Chapter 108 - Liuxi Village 14 (1/2)
Grandma Qin and Grandma Sun soon left the temple.
The untied the ropes holding the dogs and opened the fence trapping the roosters. Then a large group of roosters and dogs following them out of the temple, the sounds they made livelier than a market.
All the dogs recognized their owners. Once they were released, they ran to their owners and rubbed their heads against their owners’ thighs. The villagers of Liuxi Village felt the dogs’ heads excitedly, as if they had found a relative they had been separated from after many years. For these blind people, dogs were the best partners. Not only did the dogs help them watch the house, the also accompanied the villagers and acted as ‘guide dogs.’
A young woman touched her dog while asking, “Aunt Qin, Aunt Sun, are you okay?”
The people next to her also asked about the situation in the temple. “The foreigners shouldn’t have made things difficult for you?” “What did they take our dogs to do?” “Why are they keeping all the dogs here?” “I thought they were going to kill the roosters for stew and the dogs for barbecue. Why are all these dogs okay?”
The crowd didn’t understand the challengers’ thinking and subconsciously thought the other side was stealing roosters and dogs just to eat.
Grandma Qin spoke coldly, “They stole them so we can’t hear the roosters in the morning so we can’t get up on time. They tied all the dogs on the west mountain so that they wouldn’t be discovered when stealing. The thing these outsiders really want are the precious gems in the village. These gems are valuable and can be sold for a lot of money!”
Grandma Sun added, “Yes, no one is here. They have probably left with the gem.
A young man suddenly exclaimed, “Ah, our gem was hidden under the bed. I got up this morning without checking it. Will it also be stolen? Will my wife be okay?”
Grandma Sun turned to him. “Go and check. Your wife will give birth in the next few days and her baby’s vital energy can’t be displaced.”
The man immediately took the dog and turned to go down the mountain. The man called Lin Er was the one who talked to Niu Niu’s mother on the day they came to the village. His wife was Lin Hui, the cousin of the village chief who would give birth in a few days. The village chief had revealed this information to Xiao Lou’s group.
The only person about to have a child in the village was Lin Hui and it was easy to tell. The moment Lin Er descended, the others followed Aunt Qin and also went down the mountain. The group of blind people was followed by roosters and this scene was extremely spectacular.
The challengers hiding on the roof of the ruined temple were relieved.
The young man lying next to Yu Hanjiang wondered, “Do you really have the gems?”
Yu Hanjiang quickly showed the green cat’s eye stone before retracting it.
The other side had just put down his worries. “Then we don’t have to worry about being robbed. Since we all have one, why not talk about cooperation?”
Yu Hanjiang’s eyes swept over the four people and asked, “Do you know each other?”
The man nodded. “Yes, we know each other in reality.”
Xiao Lou smiled and reminded them, “It isn’t convenient to talk while lying on the roof. How about we go down first?”
Everyone looked at each other carefully. Seven people lying side by side in strange postures, neck twisted 90 degrees to look at each other was really uncomfortable. The man seemed to have a jump card. He heard this and jumped off the roof with his companion. Liu Qiao flew down with the help of trees. Yu Hanjiang grabbed the trunk with one hand and he used his long legs to descend to the ground.
Xiao Lou looked at the ground with a bit of embarra.s.sment. He had just been pulled up by Group Leader Yu and the roof was three metres high. Jumping straight down will definitely hurt his feet. He was hesitating when Yu Hanjiang raised his head and held out a hand to Xiao Lou.”Jump, I’ll catch you.”
Xiao Lou didn’t worry over it and jumped straight down. Yu Hanjiang reached out and caught him steadily. However, gravity meant that Xiao Lou’s body was directly in Yu Hanjiang’s arms. He was surrounded by the familiar man’s breath and this made X’s heart inexplicably stop. He hurriedly stepped back and pretended to comfortably say, “Thank you.”
Yu Hanjiang looked gently towards Xiao Lou before looking at the four people.
They were three men and one woman. The one who spoke to Yu Hanjiang was around 25 years old who looked good. Another was a middle-aged man around 40 years old had a beard on his chin. Apparently, he hadn’t shaved it in a long time. He never spoke and looked relatively calm. The combination of a man and woman should be a couple or partners. They were dressed young and fas.h.i.+onably.
The curly haired woman smiled. “The four of us are actually from the same design company. We were on a New Year’s group outing when there was an accident. Then we happened to meet in 4 of Spades.”
The young man introduced them. “This is our design director, Old Qi. Xiao Wu and Xiao Li are newly married and my last name is Zhou.”
Xiao Lou also smiled and introduced them. “This is Old Han, I am Yunxiao and this university student is surnamed Qiao. We also have teammates outside the village.”
He used a pseudonym again to avoid trouble occurring if his real name was known. After introducing each other, Xiao Lou asked, “How many clues do you have at present?”
The curly haired woman surnamed Li said, “Our gem was found in Lin Er’s house in the easternmost part of the village. His wife has a big stomach and is about to give birth. During the time when he accompanied his wife for a walk, we searched his house and found a gem under the bed.”
The woman explained, “This is a cat’s eye stone and we suspect it is for a bracelet. Each gem is a different colour. We found a blue and brown one and you have a dark green and transparent one. There should be red, gold and white as well.”
