Chapter 7. Beauty

Shen Huanhuan's throat had never felt so itchy. It was as if countless insects were crawling up and down her esophagus, their sticky mucus, soft bodies, and hard legs rapidly spreading from her stomach to her limbs.

Under the power of suggestion, her body had practically become a double-sided garment. The outside was human skin, the inside teeming with bugs.

Her snow-white skin was scratched with red welts. Shen Huanhuan panted heavily, her head lowered. Shen Xiaoxiao's reaction was even worse; she hunched over, retching incessantly, tears streaming from her eyes.

Their commotion was heard by Wang Baomin, who stopped and said impatiently, "What are you two doing?"

"The food...this morning's food..."

Wang Baomin's expression turned ugly. "What? My sister's cooking doesn't suit your taste?"

Shen Xiaoxiao hadn't realized this connection. Her words caught in her throat, and Wang Baomin's face darkened. Shen Xiaoxiao pursed her lips, looking aggrieved, but still said softly, "It suits my taste...please lead the way."

Wang Baomin was silent for a moment, his face returning to its previous blankness. He turned and continued leading the way.

Seeing Wang Baomin no longer paying attention, Shen Xiaoxiao's face fell. "Seriously, he's so fierce it's scary – ugh!" She clutched her stomach, recovering for a while before muttering, "I don't know if there were hair or bug legs in that bun...if I had to choose, I'd pick hair...what's wrong with Wang Guilan? I ate so much this morning..."

Perhaps reminded of the earlier scene, Shen Xiaoxiao covered her mouth and retched again.

"You've misunderstood her," Shen Huanhuan said suddenly.

"...Misunderstood?"

"There was nothing wrong with the food this morning."

Shen Huanhuan rubbed her throat. Even though she usually appeared composed, she was only sixteen and couldn't immediately accept sudden events. But now she had figured it out.

Jiang Yan looked at Shen Huanhuan.

"Such a dense concentration of..." Shen Huanhuan avoided describing the contents of the bun, and said softly, "If it was in the food, we wouldn't have missed it. Wang Guilan is just an ordinary villager; she has no reason to target us. I also ate the buns this morning, and I broke them apart to eat. The buns were soft, clean, and had no problems."

"Connecting it with what Jiang Yan saw last night..."

Shen Huanhuan met Jiang Yan's gaze. "The buns must have been contaminated on the way. You must be haunted by a ghost."

Jiang Yan readily nodded. "Yes, my backpack suddenly moved. I checked and found those things were crawling into the buns."

Shen Huanhuan sighed.

Thinking that Jiang Yan had just become a spirit medium and had no self-protection abilities, her face turned grave. "We will protect you."

Jiang Yan happily agreed.

"Okay."

The vegetation on the mountain behind Silkworm Village was lush. Walking through it in the early morning, the tall trees blotted out the sky, obscuring the light. The path seemed to stretch endlessly.

The six contestants had all started their live streams. The scenery and faces that were unclear last night were now clearly displayed on the screen, and the comments section began to scroll.

[I fell asleep last night and missed the start of the live stream. I hope I didn't miss any information.]

[Current information: The location is Silkworm Village; the village hasn't asked for outside help; to avoid causing panic, the six contestants are playing the role of "silkworm experts and their students" to enter the village. Many silkworms have recently died in the village.]

[The village hasn't asked for outside help? Has the ghost not done evil yet?]

[It's also possible that it has appeared, but has been explained away by science.]

...

[I see the twins! I like them a lot. I hope they can make it to the second round.]

[Do you know Jiang Yan and Xiong An? I just searched, but couldn't find any live stream records. Are they newbies?]

[There's a really pretty girl among the newbies!!]

[What's the use of being pretty? Wearing a dress to walk in the mountains shows a lack of seriousness.]

[I agree. That Jiang Yan is likely to be the first one eliminated. I'm optimistic about Cheng Guang this time.]

The air in the mountain was humid and cool. A few drops of dew fell on Cheng Guang's neck, making him shiver. Cheng Guang looked around. Seeing that no one was paying attention to him, he secretly glanced at Jiang Yan and the twins beside her.

Girls are really great; they can openly follow the big boss.

Cheng Guang knew exactly what he was thinking. Their profession was always walking the line between life and death, but if they could save their lives, everyone would definitely want to live. Although he didn't fully believe his master's judgment of Jiang Yan and was indeed very afraid of her, he just didn't believe that Jiang Yan would stay out of it under the live stream camera. At the critical moment of life and death, she would definitely take care of the twins.

So how to join them and become triplets...

Cheng Guang pondered this all the way. When he came back to his senses, they had already arrived at the silkworm house. The man guarding the silkworm house was a middle-aged man, about the same age as Wang Baomin, but he limped slightly, as if he had suffered a stroke.

Xiong An stepped forward.

His square face, when not smiling, lost much of its simple and honest feel and instead looked quite dignified: "Take me to see the problematic silkworms."

"Co-co-come with me."

The man spoke with a slight stutter. He turned around and limped, leading them to the place where the silkworms were kept. Dense silkworms were intertwined into a spider web shape, with several cocoons hanging in the air, swaying on white threads, looking like upside-down people from a distance.

