Carnivore (18): Murder

Yang Yundong had naturally noticed the faces staring down at everyone from the ceiling.

He furrowed his brows, took three sticks of incense from the altar, and said without turning around, "We've all eaten God Meat and incurred sin. We should hurry and pay our respects, then look for clues."

No one objected. The Tattooed Woman's fate was still fresh in their minds, and no one knew when the same transformation might happen to them.

Zhu Ling also took three sticks of incense, but she didn't step forward. Instead, she waited to one side, watching Yang Yundong without blinking.

Yang Yundong seemed not to notice. He knelt before the altar and, holding the three slender sticks of incense in his right hand, bowed three times.

Blood dripped from his blood-soaked military coat. Before long, it had left an irregular ring on the ground in front of the altar.

Qi Si noticed several wisps of black smoke rising from behind the ancestral tablets, joining with the faces on the ceiling.

Perhaps it was only his imagination, but he felt that the faces were smiling, as if something had happened that suited them perfectly.

Yang Yundong finished paying his respects and slowly stood up. He swayed as if he might fall at any moment, but in the end, he used the Pu Saber tucked beneath his arm to support himself.

The moment he stood fully upright, a sharp crack rang out in the silence. Two of the incense sticks in his hand snapped in midair and fell to the ground.

People feared three long and two short; incense was inauspicious when two sticks were short and one was long.

Zhao Feng was the first to react. He shouted, "Get out of here!"

He didn't need to say it. As soon as things took a turn, Qi Si had already stepped back out of the Ancestral Hall.

Zhou Yilin had also made it out. She looked delicate and timid, but her reaction had been even faster than Qi Si's.

The others also sensed that something was wrong, but it was too late. The door of the Ancestral Hall slammed shut behind the two of them, trapping the remaining four inside.

Beneath the pale sky, the old Ancestral Hall squatted like a monster. Outside, the empty fields stretched in desolate silence, with no sign of human life as far as the eye could see.

A bitter wind sprang up out of nowhere, stirring Qi Si and Zhou Yilin's clothes. The cold swept in through their collars with a rustling sound.

Zhou Yilin started sobbing again. "Th-they're going to die, aren't they? I'm so scared..."

"They won't die." Qi Si's tone was cool and indifferent. "Now that it's just the two of us, let's talk about how you changed my clue without permission."

Zhou Yilin stopped crying and stammered timidly, "I'm sorry. Sister Zhu forced me to do it... I'd been trying to warn you..."

Qi Si didn't look at her. He gazed quietly at the tightly shut doors of the Ancestral Hall. Their dark, heavy color was solemn, yet for some reason, it made him think of congealed blood.

He continued, "Zhou Yilin, as far as I know, Zhu Ling only wants to get rid of Yang Yundong. Even if she has to change another player's clue to avoid giving herself away, Yin Lina, who's on her own, is clearly a better choice than me."

"You changed my clue on your own initiative and dragged me into this, breaking the bystander effect by harming my interests. Then you gave me a warning in advance, signaling that you wanted to cooperate and luring me into opposing her. I'm guessing you want to get rid of her, right?"

Qi Si spoke calmly, as if he had witnessed the whole thing himself.

The timid look on Zhou Yilin's face settled into an almost cold composure.

In an instant, she changed her tearful voice, tilting her head. "So you figured it out. Then what's your choice?"

Inside the Ancestral Hall, Zhang Licai quickly recovered from his shock. Wailing, he rushed to the closed door and shoved at it with all his might.

The door creaked under his efforts, but it wouldn't budge. There wasn't even the slightest gap, as if some force outside was holding it shut.

Zhao Feng lifted his leg as if to kick the door, then concluded, "It's sealed tight. We can't get it open."

Zhu Ling maintained her precarious composure and analyzed the situation. "We must have triggered a death point. At least one of us has to die, or there's no way out."

Yang Yundong turned his head. His deep-set eyes swept over Zhu Ling, but in the end, he said nothing.

Deep in his mind, Qi Si's words churned like a tide.

'Brother Yang, the drive to survive and pursue one's own interests is the natural law most in line with biological instinct. Under the new rules of the Eerie Game, the social norms and conventions that protect collective interests in the real world no longer apply. Unfortunately, countless domesticated sheep are still fooled by these lies. Out of cowardice or conformity, they willingly surrender their interests and let others exploit them...'

'Those who follow the rules starve after paying their grain, while opportunists lord it over others from their granaries. They use arbitrary standards like class, position, and ideology to tear groups apart, inciting one group to tyrannize another. It's ridiculous, isn't it? But that's the essence of what humans call social norms and conventions.'

Question after question echoed in his memory. The malice behind them was bone-deep and chilling, as if it had plunged him into an icy abyss.

Yang Yundong closed his eyes. More than forty years of experience flowed through his mind like a river, fading and growing hazy bit by bit, until, at some point, it became a thick mass of congealed blood, dark as ink.

He saw a raging fire, face after face contorted in agony, countless mangled corpses...

'Brother Yang, I can tell you still can't accept these rules. The clash between truth and experience is tearing you apart. If that's the case, why keep making yourself suffer? Instead of using morality to bind others, why not die for those outdated morals yourself? I might even think more highly of you...'

Yang Yundong thought of something, though he couldn't quite figure out what. He raised his eyes, his gaze sharpening.

