Where... did this come from?
The unexpected sight genuinely startled Xie Fan for a moment. He hadn't expected to find a roast chicken here.
And judging from the packaging... it didn't seem to be something from the village?
He was briefly puzzled, wondering if A-Qi had bought it from one of the traveling merchants in the mountains. If he remembered correctly, the protagonist group had hired a traveling merchant as their guide when they entered the mountains this time.
The thought flashed through his mind, and suddenly Xie Fan felt as though the roast chicken in front of him had become too hot to handle.
This... should he eat it or not?
If it had been bought from outside, then something like this should be considered fairly valuable in the village.
He pursed his lips, somewhat undecided. But as the wind outside grew stronger and stronger, making even starting a fire and cooking difficult, he finally made up his mind: Forget it. Why think so much? He had already encountered something supernatural and didn't even know how much longer he would live. Why was he still agonizing over something to eat?
At least if he ate it, he could die with a full stomach.
Xie Fan instantly came to terms with it. His expression relaxed as he tore off a chicken leg and began eating.
The rich, oily fragrance filling his mouth made him instinctively narrow his eyes. He reached up and brushed his bothersome hair aside before solemnly devoting himself to savoring it.
Come to think of it, it had been ages since he'd eaten something this modern, and it was even spicy cumin-flavored.
It practically felt like his last meal before execution.
Taking a deep breath, Xie Fan raised his head and expressionlessly began devouring it at top speed, with only one thought left in his mind: The cumin from this place is seriously fragrant.
He finished an entire chicken leg in four or five bites. Sitting at the table, the young man's ears had turned faintly red from the spice. After pursing his lips and finally reaching his limit, he got up and poured himself a cup of mountain spring water.
In the village:
He Cheng and the others had just been preparing to discreetly investigate exactly what kind of deity the villagers of Xican Village worshipped. Yet before they could even reach the center of the village, the torrential rain that came sweeping toward them drenched them to the bone right there on the roadside.
He Cheng: ...
What the hell?
"It's been thundering for ages without a drop of rain. Why did it suddenly start pouring?"
They were all lightly dressed, and their clothes were soaked through in an instant.
He Cheng clicked his tongue and wrung out his sleeves.
Shen Xun wasn't faring much better. There wasn't even anywhere nearby to shelter from the rain, so the group could only stand beneath a tree, but that also left them at risk of being struck by lightning.
The violent wind made the tree trunk sway wildly. With a "crack," one of its branches snapped off. Fortunately, they dodged quickly enough to avoid being hit.
Pei Jing raised his binoculars and looked ahead.
"There's an abandoned house five hundred meters ahead. If we want shelter, that's the only place we can go."
With lightning flashing and thunder roaring, staying beneath the tree was far too dangerous. Worse, the rain was only getting heavier, with no sign of stopping. If they kept waiting there, something was bound to happen.
They exchanged glances, and Shen Xun made the decision.
"Let's shelter in that abandoned house up ahead. Who knows how long this rain will last."
"Fine."
At a time like this, even He Cheng didn't argue. Covering his head, he immediately ran toward it.
Five hundred meters wasn't particularly far or particularly close. Under normal circumstances, it would only take a few minutes, but with the torrential rain obscuring their vision, by the time they made it there, every one of them felt utterly miserable.
Tan Qingxian frowned as he wrung the water from his clothes, his gaze being the first to sweep through the building before them.
It was called an abandoned house because even the roof of the wooden building was broken. Half of it leaked, and the wind made the damaged parts flap with repeated clattering sounds.
Still, it was slightly better than standing under a tree.
"This is probably somewhere the villagers usually come to shelter from the rain too."
Shen Xun looked around and found several pieces of firewood and some farming tools in one corner. It seemed people occasionally came here.
His words made the others relax slightly.
Signs of human activity were reassuring.
For some reason, though, the moment they entered the dilapidated house, they vaguely felt uncomfortable. Then again, perhaps it was simply because of the weather outside.
A torrential downpour in an isolated mountain village surrounded by endless mountains was enough to make anyone uneasy.
"There shouldn't be a landslide."
Pei Jing withdrew his gaze from outside the doorway. "Xican Village has been fine all these years. There's no reason something should happen the moment we arrive."
Besides, judging by how calm that villager called A-Qi had been when he saw the dark clouds that morning, this probably wasn't the first time Xican Village had experienced this kind of torrential rain.
"Speaking of which, wasn't the village chief planning some kind of welcoming ceremony for us? Wonder what they're going to do now."
He Cheng gave a strange laugh, somehow managing to find humor in their misery.
Shen Xun was also somewhat helpless. "Looks like we won't be attending tonight's welcoming ceremony. Who knows when this rain will stop."
The thunderstorm had arrived without warning and had already been raging for half an hour, yet there was still no sign whatsoever of it stopping. Where would you ever see something this intense in the city? An ordinary thunderstorm would usually be over in ten or twenty minutes.
