Chapter 169.2

Li Zhuiyuan suddenly realized something: during that stretch of time just now, although he had spoken with Tan Wenbin and Yin Meng, their conversation had contained no real information.

The two of them had been assigned to stay in the village today and make inquiries. They should have gathered quite a bit of information. In the past, during meetings, whenever he spoke, Tan Wenbin would also cooperate, trying to build on what was said and draw further inferences.

But none of that had shown up in their interaction just now.

Was it because he had been the one doing the main talking, and he had not deliberately given them a chance to speak?

Li Zhuiyuan replayed everything he had said earlier in his mind.

No, that was not it. While explaining things, he had actually followed his usual habit and deliberately tossed Tan Wenbin openings to speak.

Because Tan Wenbin was there, Li Zhuiyuan could talk less. Once Tan Wenbin understood something first, he could help explain it to the others in Li Zhuiyuan’s place.

But this time, although Tan Wenbin had responded to those openings, he had brushed them all aside in an extremely natural, easygoing way.

And Li Zhuiyuan himself had not sensed anything strange at all. Was it because the other party’s acting was just too good?

Or was it that the other party had not been acting at all?

Li Zhuiyuan looked at Xue Liangliang and asked, “Brother Liangliang, think back carefully. On the tractor ride back, what did you and that ‘me’ talk about?”

Xue Liangliang said, “I told you—no, I mean that fake you—a lot about what I found at the construction site, and that fake you also said a lot to me.”

Li Zhuiyuan asked, “Did that ‘me’ tell you about what happened in the Miao village?”

Xue Liangliang lightly tapped his forehead and fell into thought.

Lin Shuyou said, “I think it said some things…”

Li Zhuiyuan looked at Lin Shuyou. “What did it say?”

Lin Shuyou frowned. “A little bit, then it said we’d talk in detail after we got back.”

Xue Liangliang stopped tapping his forehead, widened his eyes, and said more heavily, “That you talked to me a lot, but hardly any of it was actually useful!”

Hearing that, Li Zhuiyuan nodded. Just as he had suspected.

Xue Liangliang said in confusion, “That shouldn’t be possible. Looking back now, it feels really weird, but at the time I honestly didn’t feel anything off at all. I never once suspected that you back then were fake. How exactly did it fool me?”

Li Zhuiyuan pointed at the shattered glass on the ground and said, “It didn’t fool you. You fooled yourself.”

The boy stood up, picked up the fire tongs, and stirred the glass shards on the floor.

“I don’t know how these things were made.

But they really are like mirrors. The difference is that an ordinary mirror reflects your actual self, while this kind of mirror reflects the person you think that is in your own mind.

Let me use myself as an example.

The best imitation is not becoming a perfectly identical copy of me.

It only needs to imitate the image of me that exists in your eyes. Then to you, it is the real me—perhaps even more real than I am.”

Xue Liangliang said, “No wonder.”

Lin Shuyou, feeling somewhat guilty, chimed in, “Oh, so that’s how it is…”

Runsheng took out a compressed biscuit and started eating. He did not like parts that required thinking, and besides, he really was hungry.

Xue Liangliang said, “So from my point of view, however the real you would have responded to me, that fake you would react the same way. In the end, I was the one deceiving myself.

There’s actually something this bizarre in the world?”

“There are plenty of bizarre things in this world. For example—”

“All right, no examples needed.” Xue Liangliang quickly raised a hand. “Then what was her purpose in doing this?”

Lin Shuyou picked up the thread. “Yeah, Little Yuanhou, this thing doesn’t seem to have much attack power. I stabbed it once with the trident just now, and it shattered.”

Li Zhuiyuan said:

“I suspect that while we were investigating her, she was also investigating us.”

At that moment, footsteps came from outside. Tan Wenbin and Yin Meng appeared in the doorway.

Tan Wenbin’s face was flushed, and he smelled of alcohol. He had clearly drunk quite a lot, but he would not get drunk; his mind was still clear.

“Oh, everybody’s back. Little Yuanhou, I’ve got a major discovery to report!”

Lin Shuyou tossed his dagger over and said, “Bleed first.”

“Huh?” Tan Wenbin caught the dagger and looked at everyone in confusion, before finally settling his gaze on Li Zhuiyuan.

The boy nodded and pointed at the bowl of blood sitting beside him.

“Got it.” Tan Wenbin cut his fingertip with the dagger, found a bowl, and while letting blood drip into it, asked, “Was it that unclean thing impersonating us, just like in Cui Hao’s diary?”

After dripping enough blood, Tan Wenbin handed over the bowl, then sucked on the cut on his fingertip.

Yin Meng also dripped her blood with practiced ease.

Only after confirming their identities did everyone sit down again, and Lin Shuyou began recounting what had happened earlier.

But A-You spoke haltingly and without clear order. For every three sentences he said, Tan Wenbin had to ask two questions. In the end, Xue Liangliang took over and began explaining things instead.

After listening, Tan Wenbin smacked his lips. “That move really is sinister. Is that thing trying to dig through all our secrets? And after that?”

Lin Shuyou said as if it were obvious, “Once she knows herself and knows the enemy, she’ll make a move against us.”

Tan Wenbin spread his hands. “Then since we split up today, why didn’t she take advantage of the chance and strike directly?”

Lin Shuyou froze for a moment, then said, “Maybe she’s just cautious?”

Tan Wenbin lit a cigarette. “If it were me, I’d first take the chance to target one isolated pair and see if I could kill two people right away.”

Lin Shuyou was convinced and nodded. “Right, I’d try making a move first too and see what happened.”

Tan Wenbin took out a Zhuiyuan Talisman and pressed it against the glass shards on the floor. The talisman did not change color. “The talisman can’t detect it?”

