Chapter 538: Gathering Information

Lin An heard it, his brows knitting tight; he wasn't without the same thought.

Just that.

Acting might not yield any useful information.

Moreover, the key point is I'm not sure whether the desolate village incident is a meme or something else.

Do you still remember the meme doll?

If I had then directly forced Liang Shaoguang's wife to speak the truth, what do you think the consequences would be?

If Gao Tian's second speculation had been correct, after Zhou Fengling spoke the truth, the doll would realize it was his mother who killed him.

It might even realize his mother was biased.

Then everyone would die, with no solution.

Conversely, even if it's the first kind. I got the truth by forcing her; do you think she would still willingly face the doll 'to die'?

The doll senses the person's deceitful heart... facing it, it still cannot be resolved.

The meme incident changes as its cause is understood; that's the tricky part.

Zhang Tie listened, then blinked, not really grasping what Lin Dui meant.

He just felt it was very complicated.

Lin An sighed, also knowing explaining this to Xiong Hanzi wouldn't help, so he could only sum it up in one sentence.

Solving a meme requires not only pulling silk to find the truth...

but also finding a balance between deceiving people and the meme...

Otherwise, the meme incident wouldn't be ranked alongside supernatural incidents.

That's a third- or fourth-stage existence that would claim lives.

Truth extorted isn't necessarily the truth that solves the problem.

Sometimes, it backfires instead.

Human hearts are often scarier than ghosts.

Return to the village.

Near the pagoda, not only did Zhang Tie not want to linger, Lin An also didn't really want to stay there.

Subconsciously, a strong sense of danger always drove him to leave.

He planned to imitate the method used to solve the meme doll.

After returning to the village, Lin An simply threatened and lured, obtaining clues from the villagers.

A slight feeling of irritability and repression.

Regarding the parties involved, he actually had to worry that the truth he reconstructed would affect the village chief's family.

Thus causing the latent meme to change.

On the village's open ground, Lin An openly summoned all the villagers for questioning.

With a casually laid mental power barrier, he isolated the village chief's family outside.

Somewhat absurd.

It was like interrogating his accomplices in front of the criminal.

Outside the mental power isolation, Huang Dawai and his son and daughter-in-law looked at a loss as Lin An questioned the villagers.

Ding dang.

A flash of white light, gold jewelry scattered all over the ground.

Gloop.

Saliva swallowed.

The summoned villagers stared in shock at the piles of gold and silver jewelry covering the ground; the craftsmanship of much of the jewelry left them utterly stunned.

"From the time Yuan Ying came to the village, I need to know what happened in the village during this period."

"Say one thing, take one piece of jewelry."

"But if I discover anyone fabricating lies, I'll kill them on the spot!"

Stepping on the jewelry pile, Lin An expressionlessly looked at the villagers before him.

The jewelry gold was just casually packed when entering the secret realm; anyway, this stuff is worthless in the apocalypse.

For convenience, he deliberately had base members bring in three cubic meters of gold.

The desolate village villagers had never seen such a scene; for a moment, their eyes showed greed, unable to wait, they blurted out what they knew.

My goodness, who exactly is this person!?

"Sir! The winter when Yuan Ying came to the village was especially cold; my old sow froze to death!"

"The well that subdued Yuan Ying was dug by my ancestors; that well water was sweet! But later no one dared to drink it!"

Seven tongues chattering, the villagers present, under threat and lure, were practically eager to spill even what their underwear was.

Keep the promise.

Whenever a piece of information was spoken, Lin An would give some jewelry gold.

Then he carefully tried to find relevant clues from the large amount of useless information.

After two hours, the night seemed deeper, yet it didn't affect everyone's excitement at all.

"Dad, what exactly does this big shot want to do!?"

"Does he suspect we killed Yuan Ying and fabricated lies to deceive him?"

Huang Dawai's son Huang Youwei stared blankly at Lin An inside the barrier.

They couldn't hear what the villagers said, only seeing the ground covered in gold and silver jewelry and mouths spraying saliva.

Couldn't figure it out.

A big shot with such methods, if he suspects himself, shouldn't he be forced to tell the truth?

Although he did indeed tell the truth.

Don't be afraid! We haven't done anything wrong!

That Yuan Ying is truly a ghost!

It's not like we killed her!

The old man gripped his cane tightly, as if to cheer himself up, and couldn't help but look at his daughter-in-law:

You say, is that right?

That Yuan Ying turned into a ghost back then!

We've never killed anyone!

Madame Huang's lips twitched twice as she listened, then she nodded blankly.

Zhang Tie, tasked with guarding the three, glanced at them askance and let out a light chuckle.

Damn it, saying these things in front of Laozi.

What's up? Feeling guilty?

I don't know why this thing is so troublesome...

Whether true or false, I believe Lin Dui will surely figure it out.

Sir! I also know something else! Last year, a scabby-headed simpleton ran to the village chief's house causing a ruckus, demanding a wife!

A villager with his head wrapped in a cloth finished speaking, then mysteriously pointed at Huang Youwei.

Huang Youwei is no good! His wife is also no good! Years ago they had a daughter! When he brought Yuan Ying back that time, his wife was so angry she went back to her parents' home!

The gossipy village woman whispered the news, then put on a flattering face and asked Lin An for a gold necklace.

About another half hour passed.

After dispersing the villagers who had been questioned, but not letting them leave the village, Lin An wearily rubbed his brow.

But it's obvious he's relaxed quite a bit.

Xiong Hanzi, who had been watching him closely, noticed Lin An's change, and excitedly hurried to ask over the team channel:

Lin Dui, have you figured out what's going on?

He nodded, Lin An gave an acknowledgement, his eyes showing thought:

Pretty much.

Although lacking some evidence, it should be correct.

It's me making a mountain out of a molehill, overcomplicating things...

He gave a self-mocking smile, Lin An slightly shook his head with a smile.

From the villagers' accounts, he had roughly reconstructed the events.

Village Chief Huang certainly didn't lie, including his son and daughter-in-law.

But they unconsciously hid a trivial piece of information.

I was overly cautious, but it didn't waste much time.

Tie them up, let's go to the Buddhist pagoda again!

Seeing Zhang Tie's curious expression, Lin An simply had him take the Huang family to the Buddhist pagoda for a confrontation.

Since we've roughly reconstructed the truth, naturally we don't need to worry about the Meme undergoing any changes.

After receiving Lin An's order, Zhang Tie suddenly gave a sinister laugh and cracked his knuckles.

The Huang Dawei family, already worried, upon seeing this, suddenly felt a pang of panic:

Sir! What are you going to do?

Hands and feet bound, they panicked.

What are you doing?

Xiong Hanzi grinned, strode over, hoisted the person onto his shoulder, and casually replied:

Catch you guys to feed the fish!