Fu Sang looked Zhuge Buhuo up and down very exaggeratedly, letting out an appreciative “tsk tsk.”
Then he slowly looked him over again.
Zhuge Buhuo felt as if he had been subjected to a round of mental torture by that gaze, leaving him feeling prickly all over.
But he didn’t say anything, only angrily put the plates on the table and plopped down on the stool.
His body language was furious, yet his tone remained eerily kind, “Since you’re here, get your ass over here and eat~”
“?” Fu Sang didn’t know what illness this person was suffering from.
However, since he had not yet figured out the situation, going with the flow was clearly the wisest move.
So he sat down in the empty seat at the table. Before picking up his chopsticks, he first examined what was on the plates.
Burnt.
Everything had been burned to charcoal.
Even the original color of the vegetables could not be seen. It was as if someone had scraped ash from the bottom of the wok and dumped it onto a plate, that was the dish.
“Is this how your family treats guests?” Fu Sang threw down his chopsticks, clearly unimpressed by the dishes.
The veins on Zhuge Buhuo’s forehead bulged slightly, “Stir-fried dried bamboo shoots and stir-fried cabbage. They’re your favorites. Eat.”
“No.” Fu Sang refused again.
He turned to look at the unusually silent Huo Wei, “Do you like it?”
A look that could be described as a bitter smile appeared on Huo Wei’s face.
For some reason, she did not speak, only silently picked up her chopsticks, picked up a charred piece of food, steeled herself, and threw it into her mouth as if facing death.
Afterward, her face crumpled even more, looking as though she might burst into tears at any moment.
“Are you sick?” Fu Sang coldly watched this performance art,”Speak.”
Huo Wei still did not speak, only tapped his knee twice under the table as a warning.
“You can’t talk?” Fu Sang understood her meaning and redirected his gaze to Zhuge Buhuo across from him:
“If she can’t talk, you talk. Explain. How did this medical miracle of a chatterbox turning mute happen?”
“I…” Zhuge Buhuo also wore a troubled expression.
He seemed about to say something, but before that, a loud “bang” rang out.
Someone had slammed the table so hard that the bowls and chopsticks on it jumped.
Fu Sang keenly noticed that both Zhuge Buhuo and Huo Wei were frightened by the noise, so much so that their bodies trembled heavily.
Fu Sang raised an eyebrow slightly.
He looked toward the source of the sound, it was the little girl with the twin braids.
The girl’s face was expressionless. She did not move, and there wasn’t even the rise and fall of breathing. She was frozen there like a photograph or a statue.
Fu Sang quietly waited for what would come next, to see what she was about to do that could scare those two useless ones this much.
But the little girl did not make any further moves.
Only after a moment of dead silence did her eyes brighten, as if she had suddenly come back to life.
She stood up and looked around:
“Where is Didi?”
“…I don’t know.”
Zhuge Buhuo seemed to come alive too.
He let out an inaudible sigh of relief, his voice faintly trembling, but his tone was full of encouragement:
“A Mei, why don’t you go look for him?”
“Okay!”
The little girl, called “A Mei,” stood up, happily hopped, and bounced out of the small courtyard again.
After her figure disappeared at the entrance, as if some seal had finally been lifted, Zhuge Buhuo suddenly sprang to his feet and tore off his apron:
“Holy shit, Zhuge Fu Sang, how the fuck did you show up here?!”
Huo Wei also took a deep breath, looking as if tears were about to burst out any second:
“Waaa, Sang You, are you some kind of heavenly savior?! Do you know how much security seeing your deadpan face gave me when I walked in?! Your nephew is such a useless piece of trash, I really thought I was going to die here, waaaa, it’s so good to have you here!!!”
“Calm down.” Fu Sang answered Zhuge Buhuo’s question first, “I came to find the useless fool.”
Then said:
“Add a random surname in front of my name again, and I’ll send you to see Qi Changying.”
“Fuck, what do you mean? You look down on the surname Zhuge but still rush to be my uncle??”
“I really want to live with such noble character…insisting on principles even when taking advantage of others.”
“Scram… Wait, who is Qi Changying?”
Qi Changying was still in the snake-bone nail. Hearing someone mention his name, he instinctively wanted to show himself, but Fu Sang tapped him lightly twice with his fingertip, signaling him to not come out for now.
“Don’t worry about it.”
Fu Sang tapped the table, “First, tell me, what exactly is wrong with you two? Did the Zhuge family’s Shaosi send you into this little mountain village to help the poor and take care of left-behind children while pretending to be a lonely old man? Seeing how pitiful the kids are, you made a disgusting meal to poison them to death so they won’t have to be left behind and pitiful anymore? Is that it?”
“Fuck, you can’t say anything without attacking people?”
“Yeah.” Fu Sang shrugged.
