Grandma Cao’s Last Words.

 

Fifty years ago, in the eyes of the Cao family and many of the villagers who didn’t know the truth, it merely looked like a mischievous child had run off and gone missing — by coincidence becoming a sacrifice to the Mountain God. The Mountain God then caused the Mountain God Grass to grow all over the mountains, saving the starving villagers.

What they didn’t know was that a group of ignorant and superstitious people had murdered an innocent child — and that they continued to harm children ever since.

After the Cao family’s child became a sacrifice, his blood and hatred nourished the Mountain God Grass. Was his power very strong?

No, not particularly strong.

He couldn’t even take revenge with his own hands — all he could do was become nourishment for the Mountain God Grass, leaving behind only a trace of resentment sealed within the mask.

The true source that nourished his growing power came from the second Mountain God Festival. When famine struck the village again, the villagers once more offered several children as sacrifices.
When the new sacrifices walked into the cave, their fear and terror resonated with the lingering spirit of the dead Cao child. One of them unconsciously put on the mask. Under its power, his body disappeared — becoming nourishment for more caused the Mountain God Grass to grow all over the mountains Grass, which sprouted anew across the mountain.

At that time, the wishes of the two children were still pure — they didn’t want the other children who were also sacrifices to die. Thus, the children who were spared became blessed and turned into the first generation of paper men.

Originally, the paper men were created out of the innocent wish to protect others — yet over time, greed and sin took root within them.

By the third ritual, there was no famine at all. The village head at the time had discovered the secret of the paper dolls and wanted to create more of them — that’s why he initiated the third sacrifice.

The son of that black-hearted village chief — the one who was now the current village chief — had been sent to uncover the secret of the paper dolls. He came prepared, which was how he managed to kill the guardian and obtain the bones of a paper doll.

The mask mistook this young village chief, who carried those bones, for one of the previous generation’s children who had narrowly survived. Thus, it neither made him a sacrifice nor turned him into a paper doll. Instead, another child — one whose fear resonated with the mask — put it on.
That previous child’s body had already become nourishment for the Mountain God Grass three years earlier, and without the mask’s protection, he soon turned to ashes.

But things didn’t end there. To obtain more paper men, more power, and more Mountain God Grass, generation after generation of sacrifices continued.
The earliest paper men had been created purely from a child’s wish to protect — but the later ones could no longer be considered the embodiment of that kindness. The sacrifices became guardians, and the guardians escorted new sacrifices up the mountain.
The former victims became perpetrators, and eventually the very targets of the lingering resentment that sought vengeance.

Over time, the accumulated resentment of countless children finally merged into a single power — a rule — becoming what the villagers called the Mountain God.
Those blinded by greed eventually turned into the toys of that first child — or rather, a collective of many children.

They were no longer individuals — merely a collective consciousness, just like the one Xing Ye encountered in the cemetery.

These consciousnesses had no direct power to harm others; they could only control and manipulate, using the weaknesses of human nature to lure people into destroying each other.

Their original purpose and resentment, after the passing of so many years, had nearly faded away.
What remained was only malice and rules — turning the villagers into toys, using their own malice against them. The Mountain God watched as the village chief repeatedly killed living people, turning them into paper men.
He controlled the living through sunlight and the dead through the night, using the opposing rules of light and darkness to drive the villagers into mutual slaughter.

“Don’t you feel a sense of déjà vu?” the masked man asked. “Doesn’t it feel just like our game?”

From the resentment of one person, to the malice of a collective consciousness —
Though it wanted to destroy humanity, it was bound by rules, and could only use malice to make humans destroy each other.

This tiny Mountain God Village resembled a toy house, turning humans into toys in its twisted game. It looked very much like the prototype of the “Challenging Fate” game.

So, in this world — did the rules of the game intrude into reality, or had reality itself become part of the game?

Niu Xiaohua said, “You mean, we fate-following players and fate-defying players are like the living people and paper dolls of this village — being toyed with under some higher rule?”

“What do you think?” Cao Xi looked at her. “Do you really believe that those who enter the game are chosen ones, destined to gain superpowers, endless wealth, and become the elite of the real world?”

“Isn’t that what it is?” Niu Xiaohua asked in confusion. “We gain satisfaction and a sense of achievement in the game world, and we can exchange high-world points for money, improving our real lives — isn’t that the benefit the game gives us?”

Cao Xi sighed, no longer trying to make her understand.
Niu Xiaohua’s thoughts were the same as most players — just like the villagers of this mountain village: numbly and mechanically living within the game, without ever thinking about the ending.

Yan Hebi cared more about Xing Ye’s safety — and how to clear the world. He asked, “Then is there no way to save the people of Mountain God Village? No way to overcome this rule and win?”

“Not necessarily.”
A familiar voice came from within the cave: “Have you forgotten the worlds we’ve passed through before? The only thing that can defeat malice — is always a single spark of kindness.”

Cao Xi, Yan Hebi, and Qian Daniu turned toward the sound — it was Xing Ye!

But hadn’t Xing Ye already put on the mask and become the sacrifice?
Why was he appearing here, inside the cave?

Xing Ye walked up to the masked man, took the small mirror from his neck, and stood before everyone.

“How did you do it?” Cao Xi asked in surprise and joy.

She had been watching the masked man the whole time, and deep down she was terrified — afraid that Xing Ye had become nourishment for the Mountain God Grass, leaving only his head sealed within the mask.

Only now did her heart finally settle down — she could breathe a sigh of relief.

“It was the ability of the QR code ‘Paper Substitute,’” Xing Ye explained.

After putting on the mask, Xing Ye and Lu Mingze both felt the intense emotions hidden within it, and sensed a mysterious power trying to dissolve Xing Ye’s body.

