Big Lee thought for a moment, then reluctantly nodded in agreement. Clearly, he didn’t want to have come all this way for nothing either.

But the villagers completely refused to communicate with us; every household kept their doors tightly shut. We were at a loss, so after a brief discussion, we decided to return to the car and figure out our next move.

Unexpectedly, there was someone standing next to the car.

To be precise, it was a little girl wearing a red short jacket. She looked sallow and thin, extremely small and clearly malnourished. But aside from that, everything else seemed normal.

I let out a slow breath—finally, I’d seen a normal person in this village.

“Uncle, you’re not from around here, are you?” The little girl looked at me with great interest and spoke before we could ask her anything. She was the first villager to show me any friendliness since we arrived in this village. It’s always easier to get kids to talk, so I casually made up an excuse: “We got lost and accidentally ended up here.”

“Uncle, what is this? And is it fun outside?” The little girl smiled innocently. “People in the village don’t like outsiders. They don’t let anyone leave, but I want to go out.”

I patted her head and said, “This is a car. Uncle came here by car. Little girl, why do you want to go outside?”

The little girl pouted proudly. “My brother said so. He said it’s great outside!”

“Your brother? He’s been outside?”

The little girl’s expression suddenly turned sad. “He’s not here anymore.”

I asked curiously, “Not here anymore?”

She nodded, looking like she was about to cry. “He snuck out, but he didn’t take me with him… Uncle, have you seen my brother?”

A thought struck me—could this girl’s brother be the one who called me with the tip?

So I comforted her, “There are so many people outside. If I meet your brother, I’ll definitely tell him you’re waiting for him.”

As I spoke, I wanted to find something small or some food to give her, but embarrassingly, I realized that aside from my phone, I only had a pack of cigarettes, a bunch of keys, and a bottle of eye drops prescribed by a doctor.

Seeing the eye drops, my eyes suddenly felt a bit sore. I put in a couple of drops, and wanting to get the girl to talk more, I blinked and asked, “Little girl, how old are you?”

The little girl watched me put in the eye drops with curiosity, her gaze fixed on the small plastic bottle. After a moment’s thought, I handed her the bottle. “Tell uncle, and you can have this to play with.”

The little girl took the bottle, looking delighted, but ignored me after that and dashed off in a flash. I was both amused and exasperated, but there was no point getting serious with a child, so I just watched her disappear around the corner.

Big Lee, on the other hand, burst out laughing and said, “So what now? Should we try looking for The Village Chief again?”

Thinking of what happened last night, I felt a bit uneasy, but we couldn’t just keep making no progress. I nodded, and before leaving, I turned on the music in the car and left the door ajar. Big Lee asked curiously, “What are you doing?”

I chuckled, “Looks like the villagers have never seen a car before. Let’s pique their curiosity—maybe someone will come talk to us.” I jingled my keys and added, “Don’t worry, I’ve got the keys. Nothing will go wrong.”

Chapter 13 Eye (5)

“You’re back again.” The Village Chief said weakly. Maybe it was just my imagination, but his voice sounded even older than it had in the morning.

“We’d like to interview—”

The Village Chief let out a cold laugh, resting his hand on the table and looking at us as if he was about to stand up.

That’s when the sudden change happened.

I saw blackness appear in The Village Chief’s cataract-clouded eyes—not the normal black pupils in white sclera, but tiny, grain-like black dots, like sesame seeds scattered on snow!

The black spots grew denser and denser, filling The Village Chief’s eyeballs in an instant, until his entire eye socket was black. In the next moment, his eyeballs bulged, almost popping out of their sockets. At the same time, The Village Chief’s whole body took on a strange state, swelling up like the “bone-shrinking” technique described in martial arts novels—his whole body was expanding!

I wondered if I was just imagining things, because in the next instant, the swelling sensation vanished. The Village Chief’s standing body suddenly collapsed without warning, like a deflated balloon or a melting popsicle, falling to the ground.

It happened so suddenly that neither Big Lee nor I had time to react.

It was a very strange feeling, like someone performing a magic trick right in front of you—it really happened, but you just couldn’t believe it was real.

“Wh-what just happened?” Big Lee’s voice was clearly trembling.

Of course, I couldn’t answer. Bracing myself, I went over and checked The Village Chief’s pulse, only to find that he had unmistakably stopped breathing.

But the strange thing was, his hand felt very cold to the touch, and his skin was taut, his muscles extremely stiff. I’m no doctor, but I knew this was highly abnormal—this shouldn’t happen to someone who had just died.