Chapter 152

'Zanjü Town's geographical location looks quite good, and it's close to Taoyuan city area, why is it abandoned?'

A purple bullet comment flashed across the screen, sent by a VIP user who had boarded the ship in this livestream room.

"It's precisely because it's close to the city area that it's abandoned."

The gold master's question had to be answered. Tang Xin changed hands to hold the selfie stick, walked gracefully past the dilapidated courtyard with light steps, and said softly: "In the few years when the economy of the Nine Provinces developed most rapidly, it was also the few years when population loss in rural towns like Gubei and Zanjü was most serious.

The process of urbanization continuously siphoned the rural population to large cities with developed economies. Most of those who were sucked away were young and middle-aged labor and intellectuals with higher education levels, leaving only the elderly and children."

Tang Xin thought for a while and then said: "Before Zanjü Town was completely abandoned, the education department conducted a survey in the town's primary school. Among the more than 1200 students in the 5th grade of primary school, more than 900 were left-behind children, and the remaining students were mostly raised by single parents, that is, one parent worked in the city and the other raised the child at home."

Looking at the entire Zanjü Town, the number of children who really grew up under the upbringing of both parents didn't even exceed three digits.

Gubei Town's situation was better, but not by much.

"The education problem of teenagers has never been a small problem, so 'letting children grow up with their parents' became the guiding spirit of Taoyuan City in those few years. The city expanded schools, canceled the establishment of the original Zanjü Town Primary School, and merged it into the city area."

As she spoke, Tang Xin felt that this topic was a bit dangerous, so she kept it short:

"This approach cannot be said to be completely useless, it can only be said that the effect was minimal. The children did go to the city, that's true, but the busy parents still didn't have time to take care of the children, and still needed the elderly at home to help raise them. This point didn't change."

The things that followed were very simple.

Children followed their parents, and the elderly followed the children. In the few years when the schools were merged, the population loss speed of Zanjü Town was as fast as opening 'forward four', and it soon changed from a town slightly smaller than Gubei Town to a lonely place with only a few dozen households of lonely elderly people.

By the time the last few dozen households of elderly people also left one by one with time, the uninhabited Zanjü Town was completely abandoned and became what it is now.

"Look, the house in front is where the lonely elderly people who once stayed in the town lived."

Tang Xin moved the camera to display a two-story small building with a relatively complete structure to the viewers in the livestream room. One side of the house's wall had already collapsed, just like a piece of cake that had been cut open, and the line of sight could cross the cross-section to see the building structure inside directly.

Because she had done her homework in advance before coming, Tang Xin knew a little about the situation of this house. She walked forward and said: "The owner of this house was once a lonely old lady, surnamed Wu.

Old Lady Wu's husband died early, and her daughter married to Yongzhou. Her son was a sailor in Yanzhou, coming and going in the wind and waves, and didn't come home once in a year or two, leaving only the old mother alone in the town, living alone."

The economic conditions of Old Lady Wu's family were actually not bad. Neither the daughter nor the son treated their mother poorly in terms of material things. The daughter who married out would come home for New Year's Eve every other year, and the son who was a sailor simply used his old mother's bank card as his salary card, and all his savings were deposited in his mother's card, leaving only some basic living expenses for himself.

But the old lady had never touched her son's savings, and had always saved them for him properly, hoping all her life that one day she would save enough money to marry a wife and start a family for him.

"However, Old Lady Wu ultimately didn't wait for the day her son got married. On August 24, 2008, on an ordinary evening, she cooked dinner and intended to take a bath while the rice was being cooked, but she fell in the bathroom, and then she never got up again."

Tang Xin shook her head, walked under this half-collapsed small building, and aimed the camera at the wooden door frame that had long been covered with mold spots: "An old lady living alone fell to her death in her own bathroom. How long after her death do the family members in the livestream room think her death was discovered?"

'About a week?'

'At most no more than a month. Although there are few people in Zanjü Town, a living person suddenly disappears without a sound, and someone will always notice.'

'I think at most 3 days.'

"All wrong." Tang Xin looked at the bullet comments floating across the livestream room and shook her head: "The correct answer is 14 months, that is—1 year and 2 months." At that time, no one in Zanjü Town discovered Old Lady Wu's death because she was the last resident in the increasingly desolate town. Her unknown death didn't attract anyone's attention until 14 months later when the deep-sea fishing boat carrying her son finally returned, and he noticed something wrong from the phone call that couldn't get through.

By the time the son rushed home in a hurry, his mother had already rotted to the point that even her bones were crisp.

'So what does this story have to do with today's exploration?'

"The relationship is huge." Tang Xin smiled sweetly, came to the door of this half-collapsed residential building, and said mysteriously: "According to bloggers who came to Zanjü Town to explore before, when they passed this residential building in the evening, occasionally, occasionally oh, they would hear a 'thump—' sound, just like someone falling upstairs."

Before the words fell, suddenly, a muffled sound rang out quietly from the second floor above Tang Xin's head.

The tone was dull, but it carried a bit of crispness. It was the sound of wet flesh and skin slapping heavily on ceramic tiles.

Or to be more precise—it was the sound of someone who had just taken off their clothes and was preparing to take a bath, falling on the damp ceramic tiles of the bathroom.

Instantly, Tang Xin's face became incomparably pale.

'WTF, host, don't scare me!'

'It must be the program team, right? It must be the program team, right? Host, say something! WTF...'

'But this building has already collapsed halfway, it's a proper dangerous building! What kind of good person would set up this kind of thing in a dangerous building?'

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The bullet comments on the screen suddenly became dense, and the popularity of the livestream room began to climb rapidly, but this sudden traffic didn't make Tang Xin in front of the camera show any joy, because no one knew better than her, as one of the organizers of this livestream PK:

There was no program team in this town to create show effects.

The bullet comments in the livestream room refreshed rapidly. Tang Xin, who was in a mess, had no energy to look at them at all. At this moment, her pale face was even paler than the foundation applied to her face. In the night sky, a bright moon hung quietly, illuminating the kind face of the four-faced Buddha with a smile.

"Ouch..."

"Ouch, roar..."

"... Hey, ouch..."

The weak groans drifted slowly from the window on the second floor, drilling into Tang Xin's ear canal with the cool night wind, making her feel as if she had seen an old man with a candle in the wind fall in the bathroom, crying and begging for help to this long-empty town.

In the livestream room, dense bullet comments refreshed rapidly. Tang Xin's breathing suddenly became rapid, and a heart in her chest kept thumping.

She couldn't believe what she had heard, nor did she dare to think about what she would see if she went upstairs now, only the wails with weeping sounds drifted in this silent night.

"Calm... calm..." Tang Xin patted her chest lightly, adjusting her chaotic breathing.

She fumbled in the small leather bag hanging on her waist in a panic, wanting to find a piece of chocolate from inside—Tang Xin had a problem with hypoglycemia and always carried a bag of hard candy or chocolate with her, which was convenient for temporary emergency relief when she was emotionally excited and dizzy from overusing her brain.

But after fumbling in the bag for a while, Tang Xin didn't find anything. She clearly remembered that she had brought 5 peanut chocolates in the leather bag she was carrying, but now she didn't find a single one.

It wasn't just the chocolate, but also the lollipops, milk hard candies, brown sugar hawthorn... all the snacks were gone.

(End of chapter)