Next, they went to the homes of two other missing children.
After some questioning, they quickly found the common thread among the three children—before disappearing, they had all claimed to be stalked, although their parents hadn't taken their words seriously.
One of the missing children's mothers was sobbing and lamenting, "I regret it so much. If only I had believed her back then, she wouldn't have gone missing. It's all my fault, I'm to blame for everything... I'm not a competent mother..."
Ruan Nan Zhu gently comforted her for a few sentences, then said, "May I ask if you have any clues about her disappearance? If there are any leads, could you please tell us? We may be able to find your child sooner through those clues."
The mother fell silent for a moment upon hearing this, then said in a low voice, "Clues... There are rumors that there is a monster lurking on the outskirts of our town... Of course these are just rumors, no one has actually seen it themselves."
Ruan Nan Zhu: "A monster? What kind of monster?"
"I don't know," the mother replied. "We also don't know what that monster looks like. There are just rumors saying that the thing seems to have a very tall and large figure..."
That was all the information this mother knew.
However, through Ruan Nan Zhu's questioning, they also learned that this missing child liked to sneak off to play near the canned food factory, even though her parents had scolded her many times for it. The location of her disappearance this time seemed to be the now-shuttered canned food factory...
It looked like the canned food factory was indeed an important location.
Lin Qiu Shi and Ruan Nan Zhu reached a consensus and decided to simply eat some lunch first, then head over to the canned food factory in the afternoon.
The taste of the lunch was still quite awful. There were several dishes on the table that were fish-related, giving off a strong fishy smell. In the middle of the table were also a few open cans of fish, which looked rather appetizing compared to the other food.
As a result, quite a few people started eating from the canned fish, commenting that the taste wasn't bad.
Because of the results of their morning investigation, Lin Qiu Shi really had no appetite for those cans. He casually ate some carb dishes, then took out his phone and started organizing his thoughts, taking advantage of his identity as a mute woman here to avoid people trying to make small talk.
Lin Qiu Shi was happy to have some peace and quiet.
Even on their second day inside, there were still people trying to form teams with Ruan Nan Zhu. In their words was blatant disdain for Lin Qiu Shi.
Some people's words were still relatively subtle, while others were very direct—saying that this girl was a mute who wouldn't even be able to call out if something happened, so why bother wasting time protecting her? They suggested switching her out for someone else instead.
Upon hearing this, Lin Qiu Shi almost stood up to tear into them about their terrible character. But in the end, he barely managed to restrain himself. Mimicking Ruan Nan Zhu's previous acting, he put on a pitiful expression.
As a result, Ruan Nan Zhu seemed moved by his weakness and rejected the other teams' invitations.
However, Ruan Nan Zhu also seemed a bit annoyed by the harassment. He grabbed Lin Qiu Shi and hurriedly left the dining hall.
"Why do they like looking for you so much? Is it because you're good-looking?" While walking with Ruan Nan Zhu towards the canned food factory, Lin Qiu Shi felt rather puzzled.
"People instinctively seek advantages and avoid harm," Ruan Nan Zhu said. "In a place where carelessness could cost you your life, they want to get close to those stronger than themselves."
When they got within a certain distance of the canned food factory, they smelled a strong fishy odor.
The fishy smell made them very uncomfortable. For people who disliked eating fish, just a couple whiffs would probably make them nauseous.
The canned food factory was located at the edge of town. There were no signs of people living in this area. The roadside had no buildings, only some sparse trees and dense bushes. Behind the trees was the thick fog, reminding them not to cross boundaries.
According to the mayor, the canned food factory had stopped production years ago and now sat in silence. Ruan Nan Zhu took out his tools and easily opened the rusty front gates of the factory. The two of them filed inside through the entrance.
"This canned food factory is pretty big," Lin Qiu Shi looked around. The first thing that caught his eye was an enormous courtyard overgrown with one-meter high weeds, showing that no one had come here for a long time. There were also a few tall dead trees in the yard, with black feathered birds that looked like crows perched on them. But on closer inspection, their bodies seemed much larger than crows...
