After the two children finished eating, they quickly left the table and ran out to play, chasing each other.
At the table, only the mute woman, the old woman and Baili Xin were left.
The mute woman had obviously finished her meal. In fact, she had not eaten much during the meal. She was taking care of her two children while they were eating the whole time.
Putting the chopsticks aside, the mute woman sat at the table with a calm expression, silently waiting for the old woman to finish her meal.
"I'm full, take your time to clean up." When the old woman had finished her meal and left the table, the mute woman looked at Baili Xin with some confusion, gesturing something with her "yayaya".
Baili Xin: "I'm full. Sit here and rest for a while. Don't worry about me."
The mute woman then stood up from the table, lowered her head and skillfully cleared the dishes.
She had no dissatisfaction with the current situation, and everything seemed to be natural to her.
This is what she should have done.
Baili Xin tried to reach out to help, but as soon as he picked up the dishes and chopsticks to help the woman clean up, the woman immediately pushed Baili Xin's hand away.
He pointed at the dishes and chopsticks, then at himself, and then at Baili Xin and the yard outside.
It means that she will clean the table and let Baili Xin go out and play.
Baili Xin looked at the mute woman carefully. Although she didn't take good care of herself, the cheap linen clothes she wore did not conceal her beauty.
With her loose hair covering her forehead, the woman smiled gently at Baili Xin, looking like a daisy blooming in April.
A beautiful and gentle woman.
Since the mute woman insisted on doing so, Baili Xin did not insist any more, but stood up and walked out.
At this time, no one knew where the two children had gone to play. When Baili Xin walked out of the yard, he saw that the village was pitch black. There were no street lights on the road, only a guiding light at the entrance of the village.
He had been walking on the road outside for a while when he heard cheers and the sound of playing poker coming from a house.
The gate to the courtyard was not locked, and the half-open door was opened with a slight push.
When Baili Xin walked in, he saw a big lamp hanging in the yard. Under the bright light, a group of men were playing poker together.
"Big you!"
"airplane!"
"Shunzi!"
"Hahaha, I win again!"
The men formed many circles inside and outside. Fortunately, Baili Xingao was tall and he could just stand on tiptoe to see the situation in the crowd.
In the center of the crowd was a square table with four men sitting on each side, fighting passionately.
The person who just said he won is the mute girl's husband.
The men at the table had a great time, and the men around them were also excited to watch.
After one game was over, they had no intention of ending and moved on to the next round.
The spectators around didn't show any sign of being bored, they just poked their heads out and watched.
Baili Xin’s private message rang.
He opened the private message and found that it was sent by Li Cancan.
Li Cancan, Mr. Xin, is it convenient for us to meet? I seem to have discovered the secret of this village.
Baili Xin: Hello, shall I come to find you
Hello Li Cancan, come here.
When Baili Xin left, he looked into the house again. A woman with a baby on her back was quietly cleaning up the dishes in the kitchen. Her eyebrows were downcast, and it seemed that all her attention was on the stove in front of her. Everything outside had nothing to do with her.
Following his memory, Baili Xin came to the residence of Li Cancan and Sun Ning.
There was only one old man and one child in their family. There were no entertainment activities in the village, and everyone had a very uniform schedule. At this time, their family had finished their meal, and the two of them, one big and one small, went out for a walk. Only Su Cancan and Sun Ning were left in the room.
As soon as Baili Xin entered the room, Li Cancan quickly closed the door and said mysteriously, "We suspect that all the women in this village were trafficked here. This may be an unnamed plot behind the normal plot of the dungeon."
Sun Ning: "As soon as we settled in, we went to look for Panpan. I gave her a piece of candy and asked her why she was so unhappy. Panpan said she missed her brother."
"She said her brother was captured by a mountain ghost in the back mountain."
"There are so many children in this village, almost every household has a child. I think it's so weird. Having more children is good, but no family would have so many children, right?"
"Later we asked other children, and they also knew the story of the mountain ghost, and said that many bad children had been captured."
Sun Ning: "I doubt there is any mountain ghost at all."
"Those words were made up by adults to deceive children."
