Chapter 173: Phantom of the Deserted Village

Li Zhi looked at the little girl before her. She wasn’t very good at lying.

She probably knew something, but she wasn’t willing to say. Li Zhi didn’t press her, simply asking instead, “Have you seen Sister Zhou Xuan since then?”

Liu Xiaoyan finally lifted her head again and shook it. “No.”

After her death, she had wandered the village, but she had never seen Zhou Xuan.

If Liu Xiaoyan wasn’t lying about this, it meant that Zhou Xuan had not returned as a vengeful ghost after her death.

The village chief’s family must have used some method—not only burning Zhou Xuan’s body and scattering her ashes but also ensuring she couldn’t become a ghost.

So, the series of massacres in Liu Village were not Zhou Xuan’s doing.

But someone had avenged her.

Who?

Was it the frail and simple Liu Xiaoyan before her? Li Zhi glanced at the large yellow dog beside her. On the way to the shack, Liu Xiaoyan had mentioned that the dog had died protecting her, lunging at Liu Daqiang and being hacked to death.

A loyal dog guarding its master, even in death—this girl and her dog certainly had the capacity for vengeance.

The night rain pattered against the wooden shack.

Li Zhi pondered for a while, a clue gradually forming in her mind. Across from her, Liu Xiaoyan stared with her pitch-black eyes. The way she silently watched without speaking was somewhat eerie.

Li Zhi smiled and pulled a piece of chocolate from her bag, offering it. “Can you eat this?”

Liu Xiaoyan’s eyes lit up, a happy smile spreading across her face. “Chocolate!” She leaned in to sniff it. “Sister Yan gave me some before.”

Li Zhi placed the chocolate on the ground in front of her, then settled onto the haystack, relaxing. The atmosphere in the shack, accompanied by the rain outside, grew almost leisurely.

The yellow dog lay down at Liu Xiaoyan’s feet, eyelids drooping as it began to snore.

Liu Xiaoyan sniffed the chocolate as Li Zhi asked casually, “Is Sister Yan Shen Jiayan?”

Liu Xiaoyan nodded. “Yes.”

“Sister Yan lived in Liu Village for many years, right?”

Liu Xiaoyan thought for a moment before confirming, “She was here when I was very little. Once, my parents took my brother to the town for treatment and didn’t leave the door unlocked for me. When I came back from cutting pigweed, I couldn’t get in. At night, Sister Yan called me to her home, gave me food, and even let me sleep in her bed. She smelled so nice, and she taught me poems.”

Li Zhi was curious. “What poem? Can you still recite it?”

Liu Xiaoyan brightened, her thin frame straightening slightly with pride. “Yes! ‘Lush grass on the plains, withering and flourishing each year. Wildfires cannot burn it all, spring winds blow it back to life!’”

Wildfires cannot burn it all, spring winds blow it back to life.

Out of all the simple Tang poems a child could memorize, why had Shen Jiayan specifically taught Liu Xiaoyan this one?

To Shen Jiayan, this poem must have carried more than just its original meaning of bidding farewell to a friend.

The yellow dog at Liu Xiaoyan’s feet suddenly stood, barking fiercely twice toward the shack’s entrance. Li Zhi opened her map and saw a pair of red footprints outside—likely a wandering lost soul.

At the sound of the dog’s barks, the footprints slowly retreated.

After her death, Liu Xiaoyan must have relied on the dog’s protection to avoid being bullied by other spirits.

The night deepened. Li Zhi asked Liu Xiaoyan a few more questions about Shen Jiayan, but the information she received aligned with her earlier deductions.

Shen Jiayan had been trafficked to the village at least ten years ago. She had borne Liu Dajun a son. Because she appeared obedient, was beautiful and educated, and treated the Liu family with warmth and care, her life in the village wasn’t too harsh.

From Liu Xiaoyan’s descriptions, it seemed Shen Jiayan had fully assimilated into Liu Village, becoming one of its own.

Li Zhi asked, “Do you know where Sister Yan went after her husband and son died?”

Liu Xiaoyan shook her head.

Li Zhi pressed, “What about the other sisters who lost their husbands and children? Did they leave afterward?”

Liu Xiaoyan glanced at her.

Suddenly, she stood and patted the dozing yellow dog. In the next moment, both girl and dog vanished.

The rain continued to fall.

Li Zhi pulled out the family photo she had salvaged from the ruins. In it, Shen Jiayan looked to be only twenty—so young, her life just beginning to bloom. She should have been continuing her studies and living her life, but instead, she had borne a child in this mountain village.

She had lived here for ten years.

How many decades does a person truly have?

Li Zhi spent the night safely in the shack. By dawn, the rain had stopped.

Her food supplies were running low. She took out a nutrient solution she had bought in a previous instance from her inventory and drank it, instantly restoring her health.

After freshening up, she checked her fully charged phone and saw that overnight, her likes had neared five million. At this rate, she would likely clear the instance today.

As her viewers noticed she was awake, the livestream chat erupted with greetings:

—Good morning, streamer! What’s the plan for today? Can’t wait!

—Last night was already so intense. Will tonight be even worse?

