Chapter 24
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Lou Yan turned around and saw Old Wang standing behind him, his big mole on his nose twitching, feeling embarrassed, “This kid’s school always gives these logic questions. I really don’t understand, brother, can you figure it out?”
Lou Yan took Old Wang’s hand off his shoulder, fake smiled, and said, “I’m sorry, I don’t understand it either.”
This is a classic horror story of “real and fake mothers”, where it can be said that the one outside the door is the fake mom, or it can be said that the one inside the door is the fake mom, or even that both are fake moms, and there’s no standard answer.
What Lou Yan found worth noting wasn’t this story, but why such a slightly terrifying story appeared in a primary school student’s workbook.
But judging from Old Wang’s appearance, he didn’t seem to find it strange at all.
Something’s wrong, definitely wrong.
Lou Yan put down the workbook and changed the subject, “Old Wang, where’s our room?”
Old Wang said, “It’s in the middle on the second floor. Let me take you guys there.”
The staircase to the second floor was next to the east wing. Old Wang led them to the second floor, and the young couple followed. The young couple stayed in the room closest to the staircase, while Lou Yan’s group stayed in the largest room in the middle.
There was a double bed and a long sofa in the bedroom. Old Wang found a folding bed and put it in the empty space, rubbing his hands, “Now four people can sleep.”
Old Wang brought over the bedding, intending to leave after finishing, but he was stopped by Duan Zege, “Old Wang, has anyone from the relevant department come in after the village was sealed off?”
Old Wang was pressed onto a chair by him, scratching his neck and saying, “Yes, there were, but we were all busy and didn’t pay much attention to them. They seemed to have come in and left, and I didn’t pay much attention.”
While Duan Zege and Old Wang were chatting, Lou Yan took Li Sanxin back to the courtyard on the first floor. He whispered to Li Sanxin, “I’ll go outside to take a look. You try to keep an eye on the girl doing homework and make sure she doesn’t go out.”
Li Sanxin nodded seriously, “Leave it to me.”
Lou Yan, wearing a hat, walked into the misty rain.
He walked fast, but surprisingly, he didn’t encounter anyone from Liushu Village along the way. When he walked about two hundred meters, Lou Yan heard the warning from his crisis perception again, reminding him that there was danger within a two-hundred-meter radius.
【Mental Power 35/50】
Lou Yan frowned. He looked around, but all the houses were tightly closed, and the willow branches were dancing. He couldn’t sense where the source of anomalies might be.
Strange. The crisis perception sounded again, but Old Wang and Little Ling should still be outside the two-hundred-meter range at Old Tree Furniture Store. Could it be that the father and daughter, along with that terrifying old man, weren’t the anomalies?
Or is it that Liushu Village’s anomalies aren’t just one thing?
Lou Yan called Li Sanxin directly, and Li Sanxin answered quickly, “Hello, Yanzi?”
Lou Yan asked in a low voice, “Are you still at Old Tree Furniture Store? Is there anything unusual?”
Li Sanxin glanced at the little girl doing homework beside him and shook his head, “No, everything’s normal here.”
After hanging up the phone, Lou Yan’s brows furrowed even deeper. He continued walking within Liushu Village. Every 200 meters he walked, his sense of crisis kept reminding him of danger. After repeating this two or three times, Lou Yan reluctantly stopped in his tracks.
“No, I can’t waste my mental energy anymore,” Lou Yan thought to himself, “I only have 20 points of mental energy left.”
The sense of crisis is a precognitive ability that can warn Lou Yan of danger around him. It can passively alert Lou Yan after sensing danger or be actively used by Lou Yan to investigate if there is any danger nearby.
This innate ability is actually quite good, but it has one drawback, as is the case now. Whenever the scope of danger is particularly large, it will constantly remind Lou Yan, leading to a rapid depletion of mental energy.
In his past life, Lou Yan was tricked by the sense of crisis several times, so he finally came up with a solution: to turn off the passive reminders of the sense of crisis and only leave Lou Yan to actively use the sense of crisis, then his talent can take effect.
At times like this, the passive reminders of the sense of crisis must be turned off.
Lou Yan sighed, feeling somewhat hesitant.
Once he turned off the passive reminder, his crisis perception would lose half of its effectiveness. If any danger suddenly appeared around him, Lou Yan wouldn’t be able to react to it.
But if he didn’t turn it off, Lou Yan’s mental power would really be depleted.
After hesitating for a few minutes, Lou Yan still turned off the passive reminder of his crisis perception.
This time, after he walked out of the two-hundred-meter range, the remaining mental power finally stopped decreasing.
Without the assistance of his talent, Lou Yan walked even more carefully. Unconsciously, he had walked through most of Liushu Village.
Lou Yan’s hat and coat were already wet from the light rain, he wiped the mist off his watch and checked the time: 11:40.
He had been out for almost half an hour.
Lou Yan planned to finish exploring Liushu Village before going back. As he walked, Lou Yan unexpectedly found a graveyard.
