Ye Qi and Shao Qingge continued eavesdropping near the wooden house, but instead of conversation, they heard a child snoring. The grandmother had also gone to bed downstairs. Ye Qi listened for a while but gained nothing further, so he had to give up for the time being.
Time passed by, and before we knew it, it was midnight.
Seeing that all the card skills in the card holder had been refreshed, Shao Qingge reminded him, "It's the second day, and we haven't been teleported back yet?"
Ye Qi thought for a moment and suggested, "Why don't we try Peach Blossom Spring? I remember we went to Peach Blossom Spring first, and after we came out of Peach Blossom Spring, we were in the world twenty years ago. Maybe it was a time travel caused by a spatial transformation?"
Shao Qingge has two Tao Yuanming cards in his hand His card skills had all been refreshed. He summoned a card, activated Peach Blossom Spring, went in with Ye Qi, and then came out of Peach Blossom Spring again.
However, nothing had changed. The wooden house was still there in sight.
A solitary wooden cabin in the middle of nowhere easily evokes images of ghost stories.
Ye Qi and Shao Qingge looked at each other in bewilderment.
After a long silence, Shao Qingge finally asked, "Can't we go back?"
Ye Qi looked dejected: "It seems so. The Guardian probably sent us back twenty years to investigate clues from that time, but how are we going to tell Professor Xiao and the others after we find them?"
Shao Qingge gently pinched the bridge of his nose and said helplessly, "I haven't thought of a good idea either. Let's find out the truth first."
Now we can only take it one step at a time.
As soon as midnight struck, the Invisibility Cloak's abilities were refreshed. Shao Qingge and Ye Qi donned the Invisibility Cloaks simultaneously and stealthily infiltrated the wooden cabin. The two first cautiously entered the basement. To Ye Qi's surprise, the basement was filled with rattle drums, and the patterns painted on the drumheads were all of the twelve zodiac animals, exactly the same as the secret room of Qin Feng that Lu Jiuchuan and his group discovered twenty years later.
Ye Qi thought to himself, "These rattle drums must have been made by my mother-in-law, right? It seems that Ren Yuan also learned the technique of painting the twelve zodiac animals on the drumheads from my mother - in-law."
"Hmm." Shao Qingge stroked his chin thoughtfully and said, "This old woman is like the director of an orphanage, taking in many homeless children. Ren Yuan is probably the oldest and is already able to support himself. As for the remaining four children, I wonder how many of them survived this famine… It seems we need to continue tracking their movements."
Ye Qi said, "I'll go and attach a few more eavesdropping devices."
The two sneaked up to the second floor. Ye Qi had a total of five eavesdropping devices. One of them was stuck in Ren Yuan's pocket, and the remaining four, after being reset, were placed on the soles of the four children's shoes.
Having arranged everything, the two turned and left.
The winter night was bitterly cold, and the two of them, their teeth chattering from the cold, decided to take refuge in Peach Blossom Spring, sitting under a tree and listening for any sounds coming from the cabin. They didn't know how much time had passed, but no other sounds came through the eavesdropping device.
Overwhelmed by drowsiness, Ye Qi's eyelids drooped.
Seeing his exhausted appearance, Shao Qingge said softly, "At this time, Grandma and the children are sleeping. You should get some sleep too. Give me the eavesdropping device. We can take turns resting so we'll have the energy to continue the investigation tomorrow."
"Okay, remember to call me if you need anything." Ye Qi leaned against the tree and took a nap for a while.
Shao Qingge sat beside him, his brows slightly furrowed.
If, as Ye Qi said, they were forced to remain in the world twenty years ago, then their next steps are: first, to find out exactly what happened twenty years ago; second, to survive the famine and chaos of that year; and third, to find a way to leave clues for Xiao Lou and the others.
With a supply card, I can get chocolate, biscuits, mineral water, and milk every day, so surviving shouldn't be a problem. But how do I pass the clues to Xiao Lou?
If they can't go back, how will they talk to Xiao Lou twenty years in the future?
Shao Qingge was completely baffled.
Just as he was having a headache, suddenly, a sound came from the eavesdropping device—
A middle-aged man said in a low voice, "There must be someone in the wooden house up ahead."
Another woman's voice said, "Third Brother, we've been down the mountain for a while now. We already searched this house when we were on the mountain. Wasn't it an empty house with no one living here? Why do you suddenly suspect that someone is here?"
The middle-aged man sneered: "If I'm not mistaken, the people living here are Granny Sun and those little bastards. They used to live in the woods outside the town. The time we went up the mountain with gold and silver, a little girl saw my face, but she ran too fast and we couldn't catch her. We searched the whole town but couldn't find them. I've been thinking about it, and I think they probably ran to the top of the mountain."
A young man's voice said, "Third Brother is right. The most dangerous place is the safest place? They thought that after we killed someone and escaped down the mountain, we wouldn't come back to the top, so they secretly hid there?"
The woman laughed and said, "That makes sense. Third Brother is so thoughtful; he went back up the mountain to take another look. I was wondering why that old woman had suddenly disappeared; it turns out she'd been hiding here all along."
The middle-aged man waved his hand and said, "Let's go, we can't let them escape this time."
