Chapter 59

Chapter 59

"Little Yuan brother, Run Sheng, our seats are here, oh, it's even a soft sleeper, Bright brother is generous!"

Xue Liangliang smiled at Tan Wenbin, "It's not Spring Festival travel, soft sleeper tickets aren't that hard to get."

This single room with four beds, upper and lower, was perfectly booked by the four of them.

After the train left the station, Li Zhuoyuan climbed up to the upper bunk. Opposite him was Xue Liangliang on the upper bunk. Run Sheng and Tan Wenbin were on the lower bunks.

At this moment, Tan Wenbin had already taken out his exercise book and placed it on the small table board to start doing problems.

"Hey, doing homework on the train, huh?" Xue Liangliang teased, "So diligent, you'll definitely get into one of those two universities in Beijing, our Haihe talent."

Tan Wenbin said frankly, "My foundation is poor, I wasted too much time. I should burn high incense if I can even get into Shanghai River."

"Want incense?" Run Sheng handed over a stick of incense.

Xue Liangliang reminded him, "Run Sheng, go to the train car connection to smoke."

"Okay, got it."

Run Sheng put the incense in the iron box. This incense was specially made for him by Aunt Liu. It was also wrapped in a layer of paper skin, very short yet very thick.

He got up and pushed the door open, coming to the car connection. There were two people standing there smoking. Run Sheng also went over, took out a fire stick, twisted open the cap, and blew on it.

The fire stick was also made by Aunt Liu. After all, short and thick incense was very troublesome to light with a match.

After lighting the incense, Run Sheng took a puff and blew out a smoke ring. A rich incense smell began to spread, mostly being carried away by the gap in the train door.

The two people beside him saw the situation and were very curious.

"Brother, what is he smoking?"

"You don't understand this, do you? It was shown in the movies, a cigar."

After finishing one stick of incense, Run Sheng walked back. On the way, he saw a white-haired old woman in black clothes sitting on the small seat in the aisle. In front of the old woman was a girl in red clothes.

"Grandma, I'm hungry."

The old woman sighed and wiped her tears with her hand.

Run Sheng touched his pocket, took out several candies, and handed them to the little girl.

"Thank you, big brother." The little girl laughed happily.

Returning to the soft sleeper compartment, Run Sheng lay on the bed and slept for a while.

He woke up hungry. He asked the others, and they all said they were hungry. He then took out the food he brought from home.

There was dry food and salted preserved meat, and also a bottle of wine.

The wine was put there by Li Sanjiang, who said it was quite artistic to sit on the train, look out the window, and drink a little wine.

But none of the four young people drank.

After the meal, Tan Wenbin continued to do homework non-stop.

Li Zhuoyuan and Xue Liangliang looked at the scenery constantly passing by outside the train window and chatted. Most of the time, Li Zhuoyuan was listening and Xue Liangliang was speaking, like an open university dormitory night tea talk meeting.

From the structure of rural houses to the living standards of various places, and even industrial development plans, Xue Liangliang mainly studied water conservancy and architecture, but he also knew something about other industries, although he was not very proficient.

However, in this era where information access channels were extremely inconvenient, being able to know so many things was also a very rare skill.

The sky gradually darkened, and the scenery outside was no longer visible. Only when the train attendant came to report the station time at intervals could they know where they were.

Xue Liangliang got off the bed and said he was going to buy boxed meals.

On the way, he encountered a black-clothed old woman, with a red-clothed little girl standing beside her.

"Grandma, I'm very hungry."

Xue Liangliang passed them and went to the dining car, bought ten portions of boxed meals with meat, carried a large bag back, and when he passed by the little girl, he took out one portion and handed it to her.

"Thank you, brother."

Xue Liangliang smiled, walked back to the soft sleeper compartment, and distributed the boxed meals to everyone.

He and Little Yuan each had one portion, Tan Wenbin ate three portions, and Run Sheng ate four portions.

Li Zhuoyuan felt that the food in this white plastic box surprisingly had an unexpected fragrance, especially this gluten braised meat, which was truly delicious.

After eating three portions, Tan Wenbin unbuckled his belt and stuck out his belly. He was full, so he continued to take out his exercise book, planning to rely on doing problems to digest.

