The fresh apricot jam was finished, and early the next morning, Xie Fan ate flaky pastries dipped in apricot jam. He had no idea where the system had gotten the pastries from. It was practically like a treasure chest that could produce anything.
Still, these pastries were probably made in the village, right? The ingredients tasted a little different from the ones outside.
He took a bite of the piping-hot pastry and felt that his life was finally starting to improve.
Mm. It was all thanks to the system.
Xie Fan finished breakfast in a few bites. He couldn’t even remember how long it had been since he had felt this comfortable. He had just finished washing the bowl when he heard a voice from downstairs.
“Brother A-Xie, Brother A-Xie.”
“The weather’s nice today. Do you want to go out with me?”
The little girl in dark-blue cloth clothes had originally only been passing beneath the locust tree, but the moment she spotted him, she stopped.
“Where to?” Xie Fan asked instinctively.
Xiao Yao tilted her head. “The sheep pen.”
“I was just about to go feed the other animals. It’s really fun.”
The sheep pen……
Xie Fan immediately recalled the dream he had had that night.
Truthfully, even now, he had no idea what that dream was supposed to mean. But the moment he heard Xiao Yao mention the sheep pen, he vaguely began to feel uncomfortable.
“Do you think I should go?”
Suddenly thinking of something, Xie Fan asked inside his mind.
He didn’t know how long passed. Perhaps only a few breaths, perhaps much longer. Just as Xie Fan began to feel slightly dazed, he heard the system “residing” inside him chuckle softly.
“If you want to go, of course you can.”
I can?
Xie Fan blinked.
But since the system had said so, that probably meant there was nothing wrong with going, right?
The image of the protagonist group standing inside the sheep pen and eating grass in his dream surfaced in his mind again. Even now, he could vividly remember every single detail, enough to make him feel…… slightly nauseous.
Of course Xie Fan knew it had only been a dream.
There was no way anything could happen to the protagonist group so soon. After all, even he, a cannon-fodder passerby, hadn’t died yet. How could the protagonist get into trouble before a supporting character?
Still, instinctively, he wanted to confirm it for himself.
He only needed to take a look……
Xie Fan had never been to the sheep pen before. His only impression of it came from Xiao Yao’s crude description. Beyond that, he knew absolutely nothing.
So as long as he could confirm that the sheep pen in his dream didn’t match the one in reality, he would be able to prove that it really had just been a dream.
Xie Fan took a deep breath, turned around, and went downstairs.
Xiao Yao was waiting below. The moment Brother A-Xie approached, her nose suddenly twitched, and she couldn’t help looking puzzled.
“Brother A-Xie, did you eat apricot jam? You kind of smell like apricot jam.”
Xie Fan: ……?
Was this kid’s nose really that sharp?
Was the smell that obvious? Why couldn’t he smell it himself?
Xie Fan turned his head and sniffed around, but he couldn’t detect the sweetness she was talking about, so he could only say, “I did have apricot jam this morning.”
“If you want some, I’ll give you some when we come back.”
“Okay.”
“Thank you, Brother A-Xie.”
Xiao Yao immediately brightened.
There weren’t many people around this early in the morning. The two of them passed through the woods and soon emerged onto a small path.
When Xie Fan raised his head and saw the village chief’s house ahead, he froze slightly.
The sheep pen was near the village chief’s house?
He thought for a long while before remembering that his dream hadn’t shown the route to the sheep pen.
Xiao Yao didn’t notice anything strange about Xie Fan. She merely assumed he found it odd that all the doors and windows of the village chief’s house were tightly shut today, so she quietly explained, “Actually, everything was still fine around noon yesterday, but by nighttime, the village chief had completely locked the doors.”
“I heard it’s because Brother A-Qi got sick, and it’s pretty serious. They’re afraid it might spread.”
A-Qi was sick?
With A-Qi’s physique, how could he suddenly fall ill?
Xie Fan was somewhat surprised. He had always felt that the man was incredibly robust. After all, this was someone who could search for the protagonist group in a torrential downpour and come out perfectly fine. How could he get sick so easily?
Instinctively, Xie Fan felt that something wasn’t right.
But the doors and windows opposite him were tightly sealed, and he wasn’t close to A-Qi anyway, so Xie Fan could only suppress the thought.
Xiao Yao shook her head.
“Sigh, I hope Brother A-Qi gets better soon.”
“The village chief’s doors have been shut all day, so everyone from the tour group went to Auntie’s house to eat. Now I can’t even trade for eggs for you, Brother A-Xie.”
