BXBX NOVEL Chapter 79: The Elderly
An aged voice echoed across the air. Everyone turned their heads to find the source, only to find a shaky hand opening a window of the large house.
At the next moment, a doddering old woman extended her head from the window, and with everyone looking at her, she couldn’t help but be startled——
The old woman’s face was completely covered with wrinkles, and along with that faltering voice of hers, she resembled a fowl being slowly broiled.
Her body had a paunchy stature, comparable to a pile of rotten dead meat that was growing horizontally and vertically on her body, looking rather odd.
If an old woman has an obese body, other than munching on a lot of food, elders who don’t often move about could occasionally look like this. As for the old woman’s eyes, she had eyes that looked like they didn’t belong to an ordinary old person.
Her eyeballs were pitch black, while the edges of her pupils glowed a wretched greenish color under the rays of the sun. When she used these eyes to look at you, you would feel as if a wolf was watching you attentively, stalking its prey.
Although she was intimidated by the old lady’s eyes, she still knew that this was an old woman who just aged scarily. As an anchor, she couldn’t show any discourtesy towards this elder.
As Bai Cui was deciding on how to start a conversation with the old lady, Xu Lanfang loudly said, “Gran, they came to the village to play. Our village doesn’t have a hotel. They want to stay in our house!”
“How could you abruptly bring people over, you didn’t even discuss it with me!” The old woman also yelled in a monstrous voice, as if she were unwilling.
Upon seeing this, Xu Lanfang replied, “I received money!”
When she heard this, the old woman immediately fell into silence and closed the window. Xu Lanfang dragged her small cart inside the large house and then, she ran towards the old woman who was sitting inside the room.
Through the wooden window, Bai Yan could faintly hear the sound of rustling money from the inside.
Momentarily, Xu Lanfang came out and told the people standing in the yard, “You can come in. My gran agrees!”
The anchor and the players, along with the audience that was still watching the stream, were all equally dumbfounded towards this candid grandchild.
However, in their silence, they still entered the residence.
Even though Xu Lanfang’s house was in a shabby state, the rural area of the land was still big, which wasn’t without any benefits. Her house was quite huge, and there were several rooms with heatable brick beds.
Leading the crowd inside, Xu Lanfang gave them a tour, saying after, “Gran and I will stay in the center room. There are two more rooms on the East side. One of them is more spacious, you six can stay there. If you add to the money you gave me, you can stay on the West side that has slightly smaller rooms, but you can have boys’ and girls’ rooms.
After informing the players, Xu Lanfang turned towards the anchor’s party, “The small room in the East side is yours. You can stay with your boyfriend there.”
Giving the two groups their arrangements, Xu Lanfang went to pack a bag of straw she had just pulled back.
As she was busying herself, some audience members expressed interest in seeing the old granny again, so Bai Cui headed towards the direction of the large room.
As for the players, they felt that the grandma looked pretty terrifying and since her age was ancient, it meant that she definitely knew something, so they went together with the anchor.
In the large room.
The old lady sat crossed-legged in the heatable brick bed, leaning on a pile of mattresses while squinting her eyes, looking drowsy.
Bai Cui called her a few times, but the granny still had yet to open her eyes, turning a deaf ear.
Recalling that Xu Lanfang and the old lady had a particularly noisy conversation, perhaps this granny’s ears weren’t good, hence Bai Yan saying in a louder voice, “Old lady(1), hello! We want to ask you something!”
- Just wanted to make it clear here that Bai Yan used a polite term for this.
This time, the elder heard his words and opened her eyes slightly. Seeing the old lady’s cloudy green eyes, people would instinctively feel indisposed.
Noticing the people in the room and remembering that they had paid them, the old lady wasn’t mad and just picked up a piece of brown tissue, speaking after coughing up some phlegm, “I’m old, and my ears can’t hear well. Talk louder. What do you want to ask me?”
“Granny, we wanted to ask you if your village is disturbed by ghosts?” Bai Cui knew that the old lady was a bit deaf and said in an equally powerful voice, “I heard that there have been a couple of disappearances in your village. May I ask if this is true?”
“Wa? Disappearances? That child went missing?” The old lady was left a bit confused.
“I also don’t know. I only heard from an external source that this village was haunted, so we went here to see!” Bai Cui said with a high volume, “Granny, this was from a young man from your village! He said that he witnessed a lot of disappearances in this village and became afraid, so he fled the village, escaping!”
Hearing Bai Cui’s words, this time, the old lady finally understood.
She pulled out another piece of brown tissue paper and spat out more phlegm, clearing her throat, “That fool is talking rubbish, is this not cursing us? Everything is rubbish! Our village haunted by ghosts? A few days ago, Cui Juan also came to find me to gossip, telling me that no one has gone missing, and that all of the elderly and the children are still here!”
“What? No one’s missing, not even a single one?” Bai Cui couldn’t believe it and continued to probe, “Granny, are you certain that not even a single person is gone? Even lost children count!”
“Our village doesn’t have any human traffickers. Children are all with adults, and they won’t get lost. If there are strangers here, then we keep an eye out for them. How can they get lost!”
After asking the old lady a few questions and learning that no one went missing in the village as well as there were no indications of ghosts, Bai Cui felt a ‘double-slap’ hitting her.
Naturally, even though the elder was disrespectful, the live broadcast still needed to be done.