Run Sheng was still not full after eating four portions, but he still had dry food and salted sauce from home, so he could add some.

After the meal, the tea talk meeting started again. The daytime topics were realism plus future development reports, and the evening topics were historical performances.

Li Zhuoyuan could participate in this topic, but he still mainly listened to Xue Liangliang. Only when Xue Liangliang asked, "Who came?" or "What was that place called?", Li Zhuoyuan would give an accurate answer.

With this back and forth, Xue Liangliang also felt a great sense of enjoyment.

It wasn't until late at night that everyone finally fell asleep.

Waking up in the morning, Run Sheng went to fetch water for everyone to wash. Tan Wenbin washed first. Just as the train stopped at a station, he went down to buy breakfast for everyone.

On the way, he met a grandma with her granddaughter. The granddaughter shouted to her grandma that she was hungry, and the grandma sadly wiped away tears.

When he came back, Tan Wenbin gave them several steamed buns and dumplings, and also a bag of soybean milk.

The soybean milk was in bags. After carrying it back, Tan Wenbin tore open a corner and poured it into cups for everyone.

After eating breakfast, Xue Liangliang took out some design drawings from his backpack. Li Zhuoyuan saw them and simply left his own bed to go to Xue Liangliang's bed. The two sat together and looked at them together.

What surprised Xue Liangliang was that Little Yuan could understand the notations and data on them. He then just went with the flow and talked about some professional matters with the boy.

Near lunchtime, a train attendant walked down the train helping to sell roasted sweet potatoes. Li Zhuoyuan walked into the train aisle and went to buy a bag.

It wasn't the train attendant selling them, she just helped shout two times, and then someone selling from the platform came over to collect the money and give the goods.

When he walked back with the bag, Li Zhuoyuan passed by an old woman. The old woman was sitting there, her expression wooden.

At her feet, there was an object wrapped in cloth that was in the shape of a cinerary urn, like an urn.

Li Zhuoyuan did not stop and returned to the soft sleeper compartment.

Run Sheng ate the roasted sweet potatoes while feeling heartache, "How can they sell them so expensive?"

While eating, Run Sheng even carefully licked the inside of the sweet potato skin, afraid of wasting even a little.

Around one o'clock in the afternoon, the train entered a small county town called Mi Shui again. Then the broadcast and loudspeaker started to announce that there was a landslide ahead and the train could not proceed temporarily.

Everyone could continue to wait on the train, or they could refund their tickets and get off here.

After asking the train attendant to confirm the specific location of the landslide section, Xue Liangliang judged that it would probably take one or two days to restore traffic, so he led everyone to get off.

After leaving the train station, they first found a restaurant to eat. The roasted sweet potatoes they ate at noon were digested too quickly, and everyone was hungry again at this moment.

Propaganda slogans were posted on the outer wall of the small restaurant: "Beat to death car bandits and road bullies, no crime will be rewarded!"

While eating, a person sitting alone at a nearby table eating heard Run Sheng's accent and smiled, getting up and asking in Nantong dialect. Unexpectedly, he met a fellow townsman.

This person's surname was Zhu, called Zhu Yang. He was a truck driver. After learning that the four people came out of the train station and their destination was mountain city, he enthusiastically invited them to ride in his car to mountain city together.

After all, he spoke in his hometown accent, and he was indeed driving a truck with steel cables loaded on it. Most importantly, he also spoke very straightforwardly:

He wouldn't charge any car money, just be companions with everyone to save the road from being too unsafe.

After finishing the meal, Xue Liangliang helped Zhu Yang pay the bill, and then went to a small store to buy some drinks and two packs of cigarettes, which he handed to him.

Immediately, everyone got into the car.

The cab of the car was modified, and there was a horizontal board in the back where the driver could lie down and rest.

Although the space was still very cramped, everyone managed to sit in.

Tan Wenbin couldn't do problems, but he took out an English vocabulary book and started memorizing words.

Run Sheng envied the profession of truck driver and sighed, "It's really good, you can earn money while traveling north and south."

Zhu Yang smiled bitterly twice and replied, "Even if I travel north and south, I'm still just sitting in this small cab. If it weren't for my wife and children at home, I wouldn't be willing to trap myself here for half my life."

