Climbing Walls and Peeking Through Windows in the Village

The three of them simply buried the bodies and returned from the mountain. It was only mid-morning, and there was still a long time until the funeral for Zhou Yongsheng that the village was discussing.

In fact, by this point in the game, the small cliques among the deducers were already very obvious. Apart from Carlos, who had disappeared, and Ju Lan, who had died, the Xu brothers had basically no interaction with Yu Xing and his group. It was unknown if they had discovered any clues.

They had entered the village at dusk last night, eaten dinner, and then parted ways. They hadn't consolidated any information until now. Yu Xing found this a bit foolish. These people were too rigid in their thinking, only interacting with those they were familiar with and trusted, completely failing to utilize their numerical advantage. They were like loose sand.

Only Carlos had a sense of information awareness, but that person was nowhere to be found, likely tinkering with something.

He felt... Carlos was definitely not in trouble. This blue-haired magician clearly had some tricks up his sleeve.

In short, to put it mildly, the deducers in this game lacked experience. Otherwise, even people with conflicts among themselves would weigh their options and exchange information, because deducing the truth and surviving was an unshakeable common goal.

At this moment, under the strange gazes of some villagers, Yu Xing made a suggestion to Xiao Xuechen and Wei Fan—

There was still plenty of time, and the crucial point of the game would likely be tonight. They should use this blank period to gather more information about Guan Family Village from all aspects.

They would split up to investigate, then regroup to consolidate and analyze the clues.

Xiao Xuechen and Wei Fan had no objections. Splitting up was fine. They weren't in a horror movie, after all. Unlike the tragic protagonists of horror films, they possessed a certain ability to fight ghostly creatures, and it was daytime, so the types of dangers were limited and not that difficult to handle.

Although the houses in this small village were dilapidated, their overall layout was quite square. After Yu Xing began his solo investigation, he quietly climbed over walls into several courtyards. He discovered that almost every house had one or two empty rooms, and he didn't know what their original purpose was.

He also paid special attention to whether there were any coffins in the villagers' homes, as Coffin Village without a coffin in the ancestral hall would be too lacking in prestige.

As an outsider with a striking appearance, it took him considerable effort to discreetly investigate various matters.

They skipped lunch. After what happened last night, Xiao Xuechen and the others, as well as the Xu brothers, claimed to have no appetite and didn't go to the village chief's house for dinner. Even Yu Xing, who had seemed to have a great appetite from start to finish, simply said he didn't want to eat.

In the afternoon, he leaned against a wall, catching his breath. His originally snow-white shirt was stained from his activities, and his palms bore the dust from climbing walls.

He had basically finished his investigation... and indeed, there were some things that felt off, broadening his line of deduction.

For example, these villagers didn't visit each other's homes at all. If they wanted to chat, they would go to the open space outside their houses, as if each house had strict regulations that no more than a certain number of people were allowed. Combined with the rules that constrained them, the deducers, at night, he vaguely felt this was a very important clue.

Another example was the hunched old man they had encountered when they first entered the village. Yu Xing had observed almost every house but hadn't seen him again.

That old man seemed to have appeared out of thin air and disappeared just as mysteriously.

And the most unscientific point—this village had no farmland, nor did anyone hold the position of purchasing supplies from outside the village. Where did the villagers get their daily meals, the meat and vegetables?

And... no graveyard. Where were the people who had died in this village over the years buried?

The agreed-upon time with Xiao Xuechen and Wei Fan was four o'clock. Just past three o'clock, Yu Xing went to Ju Lan's room.

He climbed in through the window and calmly surveyed the room.

Ju Lan's backpack was in the corner of the room. Two wooden beds were placed side-by-side across the aisle. One bed showed clear signs of having been slept in. On the other bed...

The quilt was thrown back, and in the center of the bed was a small paper figure.

Yu Xing raised an eyebrow. This was clearly placed there intentionally by Carlos. This magician always seemed to have small paper figures on hand; it was quite interesting.

He walked over and, based on the traces at the scene, deduced that Ju Lan had woken up during the night, gotten out of her own bed, realized her companion was missing, thrown back Carlos's quilt, discovered the paper figure, and then walked to the door.

She must have been persuaded by something to open the door... and then, things took the worst possible turn.

After a simple deduction, Yu Xing ruled out the possibility that Carlos had different tasks and deliberately harmed them.

Carlos was human, not a ghost; Yu Xing was very sure of this. So if Carlos wanted to kill Ju Lan, he wouldn't have needed to go through all this trouble.

He shifted his gaze back to the paper figure and picked it up to examine it.

Carlos's paper figures were all three-dimensional, like paper effigies, not flat cutouts.

The paper figure was palm-sized. Strangely, the originally pure white paper figure was now stained with blood. Its head was missing a large chunk, and there were several cracks on its body.

"These wounds... are the same as Ju Lan's. Could this paper figure be a substitute, bearing the curse of the rules from last night for Carlos?" Yu Xing narrowed his eyes. Just then, a voice suddenly appeared in his mind.

[Traces of Sacrifice found, initiating judgment]

[Your level is lower than the opponent's, information acquisition failed]

"Oh, this is the Sacrifice?" Although he had already guessed, hearing the system's confirmation still piqued his interest.

Whether it was Zhao Yijiu's knife before or Carlos's paper figure now, they held some appeal for Yu Xing.

Because... he himself had an invisible and intangible Sacrifice, and he vaguely knew what it was. Therefore, he needed to come into contact with more Sacrifices to study what he had previously been unable to access.

Yu Xing clutched the small paper figure, which looked completely dead, and muttered in a low voice, "Hmm... no, this shouldn't be the Sacrifice itself, just a manifestation of the Sacrifice's ability, and even then, it's residual."

Last night, when Carlos came to exchange information, he had "performed magic," and the head of one of the paper figures had been cracked open on the spot. So Carlos definitely had more than one paper figure.

The true Sacrifice was likely carried by Carlos. This one on the bed was merely one method of use.

Looking at the room, which didn't even have Carlos's backpack, it was likely he took it with him when he left.

Yu Xing: "Could Carlos have left Guan Family Village and gone to the town on the other side of the mountain?"

This was a new line of thought. The mission only required them to attend the funeral; it didn't say they couldn't leave before the funeral.

In fact, there was no rule stating they had to stay in Guan Family Village until the funeral began. They could leave at any time, as long as they returned before the funeral started.

This was Yu Xing's first time playing this kind of deduction game, and he hadn't thought of this aspect. Now his eyes lit up.

He learned something new; a new door had opened for him!

In future deduction games... his thinking would definitely be more expansive!

Hope the Ghost is okay.

The discoveries in Ju Lan's room were all that was found. After coming out, Yu Xing took a detour and arrived at the house where the Xu brothers were staying. This family's yard was a bit smaller than the village chief's, but since only an old woman lived there, the remaining two empty rooms were one for Xu Yuan and Xu Hong, and the other for Wei Fan.

According to Wei Fan, these two brothers were practically ultimate shut-ins, staying in their room all the time and never going out.

Waiting passively for death was something only fools would do. Deductive game players, who had to use their brains in every deduction game, were clearly not like that; otherwise, they wouldn't have survived