"The real evil is the adults. The men buy women from outside, force them to have children, and then sell the children. If it's a boy, they sell him for a good price while he's still young. If it's a girl, they raise her up a little, make her a wife, and then sell her."
"I found that there were almost no older boys in the village, but there were many older girls."
"What do you think, Prisin?"
Baili Xin pursed her lips and said, "I think what you said makes sense, but what's weird about it?"
Li Cancan: "What do you think is weird?"
Baili Xin: "I can't explain it, I just feel a little bit uncomfortable. By the way, did the family inform you to attend the daytime banquet of the grandson of Old Li at the village head tomorrow?"
Sun Ning: "I said, let's go check it out tomorrow."
Baili Xin remembered something and asked again, "How did this family treat you two?"
Sun Ning and Li Cancan looked at each other, and Li Cancan said, "She was very good to us. She even cooked a big plate of braised pork for us in the evening. But neither of us ate it. Her grandson was very thin and was still growing. He stared at the braised pork eagerly, so we gave all the braised pork to the grandson."
Baili Xin: "I remember the village chief said that this family had two sons, both of whom went out to work. Whose grandson is this?"
Sun Ning: "It belongs to my eldest son. My youngest son is not married yet. I heard that my eldest son's wife died of complications during childbirth. Their family is poor and they can't make much money here, so they have to go out to work to earn money."
Baili Xin said "Oh" and footsteps were heard in the yard outside.
Sun Ning: "It should be the old lady and her grandson who have returned."
As soon as she finished speaking, an elderly voice came from the yard. The voice was kind and smiling, and a kind face instantly appeared in Baili Xin's mind.
"Children, I'm going to take my grandson to bed first. You should also go to bed early."
"Hey, okay, grandma." Li Cancan shouted to the outside at the top of her voice.
Baili Xin looked outside through the gap in the paper window and saw an old man walking into the house next to this one, leaning on a cane in one hand and holding a child of five or six years old in the other.
Sun Ning: "This village seems to rest very early, and there are no entertainment activities. But after dinner, the men wipe their mouths and go out without any worries, while the women are still busy cleaning the kitchen."
"This group of self-righteous men."
After Sun Ning finished speaking, he suddenly glanced at Baili Xin and smiled a little embarrassedly, "Sorry, I'm not referring to you, nor to all men, I'm talking about some ordinary men."
"It's okay," Baili Xin pushed open the door, "I can understand, because I can't stand it either. Since the master is about to go to bed, I will go back first. This is only the first day, so there is no need to rush. See you tomorrow morning, good night."
Sun Ning: "Okay, good night."
Li Cancan: "Sweet dreams, God Xin."
After Baili Xin went out, he did not go directly back to the mute woman's house, but went straight to the village entrance.
The village was very quiet. It was just past eight o'clock in the evening and there was no one on the road. Only the dim street light hung alone at the entrance of the village.
Silent and empty.
Baili Xin stood at the entrance of the village for a long time. He looked at the long mountains in the distance that almost merged into the darkness. He could no longer see any deeper or farther places behind the mountains.
The mountain stood before us, like a towering wall blocking the way forward.
After being exposed to the cold wind for a long time, Baili Xin returned to his residence.
At this time, those who were playing poker had already dispersed, and the whole village was quiet. Baili Xin tiptoed, pushed open the door and walked in. As soon as he entered, he saw that the lights in the main house were still on.
The door of the main house was not closed, and from here, you could just see the scene inside the main house.
Under the dim kerosene lamp, the mute girl sat at the table wearing only a piece of clothing.
Maybe she would have fallen asleep at this time in the past, but now she was forcing herself to sit here with one hand supporting her cheek, her shoulders slightly drooping, and her eyelids almost stretched into a line.
The woman's beautiful face showed a unique charm and tranquility in the dim light. She was like a painting, sitting there peacefully, and all the troubles and worries in the world seemed to have nothing to do with her.
The woman dozed off for a while and then suddenly raised her head, and saw Baili Xin coming back.
The quiet expression suddenly showed some joy, and the woman quickly stood up and walked in front of Baili Xin, making "yayaya" gestures.
Baili Xin was a little stunned at this time, "Are you waiting for me?"
The woman nodded heavily, pointed at the dark sky, then pointed at her wrist, and finally pointed at Baili Xin's room.
