Longing for You

Feng Yushu pulled her gaze away from Ning Zhe and remained silent for a long time.

Once she understood that the medium for the Ghost to steal an identity was "cognition," many previous events finally made sense—the deaths of Xie Sining and Gu Yunqing, the experiences of Zhang Yangxu, and even... the deliberate sarcasm and mockery Ning Zhe had directed at Ye Miaozhu earlier.

The more she pieced together, the more difficult it became for Feng Yushu to suppress the fear and chill in her heart. Looking back at the past with everything she now knew, she realized that almost every one of Ning Zhe's seemingly inexplicable actions had perfect logic and a clear purpose; behind every decision that appeared risky lay a calculated certainty.

Ning Zhe seemed to have no concept of fear or confusion. He examined every person's death from a detached perspective, analyzed every seemingly nonsensical event with absolute rationality, found the key thread to untangle the knot from a mess of chaos, and outlined the elephant in the room amidst the darkness.

What kind of person was he, really...?

The more she thought, the more of a stranger Ning Zhe felt to her—so strange that he didn't seem like a 17 or 18-year-old adolescent, or even like a "human" at all.

"You deliberately provoked Ye Miaozhu, making her lose control of her emotions so she would be targeted by the Ghost." Feng Yushu lowered her voice and asked softly, "Were you using her life to test your hypothesis about the rules?"

"What else?" Ning Zhe smiled faintly. "If I were the Ghost, in order to trigger my Killing Rule, my first choice would be to pick off those who are alone, especially idiots who let their emotions get the better of them. Those people are the easiest to deal with."

If he didn't find a way to scatter everyone, and if the vigilant group remained together, the Ghost would find it hard to strike, and Ning Zhe would have no way to verify his theories regarding the Ghost's Killing Rule.

Fortunately, Ye Miaozhu was emotional enough, and foolish enough, to use her own death to seal the verdict on Ning Zhe's hypothesis.

"The puzzle is solved. What comes next is to crack the rules here step by step." As he said this, Ning Zhe let go of Feng Yushu's hand, gently patted her tear-stained cheek, and turned to walk toward the residential house.

Watching his leisurely back, Feng Yushu suddenly understood one thing.

The so-called rules were rigid and absolute; there was no ambiguity or room for double-dealing. Black was black, white was white, and there was never a gray area in between. This entire Weird World operated according to established, binary rules, and obeying those rules was the prerequisite for existing in this world.

"Even the gods are no exception." Feng Yushu murmured, "Yes, every existence must follow the rules, even a god is no exception..."

She pulled out her phone to check the time. It was past 7:00 AM, not yet 8:00, and lunch was still a long way off.

Ning Zhe strolled into the room where the portrait of the Flying Snake God was enshrined. This time, there was no doubt in Feng Yushu's heart; she already understood what Ning Zhe was doing, and Ning Zhe had known it all along.

Just imagine: if Ning Zhe continued to crazily sneak bites of the Snake God's Offerings from house to house like this, what would happen?

When noon arrived, as the villagers followed their custom of serving a small bowl of food before lunch and bringing it to the portrait of the Snake God, they would see that the food offered in the morning had already been eaten. Who had eaten it?

What would they think then? Was it a wild cat? An ignorant child? Or...

Ning Zhe could not control what people chose to believe, and neither could the Ghost. Therefore, he could only continuously expand his sample size, rushing tirelessly from house to house to steal the Snake God's Offerings, maximizing the probability of "that thing" happening.

"As long as one household—no, as long as one person—even if just one person sees the eaten offerings and thinks it might have been the Snake God who ate them, then..."

Ning Zhe looked up at the Flying Snake God in the portrait, picked up a piece of green bean with his chopsticks, and chewed it: "Then, I will have a chance to win."

This was, of course, an ideal scenario. He couldn't be sure if what he was doing had any meaning, and whether this method would work remained an unknown. However, he had no other choice. In this Weird World governed by rules, finding a path that "might lead to victory" was already incredibly rare. Even if the path led to an bottomless abyss, he had to keep walking.

Walking through the night along the edge of an abyss, treading on thin ice.

Ning Zhe's expression was calm, his hollow eyes as stagnant and lifeless as a pool of frozen water.

But the next moment, his expression changed drastically. His hands uncontrollably gripped his own throat, and he looked to be in great pain:

"Damn it, that's fucking spicy."

A few minutes later, Ning Zhe walked out of the Zhai Hall where the Snake God was enshrined and called for Feng Yushu to head to the next house.

A woman's intuition is sharp; Feng Yushu noticed that the corners of Ning Zhe's eyes were slightly red, as if he had just cried, though he quickly wiped the tears away.

For some reason, seeing this, Feng Yushu felt a long-lost sense of "reassurance" in her heart. Perhaps it was because she had finally caught a glimpse of Ning Zhe's weak side—or rather, his human side.

So he could be afraid, he could feel terror, and he could cry secretly in a corner where no one was watching before suppressing all his emotions to put on a facade of nonchalant strength...

"So you can cry too?" Feng Yushu whispered to herself, her gaze softening as she looked at Ning Zhe's shoulder.

At the same time, Ning Zhe was hissing and sucking in cold air, because the thing he had just eaten wasn't a green bean at all—it was a green chili pepper disguised as a bean.

"If I were the Snake God, I'd definitely sentence you for blasphemy..." Ning Zhe cursed inwardly.

With their own thoughts, the two walked lightly through the streets and alleys of He Family Village, stealing the Snake God's Offerings from house to house. Although the amount eaten each time was small, the sheer number of times added up, and Ning Zhe inevitably felt a bit stuffed. A growing Youngster couldn't handle this kind of force-feeding.

But in order to expand the sample size as much as possible, Ning Zhe still forced himself to keep going, eating his way through house after house.

While stealing the offerings, both Ning Zhe and Feng Yushu maintained a high level of vigilance, never letting the other leave their line of sight.

"I don't know how, but that Ghost has shown the ability to 'teleport' within the range of He Family Village. We cannot afford to be careless." Feng Yushu thought nervously.

She didn't dare let Ning Zhe leave her sight for too long; who knew if the person pushing open the door next time would actually be him?

As for Ning Zhe, he was pondering another question.

"Of the two puzzles in He Family Village, only the one regarding the Ghost has been accurately solved, while my hypothesis about the Snake God has yet to be verified."

"...What if I'm wrong?"

Furthermore, would the Ghost really just let him continue like this without taking any countermeasures, simply sitting there waiting to die?