"Mm," Ruan Nan Zhu walked ahead.
Lin Qiu Shi said, "Do you think they all disappeared here? Or were taken here after disappearing?"
Ruan Nan Zhu: "Don't know. Let's look around for clues first."
Lin Qiu Shi nodded.
The two kept walking forward. Just as they were about to enter the factory grounds, Lin Qiu Shi suddenly discovered something.
This discovery was accidental. Lin Qiu Shi tripped on a rock and stumbled several steps forward. His reflex was to lower his head to see what made him trip, and that's when he saw the other thing.
"What's this?" Lin Qiu Shi exclaimed. He bent down and squatted to closely observe the muddy ground. "Are these... fingerprints?"
Hearing Lin Qiu Shi's voice, Ruan Nan Zhu also glanced in his direction.
What they saw was the ground densely covered in handprints. At first glance, these prints seemed haphazardly stamped into the mud without rhyme or reason. But on closer look, the arrangement of handprints seemed more like distress signals—someone had been dragged away from here, and in the process of being dragged, they desperately tried to grasp at anything around them. So in their panic, they clutched tightly at the mud beneath them, leaving behind print after print.
Lin Qiu Shi carefully followed the trail of prints forward, while Ruan Nan Zhu followed behind him, observing their surroundings.
Soon, Lin Qiu Shi discovered what lay at the end of the handprint trail—an enormous dead tree, with a diameter of at least two meters. It looked like it had been dead for a very long time. Lin Qiu Shi knocked and tapped at the exterior of the trunk with a frown. "It's hollow inside... Could there be something in there?"
Ruan Nan Zhu assessed the dead tree. "Possible." After all, the handprints disappeared in front of this tree.
Ruan Nan Zhu took a small knife from his pocket and slowly started carving into the tree trunk. The wood had already begun to rot, allowing the sharp blade to easily pierce it.
But when Ruan Nan Zhu pulled his knife back out, Lin Qiu Shi couldn't help sucking in a breath.
There were now red blood stains on Ruan Nan Zhu's blade.
"Damn," Lin Qiu Shi couldn't help cursing. His expression was a bit awkward. "You didn't just stab our clue to death, did you?"
Ruan Nan Zhu: "..." He was silent for a moment, then calmly said, "It wasn't on purpose."
Lin Qiu Shi: "..."
Ruan Nan Zhu: "Besides, if a normal person got stabbed, they would definitely make a sound. And since there are no holes in this tree, how could a regular person possibly fit inside?"
He made a good point. Lin Qiu Shi licked his somewhat dry lips. "Then keep carving it open and let's see."
Ruan Nan Zhu nodded. This time, he didn't dare stab too deeply. Instead, he wedged the knife in and then exerted force outwards around the trunk. Soon, he had carved an opening in the tree, revealing what lay inside.
Upon seeing what was inside the tree trunk, Lin Qiu Shi involuntarily took a step back, his expression quite ugly.
What they saw was a child encased inside the tree trunk. It was as if he had fused into one with the ancient tree. Almost his entire body was embedded in the wood. But what drew the most attention was his abdomen—a massive hole had been torn open. Although they couldn't see any bloodstains or the like, Lin Qiu Shi understood that the child definitely wasn't alive.
Ruan Nan Zhu tilted his head. "There seems to be a plastic bag behind him."
For someone who hadn't seen the clue leading to this door, they would have no idea what was going on. But Lin Qiu Shi had understood the significance of this door's clue before entering, so he almost instantly grasped the meaning of that plastic bag—the child's organs had been hollowed out and placed into the bag.
This was exactly what the emaciated shadow creature liked to do.
"I think the chances are pretty slim for the other missing kids," Lin Qiu Shi sighed.
Ruan Nan Zhu: "High probability." His expression was cold and detached as he observed the corpse in the tree trunk, trying to find more clues.
Lin Qiu Shi looked around. He had a feeling the remains of the other two missing children were also somewhere in this canned food factory, he just didn't know where they had been hidden.
