Chapter 148

The story of A-Zhen and A-Qiang ends here.

A-Zhen died in the mountains behind the town, and A-Qiang was mentally deranged when found by the police. After more than half a year of counseling by a psychiatrist, he recorded a relatively complete statement, but there are still too many things that are confusing.

Why did the stone Bodhisattva that should have been placed in the courtyard appear in the middle of the road?

According to the police's subsequent investigation, it can be confirmed that only A-Zhen and A-Qiang were in the town on the day of the incident, and the couple was livestreaming in real-time in front of the camera the whole time, never leaving the sight of the tens of thousands of viewers in the livestream room until the phone was smashed.

Then how did this stone Bodhisattva move from the middle of the road to outside the collapsed courtyard wall while the two were livestreaming?

Why did the police who arrived later clearly find their car parked under the oil-tea tree, yet A-Qiang insisted in his statement that his car was gone?

If A-Qiang didn't kill her, then after A-Zhen died accidentally from a rockfall at the entrance of the air-raid shelter, who was the woman who returned to the sleeping bag and slept in her boyfriend's arms?

If it was A-Qiang who killed her, why was his method of covering up the crime so clumsy and full of errors?

... There is no shortage of discussions about this matter on major internet forums, and you can still find the heated posts from back then today; there was no strange blocking of information or anything like that.

Some people think A-Qiang was a murderer who killed his girlfriend and used a non-existent supernatural event to cover up his crime. Others think that this uninhabited town named Zanjü really hides some supernatural secrets, and some kind of supernatural phenomenon led to A-Zhen's death and A-Qiang's mental derangement.

In the days that followed, many streamers chasing the heat ran to this place where a murder had occurred, trying to solve the mystery of that year, but the air-raid shelter in the mountains behind the town had been completely sealed with concrete poured by the authorities, and the scene of that year could no longer be verified.

Whether it's bloggers chasing the heat or individuals who are keen on supernatural events and courting death, the most they can do is imitate A-Zhen's appearance from back then and play a game of 'Red Light, Green Light' with the Bodhisattvas and Arhats in the town.

This is also one of the livestreaming plans of today's five-person streamer team.

Two SUVs and an RV drove over the weed-choked gravel road outside Zanjü Town—perhaps it can no longer be called a road—the white walls and grey tiles in the distance were already visible, and there were still many two- or three-story self-built residential houses that had withstood the test of wind and rain without collapsing.

From afar, one could see a blue-grey 'skull top' poking out from the cluster of houses; that was a huge 'Buddha' statue.

At this time, the 2 split-screen livestream rooms on Park Changfan's monitor had become 5. Xiao Ke and Tang Xin waved to the viewers of Xia Chong's livestream room and got out of the car. Brother Deep Affection held the selfie stick and walked out of the car door, placing the huge Buddha head in the center of the town, which was taller than the roofs, in the center of the frame, and introduced:

"Family members, look, this is one of the most famous unfinished projects in Taoyuan City, the 【Eight-Armed Four-Faced Buddha】. It is rumored that the Qinzhou Governor during the Qing Dynasty was a devout Buddhist pilgrim who received rites at the 【Guichen Temple】 in his youth and spent half his life as a tonsured monk."

"In his later years, he went so far as to waste money and manpower, transporting huge stones from Gubei Town, and ordered the craftsmen of Zanjü Town to build a huge Buddha statue 18 meters high to prove his Buddhist heart and cure his terminal illness... But the Buddha statue wasn't finished before the imperial court was gone."

"During the war years, the craftsmen in Zanjü died or fled, leaving only this big stone lump that even the invaders were too lazy to care about. Later, the world became peaceful, but the governor who paid the craftsmen of Zanjü Town was also gone, so this unfinished four-faced Buddha has been sitting in this town, sitting until now."

Du Diao Hanjiang, who was on the side, glanced over here and said to the viewers in his livestream room:

"It's called a four-faced Buddha, but to be precise, it's a three-faced Buddha. This Buddha statue was originally scheduled to have 4 faces, each overlooking the 4 directions of east, south, west, and north, implying that the Buddha light shines on all living beings in the world. But because of the war, only the Buddha faces in the east, south, and west directions were carved, while the north side only had an outline carved, and not even the facial features were carved."

That is to say, among the four sides of this 'Eight-Armed Four-Faced Buddha' sitting in the center of Zanjü Town, only the side facing north has no facial features.

At this time, a few bullet comments floated across the livestream room, with viewers living in the north joking that it seemed the Buddha light shining in all four directions just didn't shine on their homes.

Du Diao Hanjiang chuckled and echoed to the camera: "It didn't shine on A-Zhen and A-Qiang either." The mountain behind the air-raid shelter where the murder occurred is located in the north of Zanjü Town.

While speaking, the logistics team parked the two SUVs and the RV under an old oil-tea tree on the south side of the town—yes, that's the place where A-Zhen and A-Qiang parked back then.

This is a livestream that uses urban legends, strange events, and the beauty of female streamers as traffic-driving points, so there are no cameramen following. The logistics personnel will camp outside the town. Their team specifically hired 2 experienced former firefighters, ready to deal with any accidents that might occur at any time.

The sunset on the horizon was as red as blood. It is now August 10, 2018, at 18:44 in the evening. 2 men and 3 women, a total of 5 streamers, separated, took satellite phones, and entered the town alone from different directions, starting today's 'Super Thriller Livestream'.

Xiao Ke and Tang Xin chose the nearest road and walked directly from the south town gate into the main road of this uninhabited town. Two rows of red-brick residential houses with low floor heights stood on both sides of the road like welcoming waiters, but their standing posture was not very good; some buildings still stood straight, while others had long since collapsed.

Xiao Ke was nearsighted and wore a pair of tortoiseshell-framed nearsighted glasses.

Tang Xin had good eyesight and wore a pair of decorative non-prescription glasses.

In short, both were glasses girls; the only difference was that one was truly nearsighted and the other was decorative, one had twin tails, and one had short hair. Both had professional sweet smiles on their faces, chatting with the viewers in the livestream room while continuing to walk forward along the weed-choked main road in the center of the town.

They tacitly walked on the left and right sides of the street, with a street about 5 meters wide between them, neither violating the activity rule of 'acting alone' nor failing to look out for each other.

"After passing one more intersection ahead, it will be the T-junction where A-Qiang discovered the stone Bodhisattva. Do you think I will encounter anything there? I feel a bit scared..."

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"There are many collapsed courtyard walls on both sides of the street. Every household in Zanjü Town was a jade carver or stonemason, so there are stone carvings everywhere..."

As she spoke, Tang Xin aimed the camera at the house across the street. In the footage, Xiao Ke, wearing a pink skirt, could be seen walking gracefully past a dilapidated window across the street. With the help of the sunset that hadn't yet set, one could vaguely see human shadows inside the house, presumably all stone carvings abandoned here.

The sunset slowly descended, the twilight deepened, and the RV and logistics parked outside the town had long since disappeared from view.

From here on, there was only herself.

Xiao Ke stood still in front of the window, and the slanted sunlight dragged the shadow of her wearing a small skirt very, very long.

She stretched the selfie stick into the house and filmed the dozen or so stone statues standing inside, then turned around, with her back to the dozen pairs of kind or fierce eyes, closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and whispered:

"Red light, green light."

Ever since A-Zhen died here, Red Light, Green Light had become a must-play project in Zanjü Town. Every adventure streamer who came here would play a few rounds of the small game with the stone carvings in the town.

Of course, these 'wooden people' had never moved even once.

(End of chapter)