The weeds on the graveyard were dense, and in the blurry rain and mist, they looked like swaying figures.
Lou Yan heightened his vigilance and moved slowly within the graveyard. Suddenly, he heard faint cries coming from a distance.
The crying person seemed to be a man, crying and sorrowfully shouting, “Wuwuwu, Dad… wuwuwu, Mom…”
Lou Yan quietly approached, using the cover of the willow trees to take a look. He saw a chubby figure, with a simple and honest appearance, a bald man in his thirties, leaning against a tombstone with two bottles of alcohol, drinking dejectedly. His face was flushed, and he looked very miserable, crying and sobbing.
After observing him for a while, Lou Yan, seeing this as the first person he encountered while wandering around Liushu Village, boldly approached him, “Brother, why are you crying?”
The bald man, half asleep and half awake, holding a bottle of wine, seemed not to hear Lou Yan’s words. Lou Yan kicked his leg, and the man opened his eyes in a daze, suddenly sat up, saw Lou Yan, and screamed in terror, scrambling to run away, “Ah ah ah, ghost!”
Lou Yan grabbed him, almost being overwhelmed by the smell of alcohol emanating from the man’s body, “Stop, I’m a human.”
The bald man didn’t listen and continued to scream and attempt to escape. Lou Yan directly swept his leg, causing the man to fall flat on his face. Then, Lou Yan squatted down beside him, pressing his back firmly with his knee, and sternly asked, “Why did you shout ghost when you saw me? Have you seen a ghost?”
His strength was great, pressing the bald man down like a flipped turtle, making it impossible for him to escape. But after this struggle, it seemed to make the bald man realize that Lou Yan wasn’t a ghost. His struggles gradually weakened, and the bald man weakly said, “Brother, can you please let me go? You’re almost crushing me to death.”
Lou Yan raised an eyebrow slightly, reduced the pressure a bit, but still didn’t release him, “Answer my questions. What’s your name, and are you from Liushu Village?”
The bald man honestly replied, “My name is Liu Kang, and I’m from Liushu Village.”
Lou Yan asked, “Aren’t the others all out rescuing the trees in the orchard? Why are you crying in the graveyard?”
This question seemed to touch on Liu Kang’s sadness. He began to cry again, snot and tears streaming down, “My parents died, why can’t I cry at their graves?”
Lou Yan narrowed his eyes, “When did your parents die?”
Liu Kang replied, “The day before yesterday…”
The day before yesterday, three days ago, was exactly the day before Lou Yan and his group saw the news about the chemical contamination in Liushu Village.
Lou Yan scrutinized Liu Kang, noticing that although Liu Kang was tall and stout, his strength seemed a bit off. Even when he struggled just now, he didn’t have the strength one would expect.
Liu Kang was covered in mud, with many grass roots on his back, and a foul odor emanating from him. Lou Yan glanced at the beer bottle Liu Kang had just thrown away and noticed more empty beer bottles and some snack plastic bags near the graves.
A child who respects his parents wouldn’t casually throw these things in front of his parents’ graves. But if he wasn’t a filial child, he wouldn’t cry so miserably.
Lou Yan pondered, “How long have you been staying in front of your parents’ graves?”
Liu Kang trembled, remained silent for a while, and then said weakly, “Including today, it’s been four days.”
Lou Yan was surprised, “You’ve been sleeping here at night too?”
Liu Kang nodded silently.
Lou Yan released him. Liu Kang weakly got up from the ground. His complexion was yellow, and he was weak, obviously not having rested well these past few days.
Lou Yan crossed his arms, looking calm but exuding a strong aura, “Why have you been alone in the graveyard for so long?”
Liu Kang’s eyes drifted away, not daring to look at Lou Yan, and tried to sound tough, “I… I… I can’t bear to leave my parents, okay?!”
Lou Yan chuckled, coldly said, “Your first reaction when you saw me was to shout ‘ghost’ and then try to escape. From this reaction, it can be seen that you are not a brave person. Yet, you have been living in the graveyard for so long. There must be a reason that forced you to do so. And this reason is probably because you mistook me for a ghost.”
Liu Kang was dumbfounded, stared at Lou Yan for a while, and finally dejectedly lowered his head, “I dare not go back, only dare to stay here.”
Lou Yan walked to the graves of Liu Kang’s parents, observing the two graves, and asked, “Why?”
These graves were indeed new, but strangely, the tombstones were blank, without a single word carved on them. And the graves were much smaller than the others, as if… there was no one buried inside.
Lou Yan’s heart skipped a beat, and he glanced at Liu Kang. While Liu Kang’s muscles seemed relaxed, they were actually tensed, ready to spring up at any moment.
Could this Liu Kang also be strange?
But when his gaze swept past Liu Kang, Lou Yan noticed that Liu Kang had been staring at him, twisting his neck from some point, and staring at him.
“Because in my house,” Liu Kang stared at Lou Yan intently, “there’s a pair of fake parents.”
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