Read Novel Full Chapter 614.2
Chapter 614.2
The cellar wasn’t very deep, only about three meters. Bai Lixin didn’t walk for long before reaching the ground.
As soon as he landed, another hand grabbed his wrist.
This time, it wasn’t the rough hand but a small one, likely Chen Xiaoshi’s.
The entrance to the cellar was closed by Mrs. Chen who was at the back, plunging the entire cellar into complete darkness.
The small hand gripping his wrist was trembling slightly and holding on tightly.
There was no sound in the darkness, not even the sound of breathing.
“Bang!”
A loud noise came from above—it was the sound of a door being kicked open.
This was followed by chaotic footsteps and the sound of things being rummaged through.
“Did you find anything?”
“No, nothing.”
“Hurry, let’s go!”
After a brief exchange, the outside became quiet again.
The people beside him didn’t move, and neither did Bai Lixin.
It was pitch black around him, so he kept an eye on the time displayed by the system.
Ten minutes.
Half an hour.
An hour.
Two hours…
Chen Xiaoshi was just a child after all, and he eventually fell asleep in Bai Lixin’s arms.
Time passed by slowly, and in the long wait, Bai Lixin unknowingly slept off as well.
When he woke up again, he was lying on the kang bed where he had started the second stage.
He was in the middle, with Chen Xiaoshi sleeping on the inside and Chen Dazhuang on the outside.
The paper-covered window couldn’t block much sunlight, and the room was brightly lit by the sunshine outside.
Bai Lixin sat up, groggily rubbing his temples: [How did I end up on the bed?]
S419M: [I don’t know. I crashed after you fell asleep, Lord Host.]
Chen Xiaoshi and Chen Dazhuang were still sound asleep. Bai Lixin quietly got out of bed, carefully opened the door and left the room.
This earthen courtyard had three rooms in total. The door opposite led to Father Chen and Mother Chen’s room, the south side was where the three brothers slept, and the north side was the kitchen connected to a storage room.
Although they had returned in the dark last night, he still remembered where Mother Chen had dragged him.
There were two pieces of clothing hanging on the clothesline in the yard, and a pair of shoes placed on the ground in a corner.
The shoes were still wet, clearly having been scrubbed but not yet dry.
He walked to the storage room near the gate and, guided by memory, fumbled around in the overgrown grass until he found the entrance to the cellar.
It was a square wooden plank, blending in well with the surrounding floor and hidden beneath a pile of weeds.
The storage room showed signs of being searched through. It was unknown what those people who rushed in last night and left just as quickly were looking for.
Were they searching for the treasure of Chenjia Village?
Could it have been the Song family?
Last night, an old man from the Chen family mentioned that Song Yuanwai had colluded with outsiders. Could those people have been outsiders?
Did Song Yuanwai and his eldest son return to Chenjia Village for the treasure?
What exactly is the treasure of Chenjia Village?
—————————–
In the live broadcast room.
[In fact, Xia Chi’s reasoning last night is not unreasonable. It is possible that Master Song went crazy and massacred Chenjia Village for revenge and the treasure.]
[It’s only the first day, and it seems like you’ve already decided that Master Song is the culprit. It’s a big mistake to make assumptions like that. When we read detective novels, the person who seems most like the culprit is often the first to be ruled out.]
[So, by elimination, Master Song isn’t the culprit?]
[Even if he’s not the one who started the fire, he’s still involved.]
[What exactly is the treasure of Chenjia Village?]
[First, let’s rule out money.]
[Why can’t it be money? You have no idea how many real-life cases have been about murder for money.]
[What I mean is that it’s not something as straightforward as “money.” If it were money, those people wouldn’t be searching house by house. The people searching clearly didn’t know where the item was, which is why they were looking everywhere, right?]
[Makes sense.]
——————————-
Bai Lixin opened the cellar, took a flashlight out of his backpack, and lay down at the entrance to look inside.
The cellar was small, with some winter cabbage and potatoes piled in the corner, but nothing else of significance.
After thinking for a moment, he nimbly climbed into the cellar and carefully searched through the cabbage and potatoes, but still found nothing unusual.
Having gained nothing, Bai Lixin put the cabbage and potatoes back in place, restored everything to its original state, and quietly returned to the room where the three brothers slept.
Chen Xiaoshi and Chen Dazhuang were still sleeping soundly. Bai Lixin was unable to fall back asleep, so he sat on a small wooden stool nearby, staring absentmindedly at the large and small pair of shoes beside the kang bed.
The smaller pair belonged to Chen Xiaoshi, with bits of red paper stuck to them.
The larger pair belonged to Chen Dazhuang. Their soles were clean, with no trace of grass.
It was still very cold on this winter morning, and with no stove lit in the room, Bai Lixin’s breath formed a small white cloud in the air.
His gaze fell on the faces of the two people on the bed. The large and small figures were curled up under the quilt, their expressions peaceful. However, the quilt remained flat, and there was no mist on their noses.
Bai Lixin stared at Chen Dazhuang’s shoes, and stood up thoughtfully. He had just taken a couple of steps towards the two people on the bed when Mother Chen’s voice came through the door and windows, “The weather’s good today. Your father said he’s going up the mountain to see if he can catch a musk deer or some other game. You three brothers, get up quickly and see if you can help your father.”
With Mother Chen’s call, the two brothers, who had been sound asleep, immediately woke up.
Chen Dazhuang yawned, “Erniu, why are you up so early today?”
Bai Lixin hid his hands behind his back sheepishly, “I just woke up too.”
Breakfast was noodles, and it was Bai Lixin’s first time seeing the man of the house.
Father Chen was a sturdy man with a thick beard on his face. The veins on his arms that were occasionally visible were bulging.
