Bang!
Fu Songcheng slammed the wooden door shut and casually slid the rusted bolt across.
He leaned against the door panel, his head slightly lowered.
“What’s wrong? Slamming the door so loud—was there something behind us?”
Fang Ruiyang walked over, looked at Fu Songcheng’s expression, and frowned deeply.
Fu Songcheng lifted his head. His breathing had completely steadied.
He looked straight into Fang Ruiyang’s eyes, his voice low but every word crystal clear: “Someone was following us.”
The moment those words came out, the room fell instantly silent.
Lü Jia whipped around, his face dark. “Did you get a clear look at who it was?”
Fu Songcheng shook his head. “It was too dark. I could only see a hunched black figure. He didn’t follow too closely, but he kept to the edge of my vision the whole time. When I was closing the door just now, he was in the shadow of that mud wall, watching me.”
Shen Ning gave Fu Songcheng a deep look.
She had originally assumed this girl called “Zhang Xinci” was just a new player. She hadn’t expected that, while being followed, the other wouldn’t scream and run, but could instead calmly observe the stalker’s position.
“I felt it too.”
Shen Ning spoke up at the right moment, corroborating Fu Songcheng’s words. “The whole way back, I kept feeling eyes on my back.”
Xu Jixing pushed up his glasses and analyzed calmly: “Following without attacking usually means one of two things. First, he’s monitoring our movements and assessing our strength. Second, he’s looking for someone who’s alone. Zhang Xinci was walking at the back, so she became his first target.”
“From now on, everyone try not to act alone.”
Fu Songcheng didn’t respond. He simply walked back to his bed in silence and sat down.
He didn’t think the NPC was assessing their strength. Those murky eyes held naked greed and some kind of twisted appetite.
Knock, knock, knock.
Just then, three extremely regular knocks came from outside the door.
The six people in the room instantly tensed up.
“Teachers, are you all ready?”
The village secretary’s warm voice sounded from outside. “The principal’s house has all the food prepared. He sent me to bring you all over for the meal!”
Fang Ruiyang took a deep breath, gestured to everyone to drop their guarded postures.
He stepped forward and drew the door bolt.
The village secretary stood outside holding a dim yellow kerosene lamp, smiling cheerfully: “Aiyo, it’s dark and the road’s slippery—I was afraid you teachers wouldn’t be able to find the way. Shall we go?”
“Sorry to trouble you, Village Chief.” Fang Ruiyang nodded politely.
The group once again stepped into the night.
This time, no one dared walk at the back anymore.
Everyone unconsciously closed the distance between them, following closely behind the village secretary’s swaying kerosene lamp.
Fu Songcheng walked in the middle of the group.
Principal Li Guoping’s home was an imposing two-story building.
“Principal Li, I’ve brought them over!” the village secretary called out loudly.
The lights in the main hall were bright—the harsh, glaring kind of incandescent light.
The group followed the village secretary into the main hall. Before they could even exchange pleasantries with Li Guoping, who had come to greet them, everyone’s eyes were drawn as if by a magnet, riveted to the corner of the room.
There, four suitcases were stacked neatly in a row.
They were exactly the four that had gone missing that afternoon!
Lü Jia’s eyes lit up instantly. He unconsciously took a step forward, about to rush over and grab his things, but Fang Ruiyang stealthily stepped on his foot.
Fang Ruiyang warned in an extremely low voice: “Don’t act rashly.”
“Aiyo, teachers, you’re here.”
Li Guoping walked out from the inner room, a put-on smile on his face.
Following behind him was a woman in a dark apron, her face pale as paper.
She carried a plate of steaming hot food, her brows and eyes lowered, not daring to look at them even once.
“This is my wife.” Li Guoping gestured at the woman and introduced her casually.
The principal’s wife set the dish on the table and rubbed her hands on her apron a little awkwardly.
She lifted her head, her gaze quickly sweeping over Fu Songcheng and the others, and tugged the corners of her mouth into an extremely stiff smile: “Hello, teachers. The conditions in the mountains are poor—please don’t mind.”
“Your suitcases—the villagers brought them over this afternoon and put them there. After you finish eating, you can take them back.”
Fu Songcheng stood in place, his eyelids slightly lowered.
His gaze lingered on the four suitcases for two seconds, and he noticed some blackened fingerprints stuck to the latches.
These suitcases had already been opened.
“Alright, alright, stop standing around. Take your seats.”
Li Guoping waved his hand impatiently, cutting off his wife’s words.