As they spoke, another muffled "rumble" of thunder rolled overhead.
This was, after all, nothing more than a drafty, dilapidated house. Before long, rain began blowing in sideways from outside. With a dark expression, He Cheng walked over to the spot Shen Xun had just examined, intending to pick up the dry firewood on the ground and see whether they could start a fire to warm the place up.
But the instant he reached down, his hand suddenly touched something sticky and slimy. His expression changed drastically, and he immediately dropped the firewood in disgust.
"What the hell is that?"
Absolutely disgusting.
Pei Jing walked over and lowered his head to look as well.
The sky outside was dark and gloomy, while there was no light inside the ruined house either. It took him quite a while to make out what it was.
"Spider eggs."
"It's probably too damp in here, and no one's come by for a long time, so spiders laid eggs here."
It couldn't have been more ordinary in the countryside. He Cheng was simply making a fuss over nothing.
Pei Jing glanced at him, pulled a piece of paper from his pocket, used it as a barrier, and shifted several pieces of firewood around.
"They're all badly damp. They won't light."
"This shitty place."
Seeing Pei Jing raise that cold face of his as though he were silently mocking him, the corner of He Cheng's mouth twitched. He couldn't be bothered with the firewood anymore.
The rain outside grew heavier and heavier, while the temperature continued to drop.
Shen Xun sneezed, his face involuntarily turning somewhat pale. Of everyone in the group, he was the only one without much outdoor experience, and his physical condition was slightly worse than the others'. By now, he was already beginning to feel unwell.
Tan Qingxian frowned and glanced at his watch, originally intending to check the time. But the next second, he discovered...
Perhaps water had gotten inside while they were caught in the rain, because the watch had stopped working too.
It had been twelve noon when they left, and it was still showing twelve.
But by now, the sky outside had become completely dark. It actually looked like...
the middle of the night?
...
"Those outsiders are missing?"
The village chief had just finished offering incense when he saw A-Qi enter wearing a rain cape, displeasure written across his face.
"They agreed to attend the welcoming ceremony this evening, but they still haven't returned to the inn. Who knows what they've gone off to do."
A-Qi had never had a good opinion of the outsiders who had come to the village. He simply hadn't shown it openly.
The village chief didn't say anything about that. He merely glanced at the weather outside.
"With rain this heavy, they definitely didn't go into the mountains. They're probably trapped somewhere in the village."
"What a nuisance."
A-Qi had guessed the same thing. It was precisely because his thoughts matched the village chief's that his expression looked so unpleasant.
"I'll gather a few people and go look for them."
Otherwise, letting that group wander around outside the inn after nightfall would only cause even more trouble.
The village chief coughed, his voice somewhat weak.
"Go."
"Be careful on the way. Rainy days aren't like ordinary days."
A-Qi nodded seriously, then turned around with a candle in hand, intending to find several villagers who lived nearby.
"Those outsiders really are troublesome. Running around everywhere even in weather like this."
Zhang Hai from next door complained, but ultimately came out with his rain cape anyway.
Xie Fan had just finished eating when he suddenly heard the commotion outside and couldn't help freezing slightly.
Wait, the protagonist group had gone missing?
The distant voices of the villagers drifted faintly into his ears. Xie Fan listened for a while before finally realizing that A-Qi was organizing the villagers to go search for them.
But...
They wouldn't ask him to go too, would they?
Realizing that the voices weren't far from his house, Xie Fan became somewhat hesitant.
When A-Qi passed Xie Fan's house, his footsteps paused.
Logically speaking, A-Xie was also one of the young men in the village, so A-Qi should have called him along while he was at it.
But then he remembered how thin and frail that brat looked. How could someone like that possibly search for people in this kind of weather?
His thoughts blurred for a moment, and A-Qi instinctively passed over Xie Fan's house.
Xie Fan waited for quite a while. When none of the villagers came knocking on his door, he actually found it a little strange.
Still, it was better that they hadn't asked him.
He knew absolutely nothing about the village's rules. Going outside would basically be handing over his head on a platter. Besides, he had absolutely no desire to run into the protagonist group!
Even knowing that supernatural events had already begun happening to him, Xie Fan still wanted to stay as far away from them as possible.
Thinking about the results of his investigation of the main room last night...
Xie Fan shook his head, pulled himself back to the present, and decided to write it down. That way, if something went wrong with his memory again later, he would at least have his diary to consult.
—"Third day after transmigration. Investigated the main room. No abnormalities found."
To tell the truth, he had been somewhat surprised to find nothing at all last night. He had been certain there would be something wrong with the main room.
But if nothing was wrong, all the better.
His gaze unconsciously swept toward the door opposite him, where the bolt had already been slid into place.
Xie Fan absentmindedly withdrew his gaze and let out a small sigh of relief.