"You said it was too late and asked me to go back to bed?"
Seeing that Baili Xin understood what she meant, a smile suddenly appeared on the woman's face.
Baili Xin looked at the gentle woman in front of him thoughtfully, "I will go back to bed now, thank you, it's getting late, you should go back and rest early too."
The mute woman nodded quickly, took two quick steps to close the door, then turned around and turned off the kerosene lamp on the table. Finally, she said goodbye to Baili Xin and tiptoed back to her room.
A man's arrogant and impatient voice came from the other side of the wall. "I just fell asleep and you come here to bother me. If I don't get enough rest and can't do my job well tomorrow and don't make any money, you'll see what you'll eat! Stop dawdling and go to bed."
Baili Xin "… "
The sound insulation effect is not very good.
…
The next day, when it was still dawn, Baili Xin vaguely heard the sound of firecrackers.
He put on his clothes and walked out of the room, only to see that the mute woman had woken up.
Still wearing the same flowered apron and the same clothes, the woman was quietly kneading dough in the kitchen, preparing breakfast for the family.
Perhaps she heard footsteps, the woman raised her head from her busy schedule and looked over here, smiling gently at Baili Xin.
Baili Xin returned a polite smile and quickly walked out of the yard.
At this time, the sky was just beginning to turn light, and the green mountains in the distance were shrouded in mist. Looking from here, it looked like a fairy mountain in a painting.
At the foot of the green hills, at the end of the village, a family was setting off firecrackers. Many people were busy gathering at the entrance of the alley. That should be Old Li's family.
Baili Xin was not the only one who came out after hearing the sound. Almost all the players came out and stood at the entrance of the alley, looking towards the village entrance curiously and vigilantly.
This is everyone's instinctive reaction after a long period of dungeon travel.
Any disturbance could be a clue or a fatal danger. We are all players on high floors, alert to all unknowns.
However, unlike these players, except for those who helped, no one else in the village came out. Everyone slept as needed, and cooked as needed, as if they had already gotten used to it.
More than an hour later, after the sun had fully risen, the man came out of the room in his vest, yawning.
Behind the man were two happy children.
The woman seemed to be born with magic. When Baili Xin saw her in the morning, she only had a dough in her hand. By the time she sat down at the dinner table, the plain-looking rice ball had turned into various pasta.
There were noodles specially prepared for the men, and noodles for the two children.
The delicious breakfast was served on the table and everyone started to devour it immediately.
Men especially eat a lot.
The man's appetite seemed to have always been good. He could finish two large bowls of noodles by himself in the morning.
"I'm going to work in the fields first. At noon, we'll go to Old Li's house separately." The man wiped his mouth skillfully and stood up, exercising the authority of the head of the family and giving orders, "I'm leaving."
Having said that, the man walked out the door.
At the dinner table, only the mute woman and her two children were left.
Baili Xin pointed to where the old woman sat yesterday and asked, "Why doesn't she come to eat?"
The mute woman put down her chopsticks and raised her index finger.
My brother then translated in a baby voice, "My grandma only eats one meal a day. She is old now and has a poor appetite, so she can't eat too much."
Baili Xin said "Oh" and lowered his head to eat.
The meal was eaten in silence; the only sound that could be heard was the clinking of chopsticks in the bowl.
After the meal, Baili Xin again offered to help clean up, but was still rejected by the woman.
Baili Xin just glanced at the woman, said nothing more, and walked out.
The two brothers seem to be playing around all the time, and every day they either eat or have fun.
Seeing that the elder brother was about to run out with his younger brother again, Baili Xin quickly stopped them both with a lollipop.
"Where does your father usually work?"
My brother is working in the fields.
Baili Xin: "Where is the ground again?"
The elder brother blinked at Baili Xin innocently and said, "The fields are the fields. Dad goes out to work every day. He works to earn money for us to buy food."
Baili Xin found that he couldn't get any information from the question, so he changed the question to "Is there a school in your village?"
My brother babbled, "School, school."
Brother: "School, I know where it is, do you want to see it?! I can take you there!"
After saying that, his pair of bulging eyes stared straight at Baili Xin.
