Chapter 4

Fengxi Town was rather large, so it would be pretty difficult to run into the aloof young man and Liu Yingying if they didn’t purposely try to look for the two of them. Also, it was definitely unsafe to walk around the town right now.

“Why don’t we find somewhere to hide for the time being?” suggested Chu Yi.

They didn’t dare enter the village itself, so they found a house outside the border of the village that seemed fairly clean. This house was also not too far from the border of the town, so if they did run into any danger, it wouldn’t be too difficult for them to run from it.

The gate wasn’t locked, so it only took a gentle push to open it, and the gate swung from its hinge, into the front yard of the house. An oil lamp lit up the house, and the dim flickering of the light from it made the place seem somewhat surreal.

“Hey, look! There’s dinner on the table! Is the owner of this house at home?” Chu Yi was the first one to enter the house, and he found that there was food on the dining table. It was just simple fare2, but the most surprising part was that the food was still steaming, which indicated that it had been prepared not too long ago.

Su Jin looked around and shook his head. “That doesn’t sound right. Look at the amount of dust in the house, especially around the table.”

The house was covered with a thick layer of dust, besides where the four of them had passed through as they entered the house. The area around the table, in particular, had accumulated so much dust that it nearly covered the entire leg of the table, and it even looked fluffy. The top of the table was also covered in a layer of dust. Only the cutlery seemed clean.

“What… what’s going on? Are you saying that a ghost cooked this?” Zhang Jing started trembling fearfully.

“I’m afraid that the rest of the town looks just like this. Never mind that for now, let’s look around and see if we can find any other clues. Let’s see if we can find any good weapons too.” Su Jin was also feeling scared, but this was not a good time to start panicking. He had to remain calm in such situations in order to stay safe.

After searching the house for a bit, Chu Yi and Yang Zichen found three knives, but they were all chef’s knives. Plus, every knife was covered in a layer of rust, but it was still better than having no weapons at all. Zhang Jing took one first. As the only female among them, having a weapon on hand might help her feel a little more secure.

Chu Yi took one of the knives as well. He was young, but he was trained in martial arts, so he was probably the best among them at wielding one. They wanted to give the last one to Yang Zichen, but to their surprise, he refused to take it.

“I don’t know what to do with a knife, so I’ll just follow you guys.” Yang Zichen still seemed very jittery, but Su Jin felt that this boy was actually really brave inside. He just needed to go through a few ordeals in life, and he would definitely be able to make it big in the future.

Since Yang Zichen wasn’t going to take the knife, Su Jin took it. He got Chu Yi to look for a bottle, and Chu Yi quickly returned with an empty glass bottle that looked like it used to contain sauce. Su Jin found some kerosene and matches in the kitchen, so he poured the kerosene into the glass bottle before stuffing a piece of torn curtain fabric and passed it to Yang Zichen.

“You can hold onto this. But you’ve got to be careful with it, because this is the only ammunition that we’ve got,” said Su Jin with a smile as he patted Yang Zichen on the shoulder, hoping it would give the younger boy some courage.

Yang Zichen didn’t refuse this time. He carefully held the bottle and kept the matches properly in his pants pocket.

Just then, Zhang Jing’s stomach started growling. She grinned sheepishly at the rest of them and said, “Sorry guys, I haven’t eaten dinner yet, so I can’t help it.”

“Do you think we could eat the food on the table?” Chu Yi asked Su Jin.

Su Jin frowned and said to Zhang Jing, “Bear with it for the time being. I don’t know where any of these things came from, so I think it’s better not to touch them.”

Zhang Jing was disappointed, but even though she was hungry, she knew that it was better to stay far away from all of these strange things since they were in a really creepy town right now.

“Zhang Jing, if you’re hungry, you can have this.” Yang Zichen suddenly pulled a chocolate bar from his pocket and held it out to Zhang Jing a little shyly.

She immediately grabbed it and said to him, “Thank you so much! Once we get out of this creepy place, I’ll treat you to a good meal!”

Yang Zichen didn’t say anything and just nodded bashfully.

Time slowly ticked by, and the silence was suddenly broken by the sound of bells ringing. Everyone jumped up in shock. Su Jin quickly ran out to the front yard. The sound came from the northern side of the village, and it wasn’t too far from them. The bell rang a total of 12 times.

“It’s midnight!” said Zhang Jing before Su Jin could say anything.

Since the bells rang 12 times, it probably meant that it was midnight right now, which also meant that all the different times that each of them had remembered before coming here were wrong. But none of that was important now. The bells probably signaled the beginning of the crazy night mentioned in the Handbook.

“Everyone, stay alert!” said Su Jin as he walked back into the house.

“AHH!” Yang Zichen suddenly exclaimed as he pointed in horror at the dining table and stammered in fear, “Someone… someone’s eating!”

The cutlery on the table started moving as if someone was really eating the food on the table, even though they still couldn’t see anybody. None of them dared to make any sound, and they could even hear the sound of someone chewing on the food.

Crunch! Crunch!

A sleuth is a detective/someone who investigates crimes↩

Fare is another word for food.↩

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