Just as Lin Qiu Shi was thinking this, Ruan Nan Zhu suddenly retreated a step. His footsteps seemed urgent, as if he had seen something freaky.
"What is it?" Lin Qiu Shi asked in surprise.
Ruan Nan Zhu was silent for a moment without answering. He simply pointed at the corpse in front of them.
Lin Qiu Shi looked over. Then he reacted the same way as Ruan Nan Zhu—at some point, the child's eyes had opened. A deep lifelessness now emanated from those cold, emotionless pupils looking at them.
A chill went down Lin Qiu Shi's spine and he tried to joke. "It's not going to reanimate, is it?"
Ruan Nan Zhu: "That's hard to say." He glanced up at the darkening sky. "It's almost nightfall. Let's not search anymore for today. We should head back."
"Mm," Lin Qiu Shi agreed with Ruan Nan Zhu's suggestion. The world inside the doors was very dangerous at night.
"Let's go. We'll tell the townspeople tomorrow about this child," Ruan Nan Zhu said. "I'm rather curious what kind of reaction they'll have."
The canned food factory was actually quite far from where they were staying. Lin Qiu Shi and Ruan Nan Zhu hurried back to the inn before it got completely dark.
The others were gathered in the dining hall, silently eating dinner and occasionally discussing clues they had found that day.
Lin Qiu Shi halfheartedly picked at his food. Suddenly, there was a commotion among the crowd and he looked up to see a man with a nosebleed.
"Ah, why are you suddenly bleeding?" the man's companion said. "Hurry and grab some tissues."
"I don't know," the man replied. "I was just eating and it started bleeding..."
He got up and went to the bathroom. Lin Qiu Shi exchanged a look with Ruan Nan Zhu, reading certain emotions in each other's eyes.
After the emaciated shadow creature set its sights on an adult target, there would be some warning signs—nightmares, hallucinations, and one common sign was nosebleeds or coughing up blood.
This man suddenly having a nosebleed, it was hard to say if it was just accidental or an omen.
The man came back quickly from the bathroom, his nosebleed already stopped. Now he was grumbling about the terrible food at this inn.
Seeing it was nothing serious, Lin Qiu Shi got up, intending to leave. Ruan Nan Zhu followed behind him back to their room.
After returning to their room, Lin Qiu Shi sprawled on the bed, looking through his phone and pondering over clues. Ruan Nan Zhu sat beside him, reading through Laurence's diary again.
"Doesn't seem to be much else. Still not enough clues," Lin Qiu Shi said as it got dark outside. He felt a bit sleepy. "Let's go to bed."
Ruan Nan Zhu replied, "Alright."
After washing up, Lin Qiu Shi climbed into bed and looked outside at the fog growing thicker.
Ruan Nan Zhu lay next to Lin Qiu Shi. After a moment without speaking, the sound of steady breathing could be heard... He seemed to have fallen asleep.
Lin Qiu Shi also closed his eyes, but in the silence of the night, even the slightest sound seemed sharp and jarring to his sensitive ears.
He heard sounds that didn't belong here—the sounds of someone or something moving through the bushes outside. That person or thing also seemed to be dragging something heavy, occasionally snapping a branch or two underfoot.
Lin Qiu Shi immediately thought of the child they had seen stuffed inside the tree trunk earlier, and those lifeless eyes somehow bleached a ghastly white color after death.
Feeling cold, he slowly rolled over—
Only to find Ruan Nan Zhu, who should have been sound asleep, staring at him intently. "Can't sleep, little mute girl?"
Lin Qiu Shi's eyes widened in surprise, but before he could respond, Ruan Nan Zhu was already getting up and naturally shifting closer to him in bed, putting an arm around his waist.
Just as Lin Qiu Shi was about to say something, Ruan Nan Zhu lightly pressed a finger to his lips. "Shh...be good."
Lin Qiu Shi: "..."
While Lin Qiu Shi was still stunned speechless, the two men were now somehow sharing a bed. Fortunately the bed was plenty big enough that it wasn't too cramped for two men to squeeze together. Lin Qiu Shi had wanted to refuse at first, but then thought about Ruan Nan Zhu's identity as a pharmacist specializing in sedatives. In his hesitation, he ended up not saying anything.