Baili Xin immediately understood what his brother meant. He compromised and stuffed a lollipop into his hand, "Okay, take me there."
The elder brother held his younger brother in one hand and pulled Baili Xin in the other hand. They walked around the village, which was not big to begin with, for a while and came to a small courtyard not far from the village committee.
The small courtyard was surrounded by high red walls, and the green iron gate was rusty. Even the chain and padlock on the gate were rusty.
It looks like it hasn't been used for many years.
My brother patted the big iron gate and said, "This is the school."
Baili Xin was stunned for a moment. He stood in front of the iron gate and looked inside through the gap in the gate. He saw that the yard was full of lush weeds.
Weeds were growing wildly, and in the middle of the yard there was a very thick pole, nearly ten meters long, standing in the yard. At the top of the pole, a tattered square flag was hanging on the railing with its head drooping.
There are several rows of houses around the yard, and the houses have long been in ruins.
“Is this the only school in your village?”
Judging from the dilapidated state of this school, it must have been unused for at least 10 to 20 years.
"Yes, this is the school." The boy smiled. "Do you want to go in? I know a dog hole that you can get in through."
"But you'd better not go in."
Baili Xin was a little curious, "Why?"
The boy suddenly looked at Baili Xin mysteriously, "There's a ghost in there."
Baili Xin "… "
This is so exciting, I must go in and take a look.
But... dog hole
Digging a dog hole
What’s a dog hole
"Take me there, I'll drill!"
A few minutes later, Baili Xin had a whole new seriousness about the "dog hole".
It was a small hole that could only accommodate a small child at most. No matter how slender Baili Xin was, there was no way she could squeeze in.
Baili Xin "… "
A dog hole can make a hero fail.
Studio.
Only magic can defeat magic.
Please enjoy the solution to the century-old puzzle "The Tragedy of Dog Holes" brought to you by Mr. Xin.
God Xin never expected that what stumped him was not a big boss in the dungeon, but a dog hole.
Brother: "Big brother, do you really want to drill in? You probably can't get in."
Baili Xin "… "
Stop it, I see.
Baili Xin temporarily gave up the idea of entering the school. "You just said there are ghosts in the school. Have you seen them?"
"My brother brought us here to play before. When we were playing hide-and-seek inside, we saw a dark figure with long hair and wearing red clothes."
"It suddenly chased us and we were so scared that after we crawled out of the dog hole, no one dared to go in again."
"Balisin."
A female ghost in red? Xia Chi should be called to this instance.
After sending the two children away one by one, Baili Xin looked at the green mountains in the distance again.
The dense clouds lingering outside the mountain have dissipated, revealing its original lush and green appearance.
He opened the taskbar and looked at his task list.
Mission 1: Survive for ten days and ten nights.
Task 2: Find Panpan’s troubles (not completed) and solve them for her (not completed).
Task 3 (to be determined)
If Panpan's worry was to find her brother, then when she talked about it with Sun Ning and Li Cancan last night, the system should have indicated that it was completed.
Maybe because it is a welfare copy, the difficulty of this mission is indeed much simpler than the previous one.
In the previous copy, each question was followed by a box, which meant that only by filling in the blank would the answer be submitted.
But this time, the task is just followed by (completed) or (not completed). With this type of question, as long as the player gets the answer right, the task will be automatically considered completed, so there is unlimited trial and error.
After chatting with Sun Ning and the others yesterday, Baili Xin returned to the room and repeated the words "looking for his brother", but the system did not give any prompts.
Then he thought of many other possibilities, such as wanting to go to school, wanting to eat, and wanting his father...
Wait, he tried almost all possible and impossible ones, but he didn't get any of them right.
Why.
Baili Xin silently closed the system task.
Don't try to guess what a girl is thinking.
There's no way to guess it.
Around noon, Baili Xin and Li Cancan met up with the others and went to Lao Li's house together.
They didn't come early, because before them, almost everyone in the village had come here.
There were several dishes on the table covered with a bright red cloth. A young daughter-in-law in a flowery dress was walking back and forth at the banquet with her husband, holding her child.
In the very middle of the yard, an old man dressed neatly in red clothes was sitting on an armchair, his eyes narrowed into a line on his smiling face.
