"Oh." Lu Shi didn't quite understand what a university was, but judging from Ye Bugui's tone, it must be a top-tier private school, so congratulations were indeed in order. "Did you find any clues?"
"There are quite a lot." Ye Bugui was whispering to Lu Shi when his cheap uncle suddenly turned around and shouted at them:
"Hurry up, we need to go pay respects to our ancestors before lunch!"
Lu Shi asked in a low voice, "Should I go too?"
"Let's go together." Ye Bugui quickened his pace. "I don't think my family would mind. But this village is a bit strange, so you should stay alone. By the way, is this body your own?"
"I guess so," Lu Shi said helplessly, "but I tried, and there wasn't a trace of spiritual energy. Fortunately, your physique is good, so you won't be a burden if we fight."
"By the way," Ye Bugui said softly, "when you see my father later, you must not talk to him."
"Why?" Lu Shi still held a naive ideal of parental love.
"Remember how Wang Qifan always transferred money to people? It was all for his father! That guy was an alcoholic and loved to gamble!"
Ye Bugui's tone was disdainful. He used to be involved in the underworld, and gambling was what he hated most. Seeing a group of people lose their minds for a little money, even hurting their closest relatives, was infuriating.
"Wang Qifan hasn't even started working yet, and his father is already harassing him for money like a debt collector. If it were me, I would definitely punch him away."
"Gambling is bad." Lu Shi deeply understands this.
There is gambling in the cultivation world, but it's gambling on treasures.
The number one workshop in the cultivation world is called Duobao Pavilion, and they hold an appraisal conference every year.
It's called an appraisal service, but it's really just putting a bunch of defective items and a few genuine treasures in a box and letting people draw lots randomly.
If Lu Shi had a couple more points of modern knowledge, he would know that this is called a blind box.
"Unfortunately, not long after I got up, my family wanted to take me from house to house to show off, but I immediately refused." Ye Bugui frowned: "Unfortunately, I didn't even have time to gather information."
When they arrived at a courtyard that looked dilapidated, Wang Hu stopped:
"Hey, little student, would you like to come with us?"
Lu Shi smiled, trying to appear innocent and naive: "Uncle, is it really appropriate for an outsider like me to come along?"
"What's the difference between inside and outside?" Wang Hu made the decision without even asking Wang Qifan's parents' opinion. Clearly, he held a high position in the Wang family: "You're from the provincial capital, and you got into university, right? Someone as outstanding as you going to our ancestral graveyard... well, what's the idiom for that again?"
"It's an honor to have you here!" A young maid ran out of the house, seemingly stunned by Lu Shi's handsome appearance. Then, she frowned and shouted at him:
"Stay away from him!"
At first, Lu Shi thought that the little girl didn't welcome him and was keeping Ye Bugui away from him.
He later realized that she was saying this to him, telling him to stay away from Ye Bugui.
"Why, little sister? I'm your brother's good friend."
The little girl was taken aback: "How do you know he's my brother!"
“You ran away from his house,” Lu Shi squatted down, trying to be at eye level with the little girl. This gesture made the child very happy, and her expression towards Lu Shi softened considerably. “And when you came over, you specifically looked at Uncle Wang, so you're his daughter, right?”
Wang Hu walked over and hugged his daughter, chuckling, "No wonder she's a college student, she's so smart. My child likes to talk nonsense, just ignore her. Hey, Qifan, go and call your dad!"
Ye Bugui responded, but felt a little strange as to why he didn't call his mother.
Lu Shi naturally followed them, and the little girl rolled her eyes at their retreating figures.
The courtyard is small, and three families live there.
They are the Wang Qifan family, the Wang Hu family, and two side rooms used as storage rooms.
"Wait!" The layout of this courtyard looks outdated by modern standards, but it looks very familiar to Lu Shi. "The last building should be the ancestral hall."
"An ancestral hall?" Ye Bugui had only heard of such a thing from videos and had never seen one.
"Yes, in my world, every large family has an ancestral hall. Once you go there, many problems will be easily solved."
Upon hearing Lu Shi's words, Ye Bugui withdrew from the main room and followed Lu Shi along the slightly uncomfortable path.
However, the door to the ancestral hall was locked, and no matter how hard the two tried to push it open, they couldn't.
The commotion they caused here also attracted Wang Qifan's father.
This man, who had spent most of his life in a drunken stupor, suddenly snapped back to reality when he reached the front and back of the ancestral hall.
"What are you two little brats doing here!" He made a move to slap Ye Bugui, but Old Ye easily dodged it.
"We were just passing by when my uncle told us to go up the mountain to pay respects to our ancestors."
"Oh, then hurry up and go, don't wander off!" This man, who still retained some of his youthful vigor even in his current state of disgrace, was Wang Qifan's father.
But he and Wang Qifan are really not alike.
"Why don't you worship your ancestors in the ancestral hall?" Ye Bugui asked boldly.
"Shut up!" The man's face darkened. "If your mother heard this, she'd probably beat you up!"
A note from the author:
Thank you so much for your support! I will continue to work hard!
Chapter 41
☪ Good Family Apartment 16
Ye Bugui was clearly stunned.
He had obviously just learned that Wang Qifan's mother had passed away.
"Hurry up!" Wang's father seemed to want to watch them leave the ancestral hall, and so he followed behind the two of them.
