Chapter 47: Deadwood Village
According to the mission prompt, Kumu Village is located in a village not far from Tiancang Plateau. Because the place is too small, it is not marked on the map. Lin Fan and the others relied on the route given by Wang Youcai and walked for nearly an hour before they saw sparse villages.
Looking from a distance, you can see some thatched houses surrounded by fences, and occasionally a few villagers pass by on the street, which looks very depressed. It is no different from the small rural villages in the valleys in life.
Because of the "curse", a few people could only see a few men after entering the village, and almost no women except the elderly and frail old people could be seen.
"I didn't expect that there is such a place in the fantasy world." Nie Kaixuan said with a sigh as he looked at the closed doors of the houses around him.
"Actually, it's not just here, there are many places like this in our world, which are unknown to people for various reasons." Shen Qingli said with some profound meaning.
"Let's go first. Wang Youcai said that when you get here, you can go to the village chief's house to ask about the situation." Lin Fan had long been accustomed to such a scene and said to the two of them.
The living place in the village is better than other villagers, it is a tile-roofed house. After seeing Wang Youcai's letter of introduction, the village chief entertained the three of them warmly.
As soon as they sat down, Lin Fan asked directly: "Mr. Village Chief, can you tell us about the current situation in the village."
Hearing the word "curse", the village chief's face immediately turned ugly, and he said angrily: "If it weren't for this curse, how could our village be like this? All the men fled, and the women didn't dare to get married. Those of us who are old, weak, sick and disabled are left. If our ancestors hadn’t always lived here, we would have run away long ago.”
Nie Kaixuan muttered, "Then leave. If you stay here even though you know there is a problem here, aren't you waiting for death?"
Lin Fan quietly kicked Nie Kaixuan and said in a low voice: "This is how some old people think. Things left behind by ancestors cannot be thrown away easily."
"Village chief, can you tell us more specifically?"
"Yes, yes, let's talk about it. Why does this curse focus on married women? Is it the work of a monster or man-made?"
The village chief sighed, "Since you insist on knowing, I will tell you. I hope you can really help our village eliminate this curse."
"Many years ago, Wang Erniu's wife Li Lanfang died suddenly and violently at home. It is said that she was still pregnant at the time, and her whole belly was turned out. It felt like something was crawling out of her belly. , the blood dyed the entire floor red; then came Li San’s wife, all her internal organs were taken out, and half of her intestines were still hanging on her belly. Li San went crazy when he got home."
"Then we reported it to the officials, but nothing was found when the officials came. After the officials left, the curse became more severe. Not only the women died, but sometimes several members of the family died, including the man. There is no intact body, but the woman was disemboweled. There is really no humanity at all." The old village chief burst into tears as he spoke.
"Damn, why does it sound so evil?" Nie Kaixuan was a little scared and muttered in a low voice.
Lin Fan looked normal and asked, "Mr. Village Chief, is there a list of those who died?"
The village chief wiped a handful of tears on his face, took out a shabby book from his arms and handed it over, "This is the list of our village. As long as there are people who died due to the curse, I have recorded them all."
Lin Fan took the list and read it. All the villagers on the list who died tragically due to the curse were marked with red marks.
"Dad, we're back! We had a good time today. Look what we got."
Several young men in green clothes walked in from the door carrying a wild boar, and the leader shouted excitedly.
The village chief stood up when he heard the sound and scolded: "No matter how big or small, don't you see any guests here?"
"Dad, why are you so fierce?" The young man disagreed and came to Lin Fan and others to say hello.
Seeing that his son paid no attention to the occasion, the village chief yelled angrily: "Go down! You guys should go back too. Stay at home if you have nothing to do. If you have nothing to do, you always run to the mountains all day long. Didn't the banker in the field miss the mark?"
Seeing the village chief getting angry, several young people turned around and ran away. When they were approaching the door, probably because they were too anxious, a young man with patched clothes tripped and fell to the ground, falling to his feet.
Upon seeing this, Lin Fan stepped forward and helped him up, and asked with concern: "Are you okay?"
"Bai Lang, are you not injured? Let me take a look." The village chief's son hurried over and asked.
The young man named Bai Lang stood up, dusted himself off, shook his head and said, "It's okay. I didn't pay attention to my steps just now and tripped. Thank you."
"Your body is weak and you can't withstand such a fall. You should go back quickly. Don't let your family wait in a hurry."
"Yeah, thank you, Brother Wang Qiang." Bai Lang thanked him again.
"Thank you. I'm your eldest brother. I'll take you hunting in two days. Hehe." Wang Qiang said and helped Bai Lang to the door.
The village chief said at this time: "This Bailang is a miserable child. He was abandoned by his biological parents by the river when he was just born. It happened that Li Lanfang was passing by the river washing clothes and found him. Otherwise, he would freeze to death sooner or later. After picking him up, , Li Lanfang and Wang Erniu have never had children, so they treat him as their biological son. Hey, we can do it later..."
"Oh, I'm sorry, warrior, look at me, this old fool, talking about these sad things. Look, if there is anything else we need help with, feel free to mention it. You must help us with this. The curse is removed."
Lin Fan smiled and said: "No more for now. Can you let me study this list again? We will do our best to eliminate the curse!"
The village chief wanted to express his gratitude again, so Lin Fan took Shen Qingli and two people outside on the pretext of going out to investigate.
The three of them were walking on the deserted streets, and Nie Kaixuan said listlessly: "Hey, what kind of mission is this? Just tell me where the BOSS is. Why is it like solving a crime?"
Shen Qingli was very interested and found this mission very challenging. He looked at Lin Fan with interest and asked, "Do you have any ideas? Is this BOSS a human or a monster?"
Lin Fan frowned and stared at the list in his hand. He pondered for a while and said, "There are many possibilities, but there is too little useful information. We haven't made a decision yet."
"Do you think he's a vampire? The kind of lonely, single vampires who specifically pick this kind of married woman to prey on." Nie Kaixuan shouted suddenly.
Shen Qingli rolled her eyes at him and explained: "Vampires are foreign. Do you think there will be such creatures here? Even if there are, they should be zombies."
"Hey, yes, yes, maybe it's a zombie. It's not impossible for a zombie king to pop up in such deep mountains and old forests!"
