Peach Haven Village (27)

Ding Shi held his breath and glanced into the backyard, only to see zombie Third Lady sitting in the chicken coop, happily feeding. He went to the front hall, grabbed Sun Qi, and left. "Come to your place."

Sun Qi hesitated. "My place? Wouldn't that be inappropriate? And what was that noise in the backyard just now?"

"It's nothing. Come on."

The school was a good place. There was no poultry being raised there, it had plenty of space, and it was surrounded by walls. Under normal circumstances, zombie Third Lady would not enter the school to hunt for prey.

After entering Sun Qi's dormitory, Ding Shi shut the door and drew the curtains over both the front and back windows. Sun Qi began to grow nervous. "Wang Wu, we're not that close yet."

"I know." Ding Shi peered outside through a gap in the curtains. "You'd better prepare yourself mentally. There's a zombie in the village, and another evil ghost may appear tonight. Is anyone living next door?"

The moment Sun Qi heard Ding Shi mention ghosts and zombies, she became even more nervous. "There's no need to go next door."

Ding Shi glanced at Sun Qi. "If we stay together and the zombie enters the room, do you think I'll stand in front of you and protect you, or use you to hold it back while I escape?" Sometimes, following the strong was not a good thing. Staying with the weak could actually improve one's odds of survival.

Sun Qi was left speechless.

There was only one core issue with that question: the strong person you followed could not merely be stronger than you.

Seeing that Sun Qi did not answer, Ding Shi picked up a safety pin from the table and went next door to pry open the lock.

The room was about thirty square meters. There was a corridor, followed by a large bunk bed with upper and lower levels. Ding Shi had asked around earlier. This was probably the fifth-grade dormitory, the graduating class of the elementary school. Because of the sacrifice, the school was closed this week.

Ever since entering this so-called leisure instance, Ding Shi had stayed up all night every night and accumulated quite a sleep debt. He lay down on the worn straw mat without changing clothes and soon fell asleep.

He did not know how long he had slept when knocking came from outside the door. Ding Shi opened his eyes but did not move or respond. After the third knock, the village chief's voice came through. "Little Ding, it's 11:20. You need to gather at the village entrance."

Ding Shi rolled out of bed, straightened his clothes, and opened the door. "Village Chief, you really are something. You even managed to find me here."

The village chief held a flashlight and sighed. "What can I do? I'm the village chief. Hurry up and go."

Ding Shi asked, "Village Chief, suppose you were especially satisfied with my work. What reward would you give me?"

The village chief froze for a moment. "What reward do you want?"

Ding Shi asked, "Do you have something like a jade token?"

The village chief shook his head. "No."

Fine then. Ding Shi patted the village chief on the shoulder and headed toward the village entrance. Since you had nothing good, you would no longer be the village chief in the future—you would just be Little Village. Still, Ding Shi was not sure whether the system would reward him based on the village chief's satisfaction. After all, this was only the first instance, and he had not figured out the system's quirks yet.

Some people came out of their homes carrying flashlights, while others walked along the field ridges holding pine torches. Small groups gathered together and made their way to the village entrance, where more than ten young and able-bodied men were already waiting.

The wedding procession was handled by a villager in his forties named Iron Pillar. He assigned everyone their roles, and the tasks were all kinds of strange. One groomsman had to drink nine cups of road-blocking wine, some men carried the sedan chair, some handed wedding candies to the onlookers, and others were specifically tasked with driving away beggars. Compared to those, Ding Shi's task of setting off guns was fairly normal. But Ding Shi preferred the abnormal. At a glance, he spotted a villager holding a muzzle-loading gun.

After some discussion, Ding Shi spent two dollars to obtain the gun and some gunpowder. During wedding ceremonies, the gun was loaded only with gunpowder, not iron shot or steel pellets. Each portion of gunpowder was wrapped in gunpowder paper, and there was a hole above the trigger for loading it.

