After transmigrating into the book, I helped my mother reconcile with her divorced husband.

Before even entering the village, Lu Yun noticed that the tire tracks on the ground had disappeared.

The Miao village is a piece of land, and the road leading into the village is covered with flattened weeds. Horse-drawn carts leave very obvious ruts when they drive over them. They were only an hour away from the village, and even with the wind, it was impossible to cover up all the ruts in a short time, let alone make all the flattened grass stand up again.

Besides tire tracks, there's also the weather.

It was daytime when I left, and it got dark in the blink of an eye.

They stopped the car and looked into the village. The lanterns swayed gently as they approached, much like the image of a Miao man carrying a lantern and wandering through the village. Liu Ying swallowed hard and whispered, "Wasn't that Miao man dead? How come the lanterns are back? Are we dreaming, or is there really a ghost in this village?"

"Whether it's a person or a ghost, we'll find out once we catch them." Lu Yun drew his sword, swiftly moved it twice towards the light, and disappeared into the night.

After about fifteen minutes, Lu Yun returned, carrying the lantern.

Lu Zhiyuan: "It's not Miao Han, it's the village chief. He replaced the previous Miao Han and is carrying this lantern as he walks around the village. Miao Han's house has been restored to its original state, as if no one had ever been there. If I'm not mistaken, the belt is still hanging on the pomegranate tree at the village chief's house."

Lu Yun nodded: "Does Madam know the inside story? Madam herself tied that belt to Madam Ye's body, and we all watched it burn together with Madam Ye. How could a belt that has already been burned reappear? Could it be that there is another belt in the world that is exactly the same as it?"

No!

No two belts in the world are exactly alike. Even if they are made from the same piece of cloth, embroidered by the same person, hung in the same place, and exposed to the same wind and sun, they will never be exactly the same.

The belt is still the same belt, just like the scenery in the game, except that the Miao and Han people have been wiped out.

Sure enough, there were no traces of Miao or Han people left in the cave, and even the two graves on the mountain had been reduced to one.

Liu Ying rubbed her arms and muttered, "What the hell? What a ghost! This pit was dug by Lu Yun and me together, and we buried it together. How come there's only one left?"

Lu Zhiyuan: "Go find the village chief!"

The village chief sat at the door of Miao Han's house, as if deliberately waiting for them. When Lu Zhiyuan took out silver needles to apply acupuncture to him, his expression was very strange. He clearly had the village chief's face, but he showed the expression of Miao Han being treated.

When administering acupuncture, Lu Zhiyuan was careful. She didn't insert the needles into the correct acupuncture points, but rather into seemingly insignificant places. Just as she had suspected, despite the incorrect acupuncture, the village chief regained his senses.

The village chief's account of the events in Miaojia Village was largely the same as Miao Han's, except that in his version, Miao Han was the first to be killed.

Miao Han, who worked in town, set his sights on the visiting Mr. and Mrs. Ye. He conspired with a group of idle villagers to kidnap them and bring them to Miao Village. Contrary to Miao Han's account, the Ye family wasn't imprisoned in an abandoned house, but rather in a cave halfway up a mountain.

The cave was discovered by villagers while they were working in the mountains. During the rainy season, villagers often took shelter in the cave. It is also true that there is ice in the cracks, where villagers would store food. Especially in the summer, they would bring their children to the cracks to escape the heat.

Miao Han coveted Madam Ye's beauty and threatened her with the lives of Master Ye and their child to force her to marry him. Madam Ye hated the people of Miao Village and sabotaged the wedding banquet, causing most of the villagers to be poisoned.

Unfortunately, Miao Han, the mastermind behind the crime, escaped unscathed and, in a fit of rage, killed Master Ye. Madam Ye went mad and took down a sickle hanging on the wall, hacking wildly indiscriminately.

Miss Ye was originally being held by Miao Han's mother, but while they were dodging and weaving, she accidentally dropped the child. The child's cries drove Madam Ye even more mad, and she used a sickle to behead Miao Han's mother.

Because of what Miao Han had done, the village chief and his family refused to attend the wedding banquet. When they arrived after hearing the news, the horrific scene at Miao's home chilled them to the bone. His son had been slashed while trying to stop Madam Ye from committing the crime.

The Miao people were in chaos, and no one noticed when Madam Ye had disappeared. They were busy treating the wounded; there was no doctor in the village, so they could only use traditional methods. Those with minor injuries escaped, but those with serious injuries, like his son, died.

The day after the incident, the village was still filled with the strong smell of blood. He reported it to the authorities, and the officials came and went, issued a village lockdown order, and left.

Those with connections, unwilling to be trapped in the village, secretly slipped away with their parents, wives, children, and valuables before the government completely sealed off the village.

After his son's death, the village chief became a lonely old man. Whether he stayed or left, whether he lived or died, or where he died, made no difference to him. Strangely, those who remained in the village began to have accidents. Each of them was wearing red clothes or draped in a red sheet before their accidents. Those who had left the village also gradually returned. Unlike when they left, their expressions were blank, as if they had experienced something terrible.

In less than a month, he was the only one left in Miaojia Village who had died.

When Lu Zhiyuan asked how Madam Ye died, the village chief's answer was similar to Miao Han's: she fell into a well and died while wearing a red wedding dress.

The day after Madam Ye threw herself into the well, the people sealing off the village arrived. Seeing that only a mentally unstable old man remained in the village, they left him some food and then left.

After saying that, the village chief picked up the lantern that Lu Yun had placed on the ground and began to slowly stroll around the village as before.

Watching the village chief's retreating figure, Liu Ying asked doubtfully, "Which of what the village chief and Miao Han said is true?"

It's all true; the difference lies in how the plot changes based on the characters. Perhaps if they went back to the village again, they wouldn't see the village chief and Miao Han, but rather Miao Han's mother.

She'd asked everything she needed to ask and tested everything she needed to test. The most important thing now was to prevent the system from discovering that she had awakened—regardless of whether it was just a string of code or not, what she hated most was being used.

Visiting the Miao village wasn't part of her original plan. According to the original itinerary, she would stay at the inn after leaving Chunfeng Town. Judging by the time, Han Ting's letter should have arrived around that time.

When did their itinerary change? The teahouse—the one they used to rest after leaving Spring Breeze Town. Besides them, there was a family of five. The child looked a lot like a modeler, and the son and daughter-in-law's conversation was very proper. The old man had his trousers rolled up and was holding a pipe. The old woman had her hair wrapped up, with a few strands falling loose. Their clothes were clean, though patched.

Because she accepted this as a world within a book, she rarely paid attention to anything other than those close to her, and even if she saw something, she wouldn't think about it deeply. For example, a family of five went out without any luggage, nor did they have any means of transportation like an oxcart or donkey cart. Their shoes were very clean, and didn't look like they were worn for walking. The old man's rolled-up trousers, the color of his pipe, and the patches on the old woman's clothes all exuded an eerie familiarity.