The gold one was in Liu Qiao’s hand but Xiao Lou wasn’t going to reveal the truth about Liu Qiao’s single-person action.
As for the red one, it was found in the pond and s.n.a.t.c.hed by the masked person. The white one should’ve been taken out of the village by the chameleon man and zombie-jumping woman.
Mr Zhou picked up a branch and crouched down to draw a picture on the ground. “The first should be the temple. Then three appeared in Grandma Qin’s home, the village chief’s home and Lin Er’s home whose wife is going to have a baby. Two were found in the farmland outside the village. Don’t you think these six are a bit strange when connected? Where is the last one?”
Xiao Lou picked up a branch and drew the intersection between the three lines. “It is in the pond.” The distribution of the seven gems formed a human person.
This was something they had long speculated about. The four strangers weren’t clean but suddenly realized after seeing the graphic. “The head is the west mountain and the feet is the farmland. The rest of the body is the village?”
Xiao Lou nodded. “Yes, what else did you find?”
The curly haired woman said, “Lin Er’s wife is called Hui Hui and her due date is in three days. She isn’t well and has been taking medicine. We checked the dregs of the medicine she poured into the yard and found human bones and many unknown Chinese herbal medicines. We speculated that this medicine should lead to a malformation of the baby’s eyes.”
The four people’s approach was different from Xiao Lou but they also speculated there was a problem with Grandma Sun and Grandma Qin. They stole the roosters and the dogs to lead the villagers here to the ruined temple. The conversation between Grandma Qin and Grandma Sun in front of the human bones pit revealed a lot of key information. It could be said that the people who stole the animals made great contributions.
Xiao Lou touched his chin thoughtfully. “Based on the dialogue between Qin and Sun just now, Grandma Sun might plan to slaughter the village on the day of the Autumn Harvest.”
The curly haired woman stared. “Slaughter the villagers?”
Yu Hanjiang understood Xiao Lou’s meaning. “Just now, Grandma Sun said she was tired and would rest after her daughter’s death anniversary. Do you understand what she means by rest?”
The curly haired woman choked up for a moment. Then Old Qi, who hadn’t spoken from the beginning, suddenly opened her mouth. “Grandma Sun’s hatred of this village hasn’t diminished. For her daughter, she will definitely slaughter the village again and let the villagers be buried with her daughter.”
The three people’s expressions changed and the curly haired woman couldn’t believe it. “Old Qi, are you serious? There are a hundreds of houses and should have a population of approximately 300 in the village. Even if they can’t see, won’t it be difficult for Grandma Sun to kill all the villagers?”
Old Qi replied, “Don’t forget who she is. She is the village doctor and can let all the villagers drink the medicine she made. She can use ‘poison’ to kill the villagers.”
The woman understood this and her face became uglier.
Xiao Wu asked, “Letting the entire village die together, will Grandma Sun poison the spring water?”
Xiao Lou shook his head. “Poisoning the spring won’t guarantee that all villagers will die at the same time. Many people pick up two buckets of water in advance for storage. These two buckets of water can be drunk for a long time. I think it is more likely that she teamed up with Grandma Qin to poison the rice wine that will be drunk at the Autumn Harvest.”
Yu Hanjiang agreed. “On the Autumn Harvest day, everyone will drink to wors.h.i.+p their ancestors. This is the tradition of Liuxi Village. As long as they drink the poisoned wine, everyone will immediately be poisoned and buried with her daughter.”
The group fell silent at the same time.
In fact, they could understand Grandma Sun’s mentality. If this was replaced by anyone, their daughter’s tragic death meant they would hate the enemy and hack them into meat sauce. If her daughter was really killed by the people of the village, as a mother who lost her beloved daughter, it was reasonable to kill the village for revenge.
However, hatred distorted her mind. She not long slaughtered the villagers but also retaliated against the descendants of the villagers.
The descendants hadn’t partic.i.p.ated in the events of 35 years ago such as Lin Er, Liu Hui, etc. The babies born later didn’t know anything at all. They were poisoned blind by the grandmothers since they were born. How innocent were they? Why should they bear the revenge for more than 30 years? They didn’t just have to grow up in darkness, they had to drink their parents or grandparents’ bones as well?
In ancient times, some people made mistakes and the ‘entire clan’ of those involved would be wiped out. This cruel system had long been abolished in modern times. Some people made mistakes and the more than 100 families in the village were buried with them, even their descendants retaliated against… this was a bit too much.
In Grandma Sun really wanted to slaughter the villagers, the challengers would face two choices.
The first option was to sit back and ignore it. 4 of Spades didn’t require ‘rescuing the village.’ It was to find the gem and live in this world for seven days. As long as Liuxi Village was destroyed again, the challengers could stay in the village for seven days and live in their homes, avoiding the wind and the rain. It was equivalent to lying down and winning for the challengers who found gems.
The second option was for the challengers who knew the truth to interfere with Grandma Sun and Grandma Qin’s plan. The more than 300 villagers would be rescued and their descendants would no longer suffer from blindness.
However, this voice was very difficult. First of all, the villagers wouldn’t believe in these ‘outsiders’ over Grandma Sun and Grandma Qin. Once they drank the poisonous wine at the Autumn Harvest Festival, they would be killed.