Chapter 11: Up the Mountain

Zhu Miaomiao was happy for a long time because of her thick hair, and she could finally stop wearing the hat on her head at all times. Of course, Zhu Miaomiao was touched by the well in Lu Qingjiu's house and repeatedly asked Lu Qingjiu to make sure that the well was really dead and not a god.

Lu Qingjiu was a little helpless in the face of Zhu Miaomiao's questions, explaining what had happened in the well and stating that he had no idea why the well was working the way it was.

"Anyway, my hair is growing up." Zhu Miaomiao said, "Can I bring other people here to grow their hair later?"

Lu Qingjiu said, "Yes, you can, but you have to make it clear before you go long, some people are afraid, right?"

Zhu Miaomiao: "That's right too."

Although she could grow her hair, in the end the well was dead, so maybe some people couldn't accept it, but for her, baldness was much scarier than the female ghost in the well.

To celebrate her hair growth, Zhu Miaomiao took a few photos and put them in her circle of friends, comparing them to the top of her thinning head.

Zhu Miaomiao looked so pleased with herself, thinking that she had never thought in her life that she would ever be able to show her hair. Her holiday was not long, only four days, and as she was in such a remote place, she wanted to see the nature, so she asked Lu Qingjiu to take her around.

Lu Qingjiu agreed and led Zhu Miaomiao around the village. Looking at the dense forest near the village, Zhu Miaomiao asked, "Can I go up to the mountains?"

Lu Qingjiu was about to say yes, but then suddenly remembered the puddles he had seen when he and Bai Yuehu had gone up the mountain together, and after a moment's hesitation he said, "I'll go and ask."

"Ask what?" Zhu Miaomiao queried.

"Sometimes there are wild animals in the mountains." Lu Qingjiu says, "We have to ask if it's safe to go up the mountain first."

"All right." Zhu Miaomiao didn't think much of it either.

Afterwards Lu Qingjiu went home and asked Bai Yuehu if there was anything wrong with going up the mountain now. Bai Yuehu looked at the weather and said, "It's fine on a sunny day.

Lu Qingjiu was relieved, so he made an appointment with Zhu Miaomiao to take her to the mountains in the afternoon.

And Yin Xun, as a guide, was also pulled up by Lu Qingjiu.

It's a beautiful day, with white clouds in the blue sky and a view from high above of the rolling hills and lush green forests. There were crisp birdsong, low bushes dotted with a variety of wildflowers and the occasional unknown wild fruit on the side of the road, some edible but most of them very sour.

Yin Xun gave Zhu Miaomiao two prickly roses and, watching her face wrinkle with acidity, laughed: "They're not bad for making wine, but they're not very tasty."

"Then you give it back to me to eat." Zhu Miaomiao's eyes were tearing up.

"It's not like I can see the longing in your eyes." Yin Xun said, "You didn't hesitate when you shoved it into your mouth."

Zhu Miaomiao: "Who told it to look delicious?"

They were both outgoing personalities and got to know each other very quickly.

The deeper the three of them went, the more luxuriant the forest became, the taller the trees blocked out the sunlight, leaving only dappled shadows on the ground. Lu Qingjiu, seeing that it was almost time, said, "Come on, let's go home. Yesterday, we bought some waxy pork ribs and bacon at the house next door, so we'll stew them for you."

Zhu Miaomiao nods happily.

The three of them started to walk down the mountain, but when they passed through a dense forest, Zhu Miaomiao suddenly stopped in her tracks and said, "Hey, did you hear anything?"

"What's that noise?" Lu Qingjiu froze.

"It's just," Zhu Miaomiao seemed a little scared and whispered, "the sound of a child crying."

"No." Lu Qingjiu said. Lu Qingjiu said, "I didn't," and was about to say that he hadn't heard it when he heard a child's cry from deep in the jungle, a cry that broke off as if the child was running out of energy.

"I heard it too." Lu Qingjiu changed his tune.

"Is it one of the village dolls?" Yin Xun said, frowning as he too heard the child's cries.

"Is it lost?" Zhu Miaomiao said worriedly, "Let's go over and have a look."

Yin Xun's lips moved as if he wanted to say something, but in the end he said nothing and simply said, "It looks quite difficult to get around inside, or I'll go and have a look, you two just wait here"

"I'll come with you." Lu Qingjiu said, "Miao Miao you wait here while Yin Xun and I go over to have a look."

