Chapter 121: Silence is Better Than Sound

A breeze blew through the ink-colored bamboo forest, and a touch of clear rain fell on the tender skin of the back of the neck. The cold touch made Feng Yushu tremble all over.

"It's raining." Feng Yushu stepped back two steps to hide under the eaves, looking at the tightly closed door with some worry.

Unlike Ning Zhe, who had designs on the ghost of the Yin family, the reason she came to Yanglao Village was not because of any interest, but simply because she was called out by a phone call from Ning Zhe to help him. It belonged to working for free without any reward. As for what help she actually provided... Feng Yushu herself didn't know.

Fine rain like cow hair fell one after another. The pure white rain lacked recognition in the world that only had black, white, and gray colors, as if weaving a thin layer of gauze between heaven and earth, dancing and fluttering along the flow of the wind like fog.

Blue bricks fired in kilns were built into small Western-style buildings of two or three floors. The whole village was held in the arms of a dense forest. Looking up, it was full of lush green—now it had turned black and gray.

The environment of Yanglao Village was very beautiful, but in such an environment, Feng Yushu's heart didn't feel calm, but instead became inexplicably irritable.

This was the world of "Xi" where one listens but cannot hear. In an environment of absolute silence without any sound, she could feel her heart beating *thump-thump* in her chest, and pressurized blood being pumped out of the ventricle;

She could feel the intestinal peristalsis in her abdominal cavity, the air inhaled into her lungs rubbing against her nostrils, and the sticky and slippery touch brought by the movement of her tongue and epiglottis when swallowing saliva... All of this reflected in the human brain, which was a sharp rise in blood pressure and nervous tension in a short period of time, accompanied by strong unease and palpitations.

Feng Yushu's body was tense, her eyes were bloodshot, and she looked frequently at the locked door in front of her. A kind of fear originating from instinct drowned her. This fear was not a fear of ghosts and monsters, nor was it panic in the general sense, but a kind of strange and uncomfortable feeling from biological instinct.

—She was about to go crazy.

The human body is not a dead object. Many organs in a normal human body are in an active state all year round, but in many cases, people themselves cannot perceive these subtle activities. The natural world of the Earth is filled with ubiquitous environmental white noise, which covers up the subtle movements made by the operation of various "parts" in the human body. Every person with normal hearing, from the moment they gain consciousness in their mother's womb, is in this huge environmental sound field and will coexist with this ubiquitous environmental noise for decades in their future life.

And in this world of "Xi" with absolute silence, Feng Yushu, who had not heard any sound for a long time, felt that the sensitivity of her senses seemed to have been suddenly magnified by hundreds of times. The ubiquitous environmental noise suddenly returned to zero, and all the subtle movements in her body that she couldn't feel at all appeared in her mind along with bone conduction. That was a clear and detailed clarity, enough to drive the most determined human being crazy.

Perhaps this was the reason why the Yin family hid the final inheritance in such a place?

Adult humans would be on the verge of collapse after staying in the "Xi" of the -2 layer for just a few minutes. What about the deeper "Yi"? And "Wei"...

"Ning Zhe?" Feng Yushu tried to shout toward the inside of the door, but no sound came out of her opened throat, and the world was still so quiet.

"Ning Zhe?" Feng Yushu shouted even louder, but apart from the vibration of her vocal cords echoing in her skull along with her bones, she gained nothing.

"Ning Zhe..." Feng Yushu hugged her head with both hands and slowly squatted on the ground. The unease originating from biological instinct was like maggots drilling into and crawling out of her decaying heart, making her spirit tense to the extreme.

If a person with a slightly more irritable temperament were forced to this extent, they should immediately explode into madness and smash things regardless of everything, even if they made their hands and feet bloody, they would try their best to make some sound to dispel the fear in their hearts. But Feng Yushu wouldn't do that. She, who was cowardly by nature, would only perish in silence, not explode in silence.

"Woo, woo-woo..."

Ning Zhe's judgment on her personality characteristics was very accurate. The unease finally overwhelmed her reason. Feng Yushu hugged her knees and curled up into a ball, sobbing and crying.

She felt that the darkness without direction was embracing her, dragging her consciousness to fall and sink into a deeper place. But at this moment, when Feng Yushu was tortured to the verge of collapse by the fear of biological instinct, a slender human outline suddenly appeared in her mind. To be precise, it appeared within the perception range of "Special Permission."

Since killing "Special Permission" in the Bishuiwan Manor, this extremely brutal yet extremely simple rule seemed to have become an extra "sixth sense" independent of the conventional five senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch, capable of unconditionally and directly perceiving all shadows within a certain range.

"He turned on the light." Feeling Ning Zhe's shadow appear in the building, a long-lost sense of relief melted in her heart like a ball of hot water.

But instantly, this short-lived sense of relief was gone, replaced by surprise and doubt.

Because not far from Ning Zhe's shadow, another person's shadow appeared. The slender and petite outline seemed to appear directly before Feng Yushu's eyes, letting her see an underage girl standing at the door of the room, standing gracefully.

"Brother, you're back?"

Yin Lishang stood at the door of the room, and a smile bloomed like a flower on her face covered in acne and skin moss, looking extremely happy.

A gentle smile appeared on Ning Zhe's face, but beneath the calm appearance, his heart was already rippling with circles.

Why was Yin Lishang here?

Why could he hear her voice?

What exactly was going on with all this?

=9+Shu_Ba

Yes, Ning Zhe knew from the beginning that Ji Taimi's sister was a crucial character. His mother had entrusted him several times in the letter to protect his sister well. Ning Zhe knew from that time that Yin Lishang might be the key figure to solve the mystery of Yanglao Village... or even that she was the "mystery" itself.

"Brother, where did you go just now? I've been looking for you for a long time." Yin Lishang walked to Ning Zhe diligently, looking up at him with eager eyes.

The girl's soft voice sounded incomparably clear in the absolute silent environment of absolute silence, and incomparably abrupt, as if someone had used photo editing software to PS the Taoist whisk in the hands of the Supreme Lord into a glowing green onion of Hatsune Miku.

Seeing that her brother didn't answer her question for a long time, Yin Lishang pouted her small mouth aggrievedly and asked softly and cautiously: "Brother, are you angry?"

Ning Zhe thought for a while, walked into his grandfather's study, found some paper and pens, and wrote a paragraph behind the electricity and water bills and pension income:

【I'm mute.】

(End of Chapter) ===== CHAPTER 122 =====