CHAPTER 75: MUSHROOM VILLAGE 25

Turning to the next page, it recorded that the years of famine had passed.

The villagers, moved by the dog’s loyalty and dedication — that even after death it still provided for the village with mushrooms growing from its body. Therefore, the villagers enshrined the dog as the Dog God and, at regular intervals, hold a festival in its honor.

Xie Jia closed the village chronicle with a snap. She couldn’t help but recall whether any mushrooms had appeared on yesterday’s dining table. Luckily, she hadn’t eaten anything all day yesterday.

"What did you see?"

Wan Qian stood beside Xie Jia, and while Xie Jia was flipping through the the village chronicle, Wan Qian had also glanced at it.

She noticed that the the village chronicle was written in traditional characters and found it too difficult to read, so she decided she’d just wait for Xie Jia to explain it to her.

Xie Jia looked up at Wan Qian. She knew that Wan Qian had survived being attacked by two ghosts or monsters last night — she had heard it all. With strength like that, Wan Qian was not someone she could go up against.

Xie Jia did not hide what she had read in the the village chronicle and told Wan Qian everything.

"Ew..." Hearing Xie Jia say that the the village chronicle recorded how the villagers had survived the famine by eating mushrooms that grew from a dog’s corpse, Wan Qian couldn’t help but feel a bit sick too.

But on second thought, given that it was a year of famine, it was already fortunate they hadn’t resorted to eating human flesh — eating mushrooms that grew from a corpse was simply a last resort.

Wan Qian convinced herself to accept it. Still, Wan Qian felt there was something unreasonable about this story.

She couldn’t help muttering in a low voice, "How big could a dog be? How could the mushrooms it grew feed the whole village?"

Maybe there was a bit of mythical embellishment — perhaps the land where the dog was buried produced some mushrooms later on, and the story was rewritten like this.

Wan Qian didn’t dwell on what she said, turned around, and walked out of the room.

Xie Jia stood where she was, a thoughtful look suddenly appearing on her face.

Hao Shijun wandered around the room in the ancestral hall where the ancestral tablets were once placed but found nothing, so he went to check the other rooms.

In one of the rooms, he found what seemed to be someone’s personal notebook.

[It is my dream to come to the village to support education.

Others always say that after finishing my studies, not staying in a big city but instead coming to a remote poor place to be a poor teacher is really a waste of talent.

Juan doesn’t say that. She understands me. She always says, if you want to do something, just go do it. So I came here.

The village is deep in the mountains, with one road leading out, but it is shrouded in miasma all year round, so it can be considered isolated from the world.

Every household in the village keeps dogs. The village chief says that if you want to get through the miasma, you must have a dog to guide you, otherwise you will get lost.

Luckily, there is a postman who comes and goes delivering letters, so I and Juan can still write to each other every month.]

[I have been teaching in the village for so many years, and I finally managed to teach a student who went to college. Such good news should be shared with Juan.

The student came back and set up a telephone line in and out of the village, saying it was for making calls to his mother.

Unfortunately, he didn’t stay long before he left again. I heard that his wife and daughter are outside the village, and he doesn’t really want to come back in.

No matter — it should be understood. Young people should go out to the big cities and make their way.]

[Although we have a telephone now, Juan still prefers to write letters to me.

Juan says, paper is short but feelings are long — it’s convenient for her to read over and over again, to relive it again and again; the telephone is too fast — once something is said, it’s gone.

But this year’s harvest doesn’t seem so good. Somewhere in the village, there has even been a pest outbreak. Fortunately, I found it early and had everyone burn the insect eggs.]

[Why has there been another famine in the village? Winter is so cold — without grain, what can we do?

The village chief led the dog outside the village to fetch some grain and returned, but on the way back, both he and the dog accidentally stepped on a trap.

The dog, already old and frail, died soon after. The grain they brought back was too little and probably won’t last long.]

[They... how could they... This village has already become a living hell. How is this different from cannibalism?]

[The village chief asked me to make a phone call to the outside.

He must have forgotten — the old lady in the general shop starved to death long ago, and the telephone line was cut long ago too.

The student I taught never came back to this village again.

It’s better if he don’t come back; that way... he will never see this scene.]

The notebook ended here.

Connecting the context, Hao Shijun inferred that the entire village had probably experienced a famine.

But what did this so-called living hell mean?

Hao Shijun knew that history recorded countless incidents of "great famines where people ate each other." Could it be that these people, driven by hunger, had started eating other people?

Was this the hidden truth behind this ghostly place?

Hao Shijun did not touch anything else in the room. He walked out the door and returned to the room where the ancestral tablets had once been placed.

As soon as Hao Shijun entered the room, he froze. In the incense burner that had been empty before, three sticks of incense had been inserted at some unknown point and were now curling up faint blue smoke.

Judging by the burn marks on the incense, it was obvious that someone had lit them not long ago.

"Did someone come in just now and light the incense?" Hao Shijun was puzzled.

He noticed that, of the six open window panels, the middle two had been closed together. It seemed as if someone had deliberately closed the middle two panels to keep anyone from seeing what was behind them.

Hao Shijun walked over. He gathered his courage, reached out, and carefully nudged the two panels.

The hinges were already loose. With just that nudge, there was a creak — and naturally, the two panels slid open outward. They revealed what was behind them.

On the long table that had been empty before, there were now four brand-new memorial tablets. On those four memorial tablets were four names.

From left to right, they read: "Hao Shijun," "Fang Minglan," "Xie Jia," and "Wang Hui."