bookcurios Chapter 87 The Sacrifice Begins
Chapter 87 The Sacrifice Begins
Yan Xun returned to that house. Now he just needs to wait for the right opportunity to retrieve Gui Yuchong's body and then find a chance to leave the instance.
He chose to act after the sacrificial ceremony and temple fair had begun.
The room contained food and water he had taken from the convenience store, enough to keep him alive for the next couple of days.
With Yan Xun's "death," the film's pace suddenly accelerates.
With the disappearance of the college students who came to visit, the whole village began to stir, and at least those who passed by the houses hurried along.
Yan Xun waited quietly for the temple fair to begin.
……
When Meng Zhi and the others woke up, they found themselves no longer in the Yan family's room.
He saw Gu Jia with her hands and feet bound, as well as Sun Yue and Ruan Yun.
Tomorrow is the start of the temple fair. Meng Zhi crawled over, twisting and turning, and nudged Ruan Yun a few times with his shoulder. "What do you mean?"
"Do you have any clues?"
Over the past two days, they have been searching for clues in the village and finally pieced together the secret of Wusheng Village from some deserted homes and conversations among the villagers.
Perhaps feeling that they wouldn't run away, the villagers became much more casual in their conversations.
—Some children in the village who were born with congenital defects were placed in wooden boxes after they died and cared for by the Goddess of Compassion.
When the time is right, using fresh blood as a catalyst, one can be brought back to life and completely resurrected.
The speaker was an elderly man who smiled at Meng Zhi and Ruan Yun, who were asking questions, as if he were talking about some strange tale.
Knowing what they would encounter next, the two were certain that this was not just a legend.
"Is it to bring back... those children who are born with congenital defects?" Meng Zhi remembered asking that question.
The old man looked at him with a strange expression. "Of course not."
"Those are all medicine dregs."
He stopped there and started smoking his homemade cigarettes again.
Meng Zhi felt uneasy, and he and Ruan Yun went to Xiaoxiao Supermarket to inquire about the origin of this legend.
But the owner of Xiaoxiao Supermarket just smiled and said, "Don't listen to their nonsense."
"Feudal superstition."
"How can the dead be brought back to life?" The boss chuckled, a cigarette dangling from his lips. "Especially those old fogies who've been dead for who knows how long."
...Old man?
With these questions in mind, Meng Zhi and the others went to discuss them with Sun Zhao again.
Sun Zhao then brought up the rumor that Yan Xun's father had mentioned when they first arrived at Wusheng Village.
And the reincarnation theory of Wusheng Village.
Meng Zhi and the others felt even more horrified upon hearing this... With Sun Zhao's reminder, they did indeed notice that some of the elderly and young people in Wusheng Village were wearing jewelry, and the thought of what it was made them feel even more disgusted.
“What else can we do?” Ruan Yun said. “The system didn’t give a complete answer.” She rolled her eyes as she spoke.
If they could decipher all the plot details in advance, they could leave the instance directly, and the subsequent plot development would become the responsibility of the NPCs.
But when they present these pieced-together deduced ideas to the system...
The system, however, indicated that the answer was incomplete and not the whole truth.
Gu Jia sat cross-legged in the corner, his head down, his bangs so long that no one could see his face clearly.
"You can escape."
He suddenly spoke.
Ruan Yun glanced at him. "What do you mean?"
“When we’re hanging on the wire, we can fight back,” Gu Jia said. “...as long as we kill these villagers.”
"Then we can leave."
Sun Yue sat not far from Gu Jia.
In her script, after being hung up, she saw the Weeping Mother Goddess... The script didn't mention what happened after that, so it's unknown whether it was because they died or for some other reason.
The script for Meng Zhi and Ruan Yun only goes up to the part where they disappear and are then tied together as a medicinal ingredient.
Ruan Yun hesitated upon hearing this, "Is it possible?"
Although it is still unknown how many people will be there on the day of the sacrifice, people have been returning to Wusheng Village in the past few days, so there will surely be a large number of people on that day.
These villagers were secondary; what worried Ruan Yun and the others the most was Yan Yu and the Goddess Cimu.
Even though Sun Yue said that she had been protected by the Goddess of Compassion in the Compassionate Mother Hall that day, Ruan Yun and the other woman still didn't quite believe that the Goddess of Compassionate Mother was really some kind of benevolent deity.
As for Yan Yu, needless to say, he has a ghostly aura and doesn't look like a good person.
But after much deliberation, Ruan Yun realized that not resisting would also lead to certain death, so she gritted her teeth and said, "I'll fight."
These players all have items and abilities to varying degrees, so why should they be afraid of not being able to fight their way out?!
……
Yan Xun discovered that the snail boy was still secretly bringing him food.
No one knew when this person arrived, but when Yan Xun woke up, the familiar food box was always on the table, containing the same food he used to eat.
Yan Yu himself has not appeared in the past few days. It is unknown whether it is because the sacrificial ceremony and temple fair are approaching and this important figure in the village is unable to get away.
After the sacrificial ceremony, the temple fair in Wusheng Village will officially begin.
The village roads, which were previously sparsely populated, have been decorated with various lanterns in recent days, creating a lively atmosphere.
People on the street, regardless of age or gender, all wore masks.
These masks are all different in appearance; some have a mournful face, while others have a happy smile.
Yan Xun also took the opportunity to get a mask and blend into the crowd in the village.
When I returned to that familiar banyan tree, everything around me had changed.
Countless lanterns were hung high, and as night fell, the only light in Wusheng Village was from these bright red lanterns.
The people were dressed differently, but they all wore very similar masks—in the candlelight, they looked like paper effigies.
Yan Xun accidentally bumped into a few people along the way and felt that their bodies were light and weightless.
The further you walk towards the Cimu Hall, the more people there are.
Upon reaching the road where the Cimu Hall was located, a high platform was erected along the way.
Four people were hanging on the high platform.
Yan Xun recognized the four people at a glance; they were Gu Jia and the others.
Perhaps out of concern that they might be tortured to death prematurely, the four were not bound with wire at this point, but were simply suspended by hemp rope.
Yan Xun tried to find Sun Zhao in the crowd...
He didn't know the movie's plot, but guessed that Sun Zhao had probably already gone into hiding after the four people disappeared one after another, and was probably like him, wearing a mask and hiding in the crowd.
"The ceremony hasn't started yet?" Yan Xun asked from the crowd.
"It's not time yet," someone replied. Perhaps because the voice sounded young, no one paid much attention, only adding, "Didn't your parents tell you anything?"
Before he could continue, Yan Xun squeezed out of the crowd again—he figured the four people weren't going to die anytime soon, so it was more important to retrieve Gui Yuchong's body first.
After they went to the Yan family to retrieve Gui Yuchong, who was lying there obediently.
Yan Xun heard the sound of gongs and drums and realized that the sacrificial ceremony was about to begin. He hurriedly left the Yan family and ran towards the Cimu Hall.
……
On the high platform, Yan Yu wore a long robe that almost dragged on the ground, with wide sleeves, and was adorned with layers of "jewelry".
He wore a paper-thin mask that covered his eyebrows and eyes.
The mask was covered in unreadable writing.
He stood there, with four people hanging behind him.
The owner of Xiaoxiao Supermarket stood in the crowd, watching all of this.
Yan Xun ran all the way and finally returned to the Cimu Hall before the sacrificial ceremony began!
Behind Yan Yu, masked people stepped onto the platform. They wrapped wire around the wrists of Ruan Yun and the others, preparing to hang them up again...