Happy Little Farmer
Chapter 186: Human or Ghost?

Chapter 186: Chapter 186: Human or Ghost?

Yang Fan furrowed his brows as he looked at Zhou Wenhui, quite puzzled he asked, "What does her disappearance have to do with me? And how could she just vanish all of a sudden?"

Zhou Wenhui explained everything that had happened in detail to Yang Fan, and concluded, "Let’s go take a look, it’s late at night, and I’m genuinely worried that something might have happened. Her phone is turned off now, and there’s absolutely no way to contact her."

"But it’s dark as pitch out there, who knows which direction she went? How are we supposed to find her?" Yang Fan said.

Although Shicheng Village wasn’t large, hiding a person was a piece of cake.

Without a way to make contact and relying solely on shouting, finding someone during the day was uncertain, let alone at night.

"She left in a huff, so she must be thinking of leaving the village, let’s start by searching along the main road," Zhou Wenhui suggested, "If that doesn’t work, we can get the villagers to join the search."

"That plan doesn’t sound too reliable, Little Mother. I’m reminded of a story. It says that one day in a certain village, a bride went missing. Everyone went into the mountains to look for her, but a sudden downpour trapped them there. With nothing to do, they ended up having their way with the bride, remember?" Yang Fan suddenly thought of this story and couldn’t help but mockingly say it.

Zhou Wenhui rolled her eyes and gave Yang Fan a knock on the head, "What are you fantasizing about? It’s just a story, you think that really happens? Get up quickly."

"Let’s go, a dead horse as a living horse doctor, let’s start by looking," Yang Fan said somewhat speechlessly.

This girl, she really knew how to stir up trouble.

After getting dressed, Yang Fan and his family took their flashlights and stepped out the door.

Fourth Aunt, who had been cursing about teaching her daughter a lesson, had already tearfully imagined countless possibilities.

Yang Fan listened, annoyed, but didn’t feel it was appropriate to say much.

It was normal for her to be anxious since her daughter had disappeared after running away from home; he just hoped now that she was unharmed.

The group called out Xiao Yuan’s name as they followed the main road to the village entrance but found no sign of Xiao Yuan.

After heading back, Yang Fan suggested that they split up to search.

There were several branching paths leading out of the village, each going in different directions, and anyone not familiar with the area could easily take a wrong turn.

After discussing, Yang Fan went alone, Wei Juan paired up with Fourth Aunt, and Zhou Wenhui went with Ye Tong.

The five people split into three groups, each taking different paths to search.

The path that Yang Fan took led into the mountains and happened to be the same one where he had caught Gao Lanlan and Liang Bing in a tryst.

It was now past eleven at night, and other than the occasional fireflies, the surrounding fields were devoid of any light.

The moonlight that evening was especially uncooperative, casting a concerning, unsettling gloom.

Yang Fan shone his flashlight, trying to see if there were any footprints on the ground.

But there were simply too many footprints on the ground.

"She probably wouldn’t have headed this way, would she?" Yang Fan looked towards the mountain, which was almost within reach, and muttered to himself.

Looking at the dark, gloomy mountain range and the pitch-black forest, he started to feel a pang of dread.

Just as he was about to turn back, he suddenly heard a faint sobbing sound coming from the distant woodland.

But when he stopped to listen closely, the sound disappeared.

It seemed as though the sound had been carried to him by a gust of wind just moments earlier.

"It didn’t seem like an auditory hallucination; there definitely was someone crying just now... but is it a human or a ghost?" Yang Fan hesitated.

Yang Fan, who was usually fearless and would even dare to venture into a graveyard in the dead of night, now felt his heart race at the sight of the dark woods.

They seemed even more sinister to him than a graveyard.

He wouldn’t mind as much if he could see clearly around him, even in the dead of night.

But this place gave Yang Fan the ominous feeling that diving in might mean never coming out.

"That damned woman must be crazy to go into a place like this." Yang Fan cursed under his breath, yet he still lifted his feet and walked towards the direction from which the sounds had come, feeling as if he was standing on the edge of a monster’s maw.

Suddenly, another round of faint sobbing drifted over.

"Damn it!" Yang Fan cursed under his breath, shrugging his shoulders twice.

In the pitch-black night where one could hardly see one’s hand in front of them, the sound of a woman’s sobbing suddenly came from the woods, truly hair-raising.

There were rumors that at midnight, some mischievous beings would perch on one’s shoulder to deliberately frighten them. As long as one kept one’s courage firm and occasionally patted their shoulders, they could dispel those playful little creatures.

Yang Fan didn’t know whether it was true or not, but he decided to give it a try, as either way it was a means to bolster his courage.

Picking up a stick by chance, Yang Fan kept flinging it behind him, not only to steady his nerves but also plunging headlong into the forest.

During daylight, the mountain wilderness that was once serene became fraught with peril after dark, as if countless eyes were lurking and watching, the sinister gaze waiting for an opportunity to move.

Yang Fan walked forward, one step deep and the next shallow, heading toward the source of the sound with his flashlight in hand.

Even as he walked in, there was still a doubt echoing in his heart.

Was it really his whimsical cousin, or... a ghost?

Living in the countryside, these strange and supernatural stories had always been the bedtime stories of Yang Fan’s childhood.

As a child, he never took them seriously, but they had started to seem authentic as he grew up.

Finally, he saw the source of the sound.

A woman was hanging from a vine in mid-air, her body swaying back and forth with the breeze, but the white dress on her showed no ripple at all, fitting snugly to her body.

When the beam of the flashlight passed over her, Yang Fan’s soul nearly took flight from fright.

Fuck!

Is it actually a goddamn ghost?!

Without saying a word, Yang Fan immediately threw the stick in his hand.

"By the power of the Three Pure Ones, Om Mani Padme Hum, begone!"

Instead of retreating, the ghost hanging on the vine let out a piercing scream.

Yang Fan was stunned for a moment, then took a closer look. This dress... it looked somewhat familiar.

That troublesome cousin of his, whose name he still didn’t know, seemed to wear the same outfit.

But how did she... end up hanging herself from a tree?

She couldn’t have become so despondent as to... kill herself, could she?!

Uneasy, Yang Fan approached slowly to get a frontal view.

As the flashlight shone on her, a pallid cheek appeared before him, scaring Yang Fan into slapping it instinctively.

"By the power of the Three Pure Ones, Om Mani Padme Hum, die!"

Yang Fan’s slap was powerful and heavy, making the figure hanging from the tree sway back and forth like a swing.

"Ah... save, save me..."

After the slap, instead of instantly turning into a menacing ghost, the ghastly figure started coughing and called out to Yang Fan with a feeble cry for help.

She was still alive!

The reason her face was so pale was entirely due to being strangled.

Her right arm and head were entwined in the vine suspended in mid-air. Fortunately, her arm had something to lean on, otherwise, her face wouldn’t just be pale; she might well have been dead.

"What did you just ask me to do?" Yang Fan shone the flashlight on Xiao Yuan’s face, teasingly asking.

Although she was hanging, she wasn’t in immediate danger. As long as she had the strength in her arm, she should be able to hold on for an hour or two.

"Save... save me..." Xiao Yuan said weakly.

"Are you human or ghost?" Yang Fan deliberately asked in a stern voice.