The faces on the ceiling turned into wisps of black smoke, circling the four trapped inside. Countless eyes seemed to gather in the shifting smoke—eyes filled with pain, greed, hatred, and sorrow, layered together like fish scales.

A chorus of howls, each in a different tone, converged on the same words, full of grievance and pleading:

"Meat... meat... give us meat..."

Zhao Feng was the first to be attacked. The faces scraped against his arm several times.

He cursed, took a blade, cut a chunk of flesh from his arm, and tossed it into the black smoke.

The chewing sounds went on for a while, then stopped. The faces kept howling without pause, like greedy beggars who refused to leave and kept demanding more.

Zhao Feng's expression darkened. Right on cue, Qi Si's words rang in his ears:

'Each person has only so much meat on their body. The best solution is to choose a sacrifice...'

'As long as we deal with the strongest people first and then secure an overwhelming numerical advantage, we can decide anyone's fate...'

A trace of ruthlessness flashed in his eyes. Zhao Feng deliberately lightened his steps and circled silently behind Yang Yundong.

As long as he killed this self-important leader, he and Qi Si could form an alliance and compete for leadership...

Zhao Feng glanced around. Zhang Licai was still crouched by the door, searching for a way out, and hadn't noticed him. Zhu Ling was looking his way, giving him a knowing glance.

As for Yang Yundong, he hadn't turned around once.

[Rules refreshed]

[3. The ghosts in the Ancestral Hall are always hungry. Before coming to pay your respects, you should prepare enough meat—one adult's worth in total. More is fine, but less is not.]

Qi Si saw new text appear on the system interface, and the corner of his mouth lifted in a faint smile.

Beside him, Zhou Yilin immediately crouched down, wrapped her arms around her knees, and trembled like a leaf as she sobbed.

Qi Si glanced sideways at her. "You're always pretending to be weak and timid. Is that some kind of quirky hobby?"

Zhou Yilin sniffed and nodded. "Yeah. It's fun."

"..."

A few seconds later, the Ancestral Hall door was pushed open from the inside. Zhao Feng came out first, covered in blood, followed by Zhu Ling.

Zhang Licai, meanwhile, sat slumped beside a skeleton, looking as if he'd been scared out of his wits.

Qi Si saw that the skeleton's head was intact, enough to identify the deceased as Yang Yundong, but the body and limbs had been gnawed clean. Not a scrap of flesh remained.

It was obvious what had happened inside the Ancestral Hall. Yang Yundong had died at Zhao Feng's hands and become meat to fill the ghosts' bellies.

Qi Si had seen Yang Yundong's fate back on the bus, after the players introduced themselves.

In a zero-sum game, someone like him—more influential and capable than the others, but without an absolute advantage—was bound to be eliminated by a coalition.

The only question was when and where to let him die, so they could maximize their gains.

All Qi Si had done was use his words to make Yang Yundong a target, stirring up Zhao Feng's resentment and Zhu Ling's wariness.

That way, as soon as the opportunity arose, someone would strike the fatal blow, while the others would tacitly stand by and let the murder happen.

"You understand now, right? Good people don't live long." Qi Si lowered his eyes to the skeleton on the ground and sighed.

There had been room to change the outcome. If Yang Yundong had agreed to work with him, he could have taken control of Zhou Yilin and Zhang Licai in advance, then used their lives to pay the price now.

Unfortunately, Yang Yundong had chosen a fourth path, leaving the two alliances evenly matched and making Zhang Licai the deciding factor.

"To give the innocent a chance to survive, he was even willing to die himself... Interesting."

Qi Si tapped his chin with a finger. Looking at Yang Yundong's corpse, he felt little excitement. Instead, he was rather curious to cut open the man's brain and see how it was made.

Fortunately, he always left room to maneuver when laying his plans. This unexpected turn wouldn't do much to hinder his overall scheme.

The black-haired young man raised a hand to hide his strange smile. In a voice only he could hear, he muttered to the presence in the void, "Everyone has to die eventually. I never said my allegiance was with the players."

The sun had climbed above the treetops. Its slanted rays passed through the Ancestral Hall's doorway and cast a pale light across the ground. A few beams fell on the skeleton, but they gave no warmth. They were as cold as ice.

As if he knew he was already dead, Yang Yundong stopped struggling pointlessly. Instead, he braced himself and tried with difficulty to turn over.

Qi Si watched with interest for a while before realizing that, for some reason, he understood what the man wanted.

He lowered his hand and walked over, shaping his mouth into a silent question: did the dying man want one last look at the sun? He quickly read an affirmative answer in the skull's eyes.

So he bent down, paying no mind to the filthy blood, and gently turned the broken body over.

Yang Yundong now lay on his back, eyes wide as he stared at the sky. He made no sound and said no last words, much like the white youth named Allen, who had died at the Village Chief's House.

Qi Si crouched nearby, quietly watching Yang Yundong's heartbeat settle until he became a corpse in the truest sense.

After a long silence, Zhu Ling dabbed at the tears at the corners of her eyes and said, "The death point is over. Let's go into the Ancestral Hall, pay our respects, and search for any important clues... We shouldn't waste Brother Yang's sacrifice."

No one objected.

The players returned to the Ancestral Hall in silence. One by one, they took incense from the altar and knelt to pay their respects, as devout as believers.