“…”
Zhuge Buhuo got annoyed just hearing him open his mouth, but the fact was that he now had to rely on this one and only lifeline to get himself out, so he had no choice but to endure the humiliation and say, “We haven’t figured it out yet either. The mission on the notice only said to come here and undo a binding. Who knew this ghost village would be like this once we got in?”
Huo Wei looked somewhat on the verge of collapse, “Isn’t it all your fault?! When we were still outside, I said the yin energy in these mountains is so heavy, and that the mission definitely wouldn’t be that simple. I also said that you alone might not be able to handle it, and you’d get us all killed here. And you? You insisted you were so awesome, that something of this level was just a piece of cake. Now? You’ve got me kowtowing to some little bratty ghost along with you!”
“Damn it, then why didn’t you stay outside instead of coming in with me?!”
“Who told you to be so confident?!”
The two of them went back and forth, giving Fu Sang a headache. “Can you two be any louder?”
“……” The unique oppressive aura of Fu Sang was still very effective. At those words, both of them shut up immediately.
Zhuge Buhuo huffily continued the previous topic, “Anyway, after we came in, we found out we couldn’t get out. Not only could we not get out, but we were also inexplicably dragged into role-playing by the kid. This damn place has no phone signal, and the mourning birds can’t be sent out either. The whole village is like it’s cut off from the world, with no way out at all.”
Fu Sang listened and nodded: “What happens if you don’t role-play?”
Zhuge Buhuo looked like he found it hard to speak, gritting his teeth, but finally he lifted the loose right trouser leg of his cotton pants to show the consequences.
Fu Sang raised an eyebrow, then walked over with interest and squatted down, observing him carefully…
There were several black handprints on Zhuge Buhuo’s leg. Fu Sang reached out and measured them in the air. From the direction and angle of the handprints, he deduced that some dirty thing had emerged from underground, grabbed this calf, and pulled and clawed downward.
“Wow.” A hint of what seemed like admiration flashed in Fu Sang’s eyes.
He looked up at Zhuge Buhuo:
“Did the little girl do that?”
“Who else could it be?” Zhuge Buhuo angrily dropped his trouser leg back down:
“That girl is terrifying. What’s even more terrifying is that I can’t even judge what rank she is. She’s dangerous and domineering. If you don’t role-play according to her wishes, she starts punishing you. I don’t know how to cook, but her grandmother just happens to be a gentle, kind, and skilled cook as a character. I stir-fried until the spatula was smoking and burned myself out, and this is the best I could do. I have to eat this stuff myself too. You think I have pica or something??”
“Oh…” Fu Sang then looked at Huo Wei:
“And what kind of role is your ‘neighbor Ah Tian’ supposed to be?”
“…”
Being unable to answer seemed to be a contagious emotion.
Huo Wei held her forehead and reluctantly revealed the answer:
“She’s mute.”
The two short words conveyed the full weight of her bitterness.
Fu Sang’s look of admiration became even more pronounced.
The hot-tempered nephew plays the gentle, kind old grandmother. The wealthy chatterbox plays the mute village girl.
What a perfect division of labor.
He stood up and said honestly:
“I’m starting to like this place a little.”
Ignoring their resentful gazes, he continued asking on his own:
“You’ve been here for two days. Is there any other useful information you want to share with me?”
“Wasn’t what we just said useful information?” Zhuge Buhuo spread his hands.
Fu Sang’s eyes clearly said “otherwise?”:
“At best, it’s telling your new companion about your tragic experiences.”
“…” Zhuge Buhuo laughed in exasperation.
He said to Huo Wei, “I’m really looking forward to seeing what kind of character card he’ll be assigned.”
Huo Wei gloated:
“I hope it’s a pure and kind angel sister who wouldn’t even step on an ant and has to hold hands with the little brat every day to sing folk songs.”
“I think the dead are more silent than the mute. Wouldn’t that identity suit you better?”
Fu Sang retorted calmly, but he was unwilling to admit that this combination of one disciple from the main family and one core member of the inner clan was really this unprofessional and useless:
“Nothing at all? The little girl’s name just now, the role identities you’re playing yourselves…two days, and you know nothing? You haven’t found out anything? I could throw a dog in here and it would fetch me some clues. Did you two just come here to play?”
Under enormous humiliation and pressure, Zhuge Buhuo thought briefly and said, “Oh, we do know those things you mentioned.”
“Then why didn’t you say it? Were you planning to savor it under the covers at night?”
“Fuck, that’s too harsh. Enough already, my patience has limits! Besides, didn’t you ask for useful information? Does a name even count?”
“?”
“Here.”
Zhuge Buhuo pulled a crumpled photo from his apron pocket, “This courtyard is home to just this family of three.”
Fu Sang reached out and took the photo.
The photo was black and white, a bit yellowed and old, framing three people in the picture.
Sitting in the center of the image was an elderly woman who looked to be in her fifties or sixties, with a kind face and was smiling at the camera. She was holding a little boy in her arms, who had a round bald head and big, round, dark eyes.