Li Zhuoyuan noticed several thick novel books placed under Zhu Yang's seat. They were mimeographed pirated copies, and it seemed he relied on these to pass the time every day.

In addition, Li Zhuoyuan also saw two steel pipes and a knife.

In this era, these were standard equipment for long-distance truck drivers.

Near dusk, the truck drove into a mountain road. As they drove, Zhu Yang felt something was wrong, stopped the car, got off, and then cursed:

"Bastard, a nail punctured the tire."

Tan Wenbin doubted, "Did the car in front drop a nail?"

Zhu Yang snorted coldly and pointed forward, "Walk forward, there should be a repair shop ahead."

Tan Wenbin's brain was clever. He didn't say, "What good luck," but immediately cursed, "How shameless!"

Zhu Yang sighed, "This is already considered civilized."

Immediately, he looked at Run Sheng and said, "You come with me to keep watch. We'll put up a bit of a show and try to get a lower price."

Run Sheng: "Okay!"

Zhu Yang took Run Sheng and walked forward to find a repair shop. Tan Wenbin sat in the car and continued to memorize words. Li Zhuoyuan and Xue Liangliang came to the side of the road.

Below was a slope, and below the slope was a river. Because the tree leaves had begun to wither, the view had also become quite good.

Li Zhuoyuan couldn't help but sigh, "The feng shui here is really good."

A lying dragon and a perching phoenix, a land of spiritual energy. In ancient times, it was a good place to build a village and establish a town. But with the development of modern transportation, it seemed a bit remote.

Xue Liangliang's occupational disease kicked in. He nodded and said, "It is indeed a good place, suitable for building a small hydroelectric power station."

Sure enough, there was a repair shop not far ahead. Because soon, Zhu Yang and Run Sheng brought a middle-aged person and a young apprentice.

At first, Li Zhuoyuan thought Zhu Yang was acting, because he was very enthusiastic towards the repair master.

But gradually, Li Zhuoyuan discovered it wasn't. Zhu Yang was sincere, because the other side's asking price was not excessive at all, but instead very down-to-earth.

At this price, even if this repair master had indeed scattered the nails, Zhu Yang would still have to praise him, "Well scattered!"

Finally, after the repair was done, Zhu Yang wanted to give him a pack of cigarettes, but the other side pushed them away and only took the agreed-upon amount of money.

However, the repair master faintly said, "It's getting dark, and there are fewer cars on the road. Don't drive forward for now. It's not safe ahead."

Zhu Yang asked curiously, "How do you say that?"

The repair master shook his head, "It's not good to say."

Zhu Yang mustered his courage, "There are many of us, it's okay."

"They have guns."

Zhu Yang was speechless.

The repair master pointed below, "Did you see that small road when you came? Turn in that direction, there is a village. Go there to rest for one night, and when the cars are more tomorrow morning, drive forward again."

Zhu Yang asked, "Is that the village you live in?"

"No, I live ahead."

"This..."

"Alas, believe it or not, it's up to you."

The repair master took his apprentice and left.

Zhu Yang got in the car and fumbled under the car seat for his "weapon." But after hesitating, he still chickened out. He stuck his head out of the car window and said to the crowd, "For safety, let's go back a bit and rest for the night until daybreak."

As he turned around to drive back, Tan Wenbin said, "I've heard my dad talk about this before, but I didn't expect it to be so exaggerated."

Zhu Yang paid attention to the small road and replied, "Actually, it's not that exaggerated. It just happens to be this time. I took this job by myself and couldn't join a car team."

Run Sheng was quite excited and said, "This is jianghu!"

They found the small road and drove down for a short while before a small village appeared. It was only a few dozen households, and many lights were still on.

Zhu Yang said apologetically, "Everyone, just make do and rest for a bit. We'll set off at daybreak. Tomorrow, it's just a matter of stepping on the accelerator to reach the destination."

He didn't plan to enter the village, nor did he consider staying. He just wanted to find a place with people to stop the car and rest.

If he really stopped on a road where no birds lay eggs, that would be truly dangerous.

Zhu Yang had dry food in his car, and Run Sheng also had some in his snakeskin bag. Everyone ate casually and then prepared to rest.

Li Zhuoyuan and Xue Liangliang slept in the car. Run Sheng, Tan Wenbin, and Zhu Yang slept with the steel cables in the back, covering themselves with clothes and plastic film.