"Mr. Li," several young men knelt over and handed him wine, "Congratulations, there is another baby in your family."
"Our eldest grandson's wife is about to give birth," the old man chuckled, "In less than half a year, I guess you will come to our house for a feast again."
"The eldest grandson's children are about to be born? This means four generations living under one roof. This is incredible, absolutely incredible!"
Old man: "No, no, you guys just eat and drink well. Don't bother with an old man like me, just eat your own food, eat whatever you want."
Several young men quickly got up from the ground, picked up the money and threw it into the dustpan on the table next to the old man.
There was already a thick pile of money in the winnowing basket.
Li Cancan muttered quietly, "So I have to pay a gift when I come to a banquet. What should I do? I don't have any money."
Sun Ning: "The money in each dungeon is different. Who can have money? I see that some other players have sat down. We players may not need to pay because we are guests. Let's go in."
The players sat at two tables consciously. There happened to be three seats left at one table, so the three of them sat down smoothly.
As they sat down, the players were gathered together whispering and discussing the sound.
Their voices seemed particularly small against the loud background noise around them.
"Who of you finished the first question?"
"No, I have no idea what Panpan is worried about."
"I almost wore out my lips last night, but I still couldn't guess a single answer. Isn't this too hard to guess? What kind of unusual worries could a seven or eight-year-old girl have?"
"Is there something special about her?"
"Nonsense, can't we get to the central NC?"
"But it doesn't matter. This dungeon is a welfare dungeon. It doesn't matter if you fail to complete the mission. Didn't the system say that there will be no punishment for failing to complete the mission? We just need to hold on for ten days and ten nights and stay alive."
"Yes, I know this, so I don't feel any psychological pressure. So far, everything seems normal in the instance. It should be a rural instance that abducts and sells women and children."
"Do the men in this village take some training courses together? In the house where you live, do the men work at home?"
"Not working, so funny, not working at all. I guess he has attended the 'Working to Death Training Course'."
"The family I live with is the same. The wife works hard to take care of the children, the elderly, and the household. It is so painful for a woman to have no financial ability. She has no status at home. I almost couldn't help but slap the man yesterday."
"It's probably caused by culture. This is the idea that people in their village may have been taught since childhood: men work outside and women work inside. Don't men also go out to work every day? It doesn't necessarily mean they are trafficked."
"Okay, okay, you're right if you argue. Anyway, I think these ordinary people are not worthy of those hardworking mistresses."
"Hostes? Why do I feel like these men just treat their wives as personal nannies and order them around however they want? Total male chauvinism."
The players almost got into a quarrel at the end of the discussion.
Although there are different opinions, most players believe that the background of this village should be related to the trafficking of women and children.
Baili Xin and the other two did not join the discussion. Baili Xin sat on a chair and looked around the yard calmly, and found that there were a lot of children.
Some were held in arms, some were running on the ground, and they were all boys.
Baili Xin quickly found the mute woman and her family in the crowd. The mute woman took off the linen clothes she wore all day, put on a new yellow dress, and seemed to have put some makeup on her face. Her whole temperament instantly improved a lot.
But the mute woman was not the only beautiful daughter-in-law. Almost all the daughters-in-law at the banquet were very beautiful.
"Look at the looks of these women, and you still say they weren't kidnapped."
"You are discriminating, do you know that? Are you saying that girls from rural areas are not pretty enough?"
"You know that's not what I meant, why do you keep picking on me? Are you sick?"
"If I had such a beautiful daughter-in-law, I wouldn't want her to do the laundry and cooking every day. Aren't these daughters-in-law too good-tempered?"
"That's why it's called 'The Land of Gentleness'. Didn't the system say that couples love each other? I think the wives are all too gentle, that's not the case with loving couples."
"Then why do you think she is so gentle? Did she always want to escape at the beginning, but was finally scared by the beating and had to be gentle? This is called forcing women of good character into prostitution. Those who traffic women and children should die! We are all human beings, and our souls are made of the same thing. But women, because of their uteruses, have become commodities sold by others. Damn, the more I think about it, the angrier I get. This place is so disgusting, I don't want to stay here for even a minute."