Xiong An seemed to be used to this scene. He put his hand directly into the pile of cocoons. "The humidity and temperature are fine."

His judgment was quick and accurate, something impossible without more than ten years of silkworm breeding experience. Wang Baomin and the man guarding the silkworm house exchanged a look, and their expressions visibly relaxed.

The other five people gathered around Xiong An, pretending to be students.

Cheng Guang was very enthusiastic: "Teacher, what's wrong with these silkworms?"

Xiong An crushed a cocoon in the corner, looking surprised. "Oh, why is this—"

Jiang Yan raised her eyes and glanced at Xiong An.

Xiong An's back suddenly trembled, and he subconsciously took back his elongated, earthy tone. The words rolled around in his throat, and when he spoke again, they had become "dead."

He crushed other silkworms, and after a few minutes, he came to a conclusion: "Most of them are dead."

Wang Baomin nodded. "Silkworms are the main source of income for our village. Two months ago, these silkworms suddenly died one after another. None of the old people in the village can figure out what's going on."

"You...can you see what's going on?"

The live stream audience heard the process of Wang Baomin changing his form of address and found it a bit funny.

[He's quite good at judging the situation.]

[I don't know who it was who had a gloomy face all the way here.]

[So they thought the six people were unreliable before...]

[They do look unreliable, haha, but this doesn't stop me from disliking this villager.]

Xiong An suggested a possibility: "It might be the feed."

The silkworm house's feed was eaten last night, and this morning's hasn't been replenished yet. The middle-aged man guarding the silkworm house said, "There's more in the back. I'll take you to have a look."

Wang Baomin stayed where he was to guard the silkworm house.

Behind the silkworm house was a cultivated area of about a hundred square meters, with lettuce leaves, romaine lettuce leaves, and all kinds of leaves that silkworms could eat. On one side of the cultivated area was a small stream with clear water, a natural source of irrigation.

Two children were playing in the water, squatting in the small pits they had dug, their faces smeared like little flower cats.

Xiong An was discussing something in a low voice with the man. What they were talking about was very boring. Jiang Yan casually focused her attention on the two children. At this moment, the two children pushed each other for some reason. The taller boy pushed the little girl into the dirt pit, his face full of resentment.

"My brother is obviously better looking!" he said loudly. "You ugly freak!"

"You're the ugly freak!" The little girl who was pushed down sat in the pit, her mouth drooping, tears starting to well up in her eyes. "I'm not that ugly."

Seeing his companion start to cry, the little boy was immediately at a loss. After a while, he hesitantly stretched out his hand to the girl. "Who told you to say your brother was the best looking... Besides, I didn't mean to, why are you crying?"

The girl sniffled and wiped away her tears with the back of her hand.

"Forget it, I forgive you. My mom says forgiveness is a virtue."

After making up, the two five or six-year-old children huddled together again, staring at the stream like little adults, sighing at the same time.

A few months ago, He Miaomiao's older brother fell into this stream and drowned. Since then, she hadn't come here to play for a long time.

He Miaomiao stared at the stream, lost in thought.

In the past, her brother always liked to play by the water, and she would sit by his side, waiting for him to go home. Now that her brother was gone, she was unwilling to come here. She really loved her brother. During the time after his death, she couldn't sleep or eat. Although she couldn't hold on after two days and ate a bun, her love for her brother remained unchanged.

Her mother also changed after her brother died. Her mother always cried while looking at her brother's photo, and she would hold her hand and sigh, often only eating one meal for several days. But fortunately, her mother had started to smile again.

Her mother had a new baby. Her mother said the baby was her brother's reincarnation, the cutest and most beautiful baby in the world.

He Miaomiao thought so too.

She had never seen such a good-looking baby!

Thinking of this, He Miaomiao turned her head to look at her best friend in the village, Er Zhuang.

Er Zhuang's older sister died on the same day as her brother, drowning in the same place.

Afterwards, Er Zhuang's mother also gave birth to a younger brother for Er Zhuang. She had seen that little baby, and he was as good-looking as her brother.

No, her brother was still better-looking, the best-looking!

He Miaomiao's inexplicable desire to win suddenly came up. She stopped reminiscing and began to draw on the ground with small stones.

Er Zhuang was in a daze. Seeing He Miaomiao suddenly start drawing, she went over and asked, "What are you drawing your brother for?"

He Miaomiao said, "To let that eavesdropping big sister be the judge and see whose little brother is better-looking!"

Jiang Yan was stunned.

She looked around and found that everyone else was focused on the feed, and it seemed that only she was openly distracted.

Jiang Yan hesitantly pointed at herself. "Me?"

The boy looked over, his expression disdainful. "She's so ugly, how can she be a good judge?"

Jiang Yan: "........" She walked towards the boy.

Children don't have much drawing skill. They draw a circle here and a few lines there. In just two or three minutes, they finished the drawing on the ground.

After finishing, Jiang Yan also arrived.

She stood behind the two children, looking down at the drawing on the ground.

Her expression changed from calm to curious.

-- Have you ever seen people whose double eyelids and eyelashes grow on their lower eyelids?

Jiang Yan saw it.

If the eyes of the two babies in the painting were not to be scary, their faces would have to be turned upside down.