(NT: The title probably has a double meaning, as in context jǐn náng (silk pouch) often means “secret information”)

 

Things that the Little Mirror discovered

 

Even if someone still wanted to discuss the melodramatic four-way love situation, the Little Mirror didn’t give them time, immediately displaying what happened at the village secretary’s house in the mirror.

The mirror’s content had no sound, but having visuals alone was already very good.

The body that Xing Ye had prepared for Lu Mingze was a mirror-phone case, but since there were no phones in this world, the Little Mirror became a rectangular mirror, tied with a string and hung around Xing Ye’s neck.

Its size was equivalent to a phone case, which didn’t hinder viewing the images—after all, modern people often watch movies or dramas on their phones, and this size was just right.

The four of them gathered around, watching the scenes displayed in the mirror.

The visuals were somewhat narrow and looked like they were secretly filmed, as they were seen through the mirror in the village secretary’s house.

They saw Yan Hebi saying something to the village secretary, drinking a cup of tea, and then fainting. The village secretary watched him fall, carried him onto the kang, took off his clothes, and took out a pair of scissors, starting to cut from Yan Hebi’s back.

Yan Hebi: “……”

In the dark night, under the dim light, the scenes in the phone-case-sized mirror were terrifying.

After cutting open the flesh on Yan Hebi’s back, there was no blood. His skin peeled off like paper, revealing a green spine inside.

Yan Hebi: “……”

The spine was clearly made of bundles of grass. The village secretary carefully selected a piece of it, took out a thoracic vertebra, and replaced it with a bone model from the house to substitute for the green spine.

He placed the green spine into a silk pouch and began sewing.

The thread he used was also very strange—strong strands of grass. Without a needle, he stitched Yan Hebi’s back skin together, inserting the long grass into the cracks. After a while, Yan Hebi’s back healed.

He dressed Yan Hebi, helped him sit up, and after some time, Yan Hebi woke up and acted as if nothing had happened, chatting briefly with the village secretary before leaving the house.

After the playback ended, there was a suffocating silence.

Xing Ye gave everyone two or three seconds to reflect and then said, “We’ve seen this silk pouch before.”

Cao Qian nodded: “Qin Xiao’er took it out. He said it was given by his father and that if you encountered danger on the mountain, he could use it to protect himself.”

Xing Ye said: “After being bitten by the living corpse, Qian Daniu would bleed, but Yan Hebi didn’t after his injury. This indirectly proves that Qian Daniu isn’t a complete paper person. Paper people and living humans can indeed marry and have children, and their children inherit traits from both sides.”

Lu Mingze, listening to their analysis with interest, couldn’t help but say: “The village chief said that five children who became sacrifices had to be killed, using their heart-blood to slay the mountain god. This proves that the five children weren’t purely paper people. True paper people have no blood.”

Qian Daniu couldn’t help but cover her face, looking at Lu Mingze’s appearance in the mirror. This mirror was incredible—beautiful, well-behaved, clever, able to gather information, and analyse intelligence!

Yan Hebi touched his “bone” and asked: “This fake bone of mine, won’t it become a problem?”

Qian Daniu said: “It’s fine. I can cut open a piece of your chest, take out that fake bone, and use the ‘Steady Stream’ initial skill. This skill rapidly heals injuries within an hour, restoring your bones and skin, so you don’t need to worry about any danger.”

“Such a good skill?” Yan Hebi asked. “Can your initial skill restore multiple types of injuries? Can it regenerate severed limbs?”

Qian Daniu nodded: “Severed limb regeneration takes at least half an hour, but it’s possible. Bone and internal organ injuries recover more slowly, but skin injuries heal quickly. For example, a deep cut on the arm that bleeds heavily but doesn’t reach the bone will heal in about a minute.”

Yan Hebi looked at Cao Qian: “This ability is different from Doctor Guan’s initial skill. In the hospital world, Doctor Guan’s skill could only be used once after battle. During that time, you suffered both pain and a decrease in combat ability. Qian Daniu’s ‘Steady Stream’ allows fearless combat, one hour is enough. Battles using initial skills and QR codes rarely last over an hour.”

Cao Qian nodded. Continuous healing skills and one-time healing skills each had their merits. The difference with Qian Daniu’s second initial skill was that once she healed someone, that person could no longer harm her.

Thinking of this, Cao Qian looked at the Little Mirror and understood why he revealed his identity while acting jealous—because Qian Daniu’s skill was too special.

Having experienced Puppet City and the Spiritual World, Cao Qian knew the Little Mirror’s abilities, understood that he had extraordinarily precise intuition, and could accurately judge a person’s character.

If the Little Mirror thought Qian Daniu’s character was bad and would betray them, he wouldn’t reveal his identity. Instead, he would suggest Xing Ye and Qian Daniu separate, preventing her from ever healing teammates. Otherwise, her “Take What You Can” ability would put everyone in a passive position.

But the Little Mirror judged that Qian Daniu’s character was acceptable and could be a teammate, so he couldn’t deceive her or Yan Hebi.

Yan Hebi was fine, having experienced two worlds with Xing Ye, and admired him greatly. Even if deception occurred, he could understand.

Qian Daniu was different. She was a following fate player in a team of fate-defying players, which naturally created a sense of crisis. If Xing Ye presented the mirror as a tool obtained from another world, Qian Daniu might not believe him. When her own safety was at stake, it was hard to trust. Without the mirror, merely saying he had a clue would make her suspect him of hiding something.

This wasn’t paranoia; anyone in her situation would consider their own safety. If she discovered Xing Ye was lying while having healed three teammates, the team would be in danger. Everyone’s safety rested on Qian Daniu’s decision because the “Take What You Can” skill prevented them from harming her, while she could harm them freely.

To recruit Qian Daniu safely, her trust had to be ensured first. She needed to know the team would never harm fate-bound tools, would protect and care for them as equals, to foster genuine trust. She would believe that in any team, even if she became a fate-bound tool one day, her teammates would still help her.

Thus, the likelihood of her betrayal became minimal.

The Little Mirror deliberately revealed his identity to resolve this potential issue. It could also serve as a warning to Yan Hebi not to secretly admire Xiao Ye, as he had a bit of a temper but a strong sense of strategy.

In terms of influencing hearts, the Little Mirror was arguably the strongest, even surpassing Xing Ye slightly.

Qian Daniu said: “My initial skill has six hours of cooldown left. I wasted it on Qin Xiao’er and Wang Sipang earlier. It’s all their fault for threatening me.”

Xing Ye glanced at Qian Daniu and poked the Little Mirror. He understood the logic but still worried. Fortunately, the Little Mirror hadn’t revealed his ability to switch bodies—this even Cao Qian didn’t know, which was the Little Mirror’s true trump card.

“This is only part of it,” Lu Mingze said. “I also discovered some things at the village chief’s house.”

Then he began showing a video again, and everyone gathered to watch.

It happened in the evening. The village chief stood inside the