Chapter 6:

"Yes, let's go."
Regarding Ruan Bai's decision, Gu San raised his eyebrows and nodded approvingly.
When the other players were not paying attention, the two walked towards the Taoist temple in the middle of the mountain.
The Taoist temple is a little far away from the village, and there is an unobtrusive small path in the middle, which may be the reason why people often pass by. There are still mixed footprints on the path.
When walking on the path, Ruan Bai lowered his head and found that these footprints were quite large, like those left by the feet of an adult man.
"Have any player been to the temple last night?" Ruan Bai thought for a while and asked, "Are there any other men in the village?"
When she came here yesterday, all she saw were elderly people.
Gu San answered very simply: "No."
He got up very early, and when Ruan Bai woke up, he had been walking around the village several times, and he had figured out the situation.
"I tried a little bit and found that Qin Yu and the others didn't seem to know anything about Taoism. Of course, they might pretend to be," he said slowly, "As for the village, there are only old people and children."
Having said that, he paused and said, "And there are only boys, no girls."
When Ruan Bai heard this, he always felt as if he had caught something.
Standing on the mountainside, she looked back and glanced at the village. Most of the fields in the village were deserted, and even chickens, ducks and fish were rarely seen.
The young and middle-aged men and women have disappeared, and there is no one to cultivate the fields in the village, making it impossible to be self-sufficient.
So what do people who live in the village eat and how do they survive?
This village must be in contact with the outside world. The footprints they saw just now were probably left by the young people in the village.
When she was thinking about it, they had come to the Taoist temple without realizing it.
Compared with the dilapidated houses at the bottom of the mountain, this Taoist temple is so exquisite that it is incompatible with the Mermaid Village. The steps and walls are very clean, and there are fresh fruits in front of the temple.
They walked in and took a look and found that there was a kind-faced female deity with a fishtail enshrined on it. She has round eyes exactly like the woman of last night, no eyelids, and a long and narrow mouth.
The two walked around Guannei, trying to find other clues.
This Taoist temple is small, and there is nothing else, except for this idol, nothing else.
There is something wrong, Ruan Bai thought in his heart, didn't the bell ring last night come from here? Where's the bell?
Thinking of this, she stared at it, and suddenly raised her head to look at the idol in front of her.
If she remembers correctly, things like gods don’t have to be solid, right?
At this time, Gu San was standing outside the temple, as if doing something.
So Ruan Bai stopped acting like a delicate little girl, rolled up his sleeves, and climbed directly to the side of the idol.
She shook the idol slightly, then tapped the shell of the idol to confirm that it was hollow.
Then Ruan Bai stretched out his hand and hugged it tightly.
"System," she asked, "Do I still need to install a white lotus when no one is around?"
[As long as the behavior is not unusual,] The system senses something is wrong, and hesitates to say, [However, host, what are you going to do? 】It warns: 【You haven’t played the role of White Lotus at all since last night. If you collapse the character, the evaluation level will be lowered! ] It’s about to die, who is still in the mood to play Xiaobaihua.
Ruan Bai was speechless, but there was an innocent smile on his face: "I'll move something."
After all, she gritted her teeth and tried her entire body to move the idol abruptly!
Ruan Bai was already surprisingly strong, and this idol was somehow lighter than it looked. She quickly removed the idol and found a black box from its base.
She lowered her head and opened the box, and saw a blood-red bell with a strong smell of fish inside.
It was placed in a pile of talisman paper, and under the dim light, blood seemed to be flowing on the dark red torso, showing a somewhat unknown sign.
If nothing else, the bell that rang last night has something to do with it.
Ruan Bai looked at the blood bell and suddenly stretched out his hand, trying to take it out of the box.
However, what surprised her was that the bell looked the size of a slap, but it seemed to weigh too much. She couldn't take it out or move it.
The more he couldn't get it out, the more anxious Ruan Bai became.
She somehow wanted this bell very, very much, it seemed to have an invisible attraction on her body, which attracted Ruan Bai tightly.
In panic, Ruan Bai's finger touched the black wooden box next to her, and as a dim light flashed, she felt a pain in her fingertips.
A drop of blood fell and hit the blood bell.
Ruan Bai was in a daze, only to see the bell seemed to emit a fleeting light.
In the next second, the weight of the blood bell suddenly disappeared, and she picked it up easily.
At the same time, the system's prompt sounded: [Congratulations to the host, for obtaining the task item "Mermaid Bell"! ] Mission props?
Ruan Bai was pleasantly surprised and quickly put away the mermaid bell, and carefully moved the idol back.
She has also found quest props in the previous worlds, which are usually the relics of the hero's mother, or the dolls that the hero gave her when she was a child, and they play a very important role in the world of customs clearance.
It seems that this bell might help them find any clues.
As a result, after she jumped off the base, she patted her clothes and looked back, almost not scared to death.
After the bell was taken away, the mermaid grandmother's idol changed drastically, and the original smile on her face disappeared!
At this moment, the mouth of the idol split open, revealing densely packed sharp teeth, the black eyes and pupils turned red, and his eyes looked at Ruan Bai stubbornly with a look of resentment!
At this moment, she heard Gu San's low voice coming from Guanwai: "White and soft, go quickly, there is someone outside!"
After hearing this, Ruan Bai responded in a low voice, hid his pockets and ran away quickly.
When she and Gu San went down the mountain, they bypassed the road and walked deeper and more remote.
Before long, they saw two adult men appear near the Taoist temple.
The two men turned around, and when they saw no sign of anyone, they turned and left without taking a look inside.
Ruan Bai recognized at a glance, these were two strange faces, not players.