Back then, muzzle-loading guns had no standardized specifications. Most were made by local blacksmiths, while the higher-end ones were factory-produced. Later, the authorities strictly controlled saltpeter, and these guns disappeared from use.

Ding Shi slipped someone five dollars. The man quietly left, then returned seven minutes later with a box containing twenty-five charges of gunpowder and more than a hundred tiny steel pellets in a plastic case.

When the auspicious hour arrived, a pair of cymbals clashed, and the band led the way. It was Ding Shi's first time hearing this combination of wedding instruments. He did not know what song they were playing. He could not say whether it sounded good or bad, only that it had a strong rhythm.

After one section of the song ended, there was a brief pause. Ding Shi fired the muzzle-loading gun into the sky. Boom! Another gunman fired right after him. Boom! The band picked up the rhythm again and repeated the previous tune.

As they entered the village, every household had its lights on, and many people stood by the roadside. The groom, Zhang San, clasped his hands in greeting while the groomsmen threw out candy, doing their best to recreate the wedding procession of old.

A hundred meters away, at the border between darkness and light, a patch of red wandered aimlessly. It was not drawn in by the lively wedding procession. Its mouth was smeared with blood, and its bridal gown looked as though it had been dyed red with it.

Inside Third Lady Temple, once the auspicious hour arrived, the wooden carving began to tremble. White Cloud Daoist used his lightness skill to leap onto the altar table. His left palm pressed against the carving's forehead while his right hand formed a spell seal. He chanted under his breath as rings of talismanic light flickered in and out around the carving's body.

The wooden carving struggled more and more violently. Bloody tears streamed from its eyes, and its body shook without pause, as though it might break free from its restraints at any moment.

White Cloud Daoist stepped back and pulled out a bamboo scroll, unfolding it. Guided by his hand seals and incantations, the scroll moved like a spirit serpent, continuously circling the wooden carving. A few minutes later, the carving finally quieted down. White Cloud Daoist withdrew the scroll, murmured, "Boundless Heavenly Worthy," and sat back down on his prayer cushion.

Suddenly, a fierce gust struck from behind. Before White Cloud Daoist could react, a sharp knife plunged into his heart from behind. He slowly turned his head, blood spilling from his mouth.

The newcomer reached into his sleeve with his right hand and grabbed the bamboo scroll. White Cloud Daoist clutched the man's right hand tightly, refusing to let him take it. "Blind Zhao, you..."

Blind Zhao snatched the bamboo scroll away. "What about you? The Wordless Heavenly Scripture belonged to the Zhao Family in the first place." When Blind Zhao's grandfather was young, he had served at Master White Cloud's side and could be considered half a disciple. Unfortunately, he had no spiritual root and could only be a menial disciple. In the end, Master White Cloud accepted White Cloud Daoist as his disciple and passed the Wordless Heavenly Scripture to White Cloud Daoist.

Blind Zhao opened the bamboo scroll, only to find that there was not a single word on it. Startled and suspicious, he said, "I clearly saw words on it." When White Cloud Daoist had performed divination with the Wordless Heavenly Scripture earlier that day, everyone had seen it covered in dense writing.

White Cloud Daoist sighed. "Isn't the Wordless Heavenly Scripture supposed to be wordless? Take it if you want, but why choose today? You'll get the entire village killed."

Blind Zhao said, "So what? My grandfather was beaten to death, yet he would rather die than reveal the location of White Cloud Temple. The villagers stood nearby and watched coldly. They knew he was protecting the village's secret, but they just watched him get beaten to death without doing anything."

White Cloud Daoist sighed again.

When he saw that White Cloud Daoist remained silent, Blind Zhao said, "You didn't know, did you? I tricked Ding Shi into opening Third Lady's coffin. With how crafty that kid is, there's an eighty percent chance he's already broken Third Lady's seal."

White Cloud Daoist sighed once more. "Boundless Heavenly Worthy." With that, his body slumped sideways, and he fell dead to the ground.