Originally, Tan Wenbin could also sleep in the cab, but he said he was a police officer's son and insisted on staying outside to keep watch.

Li Zhuoyuan had a light sleep and woke up soon. He planned to go down and relieve himself.

He opened the car door and got off. The mountain late at night was truly cold, making him subconsciously rub his arms.

Because he had had several accidents going out to relieve himself at night in the past, Li Zhuoyuan was now very cautious and careful when getting up at night in a strange environment. After getting off, he immediately went to find Run Sheng.

Run Sheng was holding a steel pipe in his hand, his eyes open, not asleep.

Seeing the situation, he immediately flipped over and got off the car to accompany him.

They didn't dare to walk far, just a few steps. Run Sheng untied his belt. Li Zhuoyuan didn't need to, he had elastic pants.

After finishing, Run Sheng also took out a bottle of water and poured some for Li Zhuoyuan to wash his hands.

"Hehe, filled with stream water."

"Run Sheng brother, are you sleepy?"

"Not sleepy, it's okay, I can sleep on the car during the day."

"Then I'll keep you company for a while."

Climbing up the car compartment, the two sat in the corner where Run Sheng had waited earlier.

Tan Wenbin snored very loudly, like a solo in the quiet night. After all, he was maintaining the intensity of high school study while traveling and feeling fatigued. How could he not be tired?

"Something's not right..."

Li Zhuoyuan's ears twitched. He didn't hear Zhu Yang's movements, not even snoring. At least he should be breathing, right?

He got up and came to the corner where Zhu Yang was sleeping. He lifted the plastic film and found that there was only a coat inside, and the person was not there.

"Huh?" Run Sheng was also confused, "He didn't go to poop, did he?"

"Run Sheng brother, did you talk to him earlier tonight?"

"No, I always thought he was sleeping there, covered with the quilt and plastic film."

"When did you officially start keeping watch?"

"After Binbin slept, no one was talking to me, so I just looked around myself. He didn't get off the car when we went to relieve ourselves, did he?"

"It's also possible he got off very early."

"He didn't enter the village, did he? Feeling that sleeping outside the car was too hard, so he went into the village to find a house to stay?"

"Then why didn't he call us?"

"Afraid of paying for our accommodation?" Run Sheng shook his head after saying this, "He's not like that."

Although Zhu Yang had not been with them for long, he was still a good person. For example, he gave the cab to himself and Bright brother to sleep in and went to sleep in the back.

In addition, the most important thing was that as long as he wanted to go into the village to stay, he wouldn't need to pay for the accommodation. Bright brother always acted quite appropriately.

They waited for a long time, but Zhu Yang still didn't come back.

Li Zhuoyuan then woke up Tan Wenbin and Xue Liangliang. Everyone gathered in the car compartment and started discussing the situation.

This behavior was actually a bit like being overly suspicious.

But it was good that all four of them had experienced such things, and no one felt this was making a fuss.

"Or, let's go look?" Xue Liangliang proposed.

"No," Li Zhuoyuan directly rejected this proposal. "Before Zhu Yang comes back, we'll take turns sleeping in pairs, enduring until daybreak."

Everyone agreed.

Next, time passed little by little. Finally, the edge of the sky showed white, and the visibility became much brighter.

But everyone's heart was heavier, because Zhu Yang still hadn't come back.

When the sun really rose, it was already eight o'clock in the morning, and everyone still hadn't seen Zhu Yang. Even if he really went to the village by himself last night, he should be back by now.

How could a truck driver possibly stay away from his own car?

Tan Wenbin ate dry food and said in confusion, "Did this person really disappear? Or is he certain that none of us can drive a truck?"

They continued to wait. At ten o'clock, everyone finally decided they had to do something. No matter what, they had to go and look for the person.

And the first place they wanted to go was undoubtedly the small village ahead.

"Did everyone notice?" Li Zhuoyuan's gaze swept over the other three. "From morning until now, we haven't seen a single villager pass in front of our car."

The path out of the village to the main road was only this one. Behind the village were mountains.

The truck was stopped on the side of the road visible from the village entrance.

Of course, it could also be understood that the villagers in this village completely relied on the mountain for sustenance, were self-sufficient, and didn't need to communicate much with the outside world.