Lin Shuyou said, “Even the formation Little Yuanhou set up didn’t react to them. Luckily, they don’t seem to have much attack power. Their threat level is actually pretty low.”

Tan Wenbin said, “Then what was the point of going to all this trouble? Killing someone is simple enough. Is she just showing off how good her technique is?”

Li Zhuiyuan said, “Let’s first summarize all the information each group gathered today. Maybe her real purpose is hidden somewhere in it.”

Next, the three groups began reporting the results of their investigations.

Xue Liangliang had gone to inspect the construction site. It looked generally normal. Of course, since work there was still suspended, it was hard to tell much from looking.

But Xue Liangliang and Lin Shuyou had noticed some details: in many corners of the site there were offering tables and incense burners, and in some places talismans had been pasted up.

That meant the construction unit had not failed to suspect that those repeated accidents might involve that sort of thing. They had probably tried inviting some local master to perform rituals and drive away evil, but obviously it had done no good.

Tan Wenbin, meanwhile, had gained quite a few useful clues by visiting households in this village.

Some villagers said that on New Year’s Eve, they had apparently seen Cui Hao and Li Ren in the nearby mountains. The two had been wearing work uniforms, and in the whole village, only the technicians from the construction team wore that kind of clothing.

But when the villager called out to them, the two had bolted at once like startled animals, which made the villager wonder whether he had simply seen wrong.

Another villager said that on the second day of the New Year, he had taken his wife back to her parents’ home. When they returned the next day, they found that a good portion of the New Year provisions left in the house had been stolen, but money had been left behind on the table.

Tan Wenbin suspected that Cui Hao and Li Ren might still be alive, but hiding in the mountains and too afraid to show themselves in the village.

The ones who stole food but left money were probably also them. After all, as outside technicians, their ability to survive in the wild was surely poor, probably not even as good as the village children’s.

Besides that, the villagers generally reported that in recent years, not only in this village but in nearby villages and even in the town, stories about a Child-Snatching Crone had often circulated.

Children would be out playing and run into a shabby old woman who would take them by the hand and ask them questions.

Braver children would shake free and run away. Timid ones would burst into tears and draw adults over.

But no adult had ever actually seen this old woman, and in recent years there had not been any real cases of children being abducted either.

Children forgot quickly. After sleeping on it and waiting a few days, they would no longer remember clearly, or else their retellings would become more and more exaggerated.

The adults all treated it as childish nonsense, thinking the children were being naughty and making things up. It might also be that someone had told their child the story of the Old Shapeshifting Crone so vividly that it spread wildly among the children, so that seeing any old woman made them think they had run into her.

Normally, villagers would not have bothered bringing this sort of thing up. But it just so happened that one family in the village firmly believed their child had not lied and really had seen the Old Shapeshifting Crone.

It was also after the New Year. Their daughter, who had married and moved to a provincial capital in another province, came back to visit with her husband and their grandson.

That grandson could not even speak the local dialect, and he could not really play with the village children either. They arrived at night, and the very next morning he said that the previous night, an old woman had led him outside, felt him all over in the open yard, and said to him, “No good. Not satisfied.”

The grandson was so frightened that he came down with a fever, and the daughter and son-in-law took him away from the village early.

At the drinking table, people said it was because the daughter and son-in-law could not stand living in the mountains. The man angrily insisted that his daughter was perfectly fine, and his son-in-law had even helped chop firewood and do chores around the house, without any city-bred softness at all. It was only that his grandson had been unlucky enough to run into the Old Shapeshifting Crone as soon as he returned home.

Li Zhuiyuan also recounted what he had experienced in the Miao village.

Tan Wenbin flicked his cigarette ash and could not help laughing.

“So this Old Shapeshifting Crone story is basically Grimm’s fairy tales for children in Yunnan, Guizhou, and Sichuan.”

Runsheng, who had been eating compressed biscuits the whole time, drank a large canteen of water and let out a long breath. Having served as the tractor during the day, he had finally refueled himself.

While eating earlier, he had actually been listening with his ears pricked up. Granted, most of what went in one ear came out the other, but at least some of it had stayed in his head.

Runsheng let out a full belch and said:

“Why does it sound like she’s picking children?”

…

In a damp underground cave, thick liquid constantly seeped from the rock walls, running downward and shedding its impurities until it formed clear, gleaming inverted cones.

Below stood a tiny sacrificial temple.

The runes that should have been shining clearly around it were now mottled and flaking away.

On the central round platform, the thick iron chains that had once been heavy and sturdy were likewise snapped and rotted through.

A filthy, disheveled woman sat there. Her skin was rough and cracked, and in many places the cracks were so deep that white bone could be seen.

She lowered her head and slapped her own belly.

Smack! Smack! Smack!

With each slap, her belly grew larger and larger, and the skin stretched more and more transparent, until it was almost like glass, allowing its interior to be seen clearly.

Inside lay a baby, eyes closed, its whole body pitch-black and deathly still.

The woman’s hands kept stroking her transparent belly. In her left eye there was ferocity and savagery; in her right eye there was kindness and motherly affection.

“My child, after all these years, Mother has finally found one she is satisfied with.

Mother will keep using the mirror to reflect him, reflect him clearly and thoroughly, so you can become him.

You’ll like how he looks, everything about him. He’s handsome and clever, hee-hee…”

As the woman spoke and stroked her belly, the child inside gradually lost its black coloration. Little by little, its skin took on the texture of a normal child. At the same time, it kept growing—from infant, to child—until it formed an extremely discordant sight.

Because by size, it should have been like a real five-year-old child.

Yet it still remained inside the woman’s belly, unborn.

And—

the child’s features had already come to resemble Li Zhuiyuan by half.