Turning Humans into Sheep

Fu City was vast. South of its urban center lay the Sleeping Mountain District.

To the west lay the Taian District, which contained Maishan County. At the westernmost edge of Maishan County stood Xianyang Village.

Farther west of Xianyang Village, beyond Fu City's boundaries, stretched the endless Ancient Forest, untouched by modern development.

Maishan County was unremarkable, but Xianyang Village had a story behind it.

That story was also how Xianyang Village had gotten its name.

Legend had it that hundreds of years ago, refugees fleeing from the north endured a long, arduous journey before reaching Maishan County.

But all the fertile land in Maishan County had already been claimed. What remained could never sustain so many refugees.

Just as the exhausted, starving refugees stood on the brink of death, a black sheep suddenly appeared.

It made no sound. Its elongated pupils simply stared straight at them.

As though bewitched, the refugees began following it in a daze.

By the time they stopped, they had reached a place of beautiful mountains and clear waters!

Overjoyed, the refugees settled there and named it Xianyang Village in honor of the black sheep that had led them there.

Naturally, sheep became sacred creatures worshipped by the villagers.

Xianyang Village even held a Sheep Transformation Festival once every three years.

The lucky person chosen would wear sheep horns and a sheepskin, serving as the Sheep Immortal for three days.

August 19.

Tomorrow was the triennial Sheep Transformation Festival.

The villagers gathered to sing and dance. Each household contributed a dish, creating a banquet that stretched a hundred meters.

It truly was a place of beautiful mountains and clear waters, much like an idyllic haven. Mountains surrounded it on all sides, and the only way into the village was a winding dirt road. Its surface was so rough that most drivers would not dare take it.

So despite its distinctive local customs, the village remained obscure.

The Sheep Transformation Festival lasted three days. Throughout those three days, the village imposed strict orders: every villager had to attend, and no one could leave until the festival ended and the restriction was lifted.

It was hard to imagine such feudal, patriarchal behavior surviving in modern society, but that was the reality of remote villages. The village chief's word carried even more weight than the law.

Yet that night, a furtive figure appeared outside the village's Immortal Sheep Ancestral Hall.

His name was Chen Ping. He was one of the few young people in the village who had gotten into university and left the mountains, and he had taken leave specifically to return for the Sheep Transformation Festival.

Chen Ping had received a higher education. When he had lived in the village, he had thought nothing of it, but after leaving for university, he had begun to find the festival rather strange.

His mother had once been chosen as the festival's Sheep Immortal. According to the village elders, the lucky person selected could make a wish. As long as it was not too greedy, it would generally come true.

Back then, his mother had wished for him to get into university.

And then something strange had happened.

Chen Ping, who had always been unruly and utterly uninterested in studying, had suddenly seemed to find his way. He had finished middle school and high school without trouble and actually gotten into a prestigious university!

But after he got in, his mother died.

Anyone capable of getting into university had to have some intelligence. Chen Ping soon realized that his mother's death resembled stories in which a wish granted by an evil god demanded some other price in return.

He had also been restless and quick to act since childhood. After returning to Xianyang Village this time, he outwardly joined the villagers in eating and drinking, but secretly kept looking for a chance to sneak into the Immortal Sheep Ancestral Hall. The place was far too mysterious. It had been guarded for as long as he could remember, and no one was allowed inside except the chosen "Sheep Immortal," who entered the day before the festival began. When that person emerged the next day, they were already dressed for the role. His mother had done the same.

Tomorrow was the Sheep Transformation Festival. He had heard that Old Li's daughter was the lucky person chosen this time.

That girl...

Chen Ping barely remembered her. All he recalled was that she was somewhat dark-skinned, meek, and quiet even as a child.

He stole a glance inside the ancestral hall and felt frustrated.

There were even more guards than usual. The place was practically sealed tight.

But the tighter the security, the more suspicious the hall seemed. He was almost certain it held a secret.

As he pondered how to get inside, Chen Ping suddenly spotted another furtive figure.

Was that... the village chief's son?

Why was he not using the front entrance?

Chen Ping secretly followed him.

In the darkness, the chief's son parted the weeds, lay flat on the ground, and crawled into the hall's grounds.

Damn... there's even a hole in the wall!

The unexpected discovery delighted Chen Ping.

Only after the sounds on the other side of the wall receded did he approach and push aside the weeds as the chief's son had done.

