Linbiangui Village-Infinite Streaming Chapter 7

Time jumps back.

“Since you’ve come, you must find out the truth before you leave.” The moment Chen Jin stepped out the door, that annoying phrase echoed in his ears again, only this time it was in Wu Zeng’s voice.

Stepping outside, the two found themselves on Wei Mountain, just a few steps from the small Reservoir. The fragmented light filtering through the treetops suddenly blurred the scene—the dim, suffocating bathroom stall was still vivid in his mind, yet the cold, needle-scented mountain wind was already whipping against his face.

Chen Jin stumbled back half a step. The cold air, mixed with the stench of stagnant water, wrapped around him, and the chill rising from his heart made him shiver.

“Oh, a teleportation gate,” Wu Zeng joked.

“What did you just say?” Chen Jin looked at Wu Zeng warily.

“Haven’t you seen Doraemon?” Wu Zeng hummed the theme song, the usual casual smile playing on his lips. “I loved watching it when I was little.”

Chen Jin was clearly asking about something else.

“Don’t be so tense…” The air exhaled through his nose caused the final word to shift pitch on an updraft. Wu Zeng took two steps closer to Chen Jin, deliberately slowing his articulation, and continued speaking in a volume just loud enough for the two of them, his voice a low, throaty murmur, like sweet nothings. “Ever since I came here, someone in my mind keeps repeating that phrase to me. I wonder if it’s related?”

Sunlight pierced through the gaps in the forest canopy, slicing across Wu Zeng’s face like a sharp blade. One side of his face was bathed in light, resembling a thousand-year-old snow marrow absorbing spiritual energy, while the other was buried deep in the shadow cast by the light-blade’s cut, inscrutable. He stood before Chen Jin with his hands in his pockets. Chen Jin scrutinized him, trying to glean something from his eyes, but found nothing.

“I don’t know what nonsense you’re talking about.” Chen Jin retreated two steps like lightning. He didn’t respond to the comment and didn’t want to get further entangled with him. He bypassed Wu Zeng and headed straight up the mountain.

Regardless of whether Wu Zeng was telling the truth or not, Chen Jin was unwilling to reveal his hand too early. It was always wise to be cautious. Currently, Chen Jin’s only clue was that phrase. He didn’t know what he was supposed to investigate, but if he didn’t follow the path intended by the schemer, it would be useless. Given this, he should start with the most bizarre element: the pus-filled corpse.

Wu Zeng watched Chen Jin’s retreating back, letting out a barely audible sigh, and then followed him.

The bright sun hung high, but it couldn’t penetrate the gloom deep within the mountain forest. The area near the small Reservoir remained cool.

The few children on the bank looked like puppets on pause, silently watching the movements of the two people in the water. The two in the water had been whispering earlier, but as soon as they saw the adults approaching, they instantly fell silent.

“How deep is this water? Are your parents really okay with you playing here alone?” Wu Zeng crouched by the edge of the Reservoir, still several meters away from the children. He tossed a small stone into the water, but the dark, iron-like surface barely rippled.

The children on the bank took two cautious steps forward, seemingly intending to stop the two adults from getting closer, guarding the area like small, armed attendants. The two slightly older children soaking in the water slowly submerged their bodies, leaving only their heads floating above the surface, as if they could burst out from the bottom at any second, indicating they were excellent swimmers.

With a soft “pop,” a bubble rose from behind the two children and burst on the water’s surface. The sound was not loud, but it was jarring in the quiet woods and conspicuous on the calm water.

The child with the darkest face on the bank suddenly turned his head, his eyes darting across the black water.

“What are you secretly hiding?” Wu Zeng smiled at the children in the water, tilting his chin toward them, but there was no trace of amusement in his eyes.

Chen Jin vaguely remembered seeing this group of children yesterday at the pig slaughter feast. At that time, the tourist group’s Little Grandson was chasing them and playing around, but the scene before him now lacked yesterday’s innocence. They seemed to have been drained of all childish vitality, looking utterly lifeless.

“Bring it out!” Wu Zeng suddenly stood up and shouted sternly. His voice was low and hoarse, and his tall figure instantly intimidated the children on the bank. Almost immediately, the children scattered in fright, running away and vanishing in a flash.

Wu Zeng strode forward with a grim expression, using both hands to haul the two children out of the water and roughly depositing them onto the nearby grass. They were soaking wet, water dripping from their bodies. In the slightly cool weather of Mengle Village, the two children’s lips were purple with cold, and their faces were sullen, whether from shock or malice was unclear.

The next second, a small chubby boy slowly floated up from the water, face down. A nylon rope was wrapped around his neck. His entire body was pale from being submerged, reflecting a greenish-blue hue under the fragmented light of the forest.

Chen Jin stepped forward to help Wu Zeng, assisting him in dragging the chubby boy back to the bank. When they turned him over, it was the Little Grandson from yesterday’s tourist group. He was no longer breathing, and an unknown viscous fluid slowly trickled from his nostrils.

Chen Jin pulled out his phone—still no signal. “Damn it!”

There was no time to waste. Chen Jin decisively lifted the Little Grandson’s chin, reaching out without hesitation to clear the weeds and mucus he had inhaled into his mouth and nose in the water. Then, he began rhythmic compressions on his chest. CPR was exhausting. In no time, Chen Jin was drenched in sweat.

After a long effort yielded no results, Wu Zeng crouched down, signaling for Chen Jin to take over. The two worked in complete silence, their cooperation surprisingly seamless.

Before they could revive the chubby boy, the other two children started acting up. They exchanged a look and suddenly lunged at Wu Zeng and Chen Jin, attempting to shove them into the Reservoir. The half-grown boys were strong. Chen Jin was knocked off balance and only managed to steady himself with difficulty. Frowning deeply, he quickly grabbed one boy by the shoulder, pinned him to the ground, and held him down tightly to prevent another sneak attack.