—You’ve already gained enough traffic. Why not leave the village before dark? It’s not worth risking your life for more views.

—1: After Liu Dajun’s family died, Shen Jiayan didn’t leave. Instead, she personally arranged their funerals, earning high praise from the villagers. 2: There’s no grave for Zhou Xuan in the village. They burned her body and scattered her ashes, never giving her a proper burial. 3: After Zhou Xuan’s death, Liu Daqiang began seeing any woman in a red dress as her. 4: After the Liu Guiren family died, the villagers invited a Taoist priest to perform rites for the Liu Youcai family. The cellar’s seals were reinforced then. 5: After each massacre, the village chief redistributed the victims’ property and land among the remaining villagers.

—Wow, the streamer’s boyfriend is really putting in work, gathering intel from the chat!

—Aren’t you survivors who fled Liu Village afraid of being haunted by the people you killed?

—Human traffickers! Disgusting! You all deserve to die! How dare you watch this stream? Let the streamer expose every last one of you!

…

The livestream had been running for two full days and nights. Given the current viewership, the surviving villagers who had left must have already seen it.

Li Jianxi had been lurking silently in the chat before, but now he dumped all the clues he had gathered at once. Likely, he saw that her likes were nearing five million, the investigation was winding down, and there was no need to worry about tipping anyone off.

Li Zhi flipped through her notebook, checking the timeline of the Liu Guiren family’s deaths.

Counting the Liu Youcai family, the Liu Guirens were the fourth household to be wiped out. The villagers’ decision to invite a Taoist priest and reinforce the cellar’s seals after the Liu Guiren massacre showed they believed the ongoing tragedies were caused by the vengeful spirits of Liu Youcai’s parents.

They had never suspected Zhou Xuan—further proof for Li Zhi that Zhou Xuan had been “liberated” after death, meaning the massacres truly had nothing to do with her.

Then, on the seventh day after the Liu Guiren massacre, the fifth family—the Liu Jianguo household of five—was killed.

By then, the village must have been in utter panic.

They had called priests, performed rites, even reinforced the cellar’s seals—the tunnel walls were plastered with yellow talismans—yet the killings continued.

When would the slaughter end? Who would be next?

Amid this terror, four days after the Liu Jianguo family’s deaths, the village chief’s household erupted in violence.

The villagers likely believed that only by killing Liu Daqiang could the vengeful spirits be appeased. They stormed the chief’s home, leading to a bloody clash that left all six members of the chief’s family dead. Afterward, the remaining villagers fled, finally ending the massacres.

Liu Daqiang wouldn’t kill women in red dresses, which was why every household kept one. But the red dress symbolized Zhou Xuan—a pregnant woman who had hanged herself. To the living, this was an ill omen, so when they moved away, they left the red dresses behind.

For the trafficked women in the slaughtered households, those red dresses had spared their lives—and granted them freedom.

To them, the red dress meant rebirth.

That was why Li Zhi hadn’t found any red dresses in the massacre sites. It wasn’t that the families hadn’t prepared them—the women who had gained their freedom had taken the dresses with them.

Most of her earlier questions had now been answered. Li Zhi’s gaze lingered on the first clue Li Jianxi had compiled:

After Liu Dajun’s family died, Shen Jiayan personally arranged their funerals, earning high praise from the villagers.

A trafficked woman, living in this household for ten years, bearing a ten-year-old son—had she truly come to see these people as her family?

For the villagers to praise her so highly, Shen Jiayan must have done more than just that.

Had she really been assimilated into the village?

Li Zhi studied the photo again—the young woman’s eyes filled with hatred yet unbroken. She tucked the photo away, shouldered her bag, and waved to the livestream audience.

“The streamer’s heading out for more exploration. First stop: finding Liu Xiaoyan’s remains in the mountain gully.”

The chat erupted with excitement.

Though the likes weren’t increasing as rapidly as during last night’s thrills, they were still steadily climbing. At this rate, she’d hit five million before nightfall.

Li Zhi adjusted her camera mount and left the shack. She first returned to the village, grabbing a shovel from a nearby earthen house before heading back into the mountains, following the direction Liu Xiaoyan had indicated the night before.

The rain-soaked forest was slippery and cold, her shoes caked with yellow mud. She found the gully Liu Xiaoyan had mentioned—likely an old flood channel, now overgrown with weeds.

Starting at the base of the mountain, Li Zhi began her search. It was grueling, monotonous work, yet her viewership didn’t drop. If anything, it grew.

Newcomers learned from the chat that the streamer was searching for the bones of a little girl abandoned in the wilderness, intending to give her a proper burial. They flooded her with likes.

Li Zhi dug along the gully for over six hours with few breaks, finally uncovering a small, decomposed skeleton near the mountainside by afternoon.

The fragile bones were curled up, crushed beneath heavy rocks. Nearby lay the skeleton of a dog. The scene painted a clear picture of how Liu Xiaoyan had been discarded here.

Li Zhi wrapped the bones of girl and dog in her coat, then found a flat, open spot on the mountain to rebury them properly.

She placed a bag of chocolates before the freshly dug grave.