[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-survival-guide-in-a-mysterious-world":3,"chapter-survival-guide-in-a-mysterious-world-survival-guide-in-a-mysterious-world-chapter-110":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"chinese","Survival Guide in a Mysterious World",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},2299079,4497,"Chapter 110: The Old Who Refuse to Die Are Thieves","survival-guide-in-a-mysterious-world-chapter-110",110,"\u003Cp>Golden sunlight poured from the eaves; the sky had fully brightened. Feng Yu shu put her phone back in her pocket and rose from the stone tablet beneath the village gate tree.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Ji Tai mei’s shadow vanished shortly after entering Yanglao Village—perhaps he stepped into the shade of a tree, perhaps he slipped into one of the houses. Thick, ink-black clouds swallowed the moon, making his trail impossible to trace.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>For safety, she chose to first inform Ning Zhe of her earlier encounter, waiting beneath the village gate tree until dawn before venturing deeper into Yanglao Village to continue her search.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Bright, sunlit days were her domain.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Feng Yu shu gently pressed her hand to her chest. The three life-saving coins Ning Zhe had given her were strung on a red cord around her neck, buried in the ditch—this was her guarantee of safety on this journey.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Entering the village gate, the first thing that met her eyes was a crossroads. The layout of Yanglao Village’s houses was peculiar: if filmed from above by a drone, it would appear as the character “ Yang ” hidden within greenery. The village entrance where Feng Yu shu entered lay at the bottom vertical stroke of this “ Yang ”; walking upward led to the crossroads.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yanglao Village was small; she could methodically test each road. Feng Yu shu first headed left from the crossroads and saw an elderly woman, hunched over, standing on the steps outside her door, gripping the lever of a hand pump with both hands, laboriously drawing water from underground to wash vegetables.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Such hand pumps were common in rural towns of Qinzhou and other southern provinces; Yunzhou, being in the Central Plains, had relatively less accessible groundwater.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Feng Yu shu noticed that even with the lever’s mechanical advantage, the old woman’s motion was painfully strenuous—her body had clearly deteriorated beyond repair.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Her frail frame and bent spine suggested she was at least seventy, an ancient elder.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Why would someone so old rise early to wash vegetables?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In this place, even the smallest detail merited attention. Feng Yu shu approached cautiously; her sandals clicked against the hard concrete pavement. The hand pump beside her groaned with the weary creak of metal friction, giving her an inexplicable sense of wrongness.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Squeak—squeak—the old woman pumped in silence, submerging the bundle of greens in the basin. She didn’t look up as Feng Yu shu walked past her on the path.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>That was stranger still. Even if she hadn’t noticed Feng Yu shu’s approach at first, now that footsteps drew near, any normal person would have lifted their head—even if only out of laziness, there should have been some slight reaction.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yet this old woman showed no reaction whatsoever to Feng Yu shu’s presence—as if she didn’t exist, as if she saw no figure passing mere meters away, as if she heard no footsteps just steps from her ears. She merely kept pumping, head bowed, never lifting it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Feng Yu shu hesitated, then stopped walking. She stood still, silent, watching the old woman’s laborious motions.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The water level in the wooden basin rose gradually, submerging the two bundles of greens. Yet the old woman did not stop pumping. Clear, cold groundwater continued to surge upward, filling the basin completely until it overflowed.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Splash—the water soaking the cloth shoes on her feet finally made her realize the basin was full. Her withered hands clumsily released the pump lever, stiffly crouching down, reaching into the basin as if to begin washing.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As the old woman no longer kept her head bowed, Feng Yu shu finally saw her face—and in the next instant, her expression froze.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>What a face it was… Not a trace of fat or collagen remained on the old woman’s skin. Her shriveled, dry flesh clung like plastic wrap over a human skull specimen, the thin skin sharply outlining the bones beneath. Sunken eye sockets held two desiccated, dead, waterlogged orbs—clearly blind.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Her ears were likely deaf too, given her complete lack of reaction to Feng Yu shu’s footsteps just inches away.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Mom—?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Mom? Where’d you wander off to again…”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Suddenly, a coarse male voice rang out from behind the old woman, inside the house. Feng Yu shu saw a short-haired man in a short-sleeved shirt and long pants leaning out of a second-story window, frowning at the blind woman washing vegetables below: “Why are you doing things you don’t need to do? What’s the point of sneaking around like this… Jesus…”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The short-haired man muttered, then looked up—and his eyes lit up. There stood a radiant, voluptuous beauty in vivid attire, poised in the center of the path, curiously gazing at him. His face flushed crimson. He dashed downstairs in a flash, grabbed his mother’s hand, and yanked her toward the house.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As he dragged her, he whispered: “I told you to stay home, stay home—why do you keep going out? What if someone sees you…”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The short-haired man frantically shoved his corpse-like blind mother inside, slammed the door, then approached Feng Yu shu with a shy smile: “Sister, you’re not from our village, are you? What are you doing standing at my door so early?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“…I’m looking for someone,” Feng Yu shu said, frowning. “There’s a family here who married off their only daughter to Yun Capital. Do you know where they live?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“I know, I know—Old Man Mu. He’s the only one in the whole village without a son.” The short-haired man grinned broadly. “Old Man Mu’s house is at the east end of the village—there’s a two-story building hidden in the bamboo grove. You’re from outside, so you wouldn’t know the way. I’ll take you there—come on?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>=9+book_bar\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Thank you, I’ll manage on my own,” Feng Yu shu politely declined the man’s offer, turning without hesitation and retracing her steps back to the crossroads.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Feng Yu shu didn’t want to linger a second longer in that place—because just now, as she asked the short-haired man for directions, her peripheral vision had caught sight, behind the hand pump and beneath the eaves, of a black lacquered coffin half-buried under a corner of a urea sack.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A black coffin over two meters long sat beside the door, crudely covered by a few urea sacks. Through the gap in the door behind the man, Feng Yu shu saw two sunken eye sockets—two desiccated, shrunken eyeballs staring blankly through the crack.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Feng Yu shu ran back to the crossroads. Every house along the way was an ordinary dwelling. Every few steps, she saw black coffins concealed beneath urea sacks, waterproof tarps, or thatched shelters—coffins openly placed near homes.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yanglao Village was filled with coffins—exposed, open-air coffins.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>(End of Chapter)\u003C\u002Fp>",1116,"2026-06-20T06:29:21.893Z",1,"Qwen3-Next 80B","cf18a51e95ee56aa2d3dbbab629dda141ea2128c8fd5c83c8a1154eea3c17a1b","survival-guide-in-a-mysterious-world-chapter-111","survival-guide-in-a-mysterious-world-chapter-109",353,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fsurvival-guide-in-a-mysterious-world-cover.jpg"]