Chapter 63 – Killing Xiaoqiang

“The people who were supposed to meet us can’t contact us, they should call the police, right?” Shen Fubai was still optimistic. “We just have to wait for the police to show up.”

Director Xu sighed. That was all they could do.

Another assistant director and several crew members from the production team had arrived at Wu Shan a few days earlier to scout the location. If everything went according to plan, they would meet the rest of the crew today.

But something had obviously gone wrong. They couldn’t get in touch with them.

The entire production team was going to be shooting in seclusion for a month, and they had already informed their families about it. Being suddenly trapped in the mountains for seven days wouldn’t cause panic, it would just delay the filming schedule.

In the evening, the hospitable villagers worked together to cook a large pot of food for the production team that had come to the village. They set up tables, chairs, and dishes, and even the four students who had arrived earlier got to enjoy the meal. Shen Fubai noticed that all the cooks were women, while the men sat on benches with their shirts off, chatting and occasionally glancing between the actresses and female crew members. They looked more at the actresses because they were prettier.

Everyone would take an extra look at beautiful people.

The night was as clear as water, and the busy villagers filled the air with their activities. Shen Fubai found a random bench to sit on and felt the cool breeze blowing against his face.

It had to be said that it was much cooler in the mountains. Even without air conditioning, it was quite comfortable.

Jiang Heng sat next to him, looking down to ask, “Are you used to it?”

Shen Fubai turned his head, half-closing his eyes. “Whether I’m used to it or not, we have to stay here. There’s no way out anyway.”

The village rarely saw such a lively scene, and every household came out to eat. The village wasn’t big, with only twenty or thirty households, and even Wang Xiaoshu had come, staring eagerly at the shrimp on the table.

Ye Ziran, around the same age as him, ran over to pull him along to play with the village children. They were roughly the same age, but Ye Ziran, who grew up in Beijing, was clearly different. He was fair-skinned, tall, and looked more like an older brother compared to these kids.

Ye Ziran spent five minutes becoming the king of the kids, and a bunch of little monkeys started calling him “Brother.”

The adults in the village didn’t speak much Mandarin, but the children did, so there was no issue with communication between them and Ye Ziran. And it was undoubtedly the most beautiful teacher that Liang Yifei had seen in the news report who taught these kids their Mandarin.

Now, that female teacher was sitting not far away from them. She looked very plain, her smile was kind, and the villagers seemed to respect her greatly. Moreover, she didn’t have to cook.

All the women were cooking, and even the little girls helped.

She didn’t have to cook, which showed how high her status truly was.

According to the news report, her name was Li Wenxiu. Originally a girl from a county town, she came to teach in the mountains seven years ago. Feeling that these children were too pitiful, she stayed here and even found her happiness in the village. The newspaper emotionally referred to her as the “most beautiful teacher,” perhaps the only time this small mountain village had ever been famous.

During this time, Director Xu went to the village chief’s house to borrow a place to make a phone call, only to find out that there was no signal there either.

That shouldn’t be the case, since the village chief’s house had a TV that played soap operas.

Xiao Hui explained, “I buffered this for them. Every day, they play the same content over and over again. There are only a few channels.” He switched the channels with the remote control, but all he got was static on the screen.

Director Xu: “…”

They were truly in a situation where heaven didn’t respond when they called, and earth didn’t answer when they shouted.

They could only wait for the relief personnel to realize the situation and call the police, or wait until the seven days were up to leave by car.

The communal dinner wasn’t particularly delicious, but it was a rare feast for the people of Wang Family Village.

Liang Yifei, Li Jingwen, and Chen Huihui kept their eyes fixed on the celebrities throughout the meal, entranced.

Xie Chian peeled a shrimp and put it in Wang Xiaoshu’s bowl, then asked, “Are you full?”

Wang Xiaoshu ate the shrimp, reluctantly looking at the food on the plate. His belly was already full, so he nodded.