Leaving the large room, Bai Cui walked out the house and outrightly pointed her finger to the village, solemnly swearing, “When things change, there must be a devil behind it. Like this ancient village, there must definitely be some monster folklore here, but that granny certainly didn’t mention any. There’s something fishy going on here.
Based on this anchor’s rich experiences in ghost-investigation, she’s absolutely hiding something. In contrast, beneath it all, this village surely has ghosts!
Fans, everyone knows that the majority of supernatural events don’t come out during the daytime. Everyone worry, because tonight, Sister Bai will personally check it out and see if the story in the post is real or fake!”
Bai Cui was forcing respect, using all sorts of clever ways to get the audience to stay.
Back at the East room, the players were gathered together, lowering their voices to discuss matters over.
Unlike Bai Cui, they truly felt that the old lady’s answer was extremely weird.
“That post ought to be true. If no one had died, the app would never have sent us here.” Bai Yan said, “What do guys think?”
“I think so too.” Ozawa Hiroshi also said.
“Not necessarily.” Ye Shangyu suddenly replied, “Although the ‘Backstory’ also mentioned a post, it’s still possible that the atrocity hasn’t happened yet.”
“Are you talking about baiting? That’s possible.” Bai Yan avidly recalled what happened during ‘Real Ghost Stories,’ “It’s possible that a ghost published the post. Can we find out who made the post?”
“Hold on.”
Ye Shangyu fished out her laptop and began to quickly type on the keyboard. While she was busy, the others continued to collect opinions on the matter.
“The post might not be fake, it’s also possible that she’s forgetful!” Jina played around with her brown braid, thinking hard, “In my last game, the NPCs were all old and had lost their memories. The ghost was able to alter their memories, forcing them to forget about the deceased. It’s possible that the old granny had forgotten.”
“En, it’s indeed like this.” Beside the little lolita, the dark-skinned Kenta said, “Jina and I frequently come across these circumstances.”
Jina and Kenta actually knew each other? One of the two was dark-skinned, thick, and solid, while the other one had light skin, short, and delicate-looking. Bai Yan stared at the two and felt that these two were mismatched. Who knew how they met each other.
Everyone expressed their opinions, one after another. A different Eastern player named Lu Ruichao kept silent as though he disliked speaking.
He didn’t say anything, and the others also didn’t concern themselves with him.
As their discussion dragged along, Ye Shangyu suddenly raised her head, “This can’t be, I can’t find it!”
“My laptop restarted on its own. It’s most likely that the app doesn’t want us to use this manner to find out who the poster is.”
“Interesting.” There was a light in Bai Yan’s eyes, “It seems that the identity of the poster is important.”
“Could it be a villager?” Jina paused, “Perhaps they wanted to remind themselves before they forgot and posted it online.”
“It’s also possible that there is a ghost among the villagers.” Bai Yan said, “If we can uncover who posted it, we can find out who is being impersonated by a ghost. Of course, this is just a guess of mine.”
Everyone discussed the topic in a lively manner, raising a few instances that constantly appeared in the game.
In the end, everyone unanimously acknowledged that anything could happen and decided to take a multi-pronged approach, which was to verify from all sides which case was right.
“Kenta and I can go ask the other villagers and see if they really disappeared or not.” Jina said in a sweet tone.
“You and Kenta? Your skin color is different from the people here, so they might get scared of you.” Ozawa Hiroshi then pointed a finger at the silent Lu Ruichao, “It would be better if you and I were in one unit, while Kenta and he go together.”
“No, I still want to be together with Kenta.” Jina looked like she could talk well, but her rejection was relentless, “I’m used to exploring with teammates I’m familiar with.”
Jina and Kenta had already formed a fixed team, and she also didn’t trust Ozawa Hiroshi.
It was also right. Because with Jina’s small stature, if they ever came across something, Ozawa Hiroshi could also gently push her to the ghost, serving as a sacrificial victim.
A thought flashed through Bai Yan’s mind. He looked Ye Shangyu in the eye, consulting her with a few words, opening his mouth and saying, “I feel that Xu Lanfang and her grandma are both suspicious as well as those two anchors, these two outside people also deserve to be followed closely. Ye Shangyu and I will be in charge of keeping an eye on them.”
“Okay.” The large black woman nodded in agreement, “Ozawa Hiroshi, you and Lu Ruichao should go together. Two-people groups should be safe.”
With the groups divided, Ozawa Hiroshi gave Jina a regretful look, a gesture that made Jina frown, making her extremely annoyed.
This shifty-eyed Ozawa Hiroshi, she would never agree to join him by any means. Jina snorted and tilted her chin up, her milky-white little hand pulled along the black man’s large hand.
After Jina left, Lu Ruichao didn’t say a word and went through the door, while the somewhat dejected Ozawa Hiroshi also left.
Soon, only Bai Yan and Ye Shangyu were left in the East room.
Ye Shangyu carried her laptop, and with Bai Yan, they left the East room. In the kitchen, Xu Lanfang just so happened to be chatting with the female anchor.
Seeing the two coming over, Bai Cui enthusiastically called them, “Little sister is going outside to gather some firewood. Little Tanned and I are preparing to help, do you two want to come?”
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T/N: To summarize, the players are:
Bai Yan
Ye Shangyu
Jina, the brown-haired and blue-eyed small Lolita
Kenta, the large and thick black man
Ozawa Hiroshi, Japanese player, is making moves on Jina
Lu Ruichao, the third Chinese player
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