The God who had descended without warning had no past, no people, and no ties.
In the eyes of the starving villagers, such a being was nothing more than a piece of meat with no owner.
The villagers gathered beneath the locust tree, chattering about what to do with the fallen God. They greedily yearned to feast on raw flesh and drink blood, yet feared the imagined sins and divine punishment.
At last, the old village chief stepped forward and declared that he had dreamed the previous night. The dream had told him that the God's descent was meant to save them, and that every inch of flesh on that body was a gift.
The old village chief was the first to cut a piece of meat from the God. To the villagers' astonishment, the wound healed before their eyes. They became even more convinced that the God had come to help them survive their hardship.
They formed a circle and described their dreams in vivid detail, as if every one of them had dreamed of the God and received divine permission for their actions.
With the God Meat constantly growing back, the villagers survived the famine.
They were still poor, but every household chipped in to build a new Ancestral Hall to worship the God who had helped them through the famine.
They embellished the tale of the God granting them meat, passing it from mouth to mouth until it gradually spread to villages near and far.
The story seemed to be heading toward a happy ending—until one day, a merchant dressed in black with golden eyes arrived in Su Village and said he wanted to taste the fabled God Meat.
The villagers instinctively refused, but the merchant produced a large sum of money and coaxed them. "Didn't you say that even if you cut off a piece of flesh, the wound would heal quickly? So what harm could there be in letting me eat a piece?"
The villagers hesitated, but in the end the old village chief stepped forward and approved the merchant's request.
Su Village used the merchant's money to repair the roads, and more and more people heard about what had happened and came seeking the famous God Meat.
The legend of the God gradually shed its bloody origins, spreading through a web of excuses and embellishments until it became little more than a popular folk tale and a cheap attraction.
Some said God Meat could cure illness. Others said eating it could grant eternal life. Some came purely out of curiosity; seeing everyone else rush in, they followed suit.
These foolish people had never seen the God's corpse with their own eyes, and had little moral awareness or guilt to restrain them. Clinging to the superstitious reverence for the God passed down through generations, they gathered at the entrance to Su Village, demanding to buy God Meat with money just like the merchant who had started it all.
Su Village was no more than an insignificant hamlet, yet far too many prominent people came from nearby. The offers of money came one after another, and the village's poverty became increasingly glaring.
Then, one night, the old village chief summoned the influential elders of the village to his home for a secret meeting.
The chief said, "Last night I dreamed that the immortal elder knew our village's circumstances and took pity on our poverty. He allowed us to trade his flesh for money so the children could live better lives."
The elders all chimed in, adding their own details and claiming that they, too, had dreamed the same thing—that the God had personally issued a decree to help Su Village improve its lot...
And so a new legend was invented. Early the next morning, Su Village announced that it was open to outsiders. For a certain sum of money, anyone could taste God Meat.
With the money they earned from selling God Meat, the people of Su Village ate their fill, built new houses, and even had money left over for all sorts of indulgences.
But they gradually noticed that the wounds on the God's corpse were healing more and more slowly. At the same time, a small number of villagers began to undergo strange changes, and their corpses started to display the properties of God Meat after death...
"Damn, when you get down to it, those villagers brought it on themselves!" Zhang Licai slapped his hands together and said. "If they'd just worshipped the God properly after surviving the famine, or stopped after making a profit off the merchant, none of this would've happened."
"But that's human nature." Qi Si gave a chilly smile. "If someone offered you five million for one of your hairs, would you take it?"
Zhang Licai answered without hesitation. "Of course I would. Why wouldn't I?"
Qi Si asked again, "What if you could get fifty million for one of your fingers?"
Zhang Licai fell silent. He could more or less predict what Qi Si would ask next, and knew that answering yes would play right into his trap.
But if he searched his heart, he knew that if he really faced such a choice, he wouldn't turn it down.
The smile at Qi Si's lips grew broader. Unhurriedly, he posed his final question. "Then what if one day you found out that your head could fetch five hundred million?"
There was no doubt about the answer. Zhang Licai hurriedly shook his head. "Of course I wouldn't do it! I'd be dead. What would I need money for?"
"But everyone who knew about that deal would try to find a way to cut off your head and sell it." Zhu Ling spoke quietly from beside him, drawing her gaze away from the pages and looking out the window.
"Desire has no limits. Once certain things get started, they can spiral out of control. Even when they know the road ends in death, most people still cling to hope, thinking that just a little more greed won't necessarily bring misfortune—or, rather, that disaster won't necessarily befall them."
The sun had sunk to rooftop level, hovering as if reluctant to set. It was getting late.
Zhu Ling let out a soft breath, lowered her head again, and read the final passage in the village chronicle. "Too many travelers came seeking the God Meat, and a single divine corpse couldn't supply enough. The villagers had no choice but to pass off the corpses of the transformed as the real thing."
"Later, everyone transformed."
Zhang Licai drew a sharp breath and pressed her for more. "What happened after that? Does this say what's going on with Granny Su? Does it mention a way to deal with it?"
"No." Zhu Ling placed the village chronicle on the dust-covered table and calmly continued. "The villagers discovered that merely coming into contact with sunlight would transform them into God Meat. So they changed the direction their doors faced and covered the windows with black paper. During the day, they stayed cooped up in their houses, clinging to life."
Zhang Licai blinked twice. "No offense, but if things had gotten that bad, why were they still taking in travelers? Money over their lives? Even after turning into ghosts, they were still obsessed with money?"
Qi Si rubbed his chin, speaking with pointed intent. "Are you sure money is what they want? We were all thrown in here by the Eerie Game. None of us paid Granny Su."
His words were like a flash of lightning, illuminating another path of reasoning.
Zhu Ling realized something. With a cold expression, she continued, "They don't want money. They want our flesh. That's why the villagers stopped Brother Yang and demanded meat from him when he went out to explore last night."
"What do they want our flesh for? Even after turning into ghosts, they're still thinking about food?" Zhang Licai patted his chubby face in confusion. "Does anyone have a clue?"
No one did.
The clues had hit a dead end. Some of the mysteries had been answered, only for those answers to raise new questions. It was like a puzzle that kept growing, always missing the few most important pieces.
Perhaps they would only learn the final answer once they found the missing clues in the Ancestral Hall.
Qi Si pulled his Pocket Watch from his pocket and glanced at it. The hands pointed to six o'clock, and it would be another three hours before night fell completely.
It was about time for dinner, and there were still a few odds and ends to take care of. The many loose threads were impossible to sort through.
Qi Si glanced at the dust-covered village chronicle but ultimately didn't slip it into his pocket.
He put away his Pocket Watch, his smile fading, and said flatly, "Let's go back to Granny Su's house."
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