By the river

The axe swayed a few times, then stopped, almost reluctantly.

The village chief gave Li Xian a long look before slowly retreating into the darkness.

The viewers let out a collective sigh of relief.

[The streamer's pretty smart. The right move here is to pledge allegiance to the village chief. Otherwise, he'll kill the player.]

[He's got nerves of steel, too. An axe that big hanging over his head, and his expression didn't even change...]

[On the first night, the village chief questions the outsiders one by one until someone gives the wrong answer.]

[Someone dies here almost every time in Stone River Village. Wonder who it'll be this time.]

[Let's see how the next person does.]

Everyone had been jolted awake by the screech of the iron gate, and they lay too anxious to sleep. Wang Ping in Room 3 had even heard faint movements from next door.

The two rooms were close together. Wang Ping raised himself slightly and looked through his window, catching sight of the village chief standing outside Li Xian's window.

The chief's lips moved as though he had said something, followed by the sound of Li Xian's reply.

Wang Ping strained his ears, but he couldn't make out what they were saying.

No... I could be next!

In desperation, Wang Ping quietly got out of bed, rose onto his toes, and pressed his ear against the wall.

Even then, Li Xian's voice remained muffled. He could only occasionally make out a few disconnected words.

By the time Li Xian finished speaking, Wang Ping still had no idea what he had said. Instead, he sensed the village chief approaching his room.

Click.

The window opened.

"Aah-!!!"

An agonized scream pierced everyone's eardrums.

The scream was shrill and frantic. It cut off almost as soon as it began, giving way to a continuous, pained moaning.

That voice held fear, pain, and irrepressible despair.

Within minutes, the moans grew fainter and fainter, until they died away completely.

Just as everyone thought it was over, a series of dull thuds filled the air.

Li Xian recalled the order in which everyone had entered their rooms and remembered the name of the person next door.

Wang Ping.

Everyone was guessing what those sounds meant, but only Li Xian knew exactly what was making those thuds.

They came from the axe in the village chief's hands.

If the axe had been striking the ground or something similar, the sound wouldn't have been so muffled. Coupled with the scream from moments earlier, Li Xian could think of only one possibility.

The village chief was hacking at Wang Ping's corpse over and over.

The thudding continued for almost half an hour. Just as Li Xian found himself helplessly imagining mangled chunks of flesh, it abruptly stopped, followed by the sound of the door next door opening.

Faint footsteps mingled with a rustling, scraping sound as they passed Li Xian's door.

Li Xian quietly got up, tiptoed to the door, and peered through the crack.

He saw the village chief dragging a blood-soaked sack out of the house.

Creeeak-

The front door opened.

Li Xian stood there thinking for a moment, then quietly opened his door and followed in the direction the village chief had gone.

[Holy crap, does he have a death wish?]

[This streamer's got some serious guts!]

[This is the first time I've seen anyone in this instance dare to follow the village chief after he kills someone. Even veteran players might not have the nerve. This rookie's got potential.]

[Guts? More like reckless stupidity. If he gets spotted, he'll be slaughtered on the spot.]

[Still, if he actually pulls it off, he might uncover a new clue. Nobody's managed a perfect clear of the Stone River Village instance yet.]

[They're all rookies, after all. Staying alive is good enough. Who has time to worry about instance completion?]

[Bad luck for them, running into TOD. One wrong move and the whole team could get wiped.]

Once the village chief left his house, he headed straight in one direction. Fortunately, the night was dark enough, and the rows of tiled-roof houses provided cover. Despite a few scares, Li Xian managed to follow him all the way to his destination.

It was the riverside Li Xian had visited earlier.

The village chief stopped after dragging the corpse to the riverbank. Li Xian hid beside a nearby abandoned tiled-roof house, quietly watching to see what he would do next.

The village chief threw the waist-high burlap sack into the river.

With a splash, the sack sank into the water. Instead of being swept away by the rushing current, it plunged straight to the riverbed, as though something had swallowed it.

More terrifying still, the only sound in the darkness had been the flowing river, but after the village chief threw the corpse in, a chewing noise came from the water.

Li Xian strained his ears. Once he was certain he hadn't misheard, his heart sank a little.

The chewing was rapid and incessant, like a colony of ants frantically devouring prey. It lasted only a dozen or so seconds before falling silent.

The village chief turned to leave, but then seemed to notice something. He suddenly wheeled around and headed toward the tiled-roof house by the river.

He lingered outside for a while, as if searching for something, then strode around the side of the house-

No one was there.

The village chief stood there for a moment before finally turning and heading home.

Li Xian pressed himself against the wall inside the house and wiped the cold sweat from his palms.

[Holy shit, that scared me to death.]

[Good thing the streamer hid fast. He slipped inside while the village chief was throwing the corpse in.]

[Half a second later and the chief would've caught a glimpse of his clothes as he went in.]

[By the way, did you guys hear that sound from the riverbed?]

[Yeah. It sounded like someone was... eating the corpse.]

Li Xian peered out the window. Once he was sure the village chief was far away, he immediately reached under the bed and pulled out the wedding dress and wig he had hidden there during the day.

[Holy shit! I completely forgot about those!]

[He'd be in deep trouble if someone else found that stuff. No wonder he wanted to come out here.]

After dragging the wedding dress and wig out from under the bed, Li Xian rummaged through a battered cabinet and found a pair of rusty scissors.

He spread the wedding dress on the floor and patiently worked through the wig bit by bit with the scissors. Then he bundled it all up in the dress, carried it to the riverbank, and tossed it into the river.

Yet the lightweight wedding dress wasn't swept away by the current either. Like the sack the village chief had thrown in, it sank straight down into the river.

Li Xian stared at the water as it gradually swallowed the wedding dress. Suddenly, the scene before him warped, and something like an infant's cries rang in his ears.

[Warning! Unknown contamination detected! Mental Value decreasing!]

[Mental Value -5!]

[Mental Value -5!]

[Mental Value -5!]

The successive notification chimes were completely drowned out by the piercing cries. Li Xian instinctively clapped his hands over his ears, but the sound seemed to be coming from inside his head and didn't diminish in the slightest.

The scene before him grew more and more distorted. Li Xian staggered, his body tipping toward the river.