The little girl standing beside her, intimately holding the old woman’s arm, was the one with the twin braids from earlier, “A Mei.” In the photo, she looked one or two years younger than now, but her appearance hadn’t changed much…she had a lively look and a sweet smile.
“That ghost girl just now is called Wu Renmei.The ‘Wu’ is the one with the ‘mouth’ radical (口天吴), and ‘Renmei’ is the ‘ren’ from ‘person’ (人) and the ‘mei’ from ‘beautiful’ (美). Everyone usually calls her A Mei. She has a little brother called Wu Renshuai, the kid the old woman is holding in the photo. He seems to have some intellectual disability, a low-intelligence child. The old lady is named Zhang Xifeng. She’s the maternal mother of the two children. In the local dialect here, they call her A Ma.”
After introducing them one by one, Zhuge Buhuo asked, “So what rank is that girl? I can’t even read her… Gray Despair? Cyan Resentment? Don’t tell me she’s Crimson Evil? Hey, come to think of it, what about that ghost you’ve been raising. Did you bring it?”
“What kind of class do you think you are, are you worthy to see the ghost I raise?”
Fu Sang raised an eyebrow slightly and answered his first question before Zhuge Buhuo could lose his temper,
“There’s no need to feel inferior. It’s normal you can’t tell. Because she’s not a ghost.”
“Ah???” Zhuge Buhuo’s mouth fell open:
“No way, how is that possible? In this village, she’s the only one with self-awareness. Everyone else just wanders around like NPCs, repeating the same lines. If she’s not the one in charge here, then who is?”
“I didn’t say she’s not the one in charge here.”
“This place has very heavy yin energy. Didn’t you see outside? The yin energy is so thick it’s condensed into substance dripping from the leaves, it’s disgusting as hell. If she’s not a ghost, how does she have yin energy? If she’s not a ghost, is she human?”
“She’s not human either.”
“Then what is she?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know, yet you’re sure she’s not a ghost? Where do you get that confidence?”
Fu Sang found it amusing, “You’re asking me? You’ve been here for two days and couldn’t tell if she’s human or ghost, and now you expect me to come in for twenty minutes and turn into the Mitou Village encyclopedia to explain Miss Wu Renmei’s life and death to you? A Ma, I’m just a half-baked Feng Shui guy, not God, and I don’t have a DM manual.”
“A Ma.”
As soon as Fu Sang finished speaking, Wu Renmei’s clear voice came again from outside the door.
The two people nearby immediately adjusted their postures, sitting up straight and respectfully awaiting her arrival.
Soon, Wu Renmei hopped across the threshold into the courtyard:
“I found Didi!”
Fu Sang raised an eyebrow slightly and looked toward the courtyard entrance.
Wu Renmei’s brother, Wu Renshuai.
Given the current situation, Wu Renmei’s grandmother and the girl next door are both played by outsiders, so this Wu Renshuai was probably not the real one either.
As for who specifically it was…
Sure enough, the next second, Zhuge Buyi appeared behind the doorframe.
Actually, Fu Sang had only been separated from this kid for less than half an hour. In those twenty-odd minutes, this person seemed to have gone through some ordeal…his once pure white T-shirt was now dirty and torn, his hair was messy as a bird’s nest, his black-framed glasses had one leg bent, sitting crookedly on his nose, and his left face and neck were stamped with several black handprints, similar to the marks on his brother’s leg.
It looked like he’d already had a fight.
Truly a family…both were non-Newtonian fluids who would rather die than surrender but could still bend a little after being beaten.
“Didi, come eat. I’ll feed you!”
Wu Renmei ran over and took Zhuge Buyi’s hand, leading him to the table under Zhuge Buhuo’s shocked gaze. She carefully tied a bib on him, then picked up a piece of charcoal from the plate, scooping it up with some rice on a spoon, and bringing it to his mouth:
“Ah…”
“…”
Zhuge Buyi’s expression was somewhat dazed.
To refuse the meal, his body instinctively leaned back until someone slapped his thigh hard. Looking up, he saw his brother’s eyes full of determination:
“I made it myself. Feel free to eat.”
“???” Zhuge Buyi’s gaze went back and forth between his brother and the dark cuisine several times. Finally, he closed his eyes, opened his mouth, and ate the spoonful of food with a look of facing death with composure.
Then: “Blergh!”
Huo Wei lowered her head, suppressing laughter, her shoulders shaking like an eight-magnitude earthquake, but she didn’t dare make a sound.
Wu Renmei covered his mouth to keep him from spitting it out, cheerfully praising him: “Didi, take big bites! Eat well! If you eat more, you will get smart, and grow tall fast!”
“Blergh mmm…”
At this point, it had become art.
Fu Sang was really starting to like this place.
He took out his phone and permanently captured this heartwarming moment with the camera.
