Paper figures, living people, children of paper figures and living people, and the mountain god.

Aunt Yang, hearing what the person in the black mist said, was stunned. After a moment, she murmured, “We kill the paper figures to save the remaining living people. So, does that mean I can kill Yang Dazhuang now?”

She looked down at her hands. Although Xing Ye couldn’t see her expression, he could feel a trembling emotion in her voice.

It wasn’t fear, but a long-suppressed hatred.

“Can I kill him? I want to kill him with my own hands. He caused the death of my three children and now wants to send Xiaomao as a sacrifice. Can I kill him?” Aunt Yang spoke to the presence in the black mist.

“Of course you can,” the person in the black mist replied, “But these paper figures are clever. At night, they all hide inside their houses. We can’t catch them at all.”

This group of people had completely forgotten about Xing Ye’s presence and chatted on. Xing Ye felt the wound where the living corpse bit him throb painfully, his head started to spin, and he quickly interrupted their conversation: “Paper figures, living people, living corpses, and the children of paper figures and living people — why is there an annual sacrifice to the mountain god?”

He asked urgently. Hearing her son’s voice, Aunt Yang immediately snapped back to focus: “I don’t know either, but you can ask the village chief.”

There was a village chief in the black mist as well. Although Xing Ye couldn’t see anything, he still tried to look toward the location in the black mist from which the voice had come.

“Are you the village chief uncle from the daytime?” Xing Ye asked in the voice of young Yang Xiaomao.

“Bah! I’m his father!” the black mist village chief said. “That bastard, after the mountain god sacrifice, was no longer alive. He turned the villagers into paper figures one by one, and even secretly killed me!”

This was an earth-shattering secret. Xing Ye recalled the appearance of the village chief from daytime — about forty-something years old. Aunt Tian had said that the mountain god sacrifice happened fifty years ago.

He asked, “Village chief uncle, how old are you exactly?”

The black mist village chief snorted coldly, “Don’t be fooled by his youthful looks. He’s actually 55 years old this year. Paper figures don’t age or die. He deliberately keeps his appearance at about forty to convince the villagers.”

Fifty-five years old — if the first sacrifice was fifty years ago when he was five, then the village chief was most likely the second or third sacrifice to survive. According to the black mist village chief, he had already become a paper figure back then.

“What about the village party secretary?” Xing Ye asked.

The black mist village chief replied, “The village party secretary? He knows everything but doesn’t want to or dare to intervene. He’s always thinking about taking his wife and kids and leaving Mountain God Village. But they don’t realise paper figures won’t let them escape. And even if his son was sacrificed and came back alive, would he still be human?”

This statement carried huge implications. It meant all the previous surviving sacrifices were no longer truly human. And those who escorted the sacrifices up the mountain numbered exactly five…

Xing Ye wanted to ask more but then heard Aunt Yang say, “Xiaomao, the smell on you is becoming more like mine, not the sweet soft smell you had before.”

She sniffed around Xing Ye’s wounds, “Right here, it smells bad.”

Xing Ye was speechless.

Could it be true that, as Qian Daniu guessed, being bitten turns you into a living corpse?

At this moment, the black mist village chief said, “Ah, I told you living people can’t enter the black mist, especially when injured. You’ll turn into a living corpse. Wait a moment, I’ll suck the black mist from your body.”

Xing Ye was puzzled.

Fortunately, the imagined scene of a shrivelled old villager using mouth suction didn’t happen. Instead, a withered hand rested on his wound, and soon Xing Ye felt his body lighten and his mind clear.

He immediately asked, “After Qian Daniu was bitten by you, will she be okay?”

“The paper figures will decay. After the mountain god’s sacrifice, paper grass will grow out, and the village chief can repair the damaged paper figures,” the black mist village chief answered. “But since she is a child of a paper figure and a living person, she still looks somewhat human. The paper grass can’t fix her for now; she needs to recover naturally.”

As long as she could recover, Xing Ye felt some relief.

He still had many questions. The black mist village chief said, “Little one, hurry back. Grandpa village chief will kill all the paper figures in the village these days, so no one can send you as a sacrifice anymore, ha ha ha.”

He laughed innocently, but the words were very naive.

Xing Ye said, “I have only two days left before I’m sent away. Can you kill all the paper figures?”

The black mist village chief said, “Uh… those cunning paper figures hide in their houses at night!”

“Where are you during the day?” Xing Ye asked.

“Daytime we’re in the graves. The sun is too strong; the black mist can’t cover us, and it hurts,” the black mist village chief replied.

Xing Ye asked, “If that’s the case, how will you kill all the paper figures?”

The black mist village chief was silent.

Xing Ye asked again, “How many years have you been killing them?”

The black mist village chief said, “Ten, twenty, twenty-five, twenty-six… Ah, why do you ask so many questions, little one? Hurry back!”

Aunt Yang, holding Xiaomao, looked reluctant.

Xing Ye quickly said, “I can lure the paper figures out at night!”

The black mist village chief asked, “Really?”

Xing Ye replied, “Of course. Have you never thought of telling a living person the truth, so they can help lure the paper figures out at night?”

Black Mist Village Chief: “...Ah, here’s what we’ll do. After you lure the paper figures out, shout ‘Aunt Yang’ into the black mist, and we’ll come out and kill them. You can’t stay in the black mist any longer — your brain juice will be sucked dry.”