But on the basis of Zhu Yang's disappearance, coupled with this discovery, everyone's heart began to feel a little uneasy.

Li Zhuoyuan said, "Let's go, we'll go into the village together to look."

Xue Liangliang: "Do we need to leave someone to watch the car?"

Li Zhuoyuan shook his head, "No need. If the goods and oil are stolen, they're stolen. If we really find Zhu Yang, we'll discuss it later. Anyway, it's not our fault.

If we leave someone to watch the car, what if the person who stays also disappears?

Or, the person who stays waits and waits, and the person who went out doesn't come back. How anxious and scared would that be?"

Xue Liangliang and Tan Wenbin looked at each other and both nodded. Yes, just thinking about that scene felt terrible.

The four of them got off the car together and walked towards the village.

Li Zhuoyuan felt that the team was quite easy to lead, at least their thoughts could be integrated.

Perhaps, this was the reason he had stayed with Great Grandpa for so long. Suddenly matching so many normal teammates felt a bit unaccustomed.

The villagers' houses were not simple either. There were obvious traces of people living there, and when the car drove in last night, they saw many lights on in the village. But after walking in, they didn't see any signs of human activity.

Tan Wenbin: "Are the people in this village all getting up so late? Still sleeping in at noon?"

Xue Liangliang looked around, "Or, let's continue walking forward and see?"

Li Zhuoyuan stopped and said, "No, let's go back."

No one asked why, and followed the boy back towards the village entrance.

When they came to the first house at the village entrance, Li Zhuoyuan stopped and said, "Run Sheng brother, go knock on the door."

"Okay!"

Run Sheng walked to the door and knocked with his left hand.

In his right sleeve, he hid a steel pipe.

Xue Liangliang and Tan Wenbin each hid a knife and a steel pipe on their bodies. When they got off the car, they took all of Zhu Yang's things.

Of course, before encountering danger, these things could not be shown, otherwise it would truly look like bandits breaking into houses and robbing.

"Bang bang bang!"

He knocked on the door for a long time, but no one responded.

Run Sheng shouted back, "Little Yuan, it seems like there's no one inside."

"Knock harder!"

"Okay!"

Run Sheng began to vigorously pound on the door, making the door board shake.

Still no one responded inside, and the neighbors were also silent.

"Run Sheng brother, smash the door!"

"Okay!"

"Boom!"

The door board was kicked open by Run Sheng.

Li Zhuoyuan and the others walked in.

This kind of behavior was indeed wrong, but no one in the team blamed Li Zhuoyuan for being overly cautious.

If they really made a mistake, the worst case scenario was to compensate and apologize.

Unlike the things hanging outside, the inside of the house was full of dust, completely looking like no one had lived there for a long time.

On the bed in the bedroom, there was a large pool of sticky substance.

Run Sheng sniffed it and said with certainty, "Little Yuan, this is the smell of corpse water!"

Li Zhuoyuan believed Run Sheng's judgment and said, "Let's go, we'll open another house door."

"Boom!"

The door of the second house was also kicked open by Run Sheng. Inside was still dusty. On the dining table, there were still bowls and chopsticks, and the food inside had already molded.

Vaguely, it could be seen that the last meal eaten was noodles.

The bed in the bedroom didn't have that kind of dirty stuff on it, but after Run Sheng sniffed it, he walked to the cabinet, reached out and opened the cabinet door. The several layers inside were all solidified mucus.

"Still the smell of corpse water."

Tan Wenbin and Xue Liangliang had already taken out their weapons at this time. There was nothing to be scrupulous about. What normal villager's house would have corpse water remaining?

"Little Yuan brother, what do we do next, continue opening boxes?"

"No."

Li Zhuoyuan walked out of the house, signaled the crowd to follow, and then directly walked out of the village.

Xue Liangliang and the others followed, asking in a low voice, "Are we just leaving?"

"Um."

"Not looking for Zhu Yang?"

"After we get out, report to the police."

"Oh, okay."

Li Zhuoyuan gave up very simply. He didn't plan to continue exploring this village, because there was really no need to take this risk without being prepared.

However, when the four of them walked out of the village for a distance, everyone was dumbfounded.

The truck was gone!

