I hurriedly looked in the direction of the courtyard entrance, my eyes almost popping out of my sockets!
How could it be the lady boss of the noodle shop?
Didn't Wu Tinghan analyze before that this landlady was my grandfather's good friend and helped my grandfather repair his paper face? Why did he change his identity now and become the person spying on my grandfather? And that bullshit painting protector, what is this?
And the most important thing is that Mr. Wang and I went back and forth to carry water from the river so many times, but we didn't find any trace of anyone. How could she, Wu Tinghan, conclude that the boss's wife was outside my house?
Wu Tinghan said that if a painting had been hung in one place for more than fifty years, if no one had taken care of it, it would have rotted away from the weather. As for why it is the lady who owns the noodle shop, your grandfather only goes to her every time he goes out on the street, and she knows how to be a painter, so who else could she be?
Before I could recover from the shock that our entire village was a painting, I was shocked to the point of going crazy by Wu Tinghan's shocking explosion.
Because in my opinion, this is simply impossible!
Let’s not talk about whether my grandfather discovered that the place where he lives is a painting. Let’s just talk about the painting itself. Who would paint an entire village painting and hang it there? Who would have stayed outside this painting for fifty-five years?
I can understand one year, two years, or even five years. After all, life spans decades, and five years wasted is just five years, it doesn’t matter. But that's fifty-five years. How many five years can a person have?
Just two of them! Who would be so stupid as to stay outside a painting for fifty-five years?
My mind was full of confusion, and my eyes kept staring in the direction of the courtyard door, but I didn't see anyone.
I don't know why. I didn't see anyone, but I breathed a sigh of relief, and then asked Wu Tinghan, maybe your analysis was wrong, no one came.
But Wu Tinghan shook his head firmly and said that since his legs were broken, he would naturally walk a little slower. Don't worry, she will come.
Hearing this, I was stunned again.
The leg was broken? Is the person who broke the leg of Mr. Wang throwing coins at the noodle restaurant actually the proprietress of the noodle restaurant?
Why is Wu Tinghan so sure?
She said, since this painting was not hung by your grandfather, how could he leave his craftsmanship on this painting?
I was stunned again, because based on Wu Tinghan's analysis, I deduced that my house and the mountainside were a painting, so my grandfather could use the method to measure the body after his death. This craftsmanship is put into the painting and is triggered when the time is right.
But since my grandfather didn’t hang this painting, he naturally couldn’t put these craftsmanship into the painting, because he probably didn’t have the skills of a painter! In this case, who performed the method of measuring corpses in Yize?
The answer is self-evident, it is the man who came to dig the coffin. Because that person is the only one who has ever touched the coffin - I call it 'that person' because I am not sure yet, this person is the proprietress of the noodle shop.
Wu Tinghan said, you have deduced before that the man must have opened the coffin and saw Yize measuring the body inside the coffin, so you gave up stealing the coffin. Actually no, the man came to dig the grave not to steal the coffin, but to use Yize to measure the corpse.
Because there is the copper coin that Mr. Wang buried in the grave, we can be sure that no one has touched the tomb in the yard after we left the yard. Therefore, it can be concluded that the only person who came into contact with this coffin was the gravedigger.
But the question now is, why did that person use Yize to measure the corpse? It seems like this is helping my grandfather hide the truth, and what good does it do to him/herself? And how could Wu Tinghan be sure that this person was the proprietress of the noodle restaurant?
Wu Tinghan said, I can't answer your first question because at first I thought she wanted to get rid of me, but after you solved the problem of Yize's corpse measurement, I suddenly felt that she seemed to do it on purpose. So that I can realize that your village is a painting. As for what her purpose was, to be honest, I really don't know.
At this point, Wu Tinghan paused and said, The reason why I am sure that person is the lady who owns the noodle restaurant is because no one knows the existence of your village except her.
Hearing this, I suddenly wasn't so scared anymore, because I thought Wu Tinghan was joking with me.
In a village as big as ours, even if it is a painting that has been hanging for fifty-five years, there must have been a village of this size before the painting was hung, otherwise the villagers inside would have noticed the abnormality long ago.
As for such a large village, its development history must be more than fifty-five years, and there will definitely be records of our village in the town's local chronicles. Even if a painting did go up fifty-five years ago, the history of our village would never remain unknown.
At least, the government is controlling this area and will never allow such unknown and isolated villages to exist.
Therefore, over the past fifty-five years, there must have been outsiders—most likely poverty alleviation leaders—who have come to inspect. As long as they come, someone will know about the existence of our village.
Besides, to put it another way, even if no one really breaks in, there is always someone in our village who has gone out, right? At least I have been out there. My classmates and teachers all know that my family lives in Chenjiacun, and they all know that there is such a place!
Wu Tinghan seemed to have expected my rebuttal, so as soon as I finished speaking, she told me that they only knew that there was a Chenjia Village, but had they really been here?
I was stunned when I heard this, and I said with some confidence that some classmates wanted to come over to play in the past, but they gave up as soon as they heard that it would take several hours of walking on a mountain road.
Wu Tinghan laughed and asked, "So, why doesn't your village even have a decent road?" Now that the whole country has been lifted out of poverty, why doesn’t your village even have a mobile phone signal? To put it bluntly, even if we die inside now, I’m afraid no one will know!
I was completely shocked by Wu Tinghan's words, because I couldn't find any factual basis to refute it. Indeed, according to the current policy, if poverty alleviation leaders really came to our village, our village would never be like this.
