Back at Secretary Huang's house, Jiang Luan and Xue Meng sat down on the stool in the main room. Secretary Huang's wife, who had been staying in the back room, brought two bowls of tea. Secretary Huang sat opposite him, holding a hookah in his hand, squirting, and the smoke from the spitting enveloped him, making people unable to see clearly.

Perhaps Jiang Qing remained calm from beginning to end, and Xue Meng calmed down. He touched the peace talisman in his pocket, and did not drink the bowl of tea, but smiled and talked to Secretary Huang: "Why are you back so soon?"

Secretary Huang paused for a moment and said, "You are guests from afar, so why can you leave you alone? You will naturally come back quickly."

"How can we be considered guests? Solving difficulties to the village is our job, and it should be." Xue Meng no longer felt close to him at this time and said polite words. Secretary Huang is not young and has a simple and honest appearance, which makes people feel close to him. Xue Meng is no exception.

But after seeing his ferocious expression in the woods, Xue Meng became more afraid and wary of him.

This village looks normal at first glance, but just like Jiang Qing said, if you think about it carefully, something is wrong everywhere. He remembered that yesterday Zhang Tianxing and Xiao Xiaoyu both said that the village was normal. I don’t know if they were deceived by the villagers, or if they were not lucky, and they just ran into each other today.

Secretary Huang took another deep breath of cigarette, then put down the cigarette pole and stood up, saying, "We're all back."

A faint voice came from outside. Xue Meng followed Jiang Veng to see, and saw the villagers coming back in groups of threes and threes. Their faces were no longer sad, but they were all filled with joy. But they probably had too much bitterness on their daily lives, and even if they smiled, they still had sorrow on their faces. It was very strange and inconsistent when they saw this.

Xue Meng quietly moved behind Jiang Qing and tried to maintain a natural expression to talk to Secretary Huang: "Why are everyone so happy? Is there anything good in the village?"

Secretary Huang narrowed his turbid eyes and said with a smile: "This is the custom here. The old man died after his sixty years of birthday, which is a joy and funeral. For a family, there is also a heavy burden. Therefore, after the funeral, the village will celebrate."

He turned to look at the two of them and said, "When there will be a banquet, you two haven't had lunch yet. You just happened to have a meal with us. The village is so lively."

He seemed to say that the sixty-year-old man was a burden and death was a happy event worth celebrating.

The more Xue Meng heard it, the more strange he felt, and a smile appeared on the corner of his mouth: "We have not completed our work tasks today, so we are afraid that we will not be able to handle the job with our leaders when we go back."

Secretary Huang waved his hand: "This is not simple. I'll call all the men and women to prepare the banquet. You guys will finish the business first."

After saying that, he shouted a few times, and the scattered villagers gathered over and looked at them with joy.

Seeing this, Xue Meng subconsciously looked at Jiang Lvang.

Then Jiang Luan nodded to him and said, "Finish the work first."

Xue Meng looked at him, sorted out his thoughts, and began to make a mobilization speech according to the plan he had set before. Jiang Qing posted the survey on his intention to go out and asked the villagers to fill in it.

Not all the villagers are literate, and there are villagers who don’t know how to read. Jiang Luan has to ask questions one by one with the form, and then fill in it after the other party answers.

Although there are not many people, filling out forms is a tedious job.

This one asked, the other one screamed, and the two of them had tossed for almost an hour before they put away all the forms.

The women in the village have already started cooking, and the rich aroma of the meal spreads.

Xue Meng and Jiang Qing roughly looked at the questionnaire and found that everyone had filled in the column "Whether to go out to work?"

According to normal circumstances, they came here to mobilize their work. No one in the village was willing to go out to work, so they must find a way to do ideological work. But the situation in the village is obviously wrong. Xue Meng licked his dry lips and asked in a low voice: "Do you still want to continue?"

Jiang Qing shook her head, then clicked the basic information on the questionnaire, signaling him to see: "No one of these people in the village is over 60 years old, and most of them are between thirty and fifty-five."

They always thought that Secretary Huang, who was in his fifties, was even only forty-eight years old. The youngest villager among them was twenty-six years old, but he was a little stupid.

Xue Meng recalled the words Huang said, "The old man died after his sixty birthday, which was a joyful funeral." His face turned slightly pale. He didn't dare to think about where all the elderly people who were over sixty years old in the village went.

Jiang Qing patted his shoulder and whispered: "Don't be afraid, there will be no problem."

Xue Meng swallowed, nodded, sorted out the form and put it in his bag.

After they finished organizing the meal, the village banquet had almost been prepared. Four tables were set up in the open space in front of Mr. Huang's house, and the women who were cooking had already started serving the dishes.

Judging from the poverty level in the village, they thought the banquet would not go anywhere.

But unexpectedly, the four tables of banquets were filled with big fish and meat, chicken, duck, pork and beef, and even turtles and shrimps. Secretary Huang also took out two bottles of Maotai from home.

Jiang Luan and Xue Meng didn't know how to drink, so they couldn't tell whether this was real Moutai. But as for the poverty displayed in Sanshui Village, the four tables of banquets in front of them were definitely not in line with the economic situation of the village.

They were arranged at the table of Secretary Huang, and Xue Meng sat down next to Jiang Qing, like a little quail, and didn't even dare to move the chopsticks.

Except for Secretary Huang, the rest of the table they sat at were middle-aged men. It seemed that the banquet was arranged according to seniority and age, just like other villages.

Someone came to persuade Jiang Qing to drink, but Jiang Qing refused because she could not drive drunk.

They didn't persuade them anymore, and drank and chatted on their own. They even told them which woman's house they would spend the night today.