Tan Wenbin: "Did Zhu Yang come back and drive the car away? We went to look for him, but he didn't wait for us?"

"No." Xue Liangliang squatted down and pointed forward, "Not only is the car gone, but there are no tire tracks."

Tan Wenbin said in confusion, "What's going on?"

Xue Liangliang stood up, shaking the knife in his right hand and putting his left hand on his hip, "We've gotten ourselves into trouble this time."

If the goods or gasoline on the truck were stolen, that would be very normal. Even if the thief could drive and started the car with wires without the car key, it wouldn't be incomprehensible.

But the problem was, who would clean up the site after stealing something? How dedicated!

Li Zhuoyuan walked to the place where he and Run Sheng had relieved themselves last night. He remembered that Run Sheng had peed a groove there last night, and now, this groove was also gone.

"I think it's possible the car wasn't stolen. The car is still waiting in the original place, but not in the 'original place,' it's the four of us."

When these words were said, the remaining three looked at each other.

Xue Liangliang immediately followed the thought and asked, "Then Zhu Yang didn't disappear?"

Li Zhuoyuan nodded, "Possible, now Zhu Yang is looking to make us disappear."

Xue Liangliang waved his hand, "This is too absurd and strange."

"Bright brother, no matter how absurd, can it be more absurd than your experience?"

"This..."

Tan Wenbin scratched in the mud with the sole of his shoe, "Then where exactly are we now?"

"Run Sheng brother, compass."

Run Sheng immediately took out the compass and handed it to Little Yuan.

Li Zhuoyuan held the compass and began to observe the surrounding feng shui.

The result was... very normal.

He looked again, but still couldn't find any clues.

"Run Sheng brother, support me for a minute."

"Understood."

Li Zhuoyuan closed his eyes, used the compass light to cover his face, then after a jolt, leaned towards Run Sheng.

After being caught by Run Sheng, he grabbed Li Zhuoyuan's arm and started counting in his heart.

Li Zhuoyuan walked yin.

The surrounding environment hadn't changed, only Xue Liangliang and the other three were gone.

Then, Li Zhuoyuan heard movement from the village.

He turned his body and looked towards the village. He saw many shadowy figures walking inside, many people gathered in the two houses at the village entrance.

Some people were shouting angrily:

"Who smashed my door board, who exactly smashed my door board!"

"My door board was also smashed, who exactly did it!"

Suddenly, a gust of yin wind blew over, making Li Zhuoyuan shiver, and the people in the village also fell silent at once.

They were still there, not disappeared, but the next moment, that group of shadowy figures, like a silent film, collectively turned and began to walk towards this road outside the village.

A sense of pain attacked, time arrived, and Run Sheng woke him up.

Li Zhuoyuan opened his eyes and said without hesitation, "Quick, leave!"

The car was gone, and there was no luggage. Everyone followed the boy and ran without saying a word.

They ran out of the small road and came to the main road. Li Zhuoyuan chose a backward direction and led everyone to walk up.

All three realized the situation had changed. No one asked why. They all followed closely, holding their things in their hands.

It was good that they didn't see any vehicles along the way, otherwise drivers would definitely mistake them for car bandits and road bullies.

"We'll run forward a bit more, don't stop!"

This was said to Tan Wenbin and Xue Liangliang. Li Zhuoyuan had trained his stamina through horse stance and breathing exercises. Run Sheng's physical fitness was already excellent. Tan Wenbin and Xue Liangliang were relatively more like typical wasted college students.

They could burst in a short time, but if they had to run for a long time, they would soon be out of breath.

Li Zhuoyuan let them continue to persist because, according to past experience, this kind of strange effect often had a range, just like at Zheng Haiyang's house, it didn't matter once they were out of the dam.

This time, it should also only be fixed...

Li Zhuoyuan stopped, and Run Sheng also stopped.

Xue Liangliang and Tan Wenbin bent over, gasping for breath.

"Little Yuan brother, are we out?"

"Little Yuan, are we safe?"

Before waiting for a timely answer, the two of them looked up and forward, and then they saw the small road they had come out of earlier.

They had clearly run backward for so long, but they had returned.

Li Zhuoyuan turned around, "Let's try running in this direction."

When he said this, the boy also had no confidence, because he seemed to have already foreseen the result.

