Qu Ling stepped forward in annoyance and tapped her shoulder, only for Xie Lai's body to go completely limp. She collapsed to the floor, her eyes still wide open, staring blankly ahead.
“Huh?”
Qu Ling was startled by this sudden turn of events and instinctively started to look toward the window.
“Wait, don't look out the window.”
Bai Ci suddenly realized what was happening. She reached out to cover Qu Ling's eyes and forced her head back forward before she could turn around.
“The village chief's wife told us earlier not to open the windows at night. And this window faces the Red Church directly. I think that's where the problem lies.”
“When we climb down the rope later, don't look off into the distance. Just focus on your footing, and we should be fine.”
“As for Xie Lai...”
She explained and warned.
After all, the window was already open. Aside from Xie Lai, who had likely glanced at the distant Red Church, neither of the other two in the room was experiencing any abnormalities.
Qu Ling understood. She nodded and slowly pulled Bai Ci's hand away from her eyes, keeping her gaze fixed on the floor.
“Let's just leave her lying here. Her leg isn't fully healed anyway. If you insisted on bringing her along, I would've objected.”
With that, she zipped up her backpack, slung it over her shoulders, and signaled to Bai Ci that they were ready to go.
Time was of the essence. Bai Ci and Qu Ling didn't linger.
After climbing out the window, Qu Ling, who was bringing up the rear, didn't rush to slide down. She carefully closed the window first, covering up any signs of their exit to minimize the risk of detection.
Gripping the hemp rope, the two kept their gazes strictly controlled, avoiding the direction of the Red Church, and landed safely on the ground one after the other.
The night was thick with darkness, with only a thin crescent moon in the sky casting a faint, dim light.
Most of the mountains and the village were shrouded in the night. Visibility was poor, allowing them to see only the path immediately in front of them.
Under the cover of darkness, they hurried along a quiet village path toward their designated meeting spot.
Before long, they arrived in front of Shen Jiayi's house.
Shen Jiayi stood quietly in the shadow of a wall. Seeing Qu Ling beside Bai Ci, she instantly became alert and defensive. “I only asked you to come. Why did you bring an outsider?”
In response, Qu Ling took the initiative to explain, seizing some control over the situation. “An extra set of hands means an extra bit of help, and saving her is what's important. Besides, I can't stand how this village treats human lives like trash.”
Shen Jiayi was not so easily convinced, and she spoke bluntly. “To be honest, out of your entire wedding team, Bai Ci is the only one I trust.”
“The person who snitched about Shen Tan's pregnancy was that glasses-wearing man from your team.”
“That bastard... He and Shen Tan seemed to have some kind of cooperation. Shen Tan didn't go into details with me, but the end result was that he backstabbed her.”
With Shen Jiayi putting it so clearly, Bai Ci could piece a few things together.
It seemed that setting the fire was indeed the collaborative plan between Shen Tan and Wang Dong. The fire at the apiary was meant to distract the villagers and the wedding team, giving Shen Tan the chance to drop whatever she was hiding under her skirt.
However, she didn't know the exact details of their deal or if it involved other aspects.
But judging by the personalities of the NPCs she had encountered so far, Wang Dong's subsequent actions—framing Qu Ling and backstabbing Shen Tan—were likely just a result of his own malicious nature rather than some grand plan.
“You mean Wang Dong. He entered the church with my boyfriend that day. My boyfriend was replaced, so he probably didn't escape either,” Bai Ci explained.
In reality, players shouldn't be so easily replaced, but who cared? She was definitely pinning this blame on him.
Hearing this, Shen Jiayi fell silent for a moment before ultimately choosing to trust Bai Ci.
She forced down her defensiveness and quickly collected her emotions. “Fine. I'm only trusting you. I'll make this quick.”
“The village chief took Shen Tan somewhere, but I don't know where. She said she'd leave a scent behind as a marker. I swear...”
“She thinks everyone has a nose like a dog, just like her.”
Recalling the reminder in Shen Jiayi's text message, Bai Ci took out the bottle of "Withered Flower" that Shen Tan had given her that morning.
