Outside the Ancestral Hall, Zhang Licai dropped the bucket as if it were a snake or scorpion, then hurriedly turned and jogged a few steps away from the gloomy scene behind him.
Since morning, he'd had an uncomfortable feeling about the Ancestral Hall, as though countless pairs of eyes were glaring at him from the shadows. If he weren't worried that all the ghosts would come out at night, he wouldn't have wanted to make another trip here.
Zhou Yilin didn't seem all that frightened. She simply followed along obediently, keeping a distance of two paces from Zhang Licai—neither too close nor too far.
The girl had stopped sobbing, though her eyes were still red-rimmed, making her look especially pitiful. "Brother Zhang, how are we going to deal with Chang Xu?"
Zhang Licai was taken aback, his pace slowing as well. He truly couldn't understand the way her mind worked. "Why would we deal with him?"
"I just have a feeling he's not a good person. He's working with someone like Zhao Feng, and he even let him kill Brother Yang..." Zhou Yilin said carefully. "Besides, there are more death points later on. Who knows if he'll stab us in the back?"
You're no good person yourself, you know? Don't act so much that you end up fooling yourself...
Zhang Licai grumbled inwardly and blinked twice. "That can't be right. Didn't Chang Xu say he had a crucial clue?"
"How could he possibly have a crucial clue? He was probably lying to you..." Zhou Yilin turned her face away and looked in the direction of Granny Su's house. "This is the Novice Pool. There can't be so many twists and turns..."
After hearing the girl's words, Zhang Licai felt a little uncertain too.
He looked up at the darkening sky and pondered for a long while without figuring anything out. In the end, he changed the subject. "Let's not think about it for now. Whatever happens, we'll talk about it when we get back."
Zhou Yilin pouted and gave a wronged little "Mm," but didn't say anything more.
On the western side of Su Village, pale gray mist tinged the deepening dusk, blending into a hazy, almost unreal gray-purple. In the murk, night slowly crept into every gap between the sky, earth, and houses, driving away the feeble mist and cloaking the land in its place.
There was no moon in the night sky. The road beneath their feet seemed to merge with the night, equally pitch-black.
Qi Si stood steadily where he was. As time passed, his eyes gradually adjusted to the darkness.
Or rather, a faint light had appeared in the darkness.
He saw faint greenish lights flickering like will-o'-the-wisps in the window openings of the dilapidated houses on either side of the road, which had been pitch-black moments earlier.
The sound of shuffling footsteps rose and fell in the silence, followed by one door opening after another.
Figures of varying heights and builds emerged from the doorways, swaying and trembling. Some carried hoes on their backs, while others shouldered carrying poles. At first glance, they looked no different from farmers heading out to work during the busy season.
Villagers, out at night. Qi Si made his assessment, and the corresponding information automatically surfaced in his mind, including Yang Yundong's description of the villagers.
Without exception, these villagers who only appeared at night wore black cloaks, almost blending into the darkness.
They carried farming tools in one hand and lanterns in the other. Their faces wore contented smiles, making them all the more eerie in this setting.
Qi Si, standing in the middle of the road with Zhu Ling dangling from his hand, stuck out like a sore thumb. He soon became the focus of everyone's attention.
"Meat. Give us meat..."
"We want meat..."
Figures crowded in from all directions, like walking corpses, repeating the same words over and over.
Qi Si retreated step by step, still holding Zhu Ling, until he reached a spot where the figures were sparse. Then, without the slightest hesitation, he shoved the still-unconscious Zhu Ling into the crowd.
Zhu Ling wasn't heavy, but Qi Si used a clever bit of force, knocking two villagers to the ground.
Every villager's movements visibly stalled for a moment. Clearly, they hadn't expected things to unfold this way.
But the monsters weren't inclined to think things through. Two seconds later, the villagers started moving again. The two who had fallen staggered back to their feet, and together with the others, split into two groups to surround Zhu Ling and Qi Si.
Keeping his cool, Qi Si enunciated each word. "You can't kill people with your own hands to get meat. Under that rule, what can you do to me?"
At his words, the villagers slowed down. They hesitated, torn between their choices.
Seeing this, Qi Si raised a hand and pointed at Zhu Ling, who was sprawled on the ground. He smiled as he said, "You should know there's nothing you can do to me in the short term. Instead of wasting your time, why not work on that beauty over there? After all, I'm the only living person who knows that rule..."
It was hard to tell how much they understood, but the villagers surrounding him slowly turned and walked toward Zhu Ling. With their sluggish pace and black robes, they looked like a pack of suspicious hyenas.
Qi Si contentedly brushed the front of his clothes, wrinkled from carrying Zhu Ling, then strode deeper into the western part of the village.
The corpse of the God from the legend lay somewhere in the western part of the village.
The source of every eerie thing, the scarlet eyes in the depths of the nightmare, the unseen pull of the Identity Card... Countless factors interwove, sketching out a mysterious and uncanny corner of the world.
