Where's the cute girl we were promised? She's completely wiped out S-rank dungeons!

The scream that was about to escape the woman's throat was immediately choked back. Her angry eyes quickly turned blank, and two soft "clicking" sounds came from deep within her body before she obediently shut her mouth.

The skill 【Song of the Siren】 only lasts for thirty seconds; after that, she will return to normal. Song Yuan silently counted in her mind, trying to make the most of those few seconds:

"Now answer my question. Did the villagers from your village kill those three volunteers?"

The village chief's wife seemed unable to speak normally, and a "h...h..." sound emanated from deep within her body. Song Yuan interrupted her:

"Nod or shake your head."

The woman nodded.

"Did you kill to avenge your family?"

The woman shook her head.

"So it was an accidental murder?"

He still shook his head.

Song Yuan frowned: That's strange. It was intentional homicide, but not for revenge?

"Did you burn the body? Or bury it? Throw it in the river? Eat it? Feed it to the dogs?"

The first two shook their heads, only the last two nodded. Song Yuan interpreted this as them eating the corpse and then feeding the less palatable parts to the dogs: such as the finger bone and other less-than-pleasant-tasting parts.

"Have many people participated?"

He nodded again.

This process was like playing turtle soup; there was a limited time of thirty seconds. Song Yuan could speak clearly and concisely when asking questions, but the NPC needed reaction and thinking time, and her nodding was very slow. When only five seconds remained of the thirty seconds, Song Yuan said to her:

"Go back to sleep and forget that you saw me tonight, understand?"

The woman nodded and obediently returned to bed, assuming the same solemn posture she had been in at the beginning, and closed her eyes.

Song Yuan walked out of the village chief's bedroom and slipped smoothly out through the crack in the woodshed window. Standing outside the earthen wall, she took out the "watch without minute and second hands" she had bought from the system store and glanced at the time—it was about 12:30.

She put her watch away: "Hmm... it's time to go back."

As one of the top graduates in her department, good sleep habits are essential. She goes to bed at 2 a.m. every day and gets up at 6 a.m. sharp the next morning. Let's end our exploration here for tonight. Organize the clues and go back to sleep!

This time, she specifically picked up a walking stick to scare away snakes and toads. The journey back was smooth at first, but as she crossed an acre of dry field, Song Yuan spotted a tiny point of light in the distance.

She immediately turned off her flashlight. The other person seemed to have noticed her too, and extinguished it immediately after her. Song Yuan crouched in the bushes, scrutinizing the other side, who was clearly scrutinizing her as well. This small, run-down place only had one road, and after waiting for ages, no one had come.

She clung to the trunk of the nearest tree, climbed up in a few swift movements, and gracefully perched on a branch. The man was wary, but because he was only wearing an old man's shirt, he couldn't remain hidden for as long as Song Yuan could. He soon lost patience with the mosquito bites and cautiously continued forward.

It's actually the village chief?

She crouched atop the village chief's head, like a black crow blending into the night, observing his every move.

It was already strange for him to be out wandering around late at night, but what was even more suspicious was that he was carrying a knife.

He walked along, cautiously shining his flashlight into the roadside bushes, his knife in his left hand poised to strike at any moment. Unlike his polite and smiling demeanor at school, the village chief now had a fierce look on his face, as if he would draw his knife and kill anyone in front of him.

Song Yuan stroked the scales on her chest. What a pity, the situation was too urgent, and she had to use her skill. If she had used that skill on the village chief, she probably could have extracted more useful information.

After a moment's thought, Song Yuan climbed down from the tree. After the village chief, knife in hand and flashlight in hand, had walked a few steps away, she silently emerged from the bushes.

"village head."

"Ahhhhh—"

The village chief was terrified; the man in his fifties jumped three feet high. After landing, he quickly turned around, flashlight in hand, and brandished a kitchen knife, shouting:

"Who! Who is it! Are you a human or a ghost?!"

Song Yuan: "...It's me, the village chief."

Please, this is a horror game! How can you, as an NPC, be so afraid of ghosts? The players should be the ones who are scared, okay?

The village chief clearly recognized Song Yuan, a flicker of confusion crossing his eyes, but it vanished in an instant as his expression hardened again. He pointed his knife at her and barked:

"It's you! What are you doing here?!"

"I couldn't sleep last night, so I went for a walk and got lost." She looked at the gleaming knife in the village chief's hand, tilted her head, and asked sincerely, "Why are you pointing a knife at me? You also couldn't sleep, so you went for a walk? Why did you bring a knife?"

The village chief belatedly realized he was pointing a knife at a little girl. He quickly hid the knife behind his back, and his previously fierce expression softened somewhat.

"Nonsense! Didn't I tell you not to wander around at night? This mountain path is so difficult to navigate, you could easily get lost!"

"Village Chief, you haven't answered my question yet." Song Yuan didn't give him a chance to change the subject. "Can't you sleep either? Do you usually take a walk with a knife at night?"

"Yes...so what?!" The village chief wiped the sweat from his forehead, stammered for a while, and then suddenly had an idea to explain, "This old man can't sleep at night, so this knife is specially used to drive away snakes."

"Really?" Song Yuan nodded thoughtfully. "Should we use a kitchen knife to drive away snakes? Wouldn't a hoe or a stick be better?"

The village chief was put in a difficult position by her question. He gripped the kitchen knife tighter, his gaze growing increasingly cold and hard.

Just as he was considering whether or not to get rid of this ungrateful little girl, Song Yuan took the initiative to change the subject:

"By the way, village chief. I have a colleague named Zhao Meng. She wasn't in the dormitory when I left, and I don't know where she went."

"No, maybe he's out for a walk like you."

Upon hearing the name "Zhao Meng," the village chief's eyes visibly betrayed his guilt. He suddenly became impatient and didn't want to talk to Song Yuan anymore. He waved his hand dismissively, as if to shoo her away.

"Go, go, go! Go back to school and get some sleep. You need to get up at 8:00 AM sharp for class tomorrow! I'm not going to chat with you anymore. Can you go back by yourself? Okay, then go back by yourself. I'm leaving now!"

He had even forgotten that Song Yuan was trapped here because she was "lost". After asking and answering his own questions, he grabbed his flashlight and kitchen knife and hurriedly slipped away.

Song Yuan stood there, watching his figure disappear, before returning to school with a flashlight in hand.

She returned home without any problems this time. Everything in the dormitory was as usual. She glanced out the window at the female teacher's dormitory; He Xiao was fast asleep.

Qiao Ran was still asleep. Song Yuan rested for four hours on the bed next to his, then woke him up promptly at six o'clock and returned the necklace to him.

"Hmm...you're back? Oh, thank you."

Qiao Ran yawned, put the necklace back around her neck, and asked her with a slightly teasing tone, "How was last night? Was it exciting?"

"It was quite exciting."

She crossed her arms, leaned against the bed frame, and gave him a brief account of what had happened the night before:

"In summary, what happened in this village may be more complex than just the cases of those three volunteers."

This is a hidden, corrupt place of sin, rotten for who knows how many years.

"How did you arrive at that conclusion?" Qiao Ran was stunned. "Did you discover some crucial clue?"

Song Yuan nodded in affirmation: "I saw an account book at the village chief's house."