Zhu Miaomiao touched her arm, inexplicably feeling a little chilled, and said, "No, I'm scared, I don't want to be alone, I want to be with you too."

"Okay." Lu Qingjiu didn't dwell on it much, for the child's cries in the jungle grew fainter and fainter, as if they were going to disappear the next moment.

The three of them reached a consensus and started walking towards the place where the sound was coming from inside the jungle.

Yin Xun kept frowning and Lu Qingjiu, seeing his expression, asked in a low voice, "What's wrong?"

"Well this child's voice is a bit strange." Yin Xun replied, "It doesn't sound like a village child." Besides, the village children had been running around the mountain all day and knew it better than they did, so they wouldn't need their help.

Lu Qingjiu was about to ask what it was when he remembered something and his heart tightened slightly.

Lu Qingjiu kept an eye on the surrounding grass but never found the child until Zhu Miaomiao, standing behind him, reached out and tugged at the corner of his shirt and said in a shaky voice, "How come it doesn't seem to be a child crying?"

Lu Qingjiu turns back with a questioning look.

"There seems to be something in the grass" Zhu Miaomiao Some

Scared, he took two steps back and pointed to the grass in front of them.

Yin Xun's eyes fell on the grass, he took two steps forward, bent down and fished something out of the grass. Lu Qingjiu, standing next to him, took a look and saw clearly that what Yin Xun had in his hands was a pair of small red cloth shoes worn by a child, dirty and covered with mud, which looked very unsettling.

When Yin Xun picked up the shoes, his face immediately changed and Lu Qingjiu quickly asked, "Yin Xun, what's wrong?"

Yin Xun looked at them and said in a mute voice, "Do you remember when I told you about a child in our village who was drowned in the forest?"

Lu Qingjiu said, "Remember."

"When his body was found, something was missing." Yin Xun smiled bitterly. Yin Xun smiled bitterly, "A pair of red shoes was missing." Apparently, the shoes he was holding were the remains of the drowned child, but he didn't know why they were in the grass in front of him.

Lu Qingjiu's arms were covered in sweat and, most frighteningly, the baby's cries stopped as soon as Yin Xun picked up the tiny red shoes.

"What then?" Zhu Miaomiao was a little flustered as she whispered, "Let's just go."

"Let's go." Yin Xun said.

They had barely taken two steps forward when the sound of a child's voice rang out again, only this time it was not a cry but a giggle that made their scalps explode, and the three of them couldn't help but quicken their pace to get out of here as quickly as possible. But what had been a short journey was now an exceptionally long one, as the three of them wove their way through the woods for a long time without reaching the path they had come from before, and the surroundings became increasingly unfamiliar.

"I'm so scared." Zhu Miaomiao whispered beside Lu Qingjiu, "Are we lost?"

"Seems like it." Lu Qingjiu smiled bitterly.

Yin Xun, who had not spoken at all, then said in a low voice: "Do we have to throw away the children's shoes?"

"What does that mean?" Lu Qingjiu asked.

"There is a custom in the village," Yin Xun says. Yin Xun said, "It says that the clothes a dead person wears when he dies cannot be taken with him, otherwise he will have hang-ups and won't be able to go to his next life." He raised the little red shoe in his hand and said, "Is it because of this thing that we can't leave here?"

Lu Qingjiu said, "Then let's throw it away."

In fact, he knew nothing about these things, and although he would occasionally encounter something strange, he would just pretend not to see it and pass on. It was not until he arrived in this village that he really came into contact with these things in the true sense of the word.

Yin Xun nodded and carefully placed his shoes in the grass, but as soon as he released his hand, the cries of a small child rang out again in their ears, a cry so mournful and desperate that it made Yin Xun stagger.

"Ah, it seems to be starting to rain." Zhu Miaomiao said, "How long have we been on the mountain?"

At some point, it had become completely dark, thick dark clouds were in the air, the forest was a little strangely quiet and they could even hear the sound of raindrops on the leaves of the trees.

"It's eight o'clock at night." Lu Qingjiu looked at his phone, which didn't have a single signal, meaning that they had been lost here for two hours without ever being able to find the right path out of the increasingly eerie jungle.

"No, we have to go faster." Yin Xun's face got ugly too, "If it's really dark and raining, then we'll be in real trouble."

As to why he was in trouble, he didn't say a word about it.