Midnight Bookstore

The cliff was not as high as it seemed. It was about six or seven stories high. What was scary was the river that was covered in sand.

“Plop! Plop!”

Zhou Ze and Lawyer An fell into the water together. Then, they were directly washed downstream by the rapid river.

Bai Yingying, who was standing on the shore, suddenly woke up from her emotional state. She murmured, “Boss… why do you prefer to die for love with Old An… rather than…”

“Sob! Boss, you big pig trotter!”

…

He floated and sank a few times into the muddy water. He did not know how far he was washed away. After Lawyer An resurfaced, he heaved a long sigh of relief. The terrifying chilly wind seemed to have stopped.

The surroundings were still foggy. As long as the damnable wind stopped, there would not be much of a problem.

“Bang!”

Lawyer An felt as if he had been hit. He turned around and realized that it was his boss who had been washed over to his side.

‘It was fate that he had not been washed away. If he did not know where he had been washed over and drowned, how satisfying would that be,’ Lawyer An thought resentfully.

He reached out and grabbed Zhou Ze’s shoulder. He brought him to the shore.

If Zhou Ze hadn’t pulled him when he was falling, Lawyer An wouldn’t have fallen too. “Boss?”

Pulling someone while swimming was really hard work. Lawyer An felt a burst of pain in his arms and chest. Zhou Ze seemed to have choked on the water and fainted. He didn’t respond at all.

Fortunately, they were not at the most turbulent area of the current. Although the water was still quite strong, he was still able to sustain it. Lawyer An encouraged himself as he approached the shore.

Lawyer An saw from the corner of his eye a piece of floating wood with a sharp tip not far upstream rushing straight toward him.

If you were hit by such a thick piece of floating wood with the momentum of the water, it could break a few bones. Not to mention the injury from being stabbed.

Lawyer An immediately pushed Zhou Ze away. He swam toward the shore with the help of the water’s momentum.

The driftwood passed between Lawyer An and Zhou Ze and did not cause any danger. Just as Lawyer An was about to swim forward again to save his boss, he saw Zhou Ze swimming by himself.

He saw Zhou Ze’s swimming ability was better than his by looking at his posture!

“…” Lawyer An.

Zhou Ze first went ashore and sat on the shore. There was a hill above his head.

Lawyer An also went ashore. He didn’t ask Zhou Ze whether he was pretending to be unconscious or not. Instead, he took off his clothes and coat. He removed the things inside.

“The phone can’t be used anymore.” Lawyer An said helplessly.

Although the phone failed in this fog, once the fog subsided it would be difficult to get out of this remote mountain village.

Zhou Ze leaned his head on the sand and said, “The road should be ahead. We can find the populated area if we follow the road.”

Lawyer An raised his head and took a look. He found that there was indeed a road uphill.

People who traveled or lived in mountainous areas should have experience. Villages and towns were easily gathered near the road. It was a bit like the ancient people who lived by the river.

The two of them rested for a while but did not continue to stay here. They climbed up the slope together. They chose a direction and started to walk along the road.

The two men walked side by side. Their bodies were still wet. There was mud, sand, and gravel. They looked like workmates who had just gotten off work from a brick factory. If they had two guitars, they could cosplay as “The Rising Sun and The Masculine Sun.”

Zhou Ze had thought about not going. He could find a place to lie down and rest until the fog dissipated. However, after being baptized by the cold wind, a sense of crisis arose in Zhou Ze’s heart. Even if you just stood by and watched, you wouldn’t be able to pass through the fog safely.

Zhou Ze didn’t see a single pedestrian, nor did he see a single car pass by him when he was driving by earlier or now that he was walking.

This was a provincial road! No matter how remote a provincial road was, there would still be some cars.

He felt watched in the fog. It was as if a pair of eyes were staring at him. Zhou Ze couldn’t tell from which direction. He was very uncomfortable.

At this time, the most important thing was to try to find Bai Yingying and the Old Daoist. Now that they were separated from him, Zhou Ze wasn’t very relieved.

“Boss, look. There seems to be a village ahead.” Lawyer An pointed ahead and shouted.

Lawyer An bent down and began to gasp for breath. Dragging Zhou Ze to swim with him in the rapid river had exhausted him. A short rest wasn’t enough to relieve him at all. His back was aching.

Zhou Ze looked over. Sure enough, the shadow of the eaves appeared in the fog ahead. It should be a village.

“Let’s go. We’ve seen a village,” Zhou Ze urged.

