Being targeted by the boss of the escape game

Lu Weixing rubbed the mark on Chu Ling's wrist, and after a while, the red mark faded a lot.

They came back in time, just in time for dinner, Chu Ling noticed that the couple hadn't even eaten, so she hurried back to the room.

The children in the yard formed a circle, and two children in blue clothes squatted in the circle holding hands and sang, the tune was very cheerful, and the childish voice was tender:

"My mother killed me,

my daddy is eating me,

My brother and sister sat at the bottom of the table,

pick up my bones,

buried them,

Buried under a cold stone tablet. "(1)

This is the famous song of the juniper tree. In the story, the stepmother killed the little boy and boiled a pot of broth with his bones. On the table in the main room, there happened to be leftover chicken soup at noon, which was steaming and fragrant.

When Xiao Huang heard this strange singing, his hand became unsteady, the bowl fell on the table, and the yellow chicken soup flowed down the table to the floor.

"Is there anything wrong with this soup?"

Xiaolan's expression was also a little flustered: "No, no way, I saw the hostess killing a chicken at noon."

Lu Shaoyan didn't care, she tore off a chicken leg expressionlessly, bit the meat in her mouth, and said vaguely: "What are you afraid of, I've eaten it all, what flavor can't I taste?"

Unlike other people who cared about the soup, Chu Ling discovered something even more weird. The shadows in the center of the courtyard were bustling with people, and there were more than eight people. Judging from the swaying figures, there were at least dozens of them.

Lu Weixing looked at the children in the yard thoughtfully, and after the two of them finished eating, they went back to the room and said in a low voice, "It's a drowning baby."

"what?"

"Infant drowning occurred frequently in ancient times." Lu Weixing said, "Until modern times, in some backward areas, due to the preference for sons over daughters, such tragedies often occurred."

Chu Ling said: "That little girl is a drowned infant? Then she asked me if I want to take her home..."

Lu Weixing: "It's a good thing you didn't agree. This kind of ghost baby has a lot of resentment because it was killed innocently, and it's very difficult to resolve."

"What is the meaning of New Year's Eve dinner?"

"New Year's Eve dinner..." Lu Weixing's gaze swept over the dilapidated wall, "A family reunion is called a New Year's Eve dinner."

He withdrew his gaze, looked at Chu Ling and said, "Did you see something just now?"

"Well, I saw a lot of shadows of different sizes in the yard. When they were singing, those shadows were also moving." Chu Ling made a gesture, "The shapes should all be children's."

Lu Weixing said: "Children? It seems that it is really a New Year's Eve dinner. This family has a lot of people."

"Tomorrow, we'll go and see what's going on with the other people in this village, as well as that song." Lu Weixing raised his head and said, "Let's look for any juniper trees."

After discussing the plan for tomorrow, the two of them made up the quilt and went to bed.

After a night of dreamless sleep, Chu Ling woke up naturally. After washing up, Chu Ling and Lu Weixing went to the main room for dinner. They counted by example and found that everyone was alive. Chu Ling was inexplicably relieved.

Today's breakfast became even worse. There was no more porridge, only dry buns that looked like stones.

Lu Shaoyan picked up the dry bun and threw it on the ground, but unexpectedly, the hard bun was still elastic, and it bounced back from the ground straight to his forehead.

"Fuck, what the hell is this?" Lu Shaoyan covered his forehead and sat down on the edge of the table.

A child in red was lying on the threshold, poked his head, and said timidly, "Uncle, if you don't want to eat, can you give it to me?"

"Want to eat?" Lu Shaoyan picked up a dry bun and shook it in his hand, a smirk appeared on the corner of his mouth.

"I want to eat, I'm obviously very hungry, and I haven't eaten for a long time." Mingming grabbed the door frame and looked eagerly at the dry bun in Lu Shaoyan's hand.

Lu Shaoyan squatted down and teased the child in front of him like a dog: "Do you know where Mom put all the meat?"

"Meat?" Mingming nodded his head and thought for a while, then said, "Mom will go to exchange meat with others, and bring it back after the exchange."

"It's all changed? Doesn't she raise any chickens and ducks?"

Mingming: "Mom has raised it, and it's in the yard."

Lu Shaoyan got a satisfactory answer, threw the dry bun over, turned and left.

Here, Chu Ling found out that every family in this village had at least three children, and if they were less than three, they would be fined.

There are really a lot of children. Basically, children can be seen everywhere on the road, in the fields, and under the trees.

Another strange thing is that this village is full of children and young adults. You must know that the left-behind children in villages are generally raised by the elderly, and the young adults go out to work. What happened to these people, it turned the other way?

The oldest child is only eight years old, the young and middle-aged are basically around 30, and the oldest looks only around 35, all of them are full of energy and spirit.

Thinking of the children who could be seen everywhere in the village, Chu Ling was full of doubts, and always felt that something was wrong.

Chu Ling thought for a while, tentatively stopped a villager who was on his way, and said, "Hello, uncle, I have something to ask you."

"Uncle? You call me uncle, what's the matter with you young man, you don't have any rules!" The middle-aged man in front of him looked at Chu Ling and said angrily.

Chu Ling was taken aback, and stroked her hair, did she think she was old?He hesitated, "I'm sorry, big brother?"

"Do you have any education? I'm 68 this year. You call me big brother?"

Now Chu Ling was really stunned, he stayed where he was, staring blankly at the man in front of him who spoke more vigorously than him, he was 68?

How could this be?

Hearing these words, Lu Weixing also squinted his eyes, and looked at this 68-year-old middle-aged man, wearing a gray down jacket and trousers, walking briskly, and speaking with great vigor.

No matter how you look at it, you can't tell that you are already 68.

Reminiscent of the weirdness everywhere in the village, Chu Ling quickly sorted out the flustered emotions, and apologized: "I'm sorry, I can't speak, it's my fault, sir, I want to ask something."

"Why are there so many children in the village?"

The man said strangely: "Many? Where are there too many? You don't know the benefits of having more children!"

Lu Weixing smiled and said, "What's the benefit?"

"Raise a son to guard against old age, raise a son to guard against old age, and raise a son to eat and drink without worrying about it."

At first Chu Ling and the others thought this was the only one, but after knocking on the doors of several villagers, they discovered that the so-called old man in the village was about 70 or [-] years old.

Moreover, the questions about them were similar to the answers given by the previous elder brother. No matter how much they asked, those young and old people would stop talking.

They walked along the village, and accidentally found a juniper tree at the head of the village, a large dense juniper forest.

It was late that day, and they were urged to enter the village again, but Chu Ling didn't notice it. Now that he saw it, he realized how magnificent the juniper tree was, like a guardrail planted around the village.

"Do you think there's something under the juniper tree?"

"Just dig and see."

The two started digging along the roots of the tree with the shovel they brought, and it didn't take long before they dug out two black urns the size of a palm.

They dug ten more trees separately, and as expected, they all found urns under the juniper trees.

Lu Weixing looked at the urn protruding from the root of the tree, "Who do you think these urns belong to?"