He was a man of few words, focusing only on eating during breakfast.
Despite his build, Father Chen didn’t eat much, only finishing half a bowl before he was full. On the other hand, Chen Xiaoshi ate the most at the table.
“The dumplings at Sister Xiaolin’s place last night were really delicious, Mom.” Chen Xiaoshi wolfed down the noodles in his bowl and wiped his mouth with a hand, his eyes still filled with longing.
Mother Chen: “Didn’t you hear your fourth granduncle? The dumpling filling had sesame oil in it. Sesame oil, sesame oil, of course, it smelled fragrant.”
Chen Xiaoshi: “Is sesame oil really that amazing? But it smelled too good. I’ve eaten pork before, but I’ve never tasted pork that tastes like this. What kind of pork was it, Mother? Can we go to Fourth Granduncle’s house to eat pork dumplings again?”
Mother Chen forced a smile, “It was just regular pork, only fresher because it was newly slaughtered. The fragrance came from the sesame oil; it’s a rare thing. But I’m afraid we won’t be able to eat such fragrant dumplings from your Fourth Granduncle again, after all…”
Father Chen abruptly scooped Chen Xiaoshi into his arms, saying, “Pork can’t compare to the wild game from the mountains. If you’re craving meat, Daddy will go to the mountain today and catch a fat rabbit to roast for you.”
Chen Xiaoshi’s eyes curved and he clapped excitedly, “Roast rabbit! Roast rabbit!”
The atmosphere at the dining table was harmonious, and no one mentioned anything about last night at all.
It seemed as though if no one brought it up, it never happened, and everyone silently agreed to pretend it didn’t matter.
Clearly, people had broken in and searched the house, and it was clearly a case of the old burying the young, it seemed as if as long as everyone kept smiling, everything would be fine, and all would be well.
Bai Lixin put down his chopsticks, “What were those people looking for last night? The treasure of Chenjia Village?”
The dining table suddenly fell silent.
Mother Chen slammed her chopsticks down with a “pa”, and looked at Bai Lixin angrily, “You believe in this ‘treasure of Cenjia Village’ nonsense too? If there really were treasure in Chenjia Village, how could we be living so poorly? How could the entire village be living so poorly? There’s no such thing as ‘treasure of Cenjia Village’. I don’t know who started that rumor, but those demons believed it and came to our village to ransack it. And now even you believe in this rubbish? Don’t ever mention it again!”
Bai Lixin’s gaze swept over each person at the table; they all kept their heads down, seemingly wanting to avoid any mention of the “treasure of Cenjia Village.”
“If there is no treasure in Chenjia Village, then what were they looking for?”
Bai Lixin didn’t stop as Mother Chen had hoped but continued to press.
Mother Chen: “Demons do as they please. How could we innocent commoners guess their intentions? They can break in whenever they want, search whenever they want, it’s just a matter of a whim.”
“They have knives and guns, while we are surrounded by the elderly and children. They do whatever they want and are lawless. They don’t care about this village, but this village is our home, and we care about the family we have here.”
Seeing that nothing more could be coaxed out, Bai Lixin finally apologized to end the conversation.
Father Chen planned to go up the mountain to hunt today, and originally intended to take only Chen Dazhuang with him.
But Bai Lixin found an excuse about wanting to see the mountain and ended up joining the group.
Rong Mountain was just behind Chenjia Village, only half an hour’s walk away.
They passed by the old elm tree as they set out.
The red paper scraps on the ground hadn’t been cleaned up yet, and a lot of white funeral paper had been scattered on top.
The bamboo pole used to hang red firecrackers was still tied to the elm tree, and the tree itself was covered with circular funeral paper. From a distance, it looked like the elm was in full bloom.
The white funeral paper was spread all the way, from the old elm tree into the alley and into the home with the large red lantern.
The big red lantern still hung at the door, but now there was a strip of white silk tied to it.
Bai Lixin stood frozen in place.
The white silk fluttered in the wind, twining around the red lantern.
In the daylight, the white was blinding, and the red was dazzling.
A crowd had gathered at the door.
Soon, two young men dressed in mourning clothes carried out a bamboo mat with a person lying on it, covered by a white cloth.
As they passed the alleyway, the wind blew, lifting a corner of the cloth and revealing a thin, aged face.
It was the same Old Fourth who had sat at the high table yesterday, made pork dumplings, kindly urged everyone to eat more, and watched his daughter leave for her wedding.
He was still wearing the same brand-new clothes from yesterday. Last night, he had commented that they looked like burial clothes, but he didn’t expect that those words had been prophetic. Today, they had indeed become the old man’s burial clothes.
“Old Fourth, you didn’t even save a penny for your own funeral expenses,” an elderly man who had been joking with Old Fourth just last night came up and held onto the bamboo mat, “But then again, once a person is dead, it’s just a heap of dirt. At least now you’re better off, you sent your daughter off to be married and can soon reunite with her.”
“Who could be luckier than you, Old Fourth?”
As he watched the bamboo mat being carried farther and farther away, Bai Lixin asked in his mind, [Where are they going to bury him?[
The Escape System: [In Rong Mountain. Rong Mountain not only provides for the entire Chenjia Village but also serves as the final resting place for the village. All the villagers of Chenjia Village are buried in a unique cemetery on Rong Mountain after they die.]
Bai Lixin watched the bamboo mat fade into the distance, [Old Fourth was very thin, with a sunken belly.]
S419M: [Huh?]
Bai Lixin: [His lips were chapped, his face was sallow, and there were dark circles under his eyes. Judging by his appearance, he probably hadn’t eaten for several days.m
S419M exclaimed, [Huh? But didn’t he cook a big pot of dumplings?]
Bai Lixin: [He probably didn’t eat any himself and gave them all to the villagers.]