Xie Fan coughed lightly.
Only then did he remember that he had forgotten to tell Xiao Yao that he had flaky pastries now. It was just that explaining where those pastries had come from would be a little difficult.
“Forget it.”
Xiao Yao said, “Brother A-Xie, hurry up. Be careful or it’ll get dark soon.”
It hadn’t been long since morning began, yet when Xiao Yao said it would soon get dark, Xie Fan didn’t feel the slightest surprise.
It was almost as though the weather in Xican Village was supposed to be like this.
After crossing the threshing ground and walking only a few hundred meters, they arrived beside a wooden building.
The instant Xie Fan spotted the pond across from it in the distance, he instinctively stopped.
His dream had this too……
But ponds like this were actually quite common throughout the village. There was one not far from his own house.
Xie Fan looked at it a little longer and reassured himself.
Then, gritting his teeth, he pushed open the door to the place where the five kinds of livestock were kept.
The next second, he finally breathed a sigh of relief.
It was different……
The fence in front of him was different from the one in his dream.
If he remembered correctly, the sheep pen in his dream had seemed a little smaller than this one, and its position had been different too. That rain shelter should have been on the left.
His memories surfaced piece by piece.
Xie Fan’s tightly clenched fingers gradually relaxed.
It really had just been a nightmare.
He had been overthinking things.
Smiling cheerfully, Xiao Yao turned around and prepared a basin of feed for the black pig beside them. Only after watching it lower its head and noisily gobble down the food did she clap her hands.
“Not bad, not bad. You’ve gotten a little fatter again.”
“Eat plenty. You absolutely mustn’t get sick.”
After giving it a few more instructions, Xiao Yao noticed Brother A-Xie turn his head and stare at a slightly raised mound of earth not far away.
“What’s that?” Xie Fan asked hesitantly.
Xiao Yao took a moment to identify it before realization dawned.
“Oh, that. That’s the sheep that died before. After they checked it yesterday, they buried it under the open ground.”
Very normal.
Everything was very normal.
It seemed he really had been worrying over nothing.
This village might be…… a little strange, but it wasn’t so terrifying that it completely defied common sense.
Xie Fan’s brows relaxed.
He didn’t see that when he turned his head away, Xiao Yao stood perfectly still in place, her pupils pitch-black and motionless.
But it lasted only an instant.
A smile soon appeared on her face again.
……
For once, the village enjoyed several consecutive days of good weather.
After getting up that morning, Shen Xun found a spot with a good view and set down his backpack.
“This angle should work, right?”
He Cheng looked through the binoculars.
Not far away, mountain peaks loomed amid curling clouds and mist. Through the haze, they could faintly make out the ranges encircling the village.
The scenery really was beautiful.
The only unfortunate thing was that the mountaintops were completely obscured. They could see only vague silhouettes.
“From this angle, the village really does have an ancient, mysterious sort of charm.”
Tan Qingxian chuckled softly, casually took a photograph, and admired the image on the camera.
Xican Village on a clear day truly possessed a kind of beauty that was difficult to find in the outside world.
He stared at the image on the camera and raised a brow slightly. Just as he was about to delete the photograph he wasn’t particularly satisfied with, he suddenly noticed……
Was his vision a little blurry?
Tan Qingxian frowned.
He closed his eyes, then opened them again, but the sluggish sensation in his vision still hadn’t disappeared.
When he lowered his head again……
For an instant, the place his gaze settled on turned gray?
The entire photograph became hazy and indistinct. He couldn’t make out any of its colors at all.
Tan Qingxian’s expression changed slightly.
Then he saw Shen Xun ahead turn around.
“What’s wrong?”
“That last one didn’t turn out well?” Shen Xun teased with a smile.
Tan Qingxian felt strange for a moment, then put away the camera in his hand.
“Mm. The mountain peaks are blocked.”
“Yeah. It’s a shame the peaks are completely covered.”
Shen Xun sounded helpless as well.
“I’ll just have to try painting it like this for now.”
The drawing board was taken out.
Everyone occupied themselves with their own things.
Only Tan Qingxian’s expression looked grim.
Had he gone blind?
No……
Had his vision turned gray?
The colors he saw were completely different from before.
Tan Qingxian narrowed his eyes.
Fortunately, after a few minutes, the colors gradually returned to his vision, as though what had happened just now had merely been a hallucination caused by excessive fatigue.
He frowned, confused, but had no way to determine exactly what had happened.
Tan Qingxian calmly withdrew his gaze.
No one noticed anything was wrong.
