Chapter 230: Another Village
Early the next morning, Li Mu and the others headed to Longfeng Mountain Scenic Area.
This place hadn’t been fully developed yet. You could either take a cable car or walk up the mountain, and then it was just endless steps leading to the top.
The scenery was pretty good. Sometimes there were small wooden shops along the road, but most of them were closed. Other than the three of them and one ghost, Li Mu only saw a few villagers who had woken up early and were exercising on the mountain.
Even the staff were few, only the people selling tickets at the bottom of the mountain could be seen.
It was still early. A light mist floated in the air, making it feel cool and refreshing. The surrounding scenery appeared and disappeared in the fog.
"Sister, the roasted sweet potatoes I made yesterday were delicious, right?"
Xiao Jing was as full of energy as always, sometimes running ahead to wait for them, sometimes wandering off the trail to explore.
"They were okay."
Yu Fan noticed that Li Mu seemed distracted. "What's wrong? Didn't sleep well last night?"
"I’m fine."
Li Mu wasn’t sure if it was because Long Zihan had planted the idea in her head, or if there really was something wrong with that village.
After seeing how happily the villagers partied yesterday, she felt uneasy, like a small thorn stuck in her heart.
If that had been a KTV or bar with just a few dozen people partying, she wouldn’t have thought it strange.
But in that village, there were over a hundred people, and everyone looked so calm and peaceful.
After watching them all evening, she couldn’t sense a single bit of sadness or anger from anyone. Even the tiny babies were always smiling.
Since Yu Fan seemed to be in a good mood, Li Mu decided not to mention her own worries.
"I heard the spring water here is clean enough to drink straight from the source, better than bottled water!"
Long Zihan, acting as their tour guide, started telling them about Longfeng Mountain.
"Actually, this place tried to develop into a tourist spot more than ten years ago," she said. "But just when it started getting popular, a tourist fell off a cliff and died. Since then, companies have tried again every few years, but the same thing keeps happening."
"Either someone falls and the body is never found, or people suddenly disappear. Basically, no one knows if they’re alive or dead."
"Investigators came, but back then there weren’t many security cameras around, so they couldn’t find anything."
Yu Fan gave Xiao Jing a glare. "What kind of place did you pick?"
Even though he already knew about some of these accidents from online news, he could tell now that what Long Zihan said was much more detailed.
"Those accidents happened when there were lots of tourists! Now there’s no one!" Xiao Jing said confidently.
The only sounds around them were birds chirping and spring water gently flowing down next to the steps. The air even felt fresher than outside the mountain.
Li Mu, who usually didn’t like taking pictures, couldn’t help pulling out her phone and snapping photos.
It took them nearly two hours to climb from the bottom to the top. There were supposed to be rest stops along the way, but now all the businesses were closed.
If it weren’t for Long Zihan texting Xiao Jing all the time, Li Mu and Yu Fan probably wouldn’t have thought about coming here at all.
Still, Li Mu actually liked the quietness of the empty scenic area, except for her sore legs.
At the top of the mountain, there was a small commercial area. There were a few staff members working the cable cars. After wandering around a bit, they took the cable car down the mountain.
If the place had been fully open, there probably would have been more things to do. But now, except for the nice scenery, there wasn’t much fun to be had.
Xiao Jing didn’t even appreciate the views. She got bored quickly and kept shouting that she was tired of it.
"I feel like we wasted the trip," Yu Fan muttered. "We came all this way just to experience village life."
"That’s called 'farm tourism'! Farm tourism!" Xiao Jing insisted, not allowing anyone to say there was something wrong with the place she had picked. "The boss’s son said he would take us fishing at noon! We can even grill whatever we catch right there!"
"Yeah, yeah, only you love doing things like that..." Yu Fan looked helpless.
He turned to look at Li Mu, who obviously was having a great time on this trip. She had taken a lot of photos of the scenery and still looked a little excited, busy replying to comments on her social media posts.
He didn’t expect Li Mu to be the kind of person who liked posting on social media.
"If you post selfies, you will get tons of comments too," Yu Fan teased.
"I don’t like taking selfies," Li Mu shook her head. She didn’t like putting her own pictures online for strangers to stare at.
"We’re going back tomorrow, right?"
"Yeah, tomorrow at noon. We only planned to stay for two days anyway," Yu Fan said, hands stuffed in his pockets.
Yu Fan asked Long Zihan, "You walked around the village for so long yesterday, did you find any ghosts?"
"No. That’s why I plan to go back with you guys," Long Zihan said casually. She even seemed to be walking a little more lightly.
In the morning, unlike other villages where older people usually get up early to work, this place felt very quiet. It was almost like only the four of them lived here.
"This village doesn’t even have cats or dogs," Yu Fan suddenly said in surprise. "I didn’t notice that yesterday."
"I didn’t notice either," Long Zihan said, stunned. "Maybe they just don’t like animals?"
"What about Xiao Jing?" Li Mu asked, changing the topic.
"When we came down just now, she said she was going to play in the forest," Yu Fan answered casually. "Kids her age love exploring and doing stuff like that."
The forest, huh?
The area where the village met Longfeng Mountain was surrounded by a dense forest. There weren’t even proper paths to walk through it, and now Xiao Jing had gone in there to play?
"She didn’t bring a lighter or anything, did she?" Li Mu asked worriedly. She was afraid that silly girl would try to roast sweet potatoes in the forest.
"Relax, she’s not that little anymore," Yu Fan said.
They followed the cement road through the village and were just about to open the door to their house when they suddenly heard Xiao Jing shouting behind them.
"Sister! Brother-in-law!"
They all turned around at the same time and saw Xiao Jing running toward them as fast as her little legs could carry her, like a small whirlwind.
Li Mu had never seen Xiao Jing look this anxious before.
"What’s wrong?" she asked.
"The forest!" Xiao Jing lowered her voice and pointed in the direction she came from. "There’s another village inside the forest! It looks like there are a lot of people there."
"There really is a secret!" Long Zihan gasped. "I knew this village was strange!"
No, you didn’t.
Just yesterday, you were saying everything was completely normal.
Even Yu Fan noticed it was weird that there were no pets around, but you didn’t react at all.
Li Mu glanced at Long Zihan, then turned back to Xiao Jing and asked, "Can you take us there?"
"Let’s go!"
Xiao Jing grabbed Li Mu’s hand and excitedly led the way toward the forest, talking about what she had seen as they walked.
"There were a lot of people in that little village," she said, "But they all looked sick. And there were lots of graves around... It was really creepy."
Yu Fan suddenly stopped and put his hand on Xiao Jing’s shoulder, frowning deeply.
"Should we call the police?"
He looked at Li Mu and said, "It could be dangerous. Let’s not mess around. You should go out to the main road and stop a car. We’re leaving."