The thing in the bushes outside kept shuffling around, as if looking for an opportunity.
Lin Qiu Shi was tense at first as he listened, but soon he was infected by Ruan Nan Zhu's calm aura. He closed his eyes again and drifted off to sleep.
The next morning.
Nothing had happened overnight.
The same fourteen people showed up in the dining hall as usual.
They had already been inside for two days, yet strangely there were still no casualties. This was quite a rare situation. As Lin Qiu Shi was thinking this, he noticed someone walk past him—it was the man who had suddenly started bleeding from his nose while eating dinner yesterday. He had average looks and normally wouldn't draw much attention. But after giving him a glance, Lin Qiu Shi frowned.
Compared to yesterday, there was now an additional black top hat perched on top of this man's head.
This top hat clashed ridiculously with his casual outfit. Yet the others didn't seem to have noticed anything amiss. No one even mentioned it.
"What are you looking at?" Ruan Nan Zhu suddenly asked him.
"That hat on his head looks so weird," Lin Qiu Shi replied. "Didn't he not have it yesterday?"
Hearing this, Ruan Nan Zhu's expression shifted subtly. His gaze moved to focus on that man, staring for a few seconds. "Indeed very strange."
"But everyone else seems to think it's normal," Lin Qiu Shi said.
"To tell the truth," Ruan Nan Zhu set down the milk glass in his hand. "If you hadn't brought it up, I would've thought it was normal too."
Lin Qiu Shi: "Hm?"
Ruan Nan Zhu: "How do I describe that feeling... It was as if he was supposed to be wearing a hat like that all along. Didn't seem out of place or weird at all." He casually observed the man out of the corner of his eye.
Lin Qiu Shi: "..."
But the fact was, it really was an extremely weird hat.
Clearly, one would only wear such a formal black top hat together with a suit. But this man was dressed in a T-shirt and jeans. In this entire room, it seemed only he had noticed something off.
Ruan Nan Zhu murmured, "I think he's going to die."
Lin Qiu Shi: "I think so too."
The two were in agreement on this matter.
That man seemed to have no sense that something was off with himself. He was eating breakfast very happily, even telling his companion about a dream he had.
With Lin Qiu Shi's sharp hearing, he easily picked up the man's words.
"In my dream, someone gave me a hat and told me I must wear it no matter what," the man said with a smile. "At the time, I thought it was just a dream. But when I woke up the next day, I really did find a hat hanging on a tree branch outside my window!"
"This hat looks so nice," his companion actually said. "It suits you very well too."
In a normal situation, this reply would have sounded merely perfunctory. But the speaker's tone was very sincere. Lin Qiu Shi could tell he genuinely thought the hat was nice looking and suited his companion well. He even wanted to try it on himself.
Lin Qiu Shi looked at Ruan Nan Zhu.
Ruan Nan Zhu seemed to understand his intent. He nodded and got up, walking over to the hatted man.
"There's something off about your hat, isn't there?" Ruan Nan Zhu said. "
"What do you mean? There's nothing wrong with my hat." The man's expression turned wary as he said, "What if the key clue is hidden inside the hat? "
Ruan Nan Zhu spread his hands. "What if it's not?"
The man said, "Then there's no harm either, it's just a hat."
Ruan Nan Zhu didn't say anything more. He turned and walked away. If it wasn't for Lin Qiu Shi, he wouldn't have bothered saying even this much extra. Since the man was stubborn and refused to listen, he had already done his due diligence.
Lin Qiu Shi looked helpless. He carefully typed on his phone: If I get confused by this thing, you must wake me up.
Ruan Nan Zhu smiled ambiguously. "Don't worry, I will definitely use a non-harmful method to wake you up."
Lin Qiu Shi: "..." Why does your smile look kind of suspicious?
The man with the black top hat finished eating breakfast then left with his companion. Judging by Ruan Nan Zhu's expression, he seemed rather regretful.
