The sun was gradually climbing toward the center of the sky, but it was still some distance away from reaching its zenith.
Keeping a close eye on the time, Bai Ci made her way back to the village chief's house before lunch began.
The savory aroma of cooking food already wafted from the courtyard, but the village chief's wife was not in the kitchen. Instead, she was sitting under the eaves.
A bamboo stool was set up in the shade of the roof. Sitting on it, the village chief's wife was snapping green beans—pinching off the ends, pulling off the strings, breaking them into pieces, and tossing them into a bamboo basket at her feet.
Judging by the delicious scent, lunch was likely already simmering in the pot, and these green beans were probably meant for dinner.
Xie Lai was sitting beside her.
Reclined in a bamboo chair, she rested one foot on the crossbar of the chair leg while stretching her other leg out, helping the village chief's wife prep the vegetables.
However, in terms of speed, the village chief's wife was working at double time, while Xie Lai was only moving at normal speed.
Xie Lai was a complete novice at this sort of chore, and her attention wasn't really on the vegetables anyway. Her eyes kept darting toward the entrance out of the corner of her eye, and she only truly relaxed when she saw Bai Ci finally return.
Xie Lai beamed, her tone light and natural as she spoke up: “Sister Bai, you're back. How did it go? Did you take any nice photos?”
“I heard the entire mountain behind the village is covered in all kinds of flower fields. With the sunlight hitting the sea of flowers, it must be incredibly photogenic.”
This wasn't some sudden burst of tacit understanding; it was a pre-planned excuse.
As long as there were others present when Bai Ci returned, Xie Lai was to take the initiative to start a conversation, laying the groundwork for her excuse of going out to take photos.
Bai Ci casually pulled over a small stool leaning against the wall, sat down next to Xie Lai, and smoothly played along with her story.
“The scenery on the back mountain is indeed beautiful. Seeing the flowers blooming all over the mountain is really therapeutic. It's just a pity that my photography skills aren't that great. The photos always feel like they don't do the actual view justice.”
“But as for the photos, there are two or three that I'm quite satisfied with. Let me show you.”
As she spoke, Bai Ci pulled up her camera's gallery, leaning in close to Xie Lai to show her the few shots she had actually put some effort into.
The rest were just random snapshots, but for these two or three, she had taken a moment to consider the composition and angle, saving her gallery from being a complete disaster of ugly pictures.
Xie Lai leaned in to look, offering compliments at the right moments.
Her slightly awkward praise—the kind born from a limited vocabulary where one had to squeeze out compliments to save face—perfectly mirrored a situation where someone was forced to humor an unfamiliar colleague. It made Xie Lai's performance completely flawless.
The village chief's wife listened quietly to the young people's chatter. Once their conversation wound down, she paused her vegetable prepping under the eaves.
She looked at Bai Ci, her expression gentle. Her rustic face showed little emotion, making her question seem like casual small talk.
“You seem to really like our village's scenery, young lady. That's the best part about the mountains—the mountain views and the scent of flowers are so peaceful. It's much more comfortable than the noisy city.”
“Would you like to stay here and live in the village for a while?”
Bai Ci wasn't actually here to vacation in an instance, and Tianmi Village—the very setting of this horror story—was an absolutely terrible choice for a getaway.
Maintaining her polite smile, she replied with proper courtesy: “The scenery in the village is indeed rare and beautiful, but I can't stay. I still have work, and I have to go back as soon as the project is over.”
The village chief's wife resumed her work, picking up a new green bean from the basket.
Seeing a wormhole on the bean, she snapped that part off and tossed it into the waste pile.
After dealing with the wormhole, she spoke again. Her tone remained conversational, as if she wasn't necessarily expecting any particular answer.
“Do you really love taking photos then? Oh, right, you young people call it photography. I notice you always carry a camera with you whenever you go out.”
“I wouldn't say I love it.” On subjective questions of liking or disliking things, Bai Ci usually chose a middle-of-the-road answer to keep her persona consistent.
“But since my boyfriend is a photographer, I guess I'm somewhat interested.”
Do you think I take photos because I actually like photography, or because I want to have a common topic of conversation with my boyfriend?
Snapping the long bean in her hand into two pieces and throwing them into the basket, the village chief's wife finally had a brief moment of leisure.
She looked up, her gaze locking onto Bai Ci's face: “What if you didn't have to worry about work, and your boyfriend also wanted to stay and live here? Would you stay with him?”
With the conversation leading to this point, Bai Ci was no longer foolish enough to think the village chief's wife was just making idle chitchat.
Her nerves instantly tightened.
This was clearly a probe.
It was just that Bai Ci couldn't immediately figure out what her probing about staying in Tianmi Village meant.
If they wanted to replace her, they could just do it. Why did they need to run a pre-incident questionnaire first?
In previous years, however many people came with the wedding planning team, that same number of people returned. There had never been any mention of Tianmi Village taking in outsiders to live there.
She wasn't any different from the staff in previous years, so why had she suddenly received an invitation to stay?
Wait, if there was a difference, there actually was one.
The wedding teams in the past were almost entirely male. Female figures had only appeared once or twice in all those photos.
So, was she being invited to stay simply because she was female?
Bai Ci pulled back her wandering thoughts and refocused on the topic at hand. When facing such a blatantly loaded question, the vaguer her answer, the better.
She neither gave a definitive answer nor rejected the idea outright, only saying: “I'm not really sure. Something like this isn't for me to decide alone.”
“I can't even begin to imagine how I would react, or how Sang Lan would react, if such a thing actually happened.”
Beside her, Xie Lai sensed that the atmosphere was growing a bit off. She got the distinct feeling that the village chief's wife had a hidden agenda.
They weren't talking about anything important anyway, so interrupting the conversation shouldn't cause any misunderstanding with her only reliable ally, right?
Xie Lai immediately rubbed her aching wrists and let her expression slump on purpose, chiming in to interrupt this probing conversation as if it were an absolute emergency.
“Sister Bai, you came back at the perfect time! I was just worrying that I wouldn't even be able to finish this by the end of the afternoon.”
“Sister Bai, please help me prep these vegetables. I beg of you.”
“My ankles are numb from sitting too long, my wrists are sore from snapping these beans, and there are still so many left in the basket. I can't possibly do this all by myself.”
Her dramatic, almost whiny interruption shattered the tense, confrontational atmosphere that had just begun to build in the courtyard.
“Alright, since you've called me 'sister,' how can I not help?”
Bai Ci stood up and made her way over to the vegetable basket, choosing a spot to sit that kept some distance from both of them.
But if you looked at it from another angle, that spot placed her right between Xie Lai and the village chief's wife again—only this time, she was facing them from the opposite side.
Rate on N.U.
