At the break of dawn the next day, the cries for help from three male college students caught the attention of their neighbors.
The villagers found a way to break open the door. Armed with sticks and sickles, they charged upstairs, only to find that Shi Derong had long since stopped breathing.
He was drenched from head to toe; water dripped from his clothes without needing to be wrung out. His legs were spread apart, hands propping him up from the ground as he sat in the doorway of the side bedroom, head drooping onto his chest. His face was swollen to a purplish-red, his bulging eyes were bloodshot, and the corners of his mouth, stretched to his earlobes, curled into a sinister smile.
The villagers and passengers, who had rushed over after hearing the commotion, gathered in the living room on the first floor of Shi Derong's house, buzzing with speculation.
Village Chief Lu Gui had some villagers take the three deeply shaken college students to other homes to rest.
Lu Gui's youngest son, Lu Maocai, told everyone that Shi Derong was a habitual drunkard. He had likely just drunk too much the night before, drenched himself, and then sat outside the door, accidentally asphyxiating himself by restricting his own breathing.
This explanation was barely plausible. The downpour was still ongoing, and with communications and transport cut off, reporting to the police was impossible.
Village Chief Lu Gui, under the guise of "preparing Shi Derong's body for burial," politely asked the passengers to leave.
Check for the latest updates on My Virtual Library Empire (*).
Once the outsiders had left, only a few older male villagers remained in the living room.
After Lu Maocai closed the front door, an elderly villager named Lu He glanced at Shi Derong's ghastly and terrifying corpse and hesitantly said, "How many does this make now? Could it really be..."
"Don't talk nonsense!"
Village Chief Lu Gui's previously gentle and kind expression vanished. He glared and snapped, "Even if it is a ghost, we have ways to deal with it! Maocai, take some men now and go dig open the irrigation channel."
The villagers gasped, "Why? If you dig open the channel, won't all the fields flood?"
"Don't ask why! What's more important, your few worthless acres or your lives?"
Village Chief Lu Gui sneered, "Only if you listen to me—all of you—will you survive. Otherwise, just wait for death."
The villagers nodded submissively, lowering their heads, not daring to look at Lu Gui.
Lu Maocai, with a few others, donned straw raincoats and carried hoes. They went to the fields and dug open the irrigation channel they had just repaired the day before, allowing the patchwork of fields to be submerged by water.
As they stood on the road, watching the water engulf the land, Li Ang, dressed in a black raincoat with his face shrouded in cloth, was also observing their every move from a distant mountain ridge.
Chai Cuiqiao asked curiously, "Strange... why would they flood their own fields?"
Li Ang stroked his chin, casually saying, "Maybe the septic tank upstream of the stream exploded, and they're thinking of conserving resources, keeping the bounty for themselves."
After watching for a while on the road, the villagers turned around with their hoes and left. Chai Cuiqiao couldn't help but ask, "Aren't we going to follow them and see?"
"We could, but there's no need."
Li Ang shook his head. "The 'strangeness' that can block Spiritual Sense could either be due to the unique topography of Dusheng Village, or because of this bizarre heavy rain, or because of some person or thing. I don't think these villagers truly know the real purpose behind digging the channel and flooding the fields. Rather than asking them, it's better to find someone who really knows the truth."
Chai Cuiqiao's eyebrows furrowed slightly. "Are you talking about the village chief?"
Li Ang shook his head and did not answer.
There were many strange things about Dusheng Village. Before solving the mystery, Li Ang did not intend to take any particularly aggressive actions against the villagers, including the village chief.
He watched the distant villagers leave, tugged at the raincoat he was wearing, and walked straight into the ravine.
The heavy rain poured down, the forests were gloomy, and the flickering tree shadows on both sides of the narrow path swayed, as if lining the way to welcome Li Ang.
Many graves, new and old, were buried in this ravine. Li Ang scanned the area and climbed up the slope to the newest grave.
According to the markings on the tombstone, the owner of this grave had died eleven days ago. It was his death that prompted Lu Maodian to seek out the Information Broker and hire Li Ang.
"My apologies," Li Ang said indifferently to the brand-new tombstone. He took out a small shovel, infused it with Ripple Energy, and slammed it into the cement surface of the grave.
A moment later, the grave was completely dismantled, split in two.
Li Ang did not rush down. Instead, he put on a layer of plastic film clothing, covered his sleeves with latex gloves, his shoes with large protective shoe covers, and wrapped his forehead and chin in plastic wrap. This protective measure was mainly to prevent the potent smell of decomposition from lingering on him and drawing the attention of others—once the putrid liquid from a corpse stuck to the skin, the smell could take days to dissipate, and Li Ang was quite experienced with this.
After preparing himself, Li Ang jumped into the grave, lifted the coffin lid, and exposed the male corpse lying silently inside.
In ten days, the corpse had decomposed severely. Li Ang, unfazed, breathed naturally in the thick stench of decay and even calmly said to Chai Cuiqiao, "The state of decomposition on this body is quite severe. If it were fresher, its stomach would have swollen high. You'd just need to insert a syringe with a tube attached. Then, place a match at the other end of the tube. The decay gas from the body would rush out along the tube and be ignited by the match, creating a beautiful blue jet of flame. It's quite beautiful; a pity you didn't get to see it."
Chai Cuiqiao was tongue-tied, unsure of what to say, so she just gave a few dry laughs.
Li Ang paid no attention to Chai Cuiqiao's silence. He bent down and, as if removing gloves, peeled off the corpse's skin, meticulously examining every inch of the body.
As an ordinary netizen who liked to browse the internet, it was perfectly normal for Li Ang to be proficient in forensic anthropology.
The examination of the body did not take Li Ang very long. He climbed out of the grave, hastily covered it up, and headed towards the burial sites of others previously deceased in Dusheng Village.
Fortunately, this place was remote and the local customs were "simple"; cremation was not widely practiced.
By evening, Li Ang had inspected the remains of everyone who had died in Dusheng Village in the last seven months, except he couldn't find the grave of Meng Qixi, the village teacher.
Having made some discoveries, Li Ang did not explain anything to Chai Cuiqiao.
As it was getting late, not returning to the village could arouse suspicion.
Li Ang removed all protective measures, tearing up the plastic wrap, latex gloves, and other items, and stuffed them into the torn disposable plastic film clothing. He then compressed this pile of trash to the size of a fist and wrapped it in layer after layer of plastic wrap to ensure no strong odors would escape. Finally, he put it in the pocket of his raincoat.
He returned to Dusheng Village, acting as if nothing had happened.
Not long after he left the ravine, another figure wrapped in a black cloak also appeared in the mountains.
He walked down the slope, looked at the hastily covered graves that had been dug up, and stood silent for a long time. After hesitating for a moment, he still reopened the graves and proceeded to examine the bodies.