By then, Xing Ye’s mind had already fallen under the mask’s control, but through the power of empathy, the little mirror managed to control Xing Ye’s body just enough to make him tap the QR code “Paper Substitute” on his wristband.

Lu Mingze could use Xing Ye’s QR codes and points — he just couldn’t use his initial skills.
He used “Paper Substitute” to replace Xing Ye’s body, and when Xing Ye regained consciousness, he immediately used “Stealing the sky and Swapping the Sun” to deceive the mask — hiding the “Paper Substitute” body beneath it while appearing himself inside the cave.

“Stealing the sky and Swapping the Sun” was one of Xing Ye’s earned achievement titles, usable only once per world. As long as he executed it cleverly and precisely, he could fool even the rules of the world.

Using “Paper Substitute” and “Stealing the sky and Swapping the Sun,” Xing Ye slipped quietly out of the mask and black robe without a trace — only the little mirror was still attached to the Paper Substitute and needed to be manually retrieved by Xing Ye.

The one who had been speaking earlier — the voice that came from the masked figure — was actually Lu Mingze.

Xing Ye said, “When the ‘Requiem’ skill worked on the living corpses inside the black fog, I started thinking: maybe this world really does contain some kind of spiritual grievance energy. Since the living corpses themselves don’t have much resentment — they’re merely being controlled — the only real source of such energy must be the Mountain God Festival. So I guessed that this so-called Mountain God might actually be the sacrificed children themselves. All of this tragedy was brewed by the villagers’ own hands.”

“Then can ‘Requiem’ calm those resentful spirits?” asked Cao Xi.

Xing Ye shook his head. “Each world has its own rules. ‘Requiem’ worked best back in the school world, but here… its power isn’t enough.”

Qian Daniu asked, “Then how can we end this cycle of tragedy and stop the grudges from trapping Mountain God Village forever?”

“Actually, we already found the answer — but the village chief took it.”

Xing Ye walked over to the chief, whose body had been soaked flat by the hot-spring water, though his clothes were still intact. From the man’s pocket, Xing Ye pulled out a rag doll and several pieces of embroidered cloth.

“This is Grandma Cao’s final message,” Xing Ye said. “I kept wondering — was its only purpose really to tell us that there’s a world outside Mountain God Village? If that were all, the chief wouldn’t have searched for it so desperately.”

The thin scraps of cloth were now soaked through. Xing Ye stacked them carefully together — and when he aligned the embroidered characters, they formed a QR code.

“There’s even a QR code like this?” Qian Daniu gasped. “What’s with all these QR codes in this world? Three in a row, all hidden so deep! Even in high-level worlds, the codes were never this hard to find.”

Because this world had been infiltrated by game rules, ordinary QR codes didn’t exist here — every single one symbolized the power of the game itself.

“You should scan it,” Xing Ye said to Cao Qian.

Since Cao Heihei was from the Cao family, it was safest for her to do it.

After Cao Qian scanned the code, her wristband displayed the message: “A mother’s love can embrace everything.”

Seeing that description, Cao Xi picked up the last piece of cloth. It was entirely covered with Hanyu Pinyin(NT: Chinese romanization). Back then, Cao Xi had deceived the chief by saying it described the outside world, but that wasn’t true.

It was a letter — a letter Grandma Cao had written to her son who had died young.

Cao Xi read aloud:

“To my dearest son,
It’s been so many years. If you were still alive, you’d have children and grandchildren by now.
I still don’t know where you went missing that year. I climbed the mountain over and over, shouting your name, but never got an answer.
I cried every night until my eyes nearly went blind. Later I didn’t dare cry anymore — I was afraid that if you ever came back, I wouldn’t be able to see your face.
I’m going to join you soon.
If there is another life, I still want to be your mother. This time I’ll keep you at home, guard you closely, and never, ever let you get lost again.”

After hearing this, Qian Daniu murmured, “Now I understand why hiding inside the house kept us from being controlled by the sunlight or harmed by the black fog — it’s because home was the only pure land in the Cao child’s heart. He must have believed he was taken away and killed because he left home. To the resentful spirits, home means safety.”

Xing Ye didn’t argue; he thought that, this time, Qian Daniu was right.

Cao Xi asked, “Should we use the QR code now?”

Xing Ye shook his head. “Wait until night.”

It was already around three or four in the afternoon. Xing Ye and the others tied up the soaked paper dolls, carried them back to the village, and laid them out in the public square.
Yan Hebi also brought back several of his squad members. None of them objected — they, too, wanted to see the conclusion of this story.

As for Wang Sipan and Qin Xiao’er — if Xing Ye could clear this level, they’d benefit as well. Even if they didn’t want to follow his lead, their Fate-Aligned Tool had been taken by Yan Hebi, and Xing Ye’s power left them no room to resist. So the two of them simply kept silent and obeyed his orders.

All the paper men still able to move gathered in the square. Following Xing Ye’s suggestion, the village secretary led the remaining villagers there as well.

Fifty years had passed — it was time for it all to end.

Night fell. The black fog slowly rose again, and countless hands reached out from within it, grabbing the paper men lying on the ground.

The black-fog village chief’s voice rang out: “Hahahaha! Yang Xiaomao, you did wonderfully!”

Xing Ye didn’t answer. Instead, he glanced at Cao Xi. She immediately tapped the QR code.
In the stillness of the night came a soft, echoing call:

“Baby, where are you?
Mom has been looking for you all this time.”

“Mother’s Call” — the exclusive QR code of Mountain God Village.
Grandma Cao’s voice could awaken the very origin of everything — and bring an end to all evil.

At that moment, Xing Ye had already brought the masked man over.
As soon as this call was heard, the mask began to tremble violently, breaking free from Xing Ye’s Paper Substitute and flying straight into the black fog.

 

Translator : DarNan