The others were the same. When everyone ran, they were relatively silent, so this time, everyone ran a little slower, without that strong desire to quickly leave the danger.

Finally, from another direction, they walked back to the mouth of the small road.

"Go down!"

Since they couldn't walk on the road, they would go down the slope.

Going down the slope was very dangerous and quite steep. Everyone grabbed trees and moved down bit by bit.

Li Zhuoyuan's gaze was fixed on the river below, but the good visibility on the highway was because you were overlooking from a high point. When you actually walked into the forest, your vision would definitely be blocked.

After pushing aside the dry leaves in front, Li Zhuoyuan discovered that this time he was directly back on the small road.

Ahead was the open space where they had stopped the car last night. Walking a bit further up was the small village.

Tan Wenbin slumped on the ground.

Xue Liangliang also staggered two steps, and finally knelt down. He swallowed hard and asked, "Little Yuan, is this a ghost wall?"

"Almost. It should be a kind of miasma. Everyone rest for a bit."

The four of them all sat on the ground.

Not long after, the sky began to get gloomy, as if it was going to rain.

There was no way around it. Everyone could only get up. They didn't dare to go into the village, so they found a big tree to avoid the rain, preventing it from suddenly pouring down and soaking everyone like drowned chickens.

At this moment, Tan Wenbin could unexpectedly still take out an exercise book from his pants pocket, and he even had a pen.

He leaned against the tree and sat down, placed the book on his leg, and actually started doing problems.

This scene made everyone laugh, and he himself also laughed.

In fact, he was doing problems falsely at this moment. He wanted to lighten the low atmosphere, which was true.

Xue Liangliang said somewhat helplessly, "I feel like I've passed on bad luck to you all. Little Yuan, every time you're with me, you'll be involved in something because of me."

"Bright brother, don't say that, I'll blush."

Looking at the past frequency, it's hard to say exactly who involved whom.

Li Zhuoyuan just felt that it wasn't his reason. The village near his old home had just calmed down after the concentrated outbreak of inverse. At this moment, when he was far away, he was attracting it again.

Tan Wenbin yawned and said, "It's true what the elders say, you should check the yellow calendar before going out. I should have known to burn incense and bathe, and calculate an auspicious date to set out."

Run Sheng lit a stick of incense and inserted it into the soil in front of him.

Tan Wenbin couldn't help but roll his eyes, "What's the use of burning incense now?"

The dark clouds sank lower, and the moisture in the air increased. Rain was possible at any time.

Li Zhuoyuan, who was originally buried in thought trying to find a way to escape, looked up and was immediately stunned.

Because on Xue Liangliang's face, there was a kind of sunken wood-like texture. Even if Li Zhuoyuan usually didn't read other people's faces, this kind of face was already like a very straightforward question being presented, although it wasn't the same thing, it was close to the common saying of quack fortune tellers: "I see your Hall of Seals is black!"

This meant bad luck was entangled, luck had fallen to the bottom, and disasters were easy to connect. Generally, people who were about to die in a sickbed would have this kind of face, because for them, any tiny accident or blow could extinguish their life lamp.

Li Zhuoyuan immediately looked at Run Sheng and Tan Wenbin and found that they were the same.

Then wasn't he also?

The four of them had been together all the way, sharing the same energy and branch. If they were going to return, they would definitely return together.

He reached out and picked up the knife that Xue Liangliang had placed in front of him, used the blade as a mirror, and shone it on himself.

Immediately, a strong sense of disgust attacked him.

Although he wasn't calculating his own life grid, although it was clear and easy to understand, looking at his own face was also a taboo.

Most importantly, the boy had already transformed what he had learned into a kind of instinct. Even if he just wanted to take a shallow look, his brain had already fully operated, just like a person seeing a one plus one problem, they could calculate the answer without thinking.

He threw away the knife, closed his eyes, and eased his dizziness and disgust.

After recovering, Li Zhuoyuan opened his eyes. His eyes were filled with deep confusion and doubt.

Because he discovered that his face was normal, completely different from the "oil exhausted, lamp dry" faces of his three companions.

"Brothers, I have a very serious question I want to ask you all."

The three of them all looked up at the boy, waiting for the question.

"On the road, did you all secretly do something together behind my back?"

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