The Truth from Fifty Years Ago

 

After crying a few short sobs, she returned to her previous dazed and foolish state — as if squeezing out those few tears had already been the limit of what Yang Daniu could do.

“What’s going on?” Cao Qian looked at Yang Daniu’s face, her heart filling with sorrow.

Xing Ye said softly, “After reading the words Grandma Cao left behind, I had a strange feeling. Don’t you think this village is very similar to the ‘Challenging Fate’ game we participated in?”

Cao Qian thought carefully and indeed noticed many similarities.

Setting aside the supernatural powers and strange rules of the ‘Challenging Fate’ game, even on the surface level the clues showed that the villagers and the players were essentially the same.

Both were inexplicably drawn into a bizarre, rule-bound space without any chance to resist or any explanations given. Their minds and bodies were under control, unable to live freely. Two opposing sides kept fighting under the influence of different forces. The villagers, blessed by the mountain god, possessed mysterious powers — yet could not use them in the real world.

Cao Qian said, “There are similarities, but also differences. This village seems simpler, and even more absurd.”

Xing Ye nodded. Taking the mask from Yang Daniu’s hands, he asked softly, “Should I put this mask on?”

Yang Daniu nodded blankly; she seemed to have a shred of awareness left. Xing Ye then drew a ‘Hypnosis’ QR code, hoping to extract at least a little information.

After using “Hypnosis,” Yang Daniu’s eyes actually grew brighter. Xing Ye asked, “What have you experienced during these three years?”

Yang Daniu thought for a moment, then slowly opened her mouth: “Don’t… re… mem… ber…”

She spoke very slowly and stammered, as if she hadn’t talked in a long time.

Xing Ye asked again, “Do you remember how you became the mountain god?”

Yang Daniu shook her head slowly. “Mountain God Festival… fainted… woke up… saw you.”

Xing Ye understood what she meant — she fainted during the festival, and when she woke, she saw Xing Ye and the others. She’d had no consciousness at all for those three years.

Holding up the mask, Xing Ye asked, “What is this thing?”

Yang Daniu tilted her head. “Don’t know. For you… to wear.”

He couldn’t get anything else out of her — she only wanted to put the mask on him.

Xing Ye looked at the mask with a bitter smile. “It seems only by putting it on can I learn what really happened.”

Cao Qian frowned. “I have a bad feeling. Once you put that mask on, you’ll never return to the real world. That mask must have something on it that can control a person’s mind — turning them into the so-called Mountain God. Yang Daniu had no awareness for three years. Even if you wear it, you may not know what you’re doing.”

“I know.” Xing Ye nodded. “But at this point in the world, there’s no choice but to wear it. Some risks must be taken.”

Actually, Xing Ye didn’t have to wear the mask. He could have simply killed the paper men and the guards outside, leading the sacrifice team to victory.

He didn’t need to worry about the future of the village or whether the guards could return to the real world — winning would have been enough.

But for Xing Ye, that wasn’t enough. The one he truly needed to defeat was the system itself — to free this village from the control of the Mountain God and allow the remaining villagers to live and see the outside world again.

To defeat the system, he had to wear the mask.

Of course, he couldn’t just put it on recklessly; he needed a powerful ally.

Xing Ye took out the small mirror and said to Lu Mingze, “Are you ready to face this trial with me?”

The person in the mirror nodded hard. “I’ll give you all my luck — you’re sure to defeat the system.”

Xing Ye poked Lu Mingze’s cheek and said, “Then I’m counting on you.”

After casting a “Empathy” QR code on both himself and Lu Mingze, Xing Ye put the mask on his face.

The moment Xing Ye put on the mask, the black robe covering Yang Daniu’s body suddenly flew up and draped itself over him. It was only then that Cao Qian saw what lay beneath the robe — there was nothing at all below it.

Beneath the black robe was only empty space. When the robe transferred to Xing Ye, Yang Daniu’s head rolled down, and Cao Qian caught it in her arms.

Yang Daniu’s eyes were still open. At that moment, she seemed to regain her consciousness. Looking at Cao Qian’s face, she said softly, “It’s Heihei… You don’t have a mask, so who’s the last one wearing it?”

Cao Qian stroked her head and realized that it wasn’t made of flesh and blood — it was the same material as the paper people. A realization dawned on her, and tears slipped down her cheeks unconsciously. “It’s Yang Xiaomao.”

Yang Daniu’s expression became heartbreakingly sad. She whispered, “So it’s Xiaomao… Our whole family is here now.”

She seemed to want to cry, but as a paper person without even a body, she could no longer shed tears.

Cao Qian hugged her head and heard Yang Daniu ask, “Has the Mountain God grass grown this year?”