“Go home if you’re full.”

Wang Xiaoshu stood up, turning to look at Jiang Heng and Shen Fubai. “Aren’t we going to invite them to come back with us?”

Xie Chian glanced at them. “Then you should ask them.”

Shen Fubai and Jiang Heng ate without tasting anything. These dishes weren’t really good for them, but that wasn’t the point. They weren’t picky.

The point was the strange atmosphere.

The outsiders were grandly received, yet all the men were seated at the tables eating, while there were hardly any women present except for the female teacher and the village chief’s wife.

The women were busy the whole time.

Some crew members felt uneasy and invited the aunts, sisters-in-law, and mothers to come over and eat, but the village men laughed and stopped them, saying, “Women don’t sit at the table! Let them be busy!”

This dialect sounded similar to Mandarin, and everyone on the crew understood.

Not only the adults, but the children followed the same rule. The boys ate with their mouths full of oil, while the girls needed to help wash dishes and serve food. It made them feel rather uncomfortable.

The crew members thought this, but as outsiders, they didn’t want to say anything. Besides, they couldn’t understand each other anyway, making communication impossible.

After dinner, Director Xu would probably explain the situation to the crew, but that wasn’t something Jiang Heng and Shen Fubai needed to worry about. They needed to leave the table early and escape from this place that made them feel uncomfortable all over, returning to the dilapidated house with Wang Xiaoshu and Xie Chian.

Although that house didn’t make them feel any more comfortable.

Walking from the east side of the village to the west side, there were no lights, the night was dark, and there were four people.

The four of them walked silently, the moonlight stretching their shadows long.

Shen Fubai couldn’t bear the silence. He felt like they were four walking corpses being led by a corpse handler.

“Xiaoshu, did you eat enough tonight?” Shen Fubai asked Wang Xiaoshu.

Wang Xiaoshu nodded vigorously. “Very full! But the food they cooked isn’t as good as Brother’s.”

This “Brother” referred to Xie Chian.

Jiang Heng and Shen Fubai were quite surprised. This young man looked like he didn’t lift a finger, but in reality, he was a jack-of-all-trades.

“Do the girls in your village not eat?” Jiang Heng asked.

They were all the same age, yet the girls only dared to stand aside watching. A female crew member felt sorry for them and took a bite of food with chopsticks to hand it to a little girl. After taking a bite, the girl was glared at by her parents and quickly ran away, frightened.

“They do eat,” Wang Xiaoshu said innocently. “The adults say that girls just need to be given some food.”

The eyes of the other three people turned slightly cold.

This was clear favoritism towards sons and neglect of daughters.

When they returned to Wang Xiaoshu’s home, Shen Fubai was drenched in sweat and needed a refreshing shower.

Xie Chian said, “The bucket is behind the door, the well is outside the house, go fetch water yourself.”

The lifestyle was very primitive.

Jiang Heng told Shen Fubai to rest inside while he went to fetch water.

Shen Fubai was also a bit tired, nodding and going to the bedroom to turn on the fluorescent light – thank goodness, this place wasn’t so primitive that they needed candles for lighting.

Soon, Jiang Heng came in with a basin of water. The well water in the mountains was clear and clean. Shen Fubai washed his face, cleaned his body, and sat on the kang to soak his feet.

Under limited conditions, he didn’t take off his clothes and simply gave himself a rough cleaning. After Jiang Heng waited for him to finish, he went out to change the water and finished washing up himself.

That night, the two of them squeezed onto the same bed. Shen Fubai played with his phone for a bit, but there was no signal, leaving him unable to do anything.

“This place is terrible,” Shen Fubai sighed.

The environment was secondary; it was the villagers… No matter how enthusiastic they appeared on the surface, there was always something odd about their attitude. The atmosphere made them feel very uneasy.

Moreover, given the current situation, it was obvious that the production team had taken the wrong path. The crew had already contacted the locals to shoot scenes, but when Director Xu mentioned it to the village chief today, the village chief acted as if he knew nothing about it.

