Qin Ying would come to his house every morning to help him make breakfast and discuss with him the work content for the next day.
This morning, after waiting for a long time but no one came, he went to Qin Ying's house first and found that the door was closed and no one was there.
Next door, Shi Lingyao and his group went to the Imperial Capital early in the morning, and the room was also empty.
Other neighbors also said they had not seen Qin Ying.
Jiang Heng suddenly felt something was wrong and hurried to the gate of the village to ask the guard on duty if he had seen Qin Ying go out.
The guards also looked confused and said they didn't see it.
He went to ask the guards who were on duty last night, and that team of guards also said that they did not see anyone entering or leaving the stockade.
At the same time, other guards who went to the village to question the villagers also came back. No one in the village saw Qin Ying today.
A man who lived near Qin Ying's house stood up and said: "I practice physical fitness in the yard every evening. At that time, I saw her going home alone. I can see the main entrance of Miss Qin's house from my side. Indeed, we entered the courtyard."
Apart from him, no one had seen Qin Ying.
Jiang Heng looked solemn and asked everyone again: "Has anyone noticed anything unusual about Miss Qin recently?"
Everyone looked at each other, whispered to each other, and talked about it.
One of the ladies also lived near Qin Ying. She looked hesitant and looked at Jiang Heng helplessly, as if she wanted to say something but didn't dare.
Jiang Heng noticed her expression and took the initiative to ask: "Aunt Zhang, if you find anything, just tell me."
Everyone's eyes immediately turned to look at her.
It was the first time that Aunt Zhang was being stared at by so many people, and she looked a little embarrassed. She grabbed the corners of her clothes and rubbed them, then hesitantly said: "I saw Miss Qin looking a little haggard a few days ago, so I expressed some concern. Miss Qin seems to be troubled by something."
"She told me that one time when she got up at night, she vaguely heard a strange sound behind the yard. She followed the sound to find it, and the further she walked, the clearer she heard it. It turned out to be the weak cry of a baby, with occasional The sound of a woman crying."
"At that time, she instinctively wanted to care about who was injured, but as she got closer and closer, she realized that there were no babies in our village at all!"
"She didn't dare to leave, and then while she was hesitating, the sound disappeared again, so she boldly looked forward again, and found that no one was living in front."
Speaking of this matter, Aunt Zhang's expression turned a little pale: "The location Miss Qin mentioned is the public hut in the southwest corner of our village."
Suddenly a man in the crowd said, "You heard me wrong! Maybe it's a wild cat!"
"That's right. Although mutated animals make up the majority now, there are still quite a few normal wild cats! The neighbor next door to me said that a few days ago some of the bacon they had saved at home was stolen by wild cats!"
"Hey! What a coincidence," a woman shouted immediately after hearing this, "My bacon was also stolen! This beast that kills a thousand people! A wild cat must have sneaked into our village!"
A young man looked a little hesitant: "To be honest, I heard this kind of sound in the middle of the night too! It's just that the sound was so small that I just thought it was a wild cat. But now that I heard what Aunt Zhang said, I felt that it was indeed like a wild cat. A baby’s voice.”
Jiang Heng frowned slightly and immediately turned around and headed to the public hut in the southwest corner.
Most of the villagers in the village have small courtyards at home, but not everyone is willing to go to the trouble of digging a separate hut, so many people use the public huts in the village.
For the convenience of everyone, there are four public huts in the entire village, which are located in the four corners of the village.
Qin Ying's house happened to be in the southwest of the village, not far from the public hut.
If there was really any movement in the latrine at this distance, it would be reasonable for Qin Ying to hear it in the quiet night.
It's just that when a group of them came here, they didn't find anything unusual. On the contrary, it was because there were relatively few people living in this area, few people came to the huts here, and the surrounding environment was quite clean.
Jiang Heng looked at Aunt Zhang: "Do you still remember what Miss Qin said at that time?"
Aunt Zhang picked her cheek, raised her head and said, "I want to think about it..."
Qin Ying woke up in the middle of the night, put on her clothes and prepared to go to the hut in the backyard.
Perhaps it was because of the strong wind recently, and she was lazy at night, so she ate the food left at noon without heating it, and she always felt unbearable abdominal pain in the middle of the night.
She held a lamp, and as soon as she went out, she heard faint and suppressed crying.
here we go again.
She paused and listened carefully for a moment. The sound seemed to be not far outside the yard, like a young woman crying leisurely, but she suppressed the sound forcefully, making it seem like it was not there.
She had heard such cries when she got up at night a few days ago, but she went to the area to look and found nothing unusual.
She heard the sound again in the middle of the next night. This time she didn't go out to see it. She only felt the whimpering sound and cried all night long, which made her cry nervously throughout her dream.
Seeing that she looked bad, Aunt Zhang asked a few questions, and then she told her about the crying she had heard in the past two days.
Unexpectedly, I heard it again tonight.
She was a little nervous, and even forgot about her abdominal pain for a while. After thinking about it, she decided to check it out first.
The night wind cut across her cheek like a knife, and her ears were filled with the sound of whistling wind. The long and gentle cry penetrated the sound of the wind and was sent into her ears.
The sound came from near the abandoned courtyard in the southwest corner.
Their village was rebuilt from an original village. It occupies a large area and doesn't have that many people, so the corners of the yard are basically vacant.
As far as she knew, no one lived here.
The lantern approached cautiously, and suddenly there was a strange sound.
She immediately stopped, held her breath and listened, like a cat meowing?
After a while, the sound like a kitten's meowing for spring became coherent, but it was not as shrill as a cat's meowing for spring. It seemed to be extremely weak.
She hesitated.
The end of the world has been so long that she can no longer remember the last time she saw the infant baby, just because she remembered that the baby's cry was also like this.
Tiny little ones, one after another.
It was exactly the same as what she heard two days ago.
This sound was mixed with the woman's long crying. Qin Ying felt the hair on her back stand up, and many ghost legends she had heard since she was a child flashed through her mind.
There are many ghosts, infants and resentful spirits among them.
She instantly stopped thinking about finding out what was going on and turned around to leave.
After walking back only two steps, the two mixed sounds suddenly disappeared, leaving only the howling of the cold wind in her ears. The sudden silence made her scalp numb.
Could it be that the thing discovered her and suddenly became quiet, hoping to give her a surprise attack?
In any case, she was the only one in the middle of the night. It was better not to take risks. Even if she wanted to find out the truth right away, she had to go back and wake up Jiang Heng to come with her.
Having made up her mind, she no longer hesitated this time and left quickly with a lantern in hand.
There seemed to be a rustling sound behind her. She was startled and turned around alertly: "Who?!"
There was nothing behind her, but besides her footprints on the snow, there was actually an extra line of footprints!
She felt a chill in her heart and turned around to run away, but her vision went dark and she immediately lost consciousness.