Lawyer An reached out and grabbed Zhou Ze’s arm. He gulped and said, “Boss, we’ve encountered a village deep in the mountains amidst a fog. The plot is too smooth. I think this village is very likely to be a village from hundreds or even thousands of years ago. That’s a problem.”

This was like a ghost ship. Ships that had supposedly disappeared or been silent for hundreds of years would sometimes suddenly appear on the surface of the sea and be seen from afar.

“No, it should be the current village,” Zhou Ze directly retorted.

“Are you so sure?” Lawyer An was a little doubtful.

“Look at this.” Zhou Ze pointed behind him.

On one side of the provincial road was a cliff and on the other side was another cliff. However, it was built with cement to consolidate the mountain. This was to prevent landslides and falling rocks.

Lawyer An walked over and approached the cement wall. He found that there were bright red words written on it:

“Rich and strong. Democracy, civilization, and harmony…”

There was another line of words below, “Fight well to win this war of poverty alleviation!”

“…” Lawyer An.

“Is that right?” Zhou Ze asked.

Lawyer An nodded.

Then, the two of them walked towards the village.

After walking for a few minutes on a fork in the road leading out of the provincial road, they arrived at the village entrance.

There were many bungalows in the village as well as some two-story and three-story houses. This was not an abandoned village. This was a normal village.

However, there was not a single person in this village.

They walked all the way in from the village entrance to the back. They did not meet anyone. The doors on both sides of the house were tightly shut. The entire village was filled with a deathly stillness.

Zhou Ze walked to the door of a household and reached out to push the door open. The door was closed, but it was not locked.

The furnishings inside were not dusty. It seemed that someone had been living there. There were even some fruits that had been cut up on the living room table.

Lawyer An walked into the kitchen. He took a glass of water and drank it as he walked out. At the same time, he said to Zhou Ze, “There’s a water dispenser inside.”

Zhou Ze was not thirsty. He was just curious.

Where did all the people in this village go? Ever since the fog rose, Zhou Ze felt that his surroundings had suddenly become strange. First, there was a chilly wind. Then, there was this deathly quiet village.

Zhou Ze sat down on the sofa.

“I’ll go up and take a look.” Lawyer An carried the water upstairs. After a while, he came down and shouted at Zhou Ze, “Boss, come up and take a look. There are colored eggs.”

Zhou Ze got up and followed Lawyer An upstairs. In a bedroom on the second floor, there was a family of five. They were probably children, their parents, and their grandparents. They were all hung there.

Five people stuck out their tongues and stared with their eyes wide open. It was a standard hanging scene.

“It wasn’t a suicide. There were no chairs down there,” Lawyer An said.

If it was a suicide, they should have stepped on the chairs. There were no chairs down there. They should have been killed.

Who killed them?

Lawyer An drank another mouthful of water and put the empty cup aside. He said, “Do you think that all the people in this village…”

All Dead? All hanged like this?

“Let’s look in another house,” Zhou Ze said.

The two immediately left the two-story house and went to the next house. Next door was a bungalow. When they pushed open the door and entered, they saw an old couple hanging from the beam of the house.

After that, they went to a few other houses. The people inside were all hanged there.

It seemed that the entire village had become Hanging Ghosts.

Zhou Ze found a bag of cigarettes in one of the houses. He and Lawyer An each shared a bag and started smoking.

If an ordinary tourist or expedition team had come to this village at this time and seen this scene, they would probably have been scared and panicked. If they were lucky enough to escape, it would be another legend of Fengmen Village. This place was more terrifying than Fengmen Village.

However, Zhou Ze and Lawyer An were both veterans. The two of them maintained their composure despite the strange situation. They had seen many dead people. They had seen even more ghosts.

Although the two of them felt a little uncomfortable and depressed, they were not so scared that they would panic.

In the end, the two of them entered a three-story house. This house was quite well-off. Although the electricity in the village had been cut off, there was still some air-conditioning left in the fridge. Lawyer An took two bottles of cold drinks and threw one to Zhou Ze.

Two young girls were hanging above the two of them. The two of them were already used to it.

“Boss, do you think Lin Ke killed them?”

“I don’t think so. It’s impossible for her to not know the consequences of killing a village.”

“She’s not a child.” Lawyer An counted with his fingers and said, “Looking at her age, she should be in menopause right now. She’s a woman in menopause who was kidnapped and sold. She must be angry. What would she not do?”

Zhou Ze fell silent. He suddenly felt that what Lawyer An said made a bit of sense.

“It makes sense, right?” Lawyer An shrugged at Zhou Ze. He smiled and took a sip of iced cola.

He raised his head and found that the two girls hanging from the ceiling were smiling at him.

“Yo. I think it makes sense too.”