Ye Qi was startled awake by the sound from the eavesdropping device and quickly sat up straight: "What's going on?"
Shao Qingge said in a low voice, "It must be those robbers who came looking for us."
"It's the door. Among the children the old woman was with, one girl saw their faces; they might kill the children to silence them."
Ye Qi paused, then frowned in confusion: "What do we do? Should we save them?"
Shao Qingge hesitated for a moment, then asked, " Is the world we are in twenty years ago the same world as Xiao Lou's world twenty years ago?"
Ye Qi was taken aback for a moment, but quickly understood what he meant: "You mean to say that the world we live in is not an independent copy, but the real world of twenty years ago? And that our actions will have an impact on the world afterward?"
Shao Qingge frowned: "That's exactly what I'm afraid of."
Ye Qi scratched his head and muttered, "If our actions will have an impact on future generations, and the murderer killed out of revenge for the death of his loved ones, and we rashly save his loved ones, his mind will not be twisted, and he will not kill in the future... Then, wouldn't there be no murderer in twenty years?"
Shao Qingge: "..."
If they actually manage to save the murderer and guide him onto the right path, what will happen to their teammates in the future?
After thinking carefully for a moment, Shao Qingge said, "Our teammates are in different timelines. If we do something that affects the case, our teammates in later worlds might not be able to deduce the correct conclusion. Therefore, it's best for us to remain bystanders and not get involved in historical events. This way, we can ensure that the case doesn't change twenty years later. What do you think?"
Ye Qi nodded: "Yes, we'll just be bystanders, collecting and recording clues."
Go back in time, but try not to change history.
Perhaps only by doing this can the case be presented to Xiao Lou and his team in its entirety.
After they had discussed it, the two left Peach Blossom Spring and quietly went behind a tree.
There were three people on the other side, two men and one woman, all wearing black masks. They were probably from the so-called "Hound Dogs" organization.
The middle-aged man held a sharp long knife in his hand, while the other two were a young couple, one holding a rope and the other holding several cloth bags.
The leader, "Third Brother," waved his hand, and the other two nimbly rushed into the wooden house.
Soon, a scream came from inside the house: "Who's there?! Let me go! Children, run!"
It was her mother-in-law's hoarse voice; she shouted the last sentence very loudly.
The children upstairs were also alarmed. One of the more clever girls jumped out of the window and ran away as fast as she could, heading towards the cliff with vines. The remaining children didn't have time to escape and were quickly subdued by the three adults, who covered them with sacks and carried them downstairs on their shoulders.
A muffled groaning sound came from inside the sack, and the leader said coldly, "Take them back!"
Ye Qi and Shao Qingge exchanged a glance. Shao Qingge thought to himself, "I'll go with this group. You go and follow that child. Be careful and keep in touch via Telepathic Connection."
The two split up.
Ye Qi used the teleportation card to catch up with the child like the wind. The child had a very obvious scar on his face and looked flustered, but he was indeed fast. Little Girl ran all the way and in the blink of an eye, she arrived at the edge of the cliff and climbed down the vines like a monkey.
The child was extremely agile; clearly, she often climbed up and down vines.
In no time, the girl slid down to the bottom of the mountain and ran towards the town.
Ye Qi followed her the whole time. She saw her arrive at a secluded alley in the town, climb over the wall into Ren Yuan's house, lift the weeds on the cellar cover, and run into the cellar in a panic, saying, " Uncle Ren, something terrible has happened! Grandma has been captured by those people!"
Ren Yuan's expression changed, and he hurriedly grabbed the child's hand, saying, "How could this be? Didn't those people settle down in the town? Why did they go back to the mountaintop?"
The child shook his head: "I don't know either. What should we do? Will Grandma be captured and turned into human livestock?"
Ren Yuan, pale-faced, paced back and forth in the cave a few times, saying, "Don't panic. I know where they keep human livestock. Let me think of something..."
Ye Qi hid nearby and listened to the conversation between the two. At the same time, Shao Qingge's voice rang in his mind: "I followed them all the way. They took the old woman and the three children back to the town. The backyard of the largest family in Qingfeng Town was turned into a pigsty. Many people were locked up. Everyone was tied up with ropes. Some people's hands and feet had been cut off. There was blood everywhere."
The scene before my eyes was like hell on earth.
As dawn broke, the kitchen in the backyard was already bustling with activity. Shao Qingge could hardly believe it; these beasts were actually enjoying cooking human flesh in the kitchen, and several women were making dumplings by rolling out dough and mincing human flesh into filling.
After the mother-in-law and three children were brought back, the man simply took off his mask, pulled a little girl out of a sack, pinched her chin hard, and said, " Han Ningshuang, didn't you see me that day? Since you're all going to die anyway, it doesn't matter if you see what I look like." He patted the girl's face and laughed, "Take her away and wash her clean. She'll be lunch today."
The girl cried out in terror, "No, don't kill me! Uncle Zhao, I won't tell anyone, I promise I won't!"
The nine-year-old girl was forcibly dragged away.
Ye Qi asked, "The one surnamed Zhao?"
Shao Qingge nodded with a grim face: "Perhaps, this is the reason why the Zhao family was wiped out."