He crawled through the hole and looked up. The tall, ancient wooden hall loomed before him, filling him with an inexplicable unease.

The grounds inside these walls were much larger than he had imagined...

He walked farther in, growing more frightened with every step.

The night was already dark, and everything around him was far too quiet. Not even an insect chirped. Something about it was strange.

As the saying went, clever people were the best at scaring themselves. Chen Ping was living proof. Horror stories and terrifying scenes kept surfacing in his mind until even his calves began trembling.

Suddenly!

"I don't want to be the Sheep Immortal!"

The piercing, tearful scream made him flinch.

Wait... that voice belongs to Old Li's daughter, Li Rong?

Sure enough, she had been brought into the hall a day early to be dressed.

While he was still recovering from the fright, Chen Ping's nose twitched. He smelled an unusual fragrance.

Is that... Longevity Incense?

Is someone burning incense?

Breathing in the scent inexplicably eased his nerves a little. The girl named Li Rong also suddenly stopped screaming.

"Dragging her into a creepy place like this in the middle of the night to dress her up. No wonder she doesn't want to..."

Chen Ping muttered to himself.

He glanced around and happened to see the chief's son, who had sneaked in ahead of him, entering a room.

He quickly followed, straining his ears as he crept toward the wooden window.

As he drew closer, Chen Ping frowned. What a stench!

Even the Longevity Incense could not mask it.

It was the smell of advanced decomposition.

He had once seen a dead wild boar by the river. Who knew how long it had been soaking in the water? Its entire body had rotted, and the odor it gave off was exactly what was coming from this room.

What are they doing?

Chen Ping's heart beat faster and faster. He quietly slipped his fingers into a gap in the wooden window and carefully lifted it a crack, peering inside by the darkness outside and the light within.

There were far more people inside than he had expected: the village chief's family, elders from several of the village's large clans, and several middle-aged clan heads who frequently left the village to handle outside contacts and business.

They stood in a circle, each holding a stick of Longevity Incense. The chief's son, who had just arrived, received a glare and hurried to fetch a stick before obediently joining them.

Chen Ping strained to see through the crack. Two people were surrounded by the others. One was a girl of seventeen or eighteen, presumably Li Rong.

The other knelt hunched over on a cushion, his face wrinkled and extraordinarily old. Looking more closely, Chen Ping recognized the village chief.

The chief is already in his nineties, and he's still staying up late to do something this exhausting?

As Chen Ping wondered, he suddenly saw that they had stripped off Li Rong's top!

What are these people doing?!

Chen Ping sensed that something was wrong. Are they planning to assault Li Rong?

While he hesitated over whether to call the police, he saw the chief take out an extremely old-fashioned writing brush, soak it with ink, and set it against Li Rong's naked upper body.

As the first stroke fell, Li Rong suddenly opened her eyes. They were bloodshot, and tears spilled out.

"Aaaah!!!"

Goose bumps erupted all over Chen Ping. He had never heard the normally quiet Li Rong scream so loudly or so shrilly.

Yet the clan elders and middle-aged clan heads around her simply held their Longevity Incense in one hand and pressed down on her shoulders with the other.

They did not seem to be using much force, but Li Rong could no longer move.

Only her eyes could still turn. All she could do was cry, her entire body trembling uncontrollably.

Meanwhile, the Old Village Chief, who was scrawling bizarre markings across her body, did not even lift his eyelids. His expression was focused and solemn, as though he were performing some sacred ritual.

He wrote very slowly, as if every stroke demanded tremendous effort.

The eerie scene frightened Chen Ping so badly that his legs went weak and his teeth chattered.

About half an hour passed before, at last... Li Rong's body was covered in densely packed, strange symbols.

These were not writing at all. As the Old Village Chief lifted his brush from her body after the final stroke, Li Rong's face suddenly twisted beyond recognition!

The people holding Longevity Incense, who had been circling the two of them, also stopped.

"Freely offered, freely accepted. Each wish fulfilled, each debt settled."

A hoarse, chant-like voice squeezed out of the Old Village Chief's throat.

Under the incense holders' watchful eyes, the Old Village Chief gave a slight nod.

At this, two middle-aged clan heads each produced a black sheep horn. An exceptionally long iron nail had been driven into the base of each horn.

