Kaidan Game Train: Abide Rule or Die!
Chapter 674: The Whereabouts of the Young People

Chapter 674: Chapter 674: The Whereabouts of the Young People

Just like last night when he ordered late night snacks, the manager did not refuse, "I can call to place your order, but it will definitely be late when they deliver. I’ll come over to collect the money once the food arrives, so have the cash ready in advance."

"No problem," Xu Huo said before hanging up the phone.

After re-cleaning and dressing his wound, he leaned on the sofa and barely managed to sleep for less than an hour. When he got up, his head was splitting with pain. He unwrapped the gauze to check the wound, which was even worse than before he had reapplied the bandages.

The King Fungus was unable to fully repair his wound, which at least suggested that what had affected him was not merely poison.

He took a container out of the luggage compartment, scooped out a small piece of flesh from the wound, placed it into the container, and poured the Antitoxin into it until the flesh was submerged.

Having put the container into the prop box and stored it in his inventory, he cleaned the blood off his arm, replenished with a nutrient supplement, and left the hotel again.

After buying some fruit at a nearby shop, he carried it with him to the grandparent and grandchild’s house he had visited that morning.

The two were repairing a door and looked on guard when they saw him. Xu Huo stood at the entrance of the courtyard. "May I come in and talk?"

The elder was originally unwilling, but upon the granddaughter’s pleading, he agreed, though his expression was sour.

This was understandable; to the local residents, all players were probably the same.

Xu Huo acted very familiar, setting down the fruit and taking the initiative to help repair the door. In the process, he noticed a broken side door next to the main room, revealing another door behind it with a big lock on it.

"Is that your guest room?" he asked. "Can I stay here? The hotel environment isn’t great, and I can’t sleep well at night."

Before the young girl could speak, the old man angrily said, "We don’t accommodate guests. If you want to stay in a guest house, find somewhere else!"

"I mean no harm," Xu Huo said with a smile. "Besides, aren’t you worried about that man from earlier coming back?"

"He won’t live much longer!" the elder spat out a curse through clenched teeth.

The young girl placed the money he had given her in the morning on the table. "Thank you for helping me, but I don’t want your money."

"Consider it a little compensation, and besides, I did damage your courtyard door," Xu Huo paused, then pulled out the "Danger Blinds" and handed it over. "You have some dirt on your face."

The girl immediately turned her head away, wiping her face haphazardly before running out of the room, all the while urging, "You’d better leave now."

When he used the mirror that morning to confront the player who’d intended to assault her, he noticed the peculiar behavior of the grandparent and grandchild. Unlike Xiao Yun, who handled the mirror with ease, they seemed to fear the mirror.

Fear, and it wasn’t as simple as just avoiding it in their demeanor.

He then visited several other homes with children. He gave the kids some candy and snacks, but when he mentioned giving a mirror for the kids to play with, the people were eager to politely refuse.

Such obvious resistance, and asking a couple more people, he gathered a bit of information—shunning mirrors was one of their customs. The locals were particular about it, while outsiders didn’t care.

They were ignorant about religious history, but this rule they remembered clearly and followed it strictly.

The local residents clearly weren’t going to tell the truth, and pressuring them was of no use; Fu Danhong’s props had not worked on the manager, which led Xu Huo to first think of the constraints of higher-level items or strong traits. If that was the case, then it made sense that the locals, despite fearing the gods they worshipped, continued to live here in trepidation.

After leaving the residential area, he found a child around ten years old to guide him to a nearby graveyard.

Munching on the candy, the child said, "We don’t bury in the ground here. If someone dies, we sink them into a pond."

Xu Huo followed him to search for the pond and unexpectedly came across the player in black they had shared a ride with yesterday.

They exchanged glances, and the other player nodded at him.

Xu Huo nodded back in greeting and, after crossing through a dense thicket of vegetation, found the pond the child had mentioned behind a patch of brambles.

Calling it a pond was quite an understatement—it was more appropriate to describe it as a lake. The body of water was substantial, spanning at least a hundred meters in length and width, stretching deep into the forest.

The place was very far from the county town, showing almost no signs of human activity.

"The townspeople who pass away are all brought here?" Xu Huo tossed a pebble into the water, "It seems like no one has ever been here. Are you just trying to scam some food out of me?"

"I’m not lying!" the child argued, "Everyone has gone out to work and they never come home. Who knows if they die out there!"

"Your family also has people who have gone elsewhere? Your parents? Haven’t they come back to see you?" Xu Huo asked.

"My grandma says they don’t want me anymore... If they don’t want me, fine! I don’t care about them either! When they get old, they better not come looking for me!" the child angrily squatted and started pulling out tufts of grass.

"Look on the bright side," Xu Huo patted his head, "Maybe they died out there, and you just don’t know about it."

The child stared at him, dumbfounded, then pushed him away, "Your parents are the ones who are dead!"

Xu Huo smiled, "Think about it, if they didn’t run into trouble, would they completely neglect their own child? Besides your family, aren’t there other people’s homes where young people have left and never returned?"

The child looked lost, "Where would they go? My grandma says it’s because they despise being poor that they don’t return."

"Then your grandma surely knows," Xu Huo maintained his smile.

Without hesitation, the child turned and ran back. He hadn’t even left the woods when he ran into his grandmother who was out looking for him. Excitedly running to her, he cried out "Grandma" but before he could speak, she slapped his backside with a pair of slippers, "I told you not to run into the forest—get bitten by a snake and no one would even know you’re dead!"

The child, not one to be easily hurt, retorted, "I wasn’t alone! Grandma, are my parents dead? What about Xiao He and Xiao Bing’s parents, are they dead since they never came back?!"

The old woman’s expression changed, and she gave Xu Huo, who had emerged from behind, a resentful glance, "Don’t listen to outsiders’ nonsense. They just can’t stand the hardship and ran away, not wanting to return, leaving us—the elderly with the young. From now on, you are forbidden to do such a thing, or I’ll end you myself before leaving to collect your body!"

Having said that, she grabbed the child by the ear and walked away.

Xu Huo watched them leave and, after a moment, turned his gaze to the right where a figure was walking out of the forest backward, bowing and muttering, "No offense meant, no offense meant, I did not mean to encroach, please take no offense..."

When the man turned back and saw Xu Huo standing not far away.

As their eyes met, both seemed to grasp a different meaning from the other’s gaze.

Having played this part before, this was the first time Xu Huo had encountered a real fool.

The man opposite him, likely feeling embarrassed, said to him, "Don’t ever flip over the statues in the forest, or you’ll be marked!"

"I’ve already flipped them over," Xu Huo replied, "You’re staying in the same building as me, right? Have you been looking for me all day?"

"Cao Dong," the man introduced himself, then added with a hint of fear, "You saw the statues, didn’t you find anything strange in your room?"