Unexpected events always caught people off guard.

Shen Fubai rested his chin on Jiang Heng’s shoulder and squinted his eyes. “I’m exhausted.” Seeing those malnourished children and the busy women, his heart was somewhat touched.

Jiang Heng spoke softly. “Sleep if you’re tired.”

“Mm. Goodnight.” Shen Fubai kissed him, pulled up the blanket, and lay down.

That night, the two of them still didn’t fall asleep.

It was cool in the mountains, so they didn’t toss and turn due to the heat.

But there were a lot of mosquitoes in the mountains.

After enduring the buzzing sound of mosquitoes for a long time, Shen Fubai finally couldn’t bear it anymore. He got up, turned on the light, and stepped into his slippers to rummage through his suitcase for insect repellent and mosquito repellent.

He couldn’t use the insect repellent spray; it would leave a smell in the room, and they wouldn’t be able to stay in it. It was also his fault for cleaning the room to the point of losing his mind during the day, forgetting to spray the insect repellent.

Shen Fubai’s search for mosquito repellent woke Jiang Heng. Jiang Heng half-closed his eyes, sat up, and adjusted to the indoor lighting. “Fubai?”

“I’m looking for mosquito repellent,” Shen Fubai said, squatting on the ground with his back to him, frantically searching inside the suitcase. “Did I wake you? Get up and help me kill mosquitoes. They’re too despicable, I’m going to kill them.”

Jiang Heng yawned and was forced to get up to kill the mosquitoes.

Mosquitoes were a strange creature. When the lights were off, they circled around your ears, singing loudly. When the lights were on, they instantly hid out of sight, like a shy little girl.

Jiang Heng searched for a while but couldn’t find a single shy little girl.

However, Shen Fubai saw a vicious hag with sharp eyes.

His movements paused.

He saw a… brown, ugly, huge cockroach.

“Aaaaaaahhhhhhh!!!” Shen Fubai was scared back onto the bed, shrinking into Jiang Heng’s arms, his delicate body trembling.

Jiang Heng looked tense. “What happened?”

“C-C-C-Cockroaches!!!” Shen Fubai shivered, stretching out his hand to gesture. “It’s that—big!”

Shen Fubai was fearless of everything in life except tomatoes, darkness, and cockroaches. Southern cockroaches and northern cockroaches were completely different, and mountain cockroaches were even more different than those outside the mountains. He had never seen such a big one before, it was almost demonic.

Jiang Heng’s expression was serious. “Where is it?”

“Over there, over there.” Shen Fubai pointed tremblingly.

“I don’t see it,” Jiang Heng maintained his composure, calmly scanning for the cockroach.

Shen Fubai buried himself in Jiang Heng’s arms and whined. “It’s over there! Heng Heng, hit it!”

Just as he said that, a brown cockroach flapped its wings and flew past their eyes in an instant.

Jiang Heng could no longer pretend, terrified, he screamed along with Shen Fubai. “Aaaaahhhhhh!!!”

He was also afraid of cockroaches!

Shen Fubai was frightened. “It can fly!!!”

Jiang Heng was even more frightened. “I saw it!!!”

The two of them hugged each other and cried in pain.

Smack!

The world fell silent.

Xie Chian stood at the door, mercilessly crushing the cockroach under his flip-flop, looking at them indifferently. “Can you let people sleep at night or not?”

Shen Fubai and Jiang Heng were still hugging, looking at the youth at the door together.

At that moment, Xie Chian was like a savior descending in their eyes.

They belatedly separated, coughed lightly, and regained their composure.

Jiang Heng: “Thank you, Mother Mary.”

Shen Fubai: “Thank you, Jesus Christ.”

Xie Chian said expressionlessly, “If you disturb my sleep again, I’ll nail you both to the cross to suffer.”

And then he slammed the door shut.