Chapter 42
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Niu Xin’s home.
Niu Xin was tossing and turning in bed. His wife was asleep next to him, snoring loudly. But Niu Xin felt a cold sweat on his back, thinking of the black marks on his wife’s back revealed when she bathed before going to bed.
He remembered vividly that his wife had no such marks before… Niu Xin suddenly shuddered, remembering the strange true and false mother’s question in his son’s homework book.
After seeing that question, Niu Xin was furious. He had gone straight to find Teacher Lin last night after returning from the fields, wanting to confront her about giving his child such a terrifying question. But after seeing her, Teacher Lin had said many inexplicable things to him.
Teacher Lin said that if black marks suddenly appeared on a family member’s body, one should be vigilant because it’s likely that the person is no longer a family member but a ghost disguised as one!
Niu Xin thought Teacher Lin was crazy at the time! But now he was trembling, constantly recalling the black marks on his wife’s back, even though they were covered by the quilt, he felt chills all over.
He knew he shouldn’t think this way about his wife, but he couldn’t help but repeatedly recall the scenes of him and his wife together tonight.
Whether it was psychological or not, the more he thought about it, the more scared and wrong he felt. He trembled all over, his quilt shaking incessantly. Finally, Niu Xin mustered up the courage to turn over and go see if his wife’s face was the same as he remembered.
As he turned over, he met the cold, indifferent eyes of his wife.
Niu Xin: “!”
He didn’t know how long his wife had been staring at him. Niu Xin was so scared that he was about to pee himself, almost fainting with fear. His voice trembling, he said, “W-wife…”
His wife yawned, her eyes flickering, and stared at Niu Xin, asking, “Why are you shaking in the middle of the night?”
“I’m going to sleep, going to sleep,” Niu Xin forced a smile, his eyes wandering nervously, “Wife, I, I’ll go to the toilet first.”
After speaking, he lifted the quilt and rushed to the door, feeling a pair of eyes firmly fixed on his back. Only when he closed the door and blocked the line of sight did Niu Xin realize that he was covered in cold sweat.
He trembled all the way to the toilet to relieve himself, deciding not to go back to the bedroom and preparing to sleep with his son.
Just as Niu Xin was about to go to his son’s room to sleep, he heard a knocking sound at the courtyard gate.
“Who’s there?!” Niu Xin was startled.
“It’s me, Brother Niu,” came Teacher Lin’s voice.
Niu Xin breathed a sigh of relief and quickly went to open the door, hastily saying as he opened it, “Hey, sis, there’s something Brother wants to ask you about, the black marks you mentioned…”
When Niu Xin saw more than thirty people outside the door, his voice stopped abruptly, his eyes widening in shock.
These people were all from the village. Except for a few unfamiliar faces, Niu Xin knew everyone. Most of them were accompanied by children, of all ages. Everyone wore expressions of exhaustion and panic, their clothes dampened by the misty rain. The children, whether being led or carried, looked exhausted, nodding off, but obediently following their parents. No one spoke out of turn, and the movement of dozens of people was as quiet as if there were no one there.
Teacher Lin looked tired and weary, but her eyes were firm and determined. She spoke plainly, “Brother Niu, your wife is in trouble. Take your child and come with us. Otherwise, you and your child probably won’t survive tonight.”
…
After some persuasion, Niu Xin quietly carried his sleeping son out. Duan Zege asked Little Yu in a low voice, “Are they ones?”
Xiao Yu shook her head, indicating that they were not anomalies.
Duan Zege nodded towards Teacher Lin as she approached. The group silently left Niu Xin’s house and continued towards the next place where living people were present.
In the early hours of the morning, the ancestral hall of Liushu Village was already crowded.
The children were laid on the ground at the back, asleep, while the adults surrounded them, whispering softly, their faces occasionally showing expressions of confusion and anxiety.
They kept staring at the outside of the ancestral hall, feeling uneasy.
In addition to these awake adults, there were also some people who were forcibly tied up and thrown aside. Their mouths were stuffed to prevent them from making any sound, their eyes wide open, glaring angrily at everyone in the ancestral hall.
Liu Kang also followed to the ancestral hall. Feeling timid, he wanted to find a safe place to hide. When he passed by one of the thin and elderly men in his fifties who had been tied up, he was kicked in the leg. Liu Kang almost fell over. Turning his head, he exclaimed, “Third Uncle?”
The old man was furious, his beard trembling, grumbling unintelligibly at him. Liu Kang squatted down and removed the cloth from his mouth. The old man began to curse, “What are you doing! Quickly untie me and take me back. You bunch of cowards, you’re breaking the law! Tying up so many people, this is outrageous. Our village is temporarily sealed off, not unmanaged! Are you trying to rebel or kill people?! You, quickly, let me go!”
Liu Kang was silent for a moment, then looked into the ancestral hall, “Third Uncle, where is Third Aunt and Big Geng?”
The old man became even angrier when he heard this question, shouting angrily, “You should ask that Teacher Lin and those outsiders! D*mn it! I see you’ve all been brainwashed by them, they must be criminals of a pyramid scheme! They told me my wife and son are dead, and now my wife and son are ghosts! D*mn it, I don’t know whether my own wife and son are human or ghosts?! You bunch of b*stards, daring to curse my wife and child. When I get out, I’ll report them to the police and have them arrested and thrown in jail!”
“Hurry up and untie me, Kangzi, you’ve all been deceived! I need to hurry back home to check on Third Aunt and Big Geng. Third Aunt has a weak heart. If she wakes up and finds out I’ve been tied up, it’ll scare her to death. You know Big Geng, he’s a fool, his brain’s been fried, he can’t even cook… It’s almost morning, Kangzi, Third Uncle begs you to untie me. Third Uncle really needs to go back to work, there’s no time to waste here with you all!”
