I made myself the protagonist

Chapter 280
On the other side, Ling Yun and his group left the villa, walked eastward for about 300 meters, and soon found another independent western-style building nearby.There are many flowers planted in the yard, and there are vegetables such as tomatoes and cucumbers on the side.

"Hello, is there anyone there?" Ling Yun stepped forward and knocked on the door.

Soon, there was a response from inside.The door was opened by an old woman with white hair and stooped body.

"Hello, we are the Charles family who just moved to the neighborhood, and today we specially came to visit the neighbors nearby." Ling Yun said, and handed a beautifully wrapped gift to the old woman: "This is my wife and children We prepared cookies, hope you like it."

"Oh, thank you." The old woman took the gift, but her eyes fell on the three children behind Ling Yun.

She opened the door to welcome everyone into the room, and murmured: "Just call me Laura, come in and sit down, I'll prepare some black tea for everyone..."

"Let me help you." Lin Yuanqi put on a posture of a good wife and mother, and helped the old woman into the kitchen: "Do you live here alone?"

Mrs. Laura told him that her husband passed away two years ago, and her daughter married a policeman in the local town. The couple lived in the center of the town and would visit her occasionally during holidays.

Mrs. Laura seemed to like children very much. While speaking, she kept smiling at Tang Yao and the three of them, and said that she would bring them some candies and toys.Even though Ling Yun said no trouble, but the old man's enthusiasm couldn't be restrained.

After she left, Ling Yun quickly got up and walked around the living room.He soon noticed that Mrs. Laura also had a lovely grandson in the photos hanging on the wall.

"Thank you grandma." Tang Yao obediently accepted the gift, trying to act like a naive child; and although Li Xinjian hated it in his heart, he could only suppress a smile in order not to wear it.

"Did you grow those flowers and plants outside?" Lin Yuanqi chatted with the old woman about homework, and lied that he was also very interested in this aspect.

"Yeah, if you like, you can take some dishes away. Anyway, I'm alone, and I can't finish that much." Laura said with a smile: "Since you are interested, you can come to me later, I have plenty of time. "

"No problem, ma'am. We live at 63/C in front, not far from your place." Lin Yuanqi said, and suddenly noticed that the hand of the old woman holding the tea trembled like an electric shock.

Laura put down her teacup, glanced at the three children, and seemed to have something to say.

Seeing this scene, Ling Yun called Pan Rong and said to her, "Hannah, take your younger siblings to play in the garden for a while."

Pan Rong nodded, and led Tang Yao and Li Xinjian out of the room.

Seeing the three children leaving, Laura lowered her voice and asked Ling Yun and Lin Yuanqi: "Do you know what happened in that house before?"

Ling Yun nodded, and said calmly: "Mr. Intermediary has told us the truth. I am very sad about the murder that happened in the past, and I hope the police can catch the murderer as soon as possible."

"No, no, dear, your thinking is too simple." Mrs. Laura looked solemnly, looked at the three children playing in the yard, pointed at Tang Yao and Li Xinjian, and said to Ling Yun: "You better give that It will be safer for the two children to find a boarding school in other places."

"What do you mean?" Ling Yun asked.

Laura told them that if you don’t believe it, you can ask around. Whenever there are children between five and ten years old in this area, the adults in the family will try their best to send the children to boarding schools outside the town.Even my grandson is the same. Only occasionally when the school is on holiday, my daughter and son-in-law will bring him to visit me.

"Why? Is this some kind of strange custom in the town?" Ling Yun asked.

Laura remained silent, took a book of fairy tales from the shelf, and handed it to Ling Yun.

Ling Yun opened it and found that it described a story called "The Pied Piper of Hamelin":

A long time ago, there was a serious rat infestation in a small town, and people had no choice but to abandon the city and flee.

At this time, a pied piper appeared.Dressed in queer colors and with a flute on his waist, he said he could get rid of rats for a fee.

The residents of the small town said that as long as they can drive away the rats, they can pay him fifty times as much.

The striped piper took out his flute and played a soft tune, all the mice ran out from under the bed in the ditch, the cabinet, and followed the piper.

The piper went to the river and continued to play the flute. The mice jumped into the river one after another, and they were all washed away by the river.

The inhabitants were overjoyed, but when the piper asked for payment, the inhabitants said they had no money to pay.

The piper left the town without saying anything.

That night, the moon hung high in the sky, and everyone was sleeping peacefully. In the middle of the night, the sound of a clear flute suddenly sounded in the air of the small town.

The sound of the flute fluttered, and the children of every family ran from home to the road, following behind the spotted piper.

While he was playing the flute, he walked up the mountain, and all the children followed him. As he walked, the moonlight was gradually blocked by the clouds, and the piper and the children went farther and farther away, and finally disappeared into the mountain.

"In the past ten years, young children have always disappeared inexplicably in the town. It was not done by human traffickers. Even if the windows and doors of the room are locked, the children will disappear."

Laura looked at the couple in front of her and continued, "Not only that, but after that, several horrific murders occurred in the town one after another. My son-in-law David is a policeman in the town. Some details, the police did not disclose to the outside world... because, that is too unbelievable!"

Hearing this, Ling Yun had roughly guessed something.

Sure enough, Laura said solemnly, the results of the on-site investigation showed that the murderers who killed the victims were all mysteriously missing children from every family.

"The James family once came to me as a guest, and I met their little daughter Leah. She is an angel-like, well-behaved and polite child." Laura sighed: "I once persuaded them to let them go as soon as possible. Send Leah to study abroad, but James and Jenny don't believe in these things."

"So there is something in this town bewitching those children." Ling Yun asked the other party: "Madam, is a suburb like ours more dangerous than the town?"

Laura nodded: "Although there are children missing in the town, they only account for a small part of them. And David said that those missing children all have one thing in common, that is, they have all been to the dense forests around here. "

She said, pointing to a certain direction outside the window, and told Ling Yun and others: "Going deep into the forest, there is a natural waterfall. In the past, because of this waterfall, it also attracted many tourists from other places. People in the town used to go to the forest for picnics with their families. It was not until the disappearance happened and they realized that there was something wrong with the forest that they never dared to approach that place again.”

"I see. Thank you for your advice. My wife and I will send the children away as soon as possible." After hearing what the old woman had said, Ling Yun planned to investigate near the waterfall.So, he made an excuse casually, and after talking to the other party, he left with his companion.

It was already around one o'clock in the afternoon when the group left the mansion.

The car drove through a forest, and the mountain path was full of thick shadows.Even though it was still daytime, the surroundings were extremely quiet, and one always felt that there seemed to be some terrifying ghosts suddenly appearing in the dense grass on both sides.

"Dating back to the first case of disappearance, something must have happened here."

Ling Yun was driving the car, while Tang Yao and others in the back seat were searching for relevant news on their mobile phones.Unfortunately, the information on the Internet is very limited. If you want to know the specific situation, you may have to ask the residents of the town and visit the families of the missing cases.

(End of this chapter)