At first, Lin Qiu Shi thought Ruan Nan Zhu regretted that the man might die. But later he realized Ruan Nan Zhu was actually just regretful about not getting to see exactly how he would die.
"It could earn more experience to watch it happen," Ruan Nan Zhu took a candy from his pocket, ate one himself, then also gave one to Lin Qiu Shi.
"What candy is this?" Lin Qiu Shi tasted a flavor he hadn't had before.
"Made by Cheng Yi Xue, who knows what flavor." Ruan Nan Zhu handed the bag to Lin Qiu Shi. "Here, have some, little mute girl."
Lin Qiu Shi accepted it and stuffed it into his own pocket.
The two had seen the corpse yesterday and were originally going to inform the mayor. But halfway there, when they passed by the square, they noticed the missing person notices—originally three in number—now had an additional one. Looking closely at the new notice's content, they found yet another child in the town had gone missing just yesterday. This child was Laurence's older sister, the one with the noticeable golden hair.
"How could another child have disappeared?" Lin Qiu Shi frowned.
Ruan Nan Zhu: "I don't feel good about this. There were only eight children total in this town."
Lin Qiu Shi: "So... there's actually a time limit?"
Ruan Nan Zhu nodded.
At first glance, the NPCs didn't seem to have given them a time limit for this mission. But this sudden missing person notice gave them an ominous feeling.
What would happen if all the children in this town disappeared? Lin Qiu Shi felt he'd rather not know the answer.
Ruan Nan Zhu said, "Let's go, we'll talk to the mayor first."
They crossed the square and found the mayor in one of the rows of old buildings behind it. Then they briefly told the mayor about discovering the corpse yesterday.
The mayor's expression was very serious upon hearing this, but Lin Qiu Shi sensed a hint of panic in his solemn facade... It seemed like he knew what was going on.
"Oh, thank you. We will send people to go take a look," the mayor said. "It's in the canned food factory, correct?"
"Yes, in a dead tree under the canned food factory," Ruan Nan Zhu replied. "Mr. Mayor, we do want to help find the children, but if you all know some clues yet refuse to provide them to us, that adds a lot of difficulty to our task." He pointed in the direction of the square. "We saw another child has gone missing."
The mayor knitted his brows, silent.
"Could it be you're waiting until all the children disappear before you're willing to tell us more information?" Ruan Nan Zhu said.
The mayor fidgeted with his hands, still unwilling to speak.
Ruan Nan Zhu's eyes narrowed slightly in impatience—Lin Qiu Shi knew from his understanding of him that this meant he was getting annoyed.
Ruan Nan Zhu already had a bad temper to begin with. His patience must be wearing thin after speaking gently for so long to the mayor.
Perhaps the mayor felt pressured by Ruan Nan Zhu's gaze. He finally opened his mouth. "Actually, we can't be sure either..."
He hadn't even finished speaking before Ruan Nan Zhu picked up where he left off: "You mean incidents like this happen every year?"
The mayor nodded. "Meaning strange things in our town always seem to want to take our children away. So around this time each year, we give them vacation so the children can stay home."
Ruan Nan Zhu: "Do the townspeople know about these things then?"
The mayor awkwardly shook his head.
"They don't know?" Ruan Nan Zhu seemed a bit incredulous. "Then what excuses do you use to make the children stay home?"
The mayor said, "We'll always think of some excuse. That's not the key point. The key is, an accident happened this year."
He hadn't even finished explaining before Ruan Nan Zhu followed up: "The accident is, even if the children stayed home, they still disappeared?"
The mayor nodded with a heavy tone: "Among the four missing children so far, two disappeared from their homes. The other two, we don't know how they managed to sneak out... We also don't know what exactly went wrong—was it the children not listening, or did that thing..."
Ruan Nan Zhu said, "Its powers grew stronger."
The mayor painfully nodded in agreement.
Hearing his words, Lin Qiu Shi immediately thought of the black top hat he had seen that morning... That hat was clearly related to the thing the mayor spoke of. He just didn't know if there was a connection with the children's disappearances.