wall. From upstairs, he happened to have a clear view of the area beneath the locust tree.
His steps paused slightly.
Holding his breath, he cautiously looked out through the wooden house's window. But the instant he raised his head, Xie Fan's eyes suddenly widened.
Gone?
How was that possible?!
Hadn't he still been standing there just now?
Xie Fan froze. Before he went upstairs, "Zhang Hai" had clearly still been beneath the locust tree, but when he looked now, that spot was completely empty...
A hallucination?
What the hell was going on?
His mind was clearer than it had ever been. He instinctively closed his eyes, then opened them and looked again.
Still nothing...
...
At the inn, Pei Jing picked up the candle and couldn't help confirming it once more.
"This is the kind of candle you dreamed about, right?"
Shen Xun's memory became slightly hazy. He instinctively took the object from Pei Jing's hand and carefully examined it——it was exactly the same as the candle from his dream.
"This is it."
Shen Xun nodded. "The ones in the village should all be the same."
He still remembered the white candles they had seen on that rainy day.
Tan Qingxian instinctively looked toward Pei Jing. Among all of them, Pei Jing was the only one who had some knowledge of this sort of thing. After all, this was what the guy had studied at university.
The young man in the black outdoor jacket didn't ask anything else. He merely lifted the candle and carefully smelled it, then shaved off a thin piece and rubbed it between his fingertips.
Only after a while did he speak.
"It's tree wax, but there are some other things mixed into it."
Pei Jing's brows relaxed slightly. "It was probably made from the kind of ancient trees we saw when we entered the village."
"Pine trees?"
Tan Qingxian raised his head.
Pei Jing nodded. "It's the same smell."
"But I can't identify the other additives."
"Looks like it really is just an ordinary candle." Tan Qingxian looked thoughtful.
He Cheng glanced at him. "What else would it be if it wasn't an ordinary candle? Some kind of mermaid candle?"
"You've been reading too many comics."
Tan Qingxian choked at the retort and could only change the subject. "Looks like those villagers weren't lying to us."
"All right, now that you're done looking at it, hurry up and put it back. Just seeing that candle sitting here makes me uncomfortable."
Unexpectedly, after things quieted down, He Cheng was the first to speak.
For some reason, the sight of that candle made him uneasy. The smell was especially nauseating.
He Cheng figured it was because he had disliked the greasy, slippery texture of candles ever since he was a child, and frowned.
Tan Qingxian couldn't help glancing at him. He hadn't expected this young master to be the first one to suggest returning it.
Still, after examining it for so long, they really hadn't found anything.
Losing interest, he took the candle.
"I'll put it back. If A-Qi comes over, cover for me."
"Got it."
He Cheng responded impatiently and watched the pretentious bastard leave. Only after the candle had been taken out of the inn did he finally feel a little better.
"Smells fucking awful."
He Cheng complained, his face dark as he walked over to the window and opened it to let in some air.
Tan Qingxian returned to the small house where they had found the candle and estimated the time.
It had only been about an hour since they'd taken it. The original owner probably hadn't returned yet.
Following his memory, he put the candle back where it had originally been. Everything seemed perfectly normal, but for some inexplicable reason, just before leaving, Tan Qingxian suddenly turned around and looked at it again.
Was this candle really just an ordinary candle?
A trace of hesitation rose in his heart. Recalling Pei Jing's behavior while identifying the candle, Tan Qingxian stopped walking.
He couldn't shake the feeling that Pei Jing's conclusion had been too decisive, almost as though he were hiding something.
Truthfully, he certainly wasn't expecting it to be some kind of mermaid candle, but according to his own expectations, this candle... definitely shouldn't have been this ordinary.
His gaze fell on the tabletop again. When Tan Qingxian came back to his senses, he was already frowning as he reached out, scraped off a small piece of wax, and wrapped it inside a box.
He carefully smoothed the white candle until it looked even and natural. Unless someone examined it closely, it would be difficult to notice that a little was missing.
Casually stuffing the box into his pocket, Tan Qingxian lowered his eyes slightly when he realized what he had just done. Only after his expression returned to normal did he leave the empty house.
Not long after he stepped outside, in a corner of the room:
The wooden puppet that had remained completely silent and motionless slowly walked out.
Its gaze lingered on the white candle on the table, now missing a small piece. Then it raised its head and stiffly stared in the direction Tan Qingxian had left...
The next day:
After waking up, Xie Fan instinctively kept an eye on the western slope. As soon as dawn broke, he saw Zhang Hai walk out of his house.
The dark-faced young man carried a hoe over his shoulder, chatting and laughing with the other villagers as they walked along the path, as though absolutely nothing had happened yesterday.
At first, Xie Fan thought he'd seen wrong.
But he hadn't.
Zhang Hai was right downstairs, and he was perfectly fine!
Xie Fan's eyes widened in disbelief. Perhaps his stare from upstairs was too obvious, because Zhang Hai, who was passing by below, couldn't help raising his head and looking over in confusion.
Only then did Xie Fan react, hurriedly ducking behind the wooden window to hide himself.
"A-Hai, what are you looking at? Hurry up. It'll get hot soon."
This was the only cool time of day to work. The later it got, the hotter it would become.
"Coming."
The dark-faced young man responded. Although he was a little puzzled, feeling as though something had been watching him just now, he didn't think much of it. He withdrew his gaze and followed the others.
Natural.
Too natural.
No matter how Xie Fan looked at him, Zhang Hai seemed exactly like a real person. There wasn't the slightest trace of stiffness about him, completely unlike the wooden man from Xie Fan's memories of last night.
His heart slowly sank.
The only thing he could be certain of was that what he saw last night definitely hadn't been a hallucination.
So what was going on now?
Was this "person" in front of him really Zhang Hai?
There was only one way to confirm it: take Zhang Hai's candle away again and see exactly how he reacted.
The instant that thought surfaced, Xie Fan rejected it.
He wasn't part of the protagonist group. Stealing a villager's candle——did he think his life was too damn long?
Although he didn't know why, judging from what Xiao Yao's parents had said on his first day after transmigrating, everyone's candle seemed to be assigned to them individually.
Xie Fan guessed that someone from the protagonist group had probably taken Zhang Hai's candle last night, which was why he'd been able to discover that something was wrong. After all... the villagers would never forget their candles, much less touch someone else's.
Suppressing that insane and blatantly suicidal idea, Xie Fan couldn't help feeling that, considering how malicious this book was, there was no way the protagonist group could take that candle and come out of it completely unscathed either.
He instinctively ran a hand through his hair, pulling several strands of the abused black hair into knots.
Xie Fan frowned, feeling somewhat fed up with this troublesome long hair. He raised his hand and instinctively reached for a coarse cloth cord, intending to tie his hair back, only to suddenly freeze.
——He saw the ribbon around his wrist.
A beautiful silver satin ribbon was lightly wound around his wrist, bringing with it a faint, refreshing coolness.
This thing...
Xie Fan fell into a slight daze.
Had he been using this to tie his hair before?