Holding the horns in both hands, they raised them high. With everyone watching and incense smoke curling around them, they aimed the nails at Li Rong's temples and drove them in!

Li Rong's eyes immediately bulged. Veins swelled around her forehead, and two trails of bloody tears ran from the corners of her eyes. Clearly, her pain had reached its limit.

But soon, the pain stopped.

The Old Village Chief picked up his brush, soaked it with ink, and jabbed its tip hard against the spot between her eyebrows!

A crimson mark remained there. But the next moment, the skin covering her upper body, covered in strange symbols, began peeling off on its own!

Chen Ping stared in horror, clamping his free hand over his mouth for fear he would cry out.

What was happening before him was far too grotesque and terrifying... A girl who had been alive and well moments ago had merely been touched between the eyebrows, and now the skin all over her body was peeling away by itself, exposing crimson flesh...

Yet this time, Li Rong did not make a sound. She simply sat cross-legged in silence, her eyes vacant. Only beneath the two horns embedded in her temples did blood continue to trickle.

"Don the immortal's robes."

The Old Village Chief's aged, chilling voice sounded again.

A sheepskin... was brought forward as Chen Ping watched, trembling.

The Old Village Chief unfolded it and slowly draped it over Li Rong's crimson flesh.

The sheepskin, which should have been a lifeless object, actually began to move!

It writhed into Li Rong's body, clinging tightly to her flesh. In the blink of an eye... it had become part of her.

"We humbly welcome you, honored Sheep Immortal."

"We humbly welcome you, honored Sheep Immortal..."

"..."

Everyone in the room bowed reverently. But to Chen Ping, watching from outside the window, the sight was utterly horrifying.

He could barely control his breathing, and his heart pounded as though it would leap out of his chest.

This is the Sheep Transformation Festival?

This is what it means to be the lucky person chosen?

He suddenly thought of his mother. Could my mother have been... He shuddered, chilled to the bone.

No. I have to call the police. I have to escape and call the police!

This horrifying place has to be shut down!

Meanwhile, the Old Village Chief was performing the final step.

Once again, he soaked the brush with some strange ink. As long as its tip remained fixed between Li Rong's eyebrows, it could preserve her "divinity" for a while, allowing everyone to demand whatever they wished of her.

However, just as the chief secured the ink-soaked brush tip snugly between Li Rong's eyebrows-

Suddenly.

Chen Ping quietly backed away. He was about to leave, but as he lowered the wooden window, he made a sound!

Crack-

The faint noise rang through the silent ancestral hall like thunder!

The Old Village Chief's hand shook. With a clatter, the brush tip fixed between her eyebrows dropped to the floor.

The Old Village Chief's aged face instantly turned deathly pale with terror. "Pick it up! Put it back! Hurry!" he roared.

A strange night breeze suddenly slipped through the window, sending the brush rolling across the floor.

The people around her scrambled to pick it up, then hastily pressed its tip back between Li Rong's eyebrows.

The Old Village Chief watched anxiously for a long while. Seeing that Li Rong's eyes remained firmly shut, he finally breathed a sigh of relief.

"You lot, find whoever was out there just now!"

"Yes, Chief..."

A breeze blew in from the ancient forest, unchanged since time immemorial.

The ancestral hall, which had been crowded with people moments earlier, was now empty.

The girl sat rigidly on a meditation cushion in the hall, draped in sheepskin, with two black sheep horns embedded in her temples. The blood on her face had been carefully cleaned away, and even her expression had been arranged into a smile.

But none of the people of Xianyang Village, who had already gone to bed, knew...

In the dim ancestral hall, the girl who should never have opened her eyes now opened them...

August 20, eight in the morning.

Qin Manjiang had arrived in Maishan County the previous night.

Today was the day the game began. Only two buses went to Xianyang Village each day, one in the morning and one in the evening. He had to come early and wait.

But... where are the others?

The thought had barely formed when he heard a man's voice:

"Hey! Kid, over here!"

Me?

Kid?

Qin Manjiang looked toward the voice. A middle-aged man with drooping eyelids sat in the driver's seat of an off-road vehicle. He was unshaven and looked rather unkempt, but what he said next took Qin Manjiang by surprise.

"Hello there, kid. I'm Boss Shi."

A new volume begins! This is a four-thousand-character chapter with a multiplayer scenario. Please support it with your votes. Thank you!

(End of chapter)