With that, a hand reached out. It was incredibly strong, snapping the ropes binding Xing Ye in one pull, then tossing him out of the black mist.

Yang Xiaomao’s fragile body was thrown out by the village chief of the black mist with a “whoosh,” flying through the air. Luckily, this time Cao Qian was waiting in the courtyard. Seeing someone suddenly flying out of the darkness, she jumped up high and caught Xing Ye with one hand, spinning mid-air to absorb the force, and landed steadily in the courtyard.

Qian Daniu, who had been anxiously waiting inside, looked up and immediately saw Cao Heihe holding Yang Xiaomao under his arm like a piece of luggage and carrying him inside.

Despite being handled roughly like this, Yang Xiaomao—the big boss—still kept a calm expression. After Cao Heihe put him down, he even glanced faintly at Qian Daniu.

Qian Daniu: “...”

She had been worried these two big bosses might turn on her after using her, but now she suddenly didn’t think so.

Qian Daniu smiled quietly in her heart. Since entering the advanced world, she had been like a grass in the wind, clinging to the strong to survive, afraid to trust anyone, and had lost the feeling of fighting alongside teammates like in the chaotic world before.

But now, Cao Heihe and Yang Xiaomao strangely made Qian Daniu feel like she was back to the beginning.

Xing Ye, with a serious face, told the two what he overheard in the black mist. Before Cao Qian could say anything, Qian Daniu was shocked by the melodramatic and brutal story.

“So it really was because the village chief’s father sent his young children as sacrifice. The lucky survivors became the mountain god’s vanguard, killing their biological fathers and gradually destroying the entire village. For revenge, their blood turned black, and their conscience disappeared...”

“Stop.” Xing Ye interrupted in time to prevent Qian Daniu’s thoughts from spiraling.

He said, “The black mist village chief is confused in his mind. Many things he says can’t be taken seriously. This matter isn’t that simple. But after talking with the people in the black mist, I roughly have some ideas about how to get through. For now, we can’t jump to conclusions; we need to meet the other team of players and see what their mission is first.”

Cao Qian asked, “What do we do next?”

Xing Ye said, “Go east of the village to meet Qin Xiao’er and Wang Sifang. I guess the other five players are all on the east side of the village.”

Qian Daniu paused for a moment but didn’t ask how Xing Ye guessed that. She just blindly trusted the big boss, not wanting to waste her brain on those melodramatic stories. She said, “Then we should hurry to help them since we’re a team now.”

“No need to rush. Someone should be able to help them,” Xing Ye said. “Let’s just go take a look.”

As they stepped out of the house, the black mist surged again, trying to attack Qian Daniu. Xing Ye asked the hands in the mist, “How do paper figures and living people have children? Does the village chief have any limits on how many villagers he can turn into paper figures? Is Aunt Tian guarding us a human or a paper figure? Who else in this village is still alive? What exactly is the mountain god? How did the black mist that helps you come about? And during the daytime...”

Before Xing Ye finished, he heard a sigh from the black mist, and the hands surrounding Qian Daniu withdrew.

“What... what’s going on?” Qian Daniu asked.

“Asked and they ran off,” Xing Ye replied.

He had noticed that the black mist village chief’s mind was quite simple. He could only answer a few fixed questions, and asking too many made him irritable and caused him to throw Xing Ye out of the mist.

In the black mist, only Aunt Yang and the black mist village chief could speak. Xing Ye could sense the presence of others but no one spoke or made any sound.

The black mist village chief could clear the black mist erosion on Xing Ye’s body, but Aunt Yang couldn’t, proving their powers were on different levels.

The only two living corpses who could talk were Aunt Yang, who just died today, and the black mist village chief, who had been in the mist for a long time...

“Hmph,” Xing Ye sneered, “So much misleading information, it only backfired. This Mountain God Village is far more complicated than it appears on the surface. You just walk confidently in the dark—I don’t believe the living corpses in the black mist can hurt you.”

Qian Daniu and Cao Heihe exchanged glances. Judging by Xing Ye’s words, he didn’t even trust the living corpses in the black mist.

So, in this mountain, who exactly could be trusted? Who was the villain?

After Xing Ye asked, the living corpses in the black mist did not attack them again, and the three of them walked smoothly toward the east end of the village.

Cao Qian thought for a long time but couldn’t figure it out, so she asked, “Why did they attack before, but not now?”

Xing Ye said, “Whether it was Qian Daniu’s mother’s warnings, Aunt Tian’s advice, or the living corpses in the black mist, it all aimed to make us believe one thing: this village has two opposing factions—the living and the paper figures. The black mist village chief just acted like an NPC assigning us a mission, telling us that if we help the living kill all the paper figures, we win.

“And the other five players are probably the escort team, all paper figures. Their mission is likely to turn the entire village into paper figures. I guess the NPC who gave them the mission is the village chief, and tonight they should be going to the village party secretary’s house to turn that whole family into paper figures. Qin Xiao’er and Wang Sifang, heading to the party secretary’s house, probably ran into them.”

As they spoke, they arrived at the east end of the village and indeed saw Qin and Wang fighting fiercely with several others, exchanging QR codes and initial skills.

Cao Heihe and Qian Daniu looked at each other, completely unable to figure out how Xing Ye, with such little information, could deduce the situation so accurately!

 

Translator : DarNan