After listening to them, Jiang Luan seemed to find any woman the men in the village usually wanted to find. They had no concept of husband and wife in their conversation, and it was more like treating the women in the village as public property, and anyone could use them.

Moreover, when they talked about these, they did not avoid Jiang Qing and the others, as if they did not regard them as outsiders at all. They were completely different from the enthusiasm in the morning but were alienated.

Jiang Qing remained silent, and Xue Meng pretended not to hear it. He pretended to look at the time, took out his phone and took a quick look at the message sent to the group. The text message was followed by a bright red exclamation mark.

Looking at the signal grid again, it is also empty.

I don’t know when the communication signal started and it was completely cut off.

Xue Meng changed the phone to vibrate and put it back in his pocket.

The man sitting next to him looked back at him, with a big smile on his lips.

...

After eating the banquet for nearly an hour, Xue Mengru was sitting on pins and needles. He forced a little food to eat under Jiang Qing's instructions.

When the banquet ended, Jiang Qing proposed that it was getting late and it was time for them to go back.

Secretary Huang drank a lot of wine and smiled and sent them out of the village.

Xue Meng, who was nervous, breathed a sigh of relief at first, and then raised it again. He always felt that these villagers shouldn't let them go so easily.

It was only about 5:30 pm at this time. It was not too late, but it was already dark. When they walked to the parking area at the entrance of the village, they saw a faint mist floating in the woods.

Xue Meng got into the driver's seat and started the car. But he found that the fire could not be caught.

He felt a chill, but he was not surprised. He was about to check what went wrong, but Jiang Qing, who got in the car afterwards, said: "The tires in the rear are also flat."

The two looked at each other and knew clearly who had touched the car.

Xue Meng glanced at the villagers who had not yet walked away, cursed and asked: "What should I do if my phone still has no signal? Those villagers will definitely not send us out."

The place in Sanshui Village is too remote, and the road is circling, and there is no navigation. Not to mention the dull evening, they may not be able to go out even in broad daylight.

Xue Meng gritted his teeth, took out the two peace talismans in his pocket, stuffed them to Jiang Qing, and searched in the car again, and found a small fruit knife and wrench, and said fiercely: "At worst, I can fight with them. I see that the place is full of yin energy. Maybe if I die, I can turn into a ghost and come back to take revenge!"

Jiang Lvang laughed so much that he stuffed the peace tale to him, and asked him to hide the fruit knife and wrench close to his body, signaling him to carry his bag and follow him: "Don't worry, we can come in, we can go out."

Xue Meng looked at his thin body. Although he was quite tall, he didn't have much meat. The ones who sat on their table just now were all strong farmers.

"There are so many people in the village, don't be stubborn. If you really can't beat us, run to the woods. When Xiao Xiaoyu and Zhang Tianxing find that we are missing, they will definitely call the police to look for us."

The more he talked, the more he felt that there was a chance, and his waist was a little straightened.

Jiang Qing looked back at him: "The villagers won't do anything to us, we have to be careful of something else."

He told Xue Meng: "I am sure to deal with it, but you must listen to me."

Xue Meng's lips trembled when she heard "other things", but she nodded honestly. Perhaps she was too nervous, and he said more without realizing it: "Do you know what those are?"

Jiang Qing shook her head: "I don't know."

He glanced at the fog that was gradually rising around him and said, "I will definitely know it when I'm late."

There is indeed no problem in the village. If he guessed correctly, those things would only appear at night. And they are mostly regular. As for what the rules are, there is too little information and I can't guess for the time being, but he thinks that it is mostly related to the death of people in the village.

Otherwise, there would be something wrong with Zhang Tianxing and the others coming yesterday.

Xue Meng:...

Is it really okay to be so reckless?

Perhaps because his expression was too frightened, Jiang Veng seemed to remember something, and added with concern: "Tonight, I mean if... no matter what you see me become, don't scream or be afraid, do you know?"

Xue Meng's expression suddenly became even more frightened:...

He wanted to ask what "no matter what it becomes" means? Are we not the same species?

When the words came to his mouth, he swallowed again and said "Oh" depressedly.

My mind was confused about the thigh he was holding. What kind of leg was he?

Before they could come up with the answer, the two of them had already returned to Huang Zhi's house.

Secretary Huang looked at the two people who returned and looked surprised: "Why are they back? Did something fall? "

Xue Meng cursed in her heart that the old guy is quite good at acting, but she smiled: "Uncle, our car is broken, and the phone has no signal, and I can't contact my colleague..."

Secretary Huang pretended to ask about the situation, and then said, "Oh, there is a tricycle in the village that can take you out. It's late now, the tricycle is driving slowly, and there is no street light on the dirt road, so why don't you just sit in the village tonight? Wouldn't your colleagues come tomorrow morning? Then ask them to take you back."

Xue Meng thought to himself that you would be cold when my reinforcements came, but he had to pretend to be happy and responded.

Secretary Huang arranged a temporary housing for them, which was in the west room. The bedding was fully covered, and it was obviously prepared long ago.

The two of them saw through and said nothing, and then they said thank you and rested in the west room.

At this time, the sky outside was completely dark. Xue Meng looked at his phone and it was only six o'clock. It was June now, with long days and short nights. Normally, it would be dark after seven o'clock. But when he looked out through the window of the west room, the village was already dark. There was not even a light on.

He shivered and hugged Jiang Qing with the quilt.

But unexpectedly, Jiang Veng saw a little excitement in her eyes. He was stunned and said suspiciously: "Why do I think you are a little happy?"

"Is it so obvious?" Jiang Veng looked at him innocently, then reached out and touched his face.

"have."

Xue Meng murmured in a low voice: "Although you are a big boss, you are not afraid of encountering such a thing, you won't be excited, right?"

You really make me feel insecure!
To be continued...