Liu Kang squatted on the ground, bowing his head, not saying anything for a while.
The old man was anxious, foaming at the mouth, and wanted to wake up Da Zhu again. Then he heard a few splashes, big tears falling to the ground in front of Liu Kang.
Liu Kang choked up, “Third Uncle, what they said is true. Third Aunt and Big Geng are really not the same as before. My… my parents…”
The suppressed cry was filled with despair and sorrow. Liu Kang dared not cry out loud. After reaching the pinnacle of pain, he emitted only a faint sound, “They are all fake!”
“They are all fake!!!”
****
“Everyone in the village who could be brought out is here,” Duan Zege said. “There are some people who couldn’t be brought out. If we forcibly try to take them, it will only alert the anomalies around them.”
Teacher Lin glanced into the ancestral hall, feeling a little dazed. She smiled bitterly, “Just a few days ago, there were four or five times more people in our village than there are now…”
“This is the power of anomalies,” Duan Zege said calmly. He seemed unaffected by the cries and expressions of pain coming from inside the ancestral hall and the villagers’ expressions of fear for the future. Underneath his mild demeanor, he remained as hard as a rock. “Unfortunately, anomalies have descended upon your village.”
“Anomalies…” Teacher Lin couldn’t help but burst into tears. She clenched her trembling fists, a mixture of confusion and resentment in her eyes, using all her strength to demand, not knowing who to ask, “Why are there anomalies?! Why us, of all people?!”
Duan Zege looked at her expression and sighed softly, “Teacher Lin, grieve. Now is not the time to indulge in sorrow. We still have unfinished business.”
Teacher Lin wiped away her tears. This woman in her thirties had been teaching in Liushu Village alone for many years, and her character was as resilient as she had shown. She quickly regained her composure, calling over five or six respected people from Liushu Village.
“I’ll make it short,” Duan Zege glanced at the group and went straight to the point. “When Teacher Lin and you all went to pick up people from your homes, Teacher Lin briefly explained to you. Now, I’ll add some details. You all have been in contact with Teacher Lin before and are aware of the situation. When you discover that your ‘family members’ are not right, these anomalies disguised as your ‘family members’ will start targeting you. If nothing unexpected happens, all of you will end up like Teacher Lin, killed on this night. Then, the number of living people in your village will decrease day by day. In less than three days, your village will become a real ‘ghost village’.”
The faces of the crowd were not very good. They felt both terrified and powerless about the future described by Duan Zege.
In fact, they themselves knew that even if they discovered that their family members were disguised as ghosts, what could they do? Some people had tried to leave Liushu Village, but they found they couldn’t leave. And the consequence of not being able to leave Liushu Village was that they would definitely die. The only difference was whether they died sooner or later.
They had also suspected Duan Zege and the others before, but they had no choice. They could only make a desperate attempt, hoping that these mysterious outsiders really had a chance to fight for their survival.
“…In fact, we had discussed it before,” Teacher Lin hesitated for a moment and said, “At the beginning, it was not just me who found something wrong. Some sharp villagers also noticed something wrong. We contacted each other privately and prepared for the worst—we will not sit and wait for death. If it comes to a life-or-death situation, we will unite and fight those anomalies with all our might. If we can kill a few, we don’t care about surviving ourselves, we just hope the children can escape.”
Duan Zege sighed, “Human weapons cannot deal with anomalies, whether they are cold weapons or firearms.”
Several people fell silent. A middle-aged man with gray hair took a deep drag of his cigarette and sighed, “Ah, we don’t have any other options.”
Duan Zege looked at Teacher Lin and asked, “Teacher Lin, do you remember what I said before?”
Teacher Lin nodded, “I remember. You said that I would die around five o’clock, and not just me, but at least eighty percent of the living people in this village would die. If we want to change our fate, we must gather all the strength of the people to maximize the number of survivors.”
“That’s right,” Duan Zege took out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, handed one to each of the old uncles, and lit one for himself, squinting slightly as he took a drag. “The anomaly that has descended upon your village is a red coffin, a red coffin that drifted down the river…”
Before he could finish his sentence, several locals from Liushu Village exclaimed, “What?! It’s that red coffin?!”
Some people were bewildered, crying and laughing, “It’s actually that red coffin. We went to so much trouble to fish it out of the river…”
“So it’s all because of that coffin… what a disaster!”
“How is that possible? That coffin is just an inanimate object.”
“How is it not possible?! I believe what this young man says! Think about it, all these strange occurrences happened after we fished out the red coffin from the river, right? Our village was sealed off again, and then it started raining. One unfortunate thing after another. And that guy, the village chief’s son, didn’t he put the red coffin in the ancestral hall before? Now, look, the red coffin isn’t in the ancestral hall at all. Isn’t that evidence?!”
The discussions were in full swing, and five or six people were about to start arguing. Many people were stimulated, their eyes bloodshot, wishing they could go back in time and split the red coffin in half.
Duan Zege smoked quietly. When he had smoked about halfway through, he flicked off the ash, coughed twice, and continued, “My brother is dealing with that red coffin. Once he destroys it, all these anomalies will disappear.”
Upon hearing this, the crowd turned their heads abruptly, unable to believe what they had just heard. The oldest and most dignified elderly person trembled as he walked forward, his cloudy yet sharp eyes fixed on Duan Zege, trembling hands tightly grasping Duan Zege’s hand, “Young man, are you telling the truth? Can your brother destroy that red coffin?”
“Yes,” Duan Zege said firmly, then looked outside the ancestral hall door and said lightly, “But before my brother destroys the red coffin, we must endure this bitter battle.”
“They have already discovered our movements.”
Duan Zege paused, stubbed out his cigarette, and stood up straight, saying, “They’re here.”
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