The principal’s wife nodded meekly, turned, and ducked into the back kitchen, never to emerge again.
A large round table was set with seven or eight dishes.
At the very center was a large basin of stewed meat, cooked until it was falling apart, with a thick layer of grease floating on top.
Li Guoping enthusiastically invited everyone to sit, then was the first to pick up his chopsticks: “Come, come, don’t be polite. This is livestock we raised ourselves—the meat’s nice and savory. You teachers came all this way to teach—eat up and nourish yourselves.”
The meal officially began.
But for the players, this was sheer torture: who would dare casually eat anything an NPC offered?
Fang Ruiyang took the lead in acting, clutching his stomach with a troubled look: “Principal, I’m really sorry. We might have caught a bit of a chill in the car this afternoon—our stomachs aren’t feeling too well right now. This meat’s a little too greasy for us. We’ll just eat something light.”
Li Guoping’s hand holding the chopsticks paused. A shadow flickered through his murky eyes. “Not eating—is that giving me no face?”
“Wouldn’t dare, wouldn’t dare.”
Xu Jixing used his chopsticks to pick up a piece of green vegetable closest to him.
The others followed suit. Lü Jia, his face dark, held a bowl of plain white rice, his chopsticks poking randomly at the bowl without picking up a single piece of food.
Fu Songcheng sat beside Shen Ning, looking somewhat distracted.
He kept his head down, as if frightened speechless by the oppressive atmosphere, not even daring to talk.
But his eyes, hidden behind his bangs, never once left Li Guoping’s chopsticks.
Li Guoping seemed displeased by their wariness. He let out a cold snort, picked up a large chunk of meat himself, and stuffed it into his mouth, chewing noisily.
Fu Songcheng noticed that aside from the basin of meat, Li Guoping also picked from the plate of scrambled eggs on his left and the plate of dry-fried green beans on his right.
But as for the several plates of beautifully presented cold dishes and the mushroom soup, Li Guoping hadn’t touched them at all.
“Teacher Zhang.”
Suddenly, Li Guoping’s voice sounded beside Fu Songcheng. “Why aren’t you eating? Is it that you look down on our country cooking—not to your taste?”
All eyes instantly converged on Fu Songcheng.
The chopsticks in Fu Songcheng’s hand paused slightly.
“No, Principal.” Fu Songcheng’s voice was soft, yet steady. “I just have a small appetite normally.”
With that, he very naturally extended his chopsticks, landing with absolute precision on the plate of scrambled eggs Li Guoping had just eaten from. He picked up a small piece and put it in his mouth.
Slowly chewed. Swallowed.
He only ate the dishes Li Guoping had eaten from.
“Since no one’s very hungry, let’s just chat.” Li Guoping set down his chopsticks and took a sip of the murky white liquor beside him. “You teachers all look quite young. How old are you this year? What subjects are you good at teaching?”
Fang Ruiyang was the first to grit his teeth and take the bait: “I’m twenty-two this year. I studied sciences—I’m best at math.”
“Math is good. Good for keeping accounts clear.”
Li Guoping nodded with a half-smile, his gaze shifting to Xu Jixing.
“I’m twenty-three. I teach Chinese.” Xu Jixing pushed up his glasses, answering without a single flaw.
“Lü Jia, twenty-one. I teach P.E.” Lü Jia answered stiffly, in a bad mood.
Lin Wen seemed a little nervous: “I’m twenty. I teach natural sciences.”
Li Guoping listened to each one, nodding from time to time. Finally, his gaze inevitably landed on the only two “girls” in the group.
“And these two female teachers?”
Li Guoping’s gaze swept back and forth over Shen Ning and Fu Songcheng’s faces, his tone carrying some deeply uncomfortable implication.
“Shen Ning, twenty-two. I teach English.” Shen Ning met Li Guoping’s gaze coldly.
“English… our village kids wouldn’t understand that foreign stuff.”
Li Guoping grinned, revealing a mouth of yellow teeth, and finally fixed on Fu Songcheng.
“Zhang Xinci.” Fu Songcheng pretended not to dare look Li Guoping in the eye. “Twenty-one. My major is arts—I plan to teach the children music and painting. Take them to draw, sing songs.”
“Good, good. All very good.”
Li Guoping raised his cup and downed it in one gulp, then said in a low, lingering tone: “Here in our mountains, we’re short on everything except time. The nights are long—you teach slowly, and we… will learn slowly too.”
Those words sent a chill through the players present.
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