The only thing I can hope for now is that even if no outsiders have entered our village, it does not mean that no outsiders know the existence of our village. At least my classmates knew about it, at least the Chen family’s sister-in-law and her daughter who left our village knew about it, and they spread the word to others...
Wu Tinghan turned his head and looked at me coldly, interrupted me directly, and said, are you sure that mother and daughter really left your village?
I said, of course, it was definitely the Taoist Master from another village who sent them out of the village in person - yes, that Taoist Master also knew about the existence of our village.
Wu Tinghan did not rush to refute, but asked me, tell me, think about it, not long after Chen Guzi died, a dojo master from another village came to your village to host the dojo. At that time, your village chief was always accompanying you to greet you. Grandpa’s coffin, then who informed the dojo gentleman?
In our village, only the village chief has a landline phone at home. If he wants to contact the outside world, he relies on this landline phone. At that time, the village chief had indeed been accompanying me and Mr. Wang to handle my grandfather's coffin. Logically speaking, he had no time to make a phone call!
Wu Tinghan continued, and why did he only appear once and then never show up again?
When I left the village, I could be forgiven for not seeing the Taoist priest. Maybe I saw Mr. Wang again later?
So I looked at Mr. Wang, but he just shook his head at me and said that he had never seen me again since that night. I thought he was afraid before, so he didn't come back. Now that I think about it, it’s very wrong.
Let me tell you, it’s normal not to come because you’re afraid. What’s wrong?
Mr. Wang said, if it was because of fear, why did he not leave when those who were doing the dojo left? It wasn't until I was sure that it was the 'Portrait of a Lady Crying and a Hundred Miles of Corpse Monument' that he offered to send Aunt Chen out of the village. Don't you think this is too deliberate? It's like...
When talking about this, Mr. Wang stopped, probably because he couldn't think of the right words for a while.
I already understood Mr. Wang's meaning at this time, so I added that it seemed to be deliberately leading us to the weeping portrait and the Baili Corpse Monument.
When Mr. Wang heard this, he slapped his thigh and said, yes, that's what he meant.
I asked, why did he lead us here?
Mr. Wang said that in order for us to follow the plot that was set in advance, we would go up the mountain to find the portrait of Chen Guzi, and then put his portrait into the coffin as a corpse. In this way, when Senior Wu comes, he will be able to see the problem at a glance, bury the coffin in the yard of your house, and then activate Yize to measure the body, completing the process of concealing the truth from the sky.
I suppressed the shock in my heart and asked again, where did the three of them go?
When Mr. Wang heard this, he first glanced at Wu Tinghan, and after seeing her nodding, he said to me, if I guess correctly, the three of them have never left your village from beginning to end.
This time, my eyes are about to pop out! How is this possible? If there were three living people hiding in the village, how could the villagers not notice it? They are not craftsmen, so how can they hide themselves so seamlessly?
Wu Ting Leng Leng said, if a living person hides in your village, it will be easily detected. Even if others cannot detect it, at least he, Wang Minghua, can detect it. But what if the three of them were not alive when they were hiding?
I felt like Wu Tinghan was like a vacuum machine. Every time he spoke a word, part of the air around me was sucked away, so that I gradually became unable to breathe.
I already feel very guilty about Chen Guzi's death. If something happens to his wife and children, then I will be entirely responsible for his death. Especially, the child is still so young...
When Mr. Wang saw me like this, he comforted me and told me that there was no need to feel guilty. Their death had nothing to do with your grandfather, and it had nothing to do with you. Besides, Senior Wu only said that they were not alive, but did not say that they must be dead.
I was stunned again. Aren't things like life and death either/or? Is there still an in-between state, life and death?
Mr. Wang didn't speak, but Wu Tinghan, who was sitting on the threshold, spoke. She said, just because you don't know, it doesn't mean you don't know.
I was shocked when I heard this and quickly asked, is there really such a person? have you seen?
Wu Tinghan said, not only have I seen it, but you have also seen it.
This time, not only me, but also Mr. Wang turned his head and expressed interest.
I asked hurriedly, who is it?
She said, Luo Xiaoyang, the old Sicheng.
It's him? Why can't I see it at all?
Wu Tinghan snorted and said, if a person is neither human nor ghost, how can he survive for thirty years without any means of self-protection?
This must be the method of their craftsmen. Even if I ask, I will not get an answer.
I glanced in the direction of the courtyard gate and listened with my ears. I didn't hear any footsteps, so I asked Wu Tinghan with some doubts. Even if no one knew the existence of our village, it didn't prove that the person who dug the grave must be the one who dug the grave. Is she the proprietress of the noodle restaurant? Could it be someone else from our village who did it?
I still feel that there is an old carpenter hiding in our village, and he is behind all of this. As for the painting hanging in the Luo court, it might have been used by him?
Wu Tinghan shook his head and said, this is the truth that Wang Minghua hesitated to tell you.
I suddenly had a very bad premonition that my voice started to tremble.
I asked her tremblingly, what is the truth?
Wu Tinghan said, except for your grandfather, there is no one alive from top to bottom in your village - including you, Chen Siqing!
As soon as I finished speaking, a lame woman walked in outside the courtyard gate. Under the moonlight, I clearly saw that it was the proprietress of the noodle shop with a kind smile next to the station!
And as soon as she walked into the courtyard, she turned around and closed the door...
