Chapter 161: Feeding the Corpse with One

Shadows appeared and vanished one by one, like whales surfacing for air only to dive back into the deep sea—fleeting, ephemeral.

This reminded Ning Zhe of an urban legend about Zanju Town circulating on the internet:

—Legend has it that the statues in Zanju Town are sentient. They sneak about and visit each other when the town is quiet and deserted, just like the residents who once lived there. But the moment someone enters the town, hoping to catch them in the act, these stone statues turn back into motionless, inanimate objects.

Simply put, the stone statues of Zanju Town can be alive, but they are only alive when no one is watching them.

From the perspective of this legend, one can explain the situation Ning Zhe is currently experiencing to a certain extent, though the "watching" in this story likely doesn't refer specifically to eyesight, but rather to "observation."

Seeing with eyes, hearing with ears, tasting with the tongue, smelling with the nose, touching with the body... and even the extra perception brought by the rules of the Strange World—all these six senses belong to the act of "observation."

However, there are many urban legends about Zanju Town, and this is just one of them; to some extent, this thing is as absurd as the invisible red dragon in the garage.

In a situation where the hypothesis that "the stone statues have life" cannot be observed by any means, how do you prove this hypothesis is false and prove that the statues in the town actually have no life?

Xia Yubing, following behind Ning Zhe, secretly turned her head to glance at the gap in the perimeter wall behind them; the Immortal Pointing the Way and the ballerina were still standing there.

Clearly, she and Ning Zhe had the same thought.

"Um, did you know? I heard on the internet that the statues in Zanju Town are actually..."

"Actually alive, right?" Ning Zhe said indifferently.

"Ah, so you've heard this story." Xia Yubing then said: "Then you must also know about the incident with A-Zhen and A-Qiang? They were the streamers who died here three years ago.

When A-Qiang and the others were streaming, they once encountered a stone Bodhisattva standing in the middle of the main road. At the time, the viewers in the stream felt that A-Qiang had hired someone to move it there in advance to create a spectacle..."

"But later, the police confirmed that no one had approached the vicinity of Zanju Town within the two weeks prior to the incident, and A-Zhen and A-Qiang were also entering Zanju Town for the first time on the day of the stream, ruling out the suspicion of prior preparation."

Ning Zhe picked up the conversation smoothly, turning back to look at the two stone statues standing by the gap in the wall: "I guess you want to say those two statues walked there themselves?"

Xia Yubing nodded: "But I can't prove it, nor can I disprove it."

Because in that legend, the state of the stone statues having life cannot be observed; once observed, the statues lose their life.

"Not necessarily." Ning Zhe pondered for a moment and shook his head: "Assuming the legend that the statues have spirits is true, and they walk around the town like living people when no one is observing them, then we can easily reach a conclusion:

—The stone statues do not judge each other, as fellow stone statues, to be observers."

Otherwise, as long as two stone statues were placed facing each other, they would never return to a "living" state.

Ning Zhe wanted to find out the truth behind the strange events in Zanju Town because he needed to understand whether the strange rules operating in this small town had some connection to the "God Who Cannot Be Looked At Directly," and whether his failure to use the Thought Steel Seal on Xia Yubing was due to the interference of Zanju Town's rules.

If so, he couldn't leave easily; Ning Zhe was unwilling to leave such a strange rule that potentially countered the Thought Steel Seal here.

First, he had to figure out what the judgment rule for an "observer" here actually was...

Just as Ning Zhe was pondering, he suddenly stopped and looked up.

Xia Yubing followed his gaze and saw a three-story red-brick building; the iron gate on the first floor was open, covered in rust.

This was already very close to the center of the town, and looking up, one could see the cracked, massive face of the Four-Faced Buddha—this was the west side.

"Is there something in the building?" Xia Yubing already had a bad feeling.

"There are two people," Ning Zhe said. "A man and a woman, having sex in the stairwell." Carrying a torch all the way here, these were the only two shadows that hadn't disappeared after entering the Strange World's field of vision.

The spirituality of the stone statues cannot be observed; being able to be observed means they are living people.

"Ah?" Xia Yubing was stunned.

"Let's go, let's take a look." Ning Zhe frowned and shielded Xia Yubing in front of him: "You go in first."

"Ah?" Xia Yubing wanted to say more, but then she saw the gun in Ning Zhe's hand, and the words on her lips changed to: "Fine, I'll go..."

The two entered the door one after the other. The living room inside was empty; the furniture had all been moved away. A sweep of the flashlight revealed walls with peeling putty, and the base of the walls was permeated with a damp, moldy smell.

Just a few steps after entering, Xia Yubing was startled. The flashlight beam illuminated the corner of the wall, where a white humanoid stone statue stood.

She carefully moved the light source, scanning the surroundings, only to see a stone statue in each of the four corners of the living room—two men and two women, all dressed in traditional jackets and trousers, like the paper maidservants burned for deceased relatives during the Qingming Festival.

"They're just stones, nothing to be afraid of." Ning Zhe poked Xia Yubing's lower back with the gun barrel: "Go upstairs."

The feeling of having a gun pressed against one's butt really wasn't pleasant... Xia Yubing muttered to herself, reluctantly continuing forward, passing through the living room under the stiff gaze of the four servants, and stepping onto the stairs.

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Just as she stepped onto the stairs, a suppressed gasp drifted from above, entering the ears of the two.

"They really are having sex up there." Xia Yubing clicked her tongue; how desperate must one be to have a field battle in this ghost place?

Moreover, there should only be a few of them streamers in town, and Jiang Han had just called her, which meant the person upstairs was likely that "Shenzhen's Number One Deeply Affectionate." If she remembered correctly, he was a married man, and his wife was pregnant with their second child.

Cheating during pregnancy?

"Scumbag..." Xia Yubing, who had never been in a relationship, had beautiful fantasies about male-female relationships and detested such people.

Driven by anger, she unconsciously quickened her pace. Stepping onto the silver-white stairs bathed in moonlight, Xia Yubing saw a scene she would never forget in her life.

A dark blue suit jacket hung on the stair railing. The disheveled middle-aged man lay on the floor of the stairwell like a dead dog, clearly having lost consciousness long ago.

A slim girl in a pink bubble dress sat on top of him, motionless, her head tilted back, her delicate neck bent backward at an incredible angle, like a watermelon tied to the back seat of a motorcycle with a rope.

"Xiao Ke?" Xia Yubing gasped.

"You know her?" Ning Zhe asked casually.

"I, I do." Xia Yubing said tremblingly: "She is a streamer who came to this town with me. I don't know her real name, only her screen name, 'Xiao Ke Can't Get Enough Sleep'."

"Oh." Ning Zhe nodded thoughtfully: "She should be able to get enough sleep now."

She was already dead.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 162 =====