Zhong Nan

"Hoo~~~"

The boy let out a long breath. "It's a good thing Brother Zhang brought me here in time, otherwise the consequences would have been truly unthinkable."

"Hmph, hmph, hmph..."

Piglet snorted nearby, though unfortunately, no one could understand what the creature was saying.

"Who are you?"

Xu Tong stepped forward and reached out his palm toward the boy, but the boy immediately recoiled, pointing at the Cinnabar Bracelet on his wrist. "Don't touch me, this thing will scorch my soul."

"This!!"

Hearing the boy's words, he glanced at the Cinnabar Bracelet on his wrist; it was an item he had obtained when he received the script.

He hadn't paid much attention to the trinket before, but now it seemed the object had uses he wasn't yet aware of.

"My name is Zhong Nan. I warned them earlier not to trust my uncle and to leave quickly, but they didn't listen to my advice, and so they ended up like this."

The boy walked to the table and looked at the Paper Dolls that resembled Zhou Yu and Wang Shaohui, sighing deeply. "If only you had listened to me back then, how good that would have been."

Whether Zhou Yu and Wang Shaohui could hear the boy's voice was unknown, but a cold gust of wind suddenly rose in the room, blowing against Zhou Yu's bridal veil and revealing the gray-white face beneath it.

"Hiss~~!!"

Li Bo felt the surrounding air turn icy in an instant, and looking at the two Paper Dolls sitting on the chairs, he felt an overwhelming sense of revulsion.

He hurriedly asked, "Who is your uncle? From what you're saying, is everything here his doing?"

The boy nodded and pointed to the box on the left, signaling for Li Bo to bring it down. "You'll know once you see what's inside the box."

Li Bo looked at Xu Tong with deep suspicion, and only after seeing him nod did he walk over to lift the box down.

Taking advantage of this moment, Xu Tong picked up the jade plaque from the floor and held it in his hand.

"How did you end up inside this?"

"I was originally a wandering soul trapped in the village. This jade is a piece of ink-jade, perfect for nourishing the soul, so I hid inside it. I tried to warn them to be careful of my uncle and wanted to show them a way out, but they wouldn't listen."

Zhong Nan wore a look of regret, and as he spoke, he pointed to Zhang Hao nearby. "This guy ran out headlong; it's lucky he ran into me, otherwise..."

Zhong Nan didn't finish the sentence, but the implication was self-evident.

Xu Tong glanced at Zhang Hao, though unfortunately, he couldn't discern anything from a pig's head.

"Then are they alive or dead now?"

Li Bo said this as he brought the box over, helplessly shaking his own burst wound to signal for Xu Tong to help him secure it again.

Zhong Nan also noticed Li Bo's severed hand. "They are alive, but like the villagers outside, their souls have been tricked out by my uncle. To restore them, we must use the Soul-Calling Bell at my uncle's waist."

Zhong Nan opened the box to reveal it was filled with paper gold ingots. After rummaging through them, he pulled out a small notebook and found a black-and-white family photo inside.

The photo showed three people: a man, a woman, and a baby held in the middle.

The man looked very young, and from his honest, simple smile, it wasn't hard to see that he had been exceptionally happy at that moment.

"My uncle was originally a paper-folder in the town. He wasn't a disciple of the mystic arts, but he knew a few things passed down through the generations. Later, he took a wife and had a big, healthy boy. They were quite happy, but within two years, his son died prematurely, and his wife couldn't take the shock and hanged herself. My uncle went mad from that day on."

As he said this, Zhong Nan slowly crouched down, hugging his shoulders into a ball, and looked at the vast village outside the door.

"This is the village my uncle built himself. At first, he made human shapes out of straw and dressed them in clothes; everyone in town said he was crazy. Until one day, a caravan passed by to rest, and from then on, that caravan never left. People from town came to investigate, only to find that the straw men here had actually come to life. It was my uncle's doing... He tricked the living into coming here, hooked their souls out to place them into the straw, and used paper to craft them human skin..."

"Terrifying~~ It's too terrifying~ I want to go home, I... I want to go home..."

As Zhong Nan spoke, his body began to tremble uncontrollably, his face filled with horror as if he had recalled something dreadful.

Even Li Bo, a boorish man who was usually arrogant and domineering, couldn't help but sigh deeply and shake his head silently at the sight of the child.

Xu Tong rummaged through the box and found a sandalwood box. Upon opening it, he saw a book inside.

He didn't know what era this book belonged to; it looked as if it would fall apart the moment he picked it up. The cracked pages were like withered autumn leaves, feeling as though a single breath could scatter them into dust.

The cover looked aged as well, though it was in much better condition than the brittle pages, likely having been rebound at a later date. On it, the words Book of Ghost Craftsman were written in a crooked hand.

He tried to flip through the contents, but the characters were neither the simplified script he was familiar with nor traditional. They were written in a wild, flowing style that resembled clerical script but didn't quite fit. He struggled to read two lines before he couldn't continue.

However, this had to be something valuable, otherwise, it wouldn't have been carefully stored in a sandalwood box.

Zhong Nan watched from the side as he tucked the book into his clothes, his mouth twitching, though he said nothing.

"So, the villagers in this village were actually living people to begin with? Then those people we saw burned to death at the foot of the mountain..."

He looked toward Zhou Yu and Wang Shaohui lying on the bed. Li Bo stood nearby, and at the thought of those charred corpses, his stomach began to churn uncontrollably, clearly leaving him with significant psychological trauma.

"Please, I beg you, help me, help us. We have been trapped here for far too long. As long as you can get the bell at my uncle's waist, we can be set free."

Zhong Nan threw himself onto Li Bo's lap, weeping and begging.

At this moment, a notification suddenly rang in both their ears: [Main Quest: Find the True Culprit] has been completed.

[Main Quest 2: Liberation]

[Mission Objective: Grant release to the innocent souls trapped here.]

[Mission Reminder: You must believe that there are things the living need, but the dead need even more...]

The cold, prompt-like voice echoed in the ears of the two humans and one pig, confirming that Zhong Nan's words were no lie. The truth had been unraveled, and the mastermind behind it all was indeed the very uncle Zhong Nan had spoken of.

Yet, was this truly the whole truth? He looked at Zhong Nan, who was still squatting on the ground weeping, his silent face finally revealing a hint of disdain.

There will be one more update tonight.