Lu Shi could only lean against Ye Bugui and whisper, "Your dad seems to be hiding something."
“That’s Wang Qifan’s father,” Ye Bugui said, paying particular attention to this point. “I think this village is strange. Maybe it’s because I’ve been to too many of these kinds of dungeons.”
"What dungeon?" Lu Shi asked curiously.
"It's that kind of Chinese-style horror, everyone in the village is suspicious." Ye Bugui turned around and found Er Gou standing at his door, as if watching them.
But when he looked over, the man immediately looked away in fear.
"See that? That person seems very afraid of us," Ye Bugui said softly.
Lu Shi then recalled what Ye Bugui's sister had said. Could it be that Wang Qifan is a problem?
The two had too many questions to ask, but urged by Wang Qifan's father, they hurriedly walked to the roadside and met up with a group of strangers who were already waiting there.
"Wang Zhi, why are you so slow!" a plump middle-aged woman shouted in a loud voice.
"Sister-in-law, I brought the child with me!" Wang Zhi, Wang Qifan's father, said with a forced smile.
Lu Shi's identity also made it easy for him to be almost unnoticed, allowing him to observe the family's interactions from afar.
Logically speaking, today is Wang Qifan's college entrance celebration, and his family should be doting on him.
However, most people instinctively kept their distance from Wang Qifan upon seeing him, and instead went to greet Wang Hu's daughter.
As for Wang Zhi, everyone looked at him with undisguised contempt and disdain.
Wang Zhi may seem gentle on the surface, but Lu Shi believes he certainly doesn't have a good temper.
His drinking might be related to the cold shoulders he faced?
What exactly happened to Wang Qifan's family that made them despise him?
Just as Lu Shi was deep in thought, Wang Hu walked up to him.
"Handsome guy from the city, why aren't you leaving?"
Lu Shi straightened his chest and said coldly, "Uncle, why are you here with your wife instead of your daughter? What are you doing here?"
"I'm just entertaining guests, aren't I?" Wang Hu was shameless, and his wife didn't care at all. Even when Lu Shi spoke so loudly, she didn't even turn around. "After all, Wang Zhi doesn't know anything about hospitality."
Ye Bugui wanted to get to Lu Shi's side but couldn't, as he was surrounded by his aunts and uncles.
Although these people disliked him somewhat, they forgot about it when they started gossiping.
Lu Shi thought about it and felt that there might be a chance to break through with Wang Hu. After all, Wang Hu seemed relatively easy to fool.
Lu Shi smiled and said to Wang Hu, "Uncle, how could you speak ill of Uncle Wang Zhi! Wang Qifan often tells me how good his father is!"
Wang Hu's expression changed. "Really? Wang Qifan is actually this kind of person."
He shook his head and said with absolute certainty, "How could a son speak ill of his father? Wang Zhi is truly a scoundrel! Otherwise, how could my sister, such a good person, have died like this!"
Lu Shi feigned a surprised expression, which indeed aroused Wang Hu's desire to confide:
"You don't know, do you? Wang Qifan's mother, that's my sister, was such a healthy person. She could even get out of bed while pregnant. And then she just died overnight. It's so strange! They say it's an acute illness, but I don't believe it!"
Lu Shi responded, but in his heart he was calculating how much truth there was in Wang Hu's words.
When people communicate, they sometimes unconsciously embellish or exaggerate, perhaps without even realizing it themselves. Such descriptions can make a story sound bizarre.
"So Uncle Wang Zhi, wasn't he originally from the village?" Lu Shi asked, pretending to be casual.
Wang Hu hummed in agreement, clearly unaware that Lu Shi was trying to trick him into revealing information: "To be honest, I didn't approve of this marriage in the first place! But my sister is just so stubborn! Once she falls for someone, not even ten oxen could pull her back!"
Lu Shi, who was standing to the side, didn't say anything. He saw that Ye Bugui was about to return.
To avoid interrupting Wang Hu, Lu Shi quietly mouthed a hint to Ye Bugui.
Anyone else would definitely not understand what Lu Shi was saying, but Ye Bugui was different.
He immediately hummed in agreement and stopped in his tracks.
Wang Hu continued rambling, "As a result, after this man entered our Wang family, my sister has been plagued by bad luck ever since!"
Just then, Wang Hu's wife suddenly walked over; she was the same middle-aged woman who had also been quite burly.
She grabbed Wang Hu's ear and said fiercely, "What nonsense are you spouting? How can you talk such nonsense to outsiders!"
After they had walked a distance, Ye Bugui walked up to Lu Shi. He glanced at Lu Shi, his eyes filled with admiration.
"It seems you've gathered the right information?" Ye Bugui asked softly.
"Hmm." Lu Shi nodded: "Wang Zhi married into the family, and there seems to be something hidden about the death of Wang Qifan's mother. It's possible that Wang Qifan leaving home is also related to this."
"Not bad," Ye Bugui praised, "You've gathered so much information so quickly. I was worried we'd come up empty-handed in this dream!"
“We can’t come up empty-handed,” Lu Shi said calmly. “When we wake up tomorrow, it will be our fourth day here. We don’t have much time left.”
"I know," Ye Bugui said softly. "But we don't need to be so nervous. After tonight, many things should come to light."