The sound of objects falling to the ground came from the ancestral hall. The two villagers who were talking to the fat man changed their expressions and stood up suddenly.
"Someone broke into the ancestral hall?"
The two men, in contrast to their previous calmness, swept the people present with fierce eyes, and the fat man and his companions' hearts beat rapidly when they were stared at them.
Fortunately, they did not do anything and ran quickly towards the ancestral hall.
The fat man stopped him and said nonchalantly, "Brother Sangen, there might be a mouse or some small animal crawling in through the window. Don't be too nervous. We haven't finished talking yet."
The dark-faced villager named Sangen's expression eased slightly, but he still walked over resolutely.
The two men came to the gate of the ancestral hall, took out the key and opened the door.
The lock on the main door of the ancestral hall was an iron chain lock, the lock head was as big as an adult man's palm, and it was extremely difficult to split it with an axe. After removing the lock head, they opened a crack in the door for one person to enter, and another villager entered, while the three guards stood outside, staring at the five people in front of the ancestral hall with vigilant eyes.
Lin Dandan, Wang Peiping and the fat guy were so nervous that their palms were sweating.
The light behind the door was very dim. Even if they tried hard to stick their heads out, they couldn't see clearly what was going on in the ancestral hall. Not to mention that the villager named Sangen was staring at them eagerly, not letting them get close, and they couldn't see anything at all.
After a while, the villagers who went in to investigate came out.
The villager looked a little unhappy and said, "A cat ran in from the window and knocked over things on the table."
Sangen was as if facing a formidable enemy and asked nervously, "Are you okay?"
"It's okay, I put the things that fell on the ground back."
The two villagers looked unhappy and were in no mood to pay attention to this group of outsiders. Their faces showed an intention of driving them away.
The five people left tactfully.
Until they were far away from the ancestral hall, they slowly let out a sigh of relief and looked back at the ancestral hall on the hillside, looking for the figures of Wu Yang and the other man.
"What on earth is in the ancestral hall? Are Brother Wu and the others okay?" Lin Dandan bit her nails, extremely nervous.
Wang Peiping asked with a frustrated look on his face: "There was a lot of noise just now, is there anything wrong with Brother Wu and the others?"
"Don't talk nonsense." The fat man scolded unhappily.
The five people walked back slowly. This time they were not specifically cooperating with Gu Jiu, but wanted to delay time as much as possible and wait for Wu Yang and others to come back.
After they walked for nearly twenty minutes, they finally saw Wu Yang and Thin Man coming from another road.
Both of them looked fine, but Gu Jiu and Fatty still carefully noticed that their clothes had several torn places. When they left earlier, the clothes were intact and not damaged.
It can be seen that something must have happened in the ancestral hall.
"Brother Wu, Skinny, are you okay?" Lin Dandan asked in surprise.
The fat man ran to his brother, checked his condition, pulled the tear on his clothes and found that the tear looked like it was cut by a sharp blade, very neatly, fortunately there was no cut on the skin.
Wang Peiping squeezed over and asked expectantly, "Brother Wu, what did you find in the ancestral hall? Is there any information about the curse?"
Lin Dandan, Fatty, Gu Jiu and others also looked over with concern.
Wu Yang held out his hand to stop their questions and said, "Let's go to the village entrance and talk about it."
There were villagers walking around in the village, so it was not easy to talk. The terrain at the entrance of the village was open, so there was no need to worry about their words being heard by the villagers.
A group of people came to the tall willow tree at the entrance of the village.
Gu Jiu specifically looked at the roots of the willow tree. There were dark red blood stains close to the soil. The blood stains were very small and could not be seen without careful observation.
The soil in Qingshan Village is black soil, so even if blood is spilled it won’t be too obvious.
Lin Dandan is a nurse and is very sensitive to human blood. She was sure that the bloodstains on the willow tree roots were human blood, not poultry blood.
Wu Yang told them what they had discovered and what had happened in the ancestral hall, and everyone was terrified.
"Are all the villagers in Qingshan Village really dead?" the fat man asked tremblingly.
Wu Yang and the thin man nodded. They suspected that the villagers didn't let them enter the ancestral hall because they didn't want them to find out that all the villagers were dead. And there were two scary dolls guarding the ancestral hall. Such evil creatures were indeed dangerous. If they didn't have props to restrain ghosts, they would have died in the ancestral hall.
"Are they really ghosts? Then aren't we in a haunted house?" Wang Peiping was almost scared crazy by this fact.
Although there were ghosts in the first two games he experienced, the number of ghosts was not large. The other NPCs were normal humans, and as long as you knew how to avoid the danger of ghosts taking your life, it was easy to pass the level.
This was the first time that an entire village like Qingshan Village was filled with ghosts. This dungeon was too difficult, more difficult than the two previous dungeons he had experienced.
Lin Dandan's face turned pale, and she was obviously frightened by the fact that all the villagers in Qingshan Village were ghosts.
Wu Yang took a look and was surprised to find that compared with the fear of these people, the two newcomers were abnormally calm. However, when he thought of Gu Jiu's previous brave deeds in Lao Li's house, he felt it was quite normal.
He didn't think much about it and continued, "I now have some ideas about the curse."