Qi Si was curious. What kind of existence was it, really?
The villagers' footsteps grew fainter and fainter. All that remained by his ears was the faint sound of wind howling. Gradually, even the wind fell silent, leaving only a stagnant, deathly stillness all around, as though this moment had been forcibly cut out from the river of time, no longer flowing with the turning of the stars.
The farther he walked, the darker it grew, until he could barely see his hand in front of his face. Soon, he could no longer tell which way the road beneath his feet went.
Qi Si put aside his scattered thoughts and continued in the same direction as before.
One step, two steps. He counted well over a hundred.
Without warning, a light suddenly appeared in the pitch-black darkness.
It wasn't dazzling. Just tiny flecks of gold floated and swayed in the air, stretching into a wavering path of light.
Qi Si didn't hesitate for a moment. He stepped forward, following the light.
Flecks of light passed into his body, then drifted away. His consciousness rose and fell in a sea of thought, as though communicating with a deeper, loftier existence, only to be dragged back down by the weight of his flesh, stirring a muffled echo from the earth.
Blinding light suddenly filled his vision. Golden specks, fragments, and strips of silk floated in the air, drifting slowly and freely like eddies submerged in the sea.
Qi Si realized that at some point, he had come to stand beneath a Golden Giant Tree. Gilded vines, just as golden as the tree, hung from its branches, swaying without any wind.
A golden river flowed beneath the tree. He followed its current upstream, and a streak of dazzling crimson caught his eye.
It was a figure in a red robe, leaning against the middle of the river. Its half-lidded eyes glinted scarlet. It had looked at him from afar in the nightmare before, then turned into a downpour of blood when he looked back.
Its chest and abdomen were reduced to a mass of white bones, its body covered in wounds. It looked just like a fish stranded on the shore, waiting to rot.
And yet it was so sacred and solemn, beyond mockery, question, or desecration.
The instant he laid eyes on it, a thought formed in Qi Si's mind: it was a god.
The evil spirit on the Identity Card opened its scarlet eyes, the intact half of its face twisting into an eerie smile.
Clusters of gray mist coalesced into black tentacles, rising and falling with the surging of thought.
[Warning! You are too close to a God-level NPC (data deleted)... Error! Danger!]
Descriptive knowledge bypassed the process of comprehension, seized hold of his consciousness, and was absorbed and understood.
Its blood had formed a river...
Its influence was ongoing...
It could still respond...
It was as if tens of thousands of people were whispering in his ears. Utter grief, wild joy, rage, indifference... Conflicting emotions that didn't belong to him swept through his consciousness, rushing past without a trace.
Qi Si's face twisted into a hideous grimace. His rationality burst apart inch by inch like bubbles, while frenzied thoughts he could barely grasp surged and darted through his mind.
He didn't know when he'd started crying.
His fear reached its peak, then gave way to an overwhelming thrill and delight. Beneath the streaks of tears on Qi Si's face, a huge smile appeared. "As you wished, I've come. As for what you did to disturb my dreams the night before last, shouldn't we settle the score?"
There was no reply, not even the sound of wind.
The God had been silent for a long time.
Qi Si's vision blurred, then settled. Colorful fragments spread before his eyes in a kaleidoscopic display, shimmering with shifting light.
He stepped over the dead leaves on the ground, listening to them rustle beneath his feet, and walked toward the corpse in the river.
At a certain moment, his shattered rationality flooded back into his mind. At last, he fished his thoughts out of the chaotic sea, though they were still difficult to put into words.
Smiling, he spoke to himself. "The deity disguised as the Black-Robed Taoist said you needed human blood and flesh to restore your body, yet advised the villagers of Su Village to feed your flesh to the visitors."
"At first, I was confused. Since we players have already undergone a transformation after eating your flesh, how could our blood and flesh be of any use?"
"The contradiction in the rules couldn't be there for no reason. Unless he deceived the villagers with his words."
Qi Si stopped two meters from the river. He braced himself to remain standing, then looked down at the corpse resting by the bank.
"No. He actually gave us the answer already. 'It bears the same malice toward all living things. Its favorite thing to do is lure humans into committing crimes, then watch them struggle under the weight of their original sin.'"
"What you need has never been flesh and blood. You need 'sin'—the 'sin' committed by the ghosts and players in response to this instance's core mechanics."
Silence reigned.
The corpse of a god didn't seem all that different from a human corpse. Perhaps it was better-looking, and seemed more worth collecting.
At the thought of its value as a collectible, Qi Si's smile turned a little more genuine.
He tilted his head, then took two more steps and crouched beside the exquisitely featured corpse.
Beneath the Golden Giant Tree, the black-haired young man took hold of the white, skeletal hand lying against a backdrop of red and gold. His eyes curved in a smile.
"Then tell me, Evil God, is the sin on my soul enough?"
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