How could children be this malicious? These two boys were trying to kill them.

Wu Zeng seized the other boy by the shoulder and controlled him by pressing him against a tree trunk. “F*ck you!” the boy screamed in pain. Wu Zeng frowned and kicked him once, and the boy instantly went silent.

Wu Zeng didn’t continue to harass him. He simply pushed him toward the path leading down the mountain. “Get down there and find help!” Chen Jin also released his grip. The two boys grimaced, immediately took off running, and disappeared.

Although Chen Jin knew that letting them go meant they were highly unlikely to find help, keeping them here would be even more futile, potentially leading to future trouble.

“I’ll go down and find help,” Chen Jin said, intending to descend the mountain for rescue.

“It’s too late,” Wu Zeng stopped Chen Jin, shaking his head slightly. “Let’s go.”

Chen Jin gave him a long look, sighed, and silently headed up the mountain. Finding that corpse now was perhaps the key to breaking the situation.

Chen Jin appeared calm on the surface, expertly hiding all his tension and fear, but internally, he was in chaos. In just one day, two people who were alive and well had died right in front of him. How could he possibly stay calm?

Chen Jin could only constantly convince himself that all of this was fake, that once he figured out this mess, everything would return to normal. These people, like the old woman, were all illusions, all fake.

Continuing upward, Chen Jin stopped beside a large tree. He carefully searched the surroundings but saw no sign of the corpse from earlier. There wasn’t even a trace on the ground.

Chen Jin had an excellent memory and was exceptional at navigating. He was certain that the corpse had been right here, but now it was gone.

Wu Zeng opened his phone, intending to use the video to pinpoint the location again, but unexpectedly found that the video in his album was also missing. “Does the time seem a bit off?”

Chen Jin was puzzled. He glanced at his phone; it was exactly 12:00. “It’s slow. When we went down the mountain just now, it was already past 12. Unless both our phones are broken, it means the explosion just now took us back in time.”

Normally, Chen Jin wouldn’t be able to utter such an absurd statement with a straight face, but today was different. In this haunted village, what wasn’t possible?!

“Since we can’t find the corpse now, there are only two possibilities: either someone moved it, or we took the wrong path.”

Absolutely impossible!

“I never get lost when I’m navigating!” Chen Jin declared, then walked toward a path he had never taken before.

When Chen Jin was ten, his parents died in an accident. His relatives, fearing gossip, agreed to take turns caring for him until he reached adulthood. Initially, the naive Chen Jin thought his uncles and aunts would be as kind and caring as before. Only after moving in did he realize that the previous warmth was just a facade. Without his parents, no one wanted to deal with him, the burden. Public ridicule and withholding food and clothing were common occurrences.

Gradually, Chen Jin stopped expressing his emotions and stopped bothering others. He saw through the false familiarity and didn’t want any unnecessary social interaction, preferring to live a stable life confined to his own world.

It was during that time that his skill for remembering routes developed, ensuring he could get home on time from school to the different relatives’ houses, because if he was late, no one would leave the door unlocked for him.

“Hey, hey, hey, it’s me who got lost!” Wu Zeng quickly chased after him. “I bumped into you just now, remember? My bad, all my fault.”

The vegetation here was noticeably denser, suggesting that even locals rarely came this way. A wooden sign stood not far ahead.

Upon closer inspection, it read: “Soft soil. Sheep grazing prohibited.”

Sheep couldn’t enter, but people could, presumably. The two walked past the sign.

“Student Chen Jin, we haven’t eaten breakfast or lunch. How can you keep walking for so long?” Wu Zeng grumbled, trailing behind Chen Jin.

“What else should we do? Wait for those little devils down there to find people and counter-attack us…” Before Chen Jin could finish, Wu Zeng shoved a small bread roll into his mouth.

“Eat something to tide you over. Don’t pass out from hunger first.” Wu Zeng unwrapped another roll and took a bite himself.

This small bread roll usually tasted dry, but after being hungry all morning, the sweetness of the starch made Chen Jin’s brain tingle.

After walking for an unknown amount of time, they had nearly reached the end of the path. Any further was a cliff. Some faint rustling voices drifted up from below the cliff, suggesting it was a sunny slope.

“Get down!” Chen Jin pushed Wu Zeng down, signaling him to keep quiet and move forward stealthily.

Sometimes being too tall was truly inconvenient.

The two half-crouched and shuffled forward, hiding behind a large tree trunk at the edge of the cliff to peer down.

The cliff was quite high. Chen Jin could only vaguely see an open area on the mountainside below, with a few people moving around. It looked very much like the site of yesterday’s pig slaughter feast.

“So that’s where those kids ran off to,” Wu Zeng whispered.

Chen Jin turned his head and saw Wu Zeng holding up his phone, recording a video.

The phone camera quality was excellent!

Wu Zeng lowered his phone, muted the sound, and showed Chen Jin the scene below.

It was indeed the site of yesterday’s pig slaughter feast. However, the feast only happened every two days, and today it was closed. There were no guests, only a few working masters. Everyone was wearing green clothes and masks, looking as if they were covered in large banana leaves. Even the children who had just run in were dressed the same way.

The earthen kiln for roasting pigs was lit, likely baking sausages. Smoke curled upward, but the mountain was high enough that the smell didn’t reach them.

The adults pushed the children a few meters outside the main area before stopping. The children began gesticulating wildly. It was obvious they were reporting what happened.

“We ruined their fun. Now they’re going to come after us,” Wu Zeng said flippantly.

“Then hurry up and move!” Chen Jin mentally mapped out the mountain routes, deciding they absolutely needed to choose a different direction to avoid confrontation.