"What clue?" A group of people looked at him in surprise.
Wu Yang did not answer, but turned to ask Gu Jiu, "Miss Gu, when we were in front of the ancestral hall just now, did you notice the expression of the rag doll?"
"I noticed it." Gu Jiu took out the doll, "It was very unhappy at the time."
Before Wu Yang and Thin Man left, they specifically told her to always pay attention to the reaction of the rag doll in her pocket. The changes in the expression on the doll's face should be some kind of clue in the copy.
Wu Yang showed a look of understanding on his face and smiled: "This rag doll is the cursed child of the village."
What?!
The fat man and his companions stared at the rag doll in surprise. Although they felt that its hair and eyes were very similar to those of humans, they did not think of it as human. They thought it was some kind of demon or ghost, or a tool in the copy.
Wu Yang continued, "We went to Granny Wang's house yesterday. Granny Wang said that this doll was not made by her. The dolls she made all had markings on them. Do you remember?"
Everyone nodded.
"The dolls made by Granny Wang should be from the villagers." This was said by Gu Jiu, "There are a total of 238 dolls in Granny Wang's house."
Wu Yang looked at her appreciatively, "The total population of the village is 295, 238 adults and 57 children."
On the first day of arriving in the village, Wu Yang specifically asked the village chief about the population situation of the village. Everyone present heard it. However, they just listened casually at that time and did not take it seriously. Now when he mentioned this, they finally felt a sense of sudden enlightenment.
The fat man asked hesitantly, "You mean, if all the adults in the village become ghost dolls in Granny Wang's house, what about the fifty-seven children?"
"They also turned into rag dolls, like the one in Miss Gu's hand." Wu Yang suddenly corrected them, "It's not that they turned into rag dolls, but that they were cursed. Their bodies were dead, and their souls attached themselves to the rag dolls, turning them into ghost dolls."
So, this is the curse of the village, and the villagers are cursed.
But they were still a little confused, "Who cursed the villagers?"
"It's a mountain ghost."
These words were said by Lu Ji. Everyone present was a little surprised to see Lu Ji, who was always silent, suddenly speak.
Gu Jiu looked at Lu Ji with a smile, "Miss Lu, what did you find?"
Lu Ji looked at her silently and said in a hoarse voice: "Doesn't the village chief remind us every day that mountain ghosts will appear at night and will seduce people's souls? This is a hint."
Lin Dandan, Wang Peiping and the fat man were stunned, even Wu Yang was a little surprised.
They didn't expect that the first person to understand the hint in the village chief's words would be Lu Ji. Even Wu Yang was sure of it after seeing the situation in the ancestral hall. Although they heard the village chief say it every day, most of them thought that the village chief was using it to scare them, or that the mountain ghost was a ghost in the dungeon that would take lives, and did not associate it with the curse of the village.
"How do you know that the source of the curse is the mountain ghost?" Wang Peiping looked doubtful.
Lu Ji said calmly: "Because of the Grass Ghost Core! The Grass Ghost Core is used to treat amnesia. This is the second clue, it is very obvious."
Lin Dandan and Wang Peiping suddenly suspected that they might be fools. Is this clue really obvious
Looking at the others, Wu Yang and the thin man seemed to be deep in thought, the fat man looked bewildered, and Gu Jiu… She had already sat down on a nearby stone bench to rest, looking exhausted, as if she didn’t care about clearing the customs at all.
Both of them: “…”
Eliminating the useless Miss Jiao, the bewildered fat man gave them some sense of comfort.
It's not that they are stupid, but that they have too little information and have not yet connected the two together.
"Miss Lu is right." Wu Yang continued, "The barefoot doctor in the village once said that children's souls are light and can be easily taken away by mountain ghosts. This is indeed a hint that mountain ghosts are cursers. Mountain ghosts take away the souls of the villagers and stuff their souls into the bodies of rag dolls."
"That's not right." The fat man retorted, "The barefoot doctor said that children's souls are light and can be easily taken away by mountain ghosts. Mountain ghosts take away the souls of children, not adults."
The thin man interrupted: "What if the barefoot doctor lied?"
"Not really?" The fat man retorted to his brother, "The barefoot doctor is an NPC in the dungeon. NPCs rarely lie."
"Rare doesn't mean no. Don't forget, even barefoot doctors are also evil." The thin man reached out and tapped the fat man on the head, "Be careful, or you'll be cheated by the NPC and lose your life."
The brothers' words made the others fall into deep thought.
Lin Dandan frowned, "Could it be that the barefoot doctor really lied?"
"I don't think so."
Lin Dandan looked at Gu Jiu, who rarely spoke, and felt a little annoyed with her, so she asked, "How do you know there is no such thing?"
Gu Jiu took out a tissue to wipe her sweat. After walking such a long way, her face was stained with a beautiful blush. She said slowly: "The barefoot doctor's first words were 'There are indeed many children suffering from amnesia', and then he said 'Children's souls are light and can be easily possessed by mountain ghosts'. These two are different. First, they suffer from amnesia, and then they are possessed by mountain ghosts."
Lin Dandan was still confused. What difference did this make
Wang Peiping held his breath for a moment. Actually, he felt there was no difference.