Cao Qian nodded. “Half the mountain outside is covered with it.”

Yang Daniu murmured, “It’s retribution… the retribution of the Mountain God Village. Take me out to see the Mountain God grass.”

Cao Qian carried Yang Daniu’s head outside. Seeing the guards still unwilling to give up and trying to attack Yan Hebi, Yan Hebi was using QR codes to fend them off. When he saw Cao Qian come out, his face lit up with joy.

“You finally came out! Where’s the boss? Has he already dealt with the Mountain God?”

At that moment, Chang Laizi was holding Yan Hebi’s leg, trying to throw him off the mountaintop. Cao Qian kicked Chang Laizi away and gently placed Yang Daniu’s head among the thickly growing Mountain God grass.

“Yang Daniu?” The village chief exclaimed in shock when he saw her. “You’re still alive? Your head… you’ve turned into a paper person? The Mountain God didn’t eat you — he turned you into one?”

“There is no Mountain God,” Yang Daniu said quietly, looking at the village chief. “Only sin.”

After she spoke, she peacefully closed her eyes. A gust of wind blew, and her head suddenly disintegrated into ashes, scattering into the Mountain God grass.

“What’s going on?” Yan Hebi asked. “Why hasn’t the boss come out yet? And the others — are they still inside?”

Cao Qian said, “Yang Xiaomao put on the mask and became the new Mountain God. This year’s Mountain God Festival is complete. The people in the cave should wake up soon.”

“What!” Yan Hebi’s voice trembled. “How could he become the Mountain God? Why would this happen?”

Then he rushed into the cave and saw a short masked figure struggling to drag Qian Daniu out.

Seeing the small figure, Yan Hebi’s heart relaxed slightly. He hurried forward to help carry Qian Daniu and the other three children out of the cave.

As soon as Qian Daniu and the others felt the sunlight, they regained consciousness.
The moment Qian Daniu opened her eyes, she saw Cao Heihei’s dark face under the sunlight. She reached out and hugged Cao Qian, saying, “I blacked out all of a sudden — scared me to death! Nothing bad happened, right?”

“It’s fine,” Cao Qian hugged Qian Daniu back, though her eyes remained fixed on the masked figure. “I just don’t know if he’s all right.”

The masked man walked up to the village chief and asked, “Tell me — the child who disappeared fifty years ago, did he really become the sacrifice for the Mountain God? Do you know the truth of that?”

But the voice was not that of young Yang Xiaomao. It was the voice of a young man — and it didn’t come from the throat, but from the chest.

It wasn’t Xing Ye speaking — it was the little mirror!
The three who knew the truth immediately realized what had happened.

The village chief’s face changed when he heard the masked man’s question. He lowered his head and said nothing.

The masked man continued, “When you rummaged through the Cao family’s things, were you really looking for Grandma Cao’s notes about the outside village? And were Cao Heihei’s parents’ deaths your doing? What really happened during the first Mountain God Festival fifty years ago?”

The village chief stayed silent. The masked man pointed at his own mask and said, “Why must the sacrifices always be children? Why can only children wear this mask? Didn’t your father, the village chief back then, know what was happening?”

All the paper people except the chief looked at the masked man in confusion, while the players waited for him to expose the truth.

The masked man turned toward Cao Qian and said, “Fifty years ago, during the famine year, after the Cao family’s child disappeared, Mountain God grass grew all over the mountain. The villagers survived by eating that grass, and from then on came the Mountain God Festival.
To outsiders, the people of Mountain God Village said it was divine blessing. But in truth, the Cao family were outsiders — they didn’t know about the village’s ignorant, superstitious ritual tradition, which said that if a child was offered to the Mountain God — body and bones together (NT: meaning a full sacrifice)— the god would show mercy and let the villagers survive the disaster year.
So the village chief at that time gathered a few villagers and tricked that innocent child into going up the mountain.”

“The Cao family child’s blood spilled over the entire mountainside, and his mask fell into the cave.
The next day, Mountain God grass covered the mountain, and the villagers used it to survive the famine.
But they didn’t know that, from that very moment, their consciences had been destroyed — and the village was cut off from the world, becoming the playhouse of an innocent child.”

“He hated you all. And so the Mountain God Festival was born — one replacement child after another. Anyone who ate the Mountain God grass became a toy doll under his control, forced to stay in the village and play with him forever.

“He hated the paper people too. The first paper people were once the lucky children who escaped being sacrificed. He wanted those children to play with him, so he controlled the corpses to hunt and kill the paper people.”

“He never intended for Mountain God Village to survive. He only wanted to play — and in the end, there would be no living person left in the village.”

The masked man raised his hand and tapped his own mask. “All the hatred… is contained within this bloodstained mask.”

 

Translator : DarNan