However, the most critical issue right now was that none of them actually possessed a sense of smell as keen as Shen Tan's.
At that moment, Qu Ling spoke up right on cue, her tone confident. “I have a way.”
She reached back to take off her backpack, unzipped it, and pretended to rummage through it before pulling out a transparent glass jar.
Inside the jar were some fresh flowers and a butterfly with bright blue wings.
The butterfly rested on the center of one of the flowers, occasionally fluttering its wings slightly to prove it was still alive.
“This is a special species of butterfly bred in my relative's lab. It's highly sensitive to scents, but it's hard to keep alive. They die very easily.”
“She knew I was coming to a place with lots of flowers, so she had me bring it along to see if I could keep it alive as a last resort. I didn't expect it to actually come in handy.”
Shen Jiayi stared suspiciously at the butterfly in the glass jar. Common sense told her something was off. “Why does that sound so fantastical?”
Qu Ling countered, “Isn't what's going on in your village even more fantastical?”
That shut Shen Jiayi up.
Pot calling the kettle black—the things happening in this village defied common sense just as much.
“If we want to track her, we first need to let it memorize the target scent.” Qu Ling looked at Shen Jiayi.
Shen Jiayi looked at Bai Ci.
Bai Ci showed the perfume bottle in her hand. “It's this one, right?”
“Is that the one Shen Tan gave you today?” Shen Jiayi asked for confirmation. Receiving an affirmative nod from Bai Ci, she said, “Then that's the one.”
Bai Ci understood immediately. She unscrewed the cap, releasing a faint cold scent of decaying leaves.
Qu Ling opened the jar at just the right moment. In the next instant, the butterfly fluttered its wings and flew out, circling twice above their heads. Once it locked onto the source of the scent, it flew straight toward the back mountain.
The three didn't dare delay. They immediately followed closely behind the butterfly, picking up their pace.
“This butterfly is flying way too slowly. At this rate, when are we ever going to catch up to them?” Shen Jiayi couldn't help but complain in a low voice.
Qu Ling replied crossly, “This is just an ordinary butterfly, not a fighter jet. Can you stop making such ridiculous demands?”
“Besides, take a look at the environment we're in. If the butterfly flew any faster, would you even be able to see where it is? Aren't you afraid of losing track of it?”
Shen Jiayi was left speechless. She could only suppress her anxiety and continue following in silence.
They passed through the sprawling sunflower fields on the back mountain and reached the edge of the woods where the cave Shen Jiayi had mentioned was located.
Finally, the brightly colored butterfly, which had been flying steadily, began to circle. It descended onto a flat, open patch of dirt, landed, and remained completely still.
“What does this mean? Is it tired of flying?” Shen Jiayi asked.
Qu Ling squatted down and carefully examined the ground. “It's not tired. The scent completely cut off here. All traces of the fragrance extend underground and disappear.”
“Underground?” Shen Jiayi was incredulous.
She bent down and scooped up a couple of handfuls of dirt with her bare hands. The soil was compact and hard, completely solid earth.
“I've lived in this village for over twenty years and never knew there was a tunnel here. I've wasted my life.”
Bai Ci squatted down and glanced at the results of Shen Jiayi's bare-handed digging, dismissing the theory of an underground tunnel.
“It's probably not as simple as a tunnel. If it were a tunnel, the butterfly would have led us to the entrance. But this place... doesn't look like a tunnel entrance.”
Qu Ling agreed, but she had no other methods left, so she felt somewhat discouraged.
“Maybe it's some kind of alien technology. To force a baby's growth to maturity, they'd probably need a specialized environment.”
This sentence inspired Bai Ci.
She remembered the Rain's Message panel stating that Sang Lan II had crash-landed on Earth due to an accident with the interstellar spaceship carrying him, forcing him to complete his incubation on Earth.
So, could the specialized environment for forcing Shen Tan's delivery be inside the spaceship?
A spaceship could be considered a vehicle, right?
What a coincidence—she had just the item for that.
Rate on N.U.
