The fake heiress from the 1970s was kicked out at the beginning, but became a village girl and was p

As the little boy spoke of this, fear and a hint of anger flashed in his eyes.

"have!"

"Before you arrived, a group of people said they were traveling from the border to Beijing, but they got lost at the border and came to our village to stay."

"They brought the village chief a lot of food and new clothes, all of which were new styles we had never seen before. On the first night—"

The little boy hugged his knees with both hands, as if that gave him a sense of security.

"Nobody saw it. On the first night, I woke up because I needed to pee and went out to pee. I saw them secretly pouring something into the well."

The little boy's village was very small. The border area was already short of water, and the village relied entirely on a single well for its domestic water supply.

If something happens to this well, the whole village is basically doomed.

"Are you sure it was that group? Besides pouring something into the well, why did they say they beat up people from your village? Did something else happen?"

Jiang Yuyan instinctively felt that what was poured into the well was not good, but she also felt that the group of people were strange.

Why come all the way to such a remote mountain village on the border to do these petty things?

Or is there something unusual about this small mountain village?

The little boy was angry.

"It was them. Uncle and the others suddenly became agitated after drinking water from the well. They kept banging their heads against things, as if something was tearing at their heads, causing them a lot of pain."

Jiang Yuyan muttered to herself, "Drinking water causes excruciating headaches? Are they still conscious? Do they still recognize people?"

The little boy shook his head.

"I don't know them. Many people went to stop them, and even the uncle's family members called out to them, but they didn't respond at all. In the end, the group said they were possessed by evil spirits and needed to drink some kind of medicine to exorcise them."

Jiang Yuyan: "..."

Are people still engaging in this kind of feudal superstition? Aren't they afraid of being arrested by the Song Committee?

The little boy didn't know what she was thinking; he was just telling the truth.

"Although I don't know if what they said is true, my uncle and the others did recover after drinking the medicine they were given."

"We thought it was a good thing, but we didn't expect—"

The little boy hugged himself tighter.

"The next night, when I went out to pee, I saw my uncle and the others being hung from a tree and whipped. After they finished beating them, they scratched my uncle's body and collected the bloodstains in small bottles."

"I didn't know what they wanted to do. I felt terrified, so I ran to tell my grandfather. He told me not to tell anyone about this."

Jiang Yuyan pursed her lips and listened quietly, sensing that what followed might be the trigger for all of this.

"My grandfather said he was going to tell the village chief, but he didn't come back for half a day. By the time my grandmother and I found out, my grandfather and the others had been quarantined by the villagers because they said they had some kind of infectious disease."

"But I saw Grandpa this morning. He's perfectly healthy. How could he possibly have contracted some infectious disease? I thought they were lying—"

As he spoke, the little boy burst into tears, clutching his head.

"They sent you to see your grandfather. He's really too sick to get out of bed and is delirious, right?" Jiang Yuyan said definitively.

The little boy nodded. "It's not just my grandpa who's like that, even our village chief, the village chief's whole family—"

"What happened to that group of people after the infectious disease outbreak? Where did they go?"

The little boy shook his head.

"I don't know. Ever since the village chief and Grandpa got the infectious disease, that group of people disappeared without a trace. If we hadn't seen the medicine they left behind, we would have thought we'd seen a ghost."

Jiang Yuyan borrowed the medicine, but after opening it only slightly, she smelled a domineering and pungent stench, similar to but not quite the same as the one on Zhou Wuzhong before.

It smelled the same as the other medicine, but this one had a fragrant herb added to it.

However, if this herbal flavor is actually added to the medicine and drunk, it will not cure the disease but directly damage the brain nerves, turning into a drug for skeletal disorders.

Old Qi took the medicine and sniffed it briefly; his serious expression immediately changed.

Seeing this, the dean quickly took the medicine and sniffed it, but he was old and his sense of smell had deteriorated.

It took me a full five minutes to confirm the potent and cruel nature of this herb. However, I also thought I had inhaled too much and the aftereffects were quite strong, so I almost fainted.

Old Qi took the medicine,

"This potion isn't from the border region, and the herbs only grow in the Northwest. Nannan, could you send the little boy you mentioned over here? I have something I'd like to ask him."

The little boy quickly came over. Seeing so many people staring at him, he was a little nervous but not afraid, because he knew that they were the ones who had saved the villagers.

Old Qi squatted down in front of him, forcing a stiff smile.

When someone who rarely smiles suddenly starts to laugh, it's actually more terrifying than a ghost baring its teeth in a horror movie.

Jiang Yuyan covered her forehead.

Master, you actually look much better with a straight face than with your smile. Grinning like that looks even scarier.

But Jiang Yuyan dared not say it, for fear of embarrassing her master.

"Kid, are any of the people in that group you're talking about not having black eyes? Or do they look different from the people around you?"

The little boy didn't understand why he was asking him such a strange question.

but--

The little boy thought about it carefully, and it seemed that there was indeed someone who looked quite different from them.

He nodded cautiously. "There is one person who is different, but every time I see him, he is completely covered up. Except for his eyes, you can't really see anything else."

"Then how do you know he looks different from other people?"

"His eyes are blue, no, they seem to be purple, but that's not quite right either, his eyes seem to glow—"

The little boy became increasingly uncertain as he spoke, and finally hesitated before choosing to remain silent.

Old Master Qi chuckled and patted his little head, then asked his assistant to take him out for a nice meal.

After everyone left, Jiang Yuyan wondered why her master had asked that question. Did he have someone he suspected?

"More than a decade ago, a horrific massacre occurred in Xiao'ou Village in Northwest China. Hundreds of villagers were all infected with a highly contagious virus."

"At the time, it was in a remote area, and no one knew about it except the locals. By the time the higher-ups realized something was wrong, hundreds of people from Xiao'ou Village had disappeared overnight."

Jiang Yuyan raised an eyebrow.

Vanished overnight?

Is this really an infectious disease, or is someone deliberately using the virus to "steal" people?

This theft is not that theft.

"Master, do you think the culprits in Xiao'ou Village are the group that caused all the illnesses here? I feel like they're in cahoots with Zhou Wuzhong, or maybe they're part of the same organization."

Jiang Yuyan also had a bold idea.

Based on the case her mentor just mentioned, she wondered if the human experiment 'materials' needed by the organization behind Zhou Wuzhong might be these villagers who had mysteriously disappeared.

If it's true, then the fact that such a terrifying and inhumane organization has been lurking around China is nothing short of a provocation.

Old Qi did not answer, but instead handed the medicine to the dean.

"I'll trouble the dean to report this to the teachers. I'm getting old and tired, so I need to rest. I'll leave this to you young people."