Shen Xun only felt that painting here was causing his inspiration to erupt, sending him into an unprecedented state of creative exhilaration.
Before coming to this village, he had been trapped in a creative bottleneck for a very long time. For what felt like ages, he had barely been able to pick up a paintbrush.
But now……
Images appeared in his mind one after another.
They were clearly nothing more than mountain peaks with somewhat beautiful scenery, yet they seemed to touch something inside Shen Xun’s mind, compelling him to pick up his brush almost beyond his control.
The mountain peaks in the distance gradually took shape on the paper.
An unknown amount of time passed before the sky slowly began to darken.
Bored out of his mind, He Cheng stood up.
“Tsk. It’s getting dark again.”
He had originally thought the sky only darkened so quickly when it rained. Apparently, even clear days were the same.
This shitty place was practically under some kind of curse that kept it from seeing sunlight.
He Cheng was speechless.
“A-Xun, are you done?”
“We should head back.”
If they didn’t go back soon, who knew what kind of fuss those villagers would make.
That lame man called A-Qi had fallen ill this morning, and those idiots in the village were acting as though they had infected him.
Fucking ridiculous.
They had barely interacted with A-Qi at all, hadn’t they?
That A-Qi had clearly already been acting strange by himself in the rice paddy yesterday afternoon.
What the hell did it have to do with them?
He Cheng thought this village was ignorant and backward to an unbelievable degree.
Everyone around them had already begun packing up.
Shen Xun still had a bit of a headache. Coming back to his senses, he put down the final stroke and looked at the painting in his hands.
When He Cheng called out to hurry him again, Shen Xun instinctively responded.
“Done.”
Only then did he slowly stand up.
The freshly completed painting was placed beside the grass.
Shen Xun had originally intended to pack away his tools before picking it up. But perhaps he had overworked his brain today and was too absentminded. When they left, he actually forgot about it.
After putting on his backpack, he merely glanced back once before turning and walking away.
The white sheet of drawing paper lay silently in the grass, gradually hidden beneath the weeds.
The next day, Xie Fan came to bring Xiao Yao some apricot jam.
While passing along the small path behind the village chief’s house, he suddenly stopped.
Hm?
What was that?
A sliver of white paper peeked out from the edge of the grass.
Xie Fan stopped, puzzled.
Normally, he should have merely looked at it curiously before turning around and leaving.
Yet for some reason, an inexplicable instinctive warning made him stand there for a moment.
As though possessed, he suddenly approached the grass.
Xie Fan picked up the sheet of paper hidden on the ground and only then discovered that it was actually a painting?
It had merely gotten damp because of the heavy mountain dew.
Rolling mountain ranges had been painted across the paper. Half of the scenery had blurred from the moisture, but even so, it was obvious that the painting was extremely well done.
Did the protagonist shou paint this?
Xie Fan immediately realized that he must have.
Only the protagonist shou among the tour group possessed this level of skill, and the character introduction had specifically stated that he was a painter.
Xie Fan had never seen the village from this perspective before, so he instinctively stared a little longer.
So this was what the village looked like from this angle.
The blurred painting flashed through his mind.
He kept feeling that if the other half were still intact, the mountains opposite looked strangely familiar.
These mountains looked like something……
Xie Fan pressed his fingers against his temple, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t remember.
In the end, he could only shake his head and put the painting away for now.
He carefully wiped the white sheet of paper clean and tucked it into his pocket.
Then Xie Fan walked toward the sheep pen he had visited yesterday and called out for Xiao Yao.
The little girl, who had been staying beside the enclosure these past few days, came skipping out. When she saw Xie Fan, a trace of a smile appeared on her face.
“Brother A-Xie, you’re here.”
“I thought you weren’t coming today.”
“Didn’t I say yesterday that I’d bring you some apricot jam?”
Unfortunately, Xiao Yao hadn’t gone home last night, so she hadn’t gotten to eat any. Since Xie Fan had nothing else to do today, he had brought some over.
Xiao Yao hurriedly nodded and swiftly accepted the apricot jam.
She scooped up a spoonful, and her eyes immediately lit up.
Xie Fan found it a little amusing.
But his mind inadvertently returned to the painting he had just picked up.
In a flash of realization, Xie Fan froze slightly.
He finally understood what the strange, continuous mountain ranges in the painting resembled.
Viewed from afar, they actually looked like slightly bent limbs, curling inward to embrace the village and completely enclosing all of Xican Village——
Spider legs?
And the surrounding mountain peaks——
There were exactly eight.