See the Law of Deception

Chapter 205 Heredity (11)

She ignored the wary looks from the others. She had done what she needed to do, and staying there would only be a waste of time. Lu Jinzhao turned and left.

As for the woman who broke the memorial tablet, she thought perhaps she should go and find another one.

Lu Jinzhao was also curious whether having a new memorial tablet could offset the consequences of breaking it.

During the mission, the memorial tablet must not be separated from her. If the woman obtains the tablet again, she will know the next morning. Therefore, Lu Jinzhao has no intention of continuing to watch the show with her.

She went to other parts of the village and began looking for the locals who lived there.

In fact, Lu Jinzhao was curious about what the "people" existing in the platform were made of. They seemed to be just normal humans, with no difference in thought logic and body from humans. However, the world inside the platform was obviously not a normal world, and there were even scenes from movies.

Sometimes, the "people" here would also show some "ghostly" qualities, making it difficult for her to equate the people here with people in the real world.

But they are also exceptionally real, so it's not appropriate to treat them as just "NPCs".

However, when thinking about movies, Lu Jinzhao also wondered if there were passengers who had experienced the platform who were actually movie screenwriters.

I definitely can't be an actor anymore, but I can still be a screenwriter.

These strange questions kept popping into Lu Jinzhao's mind, becoming part of her attempt to deconstruct the existence of the train.

As Lu Jinzhao passed by some village buildings along the way, she saw villagers working, including not only the elderly, but also young people and children, though their numbers were quite small.

She thought of the looks she had seen when she went to the ancestral hall. Although they were a bit strange, they didn't seem malicious. Perhaps she could talk to the villagers.

So, Lu Jinzhao approached a little girl who was squatting down and playing by the roadside.

She deliberately made her footsteps heavier to make the little girl notice that someone was approaching. She walked to the little girl's side, lowered her head slightly, and asked, "What are you playing?"

The little girl looked up at her, her eyes filled with unfamiliarity but not shyness, and replied in a soft voice, "I'm whistling."

Lu Jinzhao lowered her eyes and saw the wild pea pods in the little girl's hand. She remembered them; it must have been during her kindergarten years when many of the older girls in town who were still in elementary school would make them on their way home from school.

However, as time passed and the city changed, she hadn't seen a pea pod in a long time.

"Didn't you go to school today?"

Lu Jinzhao chose an ordinary and common question to continue the conversation. Although it was ordinary, it was not asked casually. Judging from the growth of the wild pea pods, it was May or June, which was indeed still the time of year when people go to school.

The little girl didn't show any resistance to such a "routine" question. She simply picked the peas out of the pea pod and answered, "The private school is closed today."

A private school?

Whether it's the clothing, the style of the lights, or other things in the room, it all shows that this is a modern society. Yet, in such a clearly not wealthy village, instead of sending children to free public schools, they go to private schools.
"How long is the holiday?" she pressed.

Perhaps you can't talk to adults like that, but you're talking to a little girl, so you can be more direct with your questions.

"I don't know, the village chief didn't say." The girl looked a little troubled. "I asked my mom, and she said she didn't know either."

She seems to really enjoy going to school.

Based on the girl's words, Lu Jinzhao deduced that this "private school" was probably a village school, and perhaps the educational intensity wasn't very high. Lu Jinzhao squatted down next to her and casually picked a wild pea pod. The little girl was trying to blow it, but only managed a very short sound. She looked at the whistle in her hand with a puzzled expression, then frowned, seemingly annoyed by her failed attempt. But immediately, she observed the grass by the roadside and picked a fairly plump pod.

Lu Jinzhao began asking her how to make it, which sparked the little girl's enthusiasm, and the two went from strangers to newly acquainted friends.

After that, Lu Jinchao gleaned some information from the children intermittently.

The people in this village never travel far from home, nor do they send their children to schools outside the mountains. Instead, they are taught in a private school in the village. They do not learn foreign languages, and regarding physics and mathematics, they only learn the most basic common sense things that are used in daily life.

The same applies to other courses.

The little girl in front of me can read and recognize numbers, but she can only do some simple addition and subtraction. As for multiplication and division, she said that's something she'll learn when she's older.

The village doesn't have a large population, but people from surrounding villages are willing to intermarry with them, and after the marriage, their household registration will be transferred to this village, regardless of gender.

The village has a wide variety of surnames, which shows that this custom has existed since ancient times. However, surnames are not important here; what matters is "blood ties."

Therefore, girls in the village are relatively important because a woman's child can be 100% guaranteed to be of the village bloodline.

These are the pieces of information that Lu Jinzhao extracted from the little girl's innocent words.

After the little girl left, she stood up, casually stuffed the pea pod in her hand into her pocket, and sorted out the useful parts of the conversation.

It is certain that this village is avoiding excessive contact with the outside world, even at the cost of giving up sending their children to school and giving up the important source of income from working outside the village.

However, they do not prevent outsiders from entering the village; in fact, they welcome outsiders to integrate into the village and become a part of it.

Even so, the village does not have a large population.

Blood ties are considered very important, but young girls don't understand why.

Lu Jinzhao decided to go to the "private school".

The private school was located at the village chief's house. Lu Jinzhao wasn't sure if the adults there would be willing to share the village's secrets with her, but that didn't matter. What she mainly wanted to see on this trip was the villagers' attitude.

They entered the ancestral hall and took away the memorial tablets. Would the villagers be completely unaware of this?

Those muddy footprints were left inside the ancestral hall, and it's clear that the hall is regularly cleaned.

But to this day, no villagers have approached them to inquire about the matter.

The people here accepted this as normal and did not warn the children not to interact too much with these "outsiders".

"Our attitude towards the outside world is to cut off contact as much as possible, but we welcome people from outside who want to integrate into the village."

The way the villagers looked at her, and the little girl's unguarded attitude.
"Therefore, we are also outsiders who need to integrate into the village."

The train didn't assign them the status of coming to marry; they were just tourists and researchers who would eventually leave.

"It's because of the memorial tablet."

Lu Jinzhao came to a not-so-difficult conclusion, and at the same time, he also realized one of the crises of not having a memorial tablet: being a complete outsider.