She guessed right, there were other people hiding in the Mermaid Village, but she didn't know how long Bell's disappearance could hide them.
Ruan Bai touched the bell in his arms and carefully descended the mountain with Gu San.
When they went down the mountain, it was already one or two in the afternoon. After the meal, all the villagers had finished their lunch.
Because of the death, everyone in the village gathered at the village chief’s house, not knowing what they were discussing.
Ruan Bai glanced at it remotely, and all the old people's faces were numb and moodless, as if they had become accustomed to death.
When they saw players passing by, someone showed a clear look of hatred towards them. One of them ran into Ruan Bai's sight, but didn't dodge or hide, but instead opened his mouth maliciously at her.
Ruan Bai was taken aback for a moment, and in the next second, the old people returned to their original appearance.
They also met other players midway, but they didn't communicate much with each other. Everyone rushed around looking for clues.
The female white-collar worker smiled at Ruan Bai, her expression very gentle.
Behind her, the new girl named Wang Wenwen followed her very dependently.
Ruan Bai had no intention of having a deep friendship with her. Seeing the white-collar worker approaching, he just nodded perfunctorily, turned around and followed Gu San.
At this time, there was only one child named "Little Tiger" in the family where they lived.
Ruan Bai spent 2 points to find the system and exchanged a few boxes of instant noodles. He soaked a bucket of instant noodles for Gu San. Seeing Xiaohu eagerly standing aside, Ruan Bai opened another bucket for him.
"Thank you sister!" The little boy was pretty good, took the instant noodle bucket, and smiled at Ruan Bai with eight teeth.
"It's okay," Ruan Bai said softly, touching his head. "If you're not full, eat more."
Xiaohu nodded and ate the instant noodles hungrily.
Ruan Bai worked outside for a long time and played the role of Bai Lianhua for so long. He knew how to make himself look more cordial.
She was originally good looking, and not aggressive in appearance. She was still a female, and she was easier to approach NPCs than the indifferent Gu San.
When Xiaohu was eating noodles, she talked to him about topics that children would like, and gave him two boxes of instant noodles.
After some effort, Xiaohu completely lost the initial strangeness to her, and shouted "Sister Bai" one by one.
Seeing that the time was right, Ruan Bai Zhuangruo asked unconsciously: "I also have a younger brother who happens to be about the same age as you, Xiaohu, are there anyone else in your family besides your grandma?"
"There are mom and dad, and elder sister," Xiaohu replied quickly, "Mom and dad will come back to see me and grandma every month!"
"What about the older sister?" Ruan Bai continued to ask, "I have never seen a girl in the village. Are you the only one with an older sister here?"
"No, they all have older sisters, Ergou and three older sisters," Xiaohu's tone became hesitant when he said this, "Sister... has gone a long way, and grandma said that Ergou's older sister can come back. , But my sister will not come back."
Ruan Bai was taken aback when he heard the words.
Ergou's sister can come back, but Xiaohu's sister can't come back?
What does it mean?
At this time, Gu San suddenly coughed twice, interrupting their conversation.
Ruan Bai looked up and saw Xiaohu's grandma appear outside.
She quickly changed the subject and chatted with Xiaohu about the children's cartoons that had recently been on fire.
When Grandma Xiaohu arrived home, she didn't find anything wrong, and thanked her for the instant noodles.
After Ruan Bai chatted with her casually and expressed their silence for the dead villagers, they went into the guest room where they slept before, under the pretext of taking a nap.
After closing the door and confirming that no one was around, Ruan Bai lowered his voice and asked, "Gu San, do you have a clue?"
"of course."
Gu San took out a pendant from his pocket and threw it to Ruan Bai casually: "I found this outside the temple."
When Ruan Bai moved the Buddha statue, Gu San stayed outside the temple.
At that time, he found a few women's long hairs stuck in the mud outside the temple, and felt that something was wrong, so he dug them out and looked at it. The pendant was hidden inside.
The back of the pendant is engraved with the words "Give me a beloved mermaid girl".
Ruan Bai opened the pendant, and inside was a portrait of a young woman.
"Do you remember the woman we met last night?" Gu San said, holding his arms. "She looks exactly like the woman in this pendant."
Ruan Bai took a look and found that it was like this.
Although the woman's face was a bit swollen last night, her eyebrows are exactly the same as those in the photo.
Is she a mermaid?
"In this village, we have never seen a woman other than the old man from the beginning to the end," Gu Sanman said casually. "Based on the age of the owner of this pendant, I guess that the reason why the women are gone is because they It is the mermaid in the mermaid village."
Ruan Bai and Gu San obviously thought of going together.
When she came to this village on the first day, she was puzzled. Why is a village full of mountains and no water called a "mermaid village"? Shouldn't the mermaid live in the sea?
Now I think about it, maybe because the people in this village have a certain genetic status, some of the girls born will look very like the legendary "mermaid"!
"Deformed people are'useful' in many places," Ruan Bai said after he figured out everything. "The economic source of the Mermaid Village depends on these mermaids."
Xiaohu’s parents are expecting to stay outside the village, probably to deal with the mermaid, sell them, and conceal the existence of the mermaid village.
As for the women in the village, they should be normal women who can give birth to deformed children. When they grow old and lose their fertility, they are left here to take care of the next generation.
"But why is there no little girl here?"
Ruan Bai turned to think, and felt wrong, "Huzi's sister can't come back. It means that she is a mermaid for eight years. It is normal to be taken away. But since Ergou's sister can come back, they should be normal people. Why? Not in the village?"
There are also rune wooden signs hanging under the eaves of the village, mermaid idols with resentful expressions, adult men with weird behavior...
The secrets of Mermaid Village are definitely more than these.