Although obscured by the dense shadows of the trees, it wasn't difficult to discern the lights.

They were distributed in a very regular, staggered pattern, and all were fixed in place. It was obvious they came from the lights inside houses.

"I remember the newspaper said that Yuezaki Village was destroyed by an earthquake and mudslide in Showa 54," Wang Congshan said in a low voice. "What's going on?"

Li Ang took a few steps forward, carefully distinguished the lights, and said softly, "There are three possibilities.

"One, Yuezaki Village was rebuilt after the disaster, and has now been restored to life.

"Two, we have fallen into an independent space-time similar to Silent Hill, where timelines and the reality of things are disordered, so we see Yuezaki Village before it was destroyed.

"The first possibility is relatively low, because the newspaper reported that the surface buildings were destroyed and all the villagers disappeared.

"Even if the Japanese official is extremely responsible, allocating funds to rebuild the village, they would not be able to find villagers to live there.

"It is more likely that the village was directly abandoned and removed from the map.

"In comparison, the second possibility is more reliable—although it is even worse for us."

"...Tsk."

Wang Congshan clicked her tongue when she heard this. "Then what about the third possibility?"

Li Ang turned to look at her and said calmly, "The characters we are playing have already died, and this is the world of the dead.

"The disadvantage is that we will see a lot of underworld things next,

"The advantage is that we don't have to worry about dying again."

"The world of the dead, my ass."

Wang Congshan rolled her eyes. "If we two were ghosts, we wouldn't see our shadows, and we shouldn't have heartbeats or anything."

"Hmm... that makes sense."

Li Ang nodded, suddenly moved a few steps to the left, and in the moonlight, raised his arms high, crossed the thumbs of his hands, and fanned his palms,

Making the shape of a pigeon.

"Huh?"

Wang Congshan was stunned for a moment, thinking that Li Ang was going to do the second set of national primary and secondary school radio gymnastics, "Eaglet Takes Flight," again.

It took a few seconds before she realized that

Li Ang was using the moonlight to make shadow puppets.

In that short time, he had already made several kinds of animals and was trying to recreate the twelve zodiac signs.

"Okay, there are indeed shadows."

Li Ang made gestures for a while, put down his arms, nodded, and looked back in the direction of the lights.

The two stood there observing for two or three minutes. During that time, the lights in the village's houses showed no signs of turning off or on.

After waiting in vain,

The two, with their retreat cut off, had no choice but to continue forward along the narrow path.

Along the way, they could see quite a few Jizo statues placed on stone platforms.

There were twin Jizo and mother-child Jizo. Some of the statues were wearing old red hats and scarves, and there were decorations such as windmills next to them.

After passing these Jizo statues, the downward slope of the mountain road suddenly became much steeper. The soil was muddy and slippery, and one could easily fall if not careful.

However, these were not a big problem for the two, who had quite good balance.

Li Ang and Wang Congshan silently walked down the mountain road, stepping on the simple stone road, and came to an open flat area on the side of the village.

[Phase 1 Mission Objective "Go to Yuezaki Village" has been completed]

[Phase 2 Mission Objective: Enter the Hiratsuka Family Mansion]

The system prompt sounded in their ears.

Li Ang held the Xin Yuan Staff and scanned the village scene without any emotional fluctuations.

The overall shape of Yuezaki Village was a right-angled trapezoid, facing south from the north. The entire village was distributed at the foot of a mountain with a certain slope.

The terrain at the main entrance of the village was low, while the terrain of the houses was high.

The higher the location of the houses, the more upscale they looked—the style of the houses was not uniform, with both traditional wood and stone structures and more modern concrete buildings.

The path the two had taken was located on the east side of the village.

That path was too narrow and should have been the road that villagers took when chopping wood or going to the fields, not the main road leading to the outside world.

The real main road was at the village entrance in the south.

With the help of the lights from the village houses, they could see that it was a relatively wide cement road.

At the roadside where the road and the village entrance were separated, there were two stones, one high and one short, covered with some moss, and a circle of hemp rope was wrapped around the middle of the stones.

Those should also be the traditional Japanese Dōsojin stone statues, placed at the entrance of the village to symbolize protection of the village from evil spirits and plagues.

The hemp rope wrapped around the stone is called Shimenawa (しめなわ), which is a symbol of the barrier—Shimenawa is usually woven from straw and is also called mark rope or 7-5-3 rope. It is a tool for purification in Shinto beliefs.

Sometimes, white zigzag-shaped gohei are also hung on the shimenawa,

Symbolizing holiness multiplied.

Because of the distance, Li Ang could not see the specific shape of the two Dōsojin stones very clearly.

His attention was mainly focused on the houses in Yuezaki Village.

"These houses look relatively old on the surface, but there are no traces of demolition or reconstruction at all."

Li Ang observed for a while and said, "If it was rebuilt after the disaster, the style of the houses should be more unified and closer, which would save more costs."

"Yeah."

Wang Congshan nodded lightly and took a deep breath.

Like the forest outside, the village was silent, with no noise, including insects or birds.

The entire village was like a phantom painted in a picture, terrifyingly silent.

"Hehe,"

Noticing her slightly nervous mood, Li Ang smiled. "Don't worry, I've seen a lot of things. This can only be considered a small scene.

"If the system arranged a bunch of kind and enthusiastic Japanese uncles and aunts holding banners saying [Warmly Welcome Players to Japan] when we entered the village,

"I would feel a little scared instead."

"Tch, you?"

Wang Congshan squinted and complained, "Anyone who has spent some time with you knows what kind of person you are, okay?

"Like a rat crossing the street, everyone shouts and beats you.

"How could anyone welcome you?"

As the person who knew Li Ang the best, Wang Congshan naturally knew how annoying Li Ang was to cats and dogs, and how hated he was by people and ghosts when he was a child.

Even if the school organized activities to visit the elderly in nursing homes, the head teacher would try every means to exclude Li Ang,

To prevent major accidents from occurring while visiting the elderly—such as Li Ang sucking up all the oxygen stored in the oxygen mask on the hospital bed.

"Ah, whatever."

Li Ang waved his hand, not caring about Wang Congshan's complaints, and said casually, "The current mission objective is to enter the Hiratsuka family mansion. We have to find where that house is first.

"Tsk, this time, there are no time limits, completion rewards, or failure penalties given for the mission.

"It means that delaying it will cause some terrible consequences.

"Let's hurry up and search."

"Yeah."

Wang Congshan nodded. After complaining, her nervous mood eased a lot.

The two discussed briefly, then walked into the village and began to observe the signs at the entrances of the houses with the surnames of the mansion owners written on them.