The madwoman froze, a look of intense fear surfacing in her eyes.
“I was attacked by child ghosts in the town during the day, so as the instigator, there’s no way you’ve been living in peace all this time.”
“What are you using to suppress those spirits?”
“Every household has been staying behind closed doors since yesterday. I suspect they know that the closer it gets to the day of the sacrifice, the weaker the constraints on the dead children become, and they will come out to kill.”
“The reason you aren't dead is probably because you've been hiding in the woods where your presence is hard to detect, right?”
With every sentence Nan Yue spoke, the madwoman’s body trembled. Eventually, she curled into a ball, frantically biting her own knuckles.
“Impossible... Impossible... No one can encounter child ghosts and survive!”
A beast-like light flickered in the madwoman’s eyes. She hadn't expected this woman to see through all her secrets after just one meeting.
Furthermore, Nan Yue’s hypothesis made her shake with terror.
She must be bluffing!
The madwoman leaped up with a speed that didn't seem human. She opened her mouth, intending to pin Nan Yue down and bite her throat.
Unfortunately, Nan Yue was faster. With a quick shift, she appeared behind the woman and pinned her to the ground with a foot. No matter how hard she struggled, the weight on her back felt as immovable as a thousand-pound stone block.
Gu Xiang Kai didn't intervene. He was well aware of Nan Yue’s skills and wanted to see why she was provoking this woman.
Nan Yue kept the madwoman pinned and waved a hand in front of her.
“See this? Do you think this might be your child’s handprint?”
The dark handprint entered the madwoman’s vision. It was as if she had seen something utterly terrifying, and the last string of her sanity finally snapped.
She opened her mouth wide to scream but could make no sound. Her entire being seemed as if an invisible hand were crushing her throat, like a fish out of water on the verge of death.
Nan Yue moved her foot away. The madwoman immediately scrambled back a few steps, hugging herself and tearing out clumps of her own hair.
Everyone present could see that this woman had truly gone insane.
Nan Yue looked at the sky and said to Gu Xiang Kai, “Bring her along. She’ll be useful.”
Gu Xiang Kai didn't ask why. He stepped forward, grabbed the madwoman, and started walking. Lu Jiao was somewhat reluctant, but since Nan Yue was the one who found the clues and broke the woman, and her own initial line of thinking had been wildly off, she didn't feel right speaking up.
To Nan Yue’s slight surprise, Dongfang Yuelai didn't say much either, merely following them with a smile.
As the sky gradually darkened, everyone quickened their pace. When they passed the Evermercy Restaurant, Lu Jiao took the initiative to ask.
“Aren't you going to eat? Do you need me to bring some back for you?”
Zhu Xi Ning recognized Lu Jiao’s gesture of goodwill and gave a small grin. “No thanks. You guys go ahead.”
Faced with this polite refusal, Lu Jiao could only watch the three of them head toward the old residence along the bluestone road. She looked at Dongfang Yuelai. “Are we just going to let them keep that woman?”
Dongfang Yuelai glanced at her without saying a word, simply going to the kitchen to ask Xu Youci for a bowl of noodles.
Lu Jiao bit her finger somewhat neurotically. Ever since learning the town’s secret, she felt as if everyone in town were an evil ghost. The thought that much of the food she had eaten before might have been mixed with the remains of children made her want to vomit.
“Are we still going to eat?”
Dongfang Yuelai sat down composedly, her voice slow. “You can choose not to.”
Lu Jiao bit her lip and eventually stayed to sit beside Dongfang Yuelai.
When Nan Yue’s group returned to the old residence, they found that the people in the inner residence hadn't gone to eat either. They seemed to be in He Jiang’s room discussing something, and the voices were quite loud.
Because of this, no one noticed that Nan Yue had brought back a madwoman.
Gu Xiang Kai got the madwoman into the room and stood by the inner residence listening for a moment. Although the people inside had lowered their voices after hearing movement outside, Gu Xiang Kai still caught the key words.
“Someone is missing.”
Gu Xiang Kai lowered his brow and spoke in a whisper. He closed the door and saw the madwoman huddled in a corner of the wall, hugging herself in silence.
Zhu Xi Ning was handing out steamed buns to Nan Yue. “We’ll have to go out to eat tomorrow.”
Nan Yue took a bite of a dried-out bun and nodded. Tomorrow was the last day before the sacrifice, and also the most dangerous day.
Only by surviving tomorrow would they know what exactly happened to this town and find a way to finish the mission.
“That’s why I brought her back.”
Nan Yue’s gaze toward the madwoman was cold. “If she isn't completely crazy, she should still remember something about the child ghosts. With her, we can figure out tomorrow’s death rules.”
Nan Yue lowered her eyes. “If she has really gone completely mad, then she is the best stone for testing the path.”
Zhu Xi Ning and Gu Xiang Kai had no objections. They were people with principles, and if it were ordinary scavengers, they wouldn't be able to bring themselves to use a human life to test the way.
Even if they were NPCs, they were like real people after all, and this wouldn't be an option unless absolutely necessary.
But the NPCs in this mission were different. Having eaten her own child, even if she were half-insane, her regret wasn't for what she had done to her offspring.
Her regret was that she hadn't gotten to eat any.
In the madwoman’s eyes, the child was someone she had carried for ten months, so why shouldn't she get to eat?
Nan Yue didn't have a shred of empathy for such a person.
In fact, she had truly considered simply leaving the madwoman in the town at night to let her meet her deserved end.
But in the end, she held back.
It would be too much of a waste.
“You just said two people are missing?”
Gu Xiang Kai finished one bun in two bites and started on a second. “Yes. The two girls who were staying next door to us.”
“It seems they went out this morning and haven't come back.”
Nan Yue thought for a moment. “Did they say what they were going to do?”
“To get food. Apparently, because those two girls didn't return, those in the inner residence don't dare to go out. They’ve been hungry all day.”
Gu Xiang Kai gave a cold laugh, clearly disgusted by the behavior of a group of men pushing two girls out to test the waters.
The road to the Evermercy Restaurant was long enough to encounter child ghosts. Even with two of them, Nan Yue didn't think they could have survived.
“I’m going out for a bit.”
Nan Yue stood up and brushed the bun crumbs off herself.
“It’s dark out.”
Gu Xiang Kai disapproved. Now that they knew child ghosts appeared as soon as it got dark, Nan Yue’s behavior was too risky.
“How about you take this woman with you.”
After a brief thought, Nan Yue agreed. She grabbed the now-dazed woman and quickly headed out the door.
She had to go look for the bodies of the two girls. If their method of death was the same as those in the inner residence or He Hongyun, then it was fine.
If not...
Then it meant that besides the child ghosts, there were other lethal threats in this town.
The madwoman was very submissive now that she had truly gone insane. She didn't even make a sound along the way, her silence surprising Nan Yue slightly.
Rate on N.U.
