Translator: Cinder Translations
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It's clear that Zhao Xiangmei's resentment is so deep that even her body is not spared.
Pei Qian stared at the stone tablet for a long while, his gaze moving over the blood-written characters. Perhaps due to his experience over the years, this elder appeared remarkably calm.
"Was Zhao Xiangmei from this village too?" Pei Qian asked, tilting his head.
He didn't look at the messenger but directly at the village chief.
"No," the village chief shook his head. "She was brought in by the old village chief from outside. I don't know exactly where she's from, but her surname was Qian," he added as a hint.
From the current situation, things didn't look good. Some of the players had already been killed, but so far, they had learned very little about the ghost.
They knew her name and that she was a young woman, but that was about it.
It wasn't that they were acting slowly, but this time, the NPCs were highly incompetent. They just kept emphasizing how terrifying and cruel the ghost was without giving any concrete information.
"We..." the messenger licked his lips and cautiously asked, "Can we leave now?"
He felt uncomfortable staying here.
If the village chief hadn't brought him along, he wouldn't have come at all.
The village chief glanced at him, silently telling him that he had no say here. They could only leave when the experts said so.
So, the messenger looked at Pei Qian with a pitiful expression.
At this moment, Pei Qian had already made a rubbing of the curse from the stone tablet. He stood up, glanced around, and said slowly, "Let's go."
TL/N: A "rubbing" typically involves creating an impression of carved text or images by placing paper over the surface and rubbing it with ink or charcoal to capture the details.
Hearing the response, the messenger immediately turned back, and the village chief and the dark-skinned man quickly followed. Their steps were much faster than when they arrived.
Jiang Cheng was at the back of the group. After walking for about a few dozen meters, he suddenly turned his head to look behind.
It was a reaction before his brain processed it. He felt a malicious gaze fixed on him.
The resentment, distortion, and madness were not enough to describe how that gaze made Jiang Cheng feel.
His eyes slowly moved to a spot.
In the center of the deep pool, beneath the black water, there were a pair of crimson eyes.
The moment Jiang Cheng locked eyes with them, he suddenly felt a strange sensation deep in his heart, as if something had locked onto him.
He quickly avoided the gaze and turned around to jog to catch up with Chen Xiaomeng. "Long'er," he patted her shoulder and pointed to the center of the pool. "What do you think that is?"
Unexpectedly, Chen Xiaomeng didn't even look at the direction he pointed to but instead gave him a subtle look.
She leaned close to Jiang Cheng's ear, looking reluctant and helpless, and whispered in a voice only he could hear, "Congratulations, Mr. Hao Shuai, you've won the prize."
Just as a smile started to break across her face, a startled cry sounded in her ear.
"Holy shit!" Jiang Zhongyi stared in the direction Jiang Cheng pointed, his eyes almost popping out. "What the hell is that thing?"
At the sound of Jiang Zhongyi's exclamation, everyone turned to look, but by then, the pair of eyes had mysteriously vanished.
The center of the pool was like a blob of ink that would never dissolve.
"Idiot!" Chen Xiaomeng mouthed, but no sound came out.
Meanwhile, Jiang Cheng had a smile on his face. He looked at Chen Xiaomeng, then adjusted his chest, which had become unusually bloated from too many steamed buns, and glanced at Chen Xiaomeng with a proud look before walking away.
"Xiao Longnu," Jiang Zhongyi came to Chen Xiaomeng, nervously asking, "Did you see anything just now? I saw something there…"
"No," Chen Xiaomeng immediately turned and left.
Jiang Zhongyi looked at her back, confused about what he might have done to offend her. He then looked back at the spot in the pool where something abnormal had appeared, his eyes full of questions.
The return trip was uneventful, except for a slippery part of the road where Li Lu slipped and bumped into a tree, twisting her right leg.
It seemed that in the mountains, the group had lost track of time, or perhaps the passage of time in the nightmare world was different from the real world.
When they returned to the village, it was already afternoon, nearing evening.
The village chief said he had matters to attend to and instructed the dark-skinned man to take the group back to their lodging.
He mentioned that food would be brought to them later.
"Is there meat?" Jiang Cheng stepped forward to catch the village chief and ask.
The village chief looked a bit awkward, then after a long pause, as if making a decision, nodded. "Yes."
Hearing this, Jiang Cheng let go of him.
Back at their lodging, they didn't have time to rest and immediately gathered in a room to have a meeting.
Zhou Rong gentlemanly helped Li Lu to sit aside, and she thanked him repeatedly, her face blushing.
Pei Qian took out the curse rubbed from the stone tablet and spread it on the table.
"This Zhao Xiangmei is no ordinary person," he said, and his first words immediately grabbed everyone's attention.
Jiang Zhongyi seemed a bit reluctant to look at the chaotic writing, even though it was a rubbing.
He made a strange face and hesitantly asked, "Is there something wrong with these characters?"
"I guess Old Pei is trying to say that Zhao Xiangmei could not only read and write but might have received a good education," Zhou Rong said, stroking his chin. His expression showed he was serious.
"That's right," Pei Qian nodded, surveying the group. His voice lowered as he said, "Although the blood-written characters are messy and hard to read, you can still tell from the finer strokes that the person had some skill in calligraphy. Also, I found a few obscure characters in the curse."
He slowly straightened his back. "We need to consider the environment back then. If we push the timeline forward 20 years from now, what kind of young woman would have received such a good education?"
Yu Man squinted. "Someone from a big city."
"Not just that," Pei Qian said. "She should come from a scholarly family, someone either rich or noble."
"But if such a person existed, why would she be involved in human trafficking?" Jiang Zhongyi looked unconvinced. He added, "Besides, the name Zhao Xiangmei doesn't sound like one from a scholarly family."
"It's simple," Chen Xiaomeng casually replied. "Zhao Xiangmei is just a fake name. Whether or not someone from a scholarly family would be involved in human trafficking is irrelevant."
Before she finished speaking, she glanced at Jiang Cheng, who seemed absent-minded not far away, and sneered. "Such people are what we call 'dressed-up beasts.'"
Jiang Cheng looked at Chen Xiaomeng with a confused expression, as if he didn't understand the indirect insult.
"Cough," Pei Qian cleared his throat to refocus the attention on the case, also consolidating his authority.
He seriously looked at Jiang Cheng, pretending to be humble, and said, "I'm just offering a hint. Mr. Yin, do you have any insights? Feel free to share."
Unexpectedly, Jiang Cheng seemed to have been waiting for this moment to shine. Excited, he rubbed his hands and licked his lips before replying, "Well, I guess it's time to kick the donkey after unloading the cart."
Pei Qian: "???"
(End of the Chapter)
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