As the player was talking, he suddenly stood up in anger and walked out with big strides.
Because of this player's departure, the originally quarrelsome atmosphere suddenly became quiet.
While the players were arguing fiercely, Baili Xin suddenly felt a gaze in the interval between the quarrels.
He turned his head hesitantly and saw the mute woman looking at him, smiling at him gently from across the table.
In the countryside, chefs set up a tent in the yard to cook, and then place the dishes on the table.
The table was filled with all kinds of meat, including big fish, big meat, boiled pork slices, and so on.
The guests had already started eating, and while they were eating, Baili Xin looked around and found that just like in their own homes, the wives rarely touched meat. They ate the staple food in front of them humbly and obediently, while the men around them didn't care about their wives' condition at all and just started eating on their own.
"Hey, Mr. Li, where is your second son? Why don't we see him coming out?"
I don't know who shouted during the meal.
Old man Li smiled and said, "The second son went out to work. The mountain is poor and he has no money to marry a wife. He can only go out to work to save money to marry a wife."
"Hey, that'll be quick, as long as we save up 30,000."
“Some of them cost less than 30,000 yuan.”
"That's right. With 30,000 yuan, you can marry a beautiful and obedient wife who is easy to raise and can give birth. It's not a loss. Mr. Li, try to have two babies tomorrow."
"That's right, thirty thousand yuan is not even as valuable as a pig. It's totally worth it, hahahaha."
Old Man Li: "It's not that easy to live. It depends on whether you can live up to your expectations. If not, I'll just beat you to death."
The two tables of players were in stark contrast to the joyful atmosphere around them.
They listened to the conversation of these people and stared at the food in front of them, and suddenly lost their appetite.
"A person's freedom and life are only worth 30,000 yuan." A female player suddenly stood up and walked outside angrily.
The player who was washing the village just now stopped talking. His cheeks were burning and he wished he could find a hole to crawl into.
He quickly stood up and left in a hurry.
"Why did three of them leave?" A sinister voice sounded slowly from behind the crowd. Everyone turned around suddenly and saw the village chief standing there without them knowing when.
The village chief held a wine cup in his hand and glanced at them one by one with a smile in his eyes. "What's wrong? You look very unhappy. Is it because our food doesn't suit your taste?"
"This is definitely the best food we can offer in this poor place."
Everyone looked at the village chief with complicated eyes.
One of the players boldly asked, "Village leader, are you married? Do you have children?"
The village chief was stunned, then burst into laughter.
"I'm already this old, how can I not get married? I got married a long time ago, but my wife died early and my son went to study in another province, so I'm alone at home now. But I'm not lonely, there are many things in the village to keep me busy."
"Your son goes to school. When he comes back here, will you also spend 30,000 yuan to buy a wife for your son? 30,000 yuan is really cheap. It's not even as expensive as a pig."
The village chief was stunned again. "What are you talking about, kid? Did you hear what these drunken idiots said? They are just drunken idiots. Don't listen to their nonsense."
"It's normal for men to put on airs and belittle women to improve their social status. The thirty thousand yuan they mentioned is the betrothal gift. In our village, men get married through matchmakers and marry girls from respectable families."
"Oh," the player muttered in disbelief, "A thief won't admit he's a thief until he's caught with evidence."
The village chief said, "Hey, you are prejudiced against our village. You are a college student from the city, but you are not as good as an old man like me who has never been to school. I don't know how to accuse people blindly. Don't talk nonsense when you leave our village and ruin the reputation of our village. If you think our village is not good, then leave."
"Today is a big wedding day for the Li family. If it weren't for Li's sake, I would have let you go a long time ago. The Hundred Days Banquet only happens once, and if it's gone, it's gone. You've received higher education, too. Can you be a little more polite?"
The female player's face turned red. She took several deep breaths and finally said nothing and shut up.
The players had a very uncomfortable time eating at this wedding banquet.
The village culture they are experiencing now is very different from the education they once received.
When the banquet was over, the players left the wedding banquet in a depressed mood.
Halfway through the walk, Baili Xin was patted on the shoulder.
He looked back and saw the mustache from yesterday putting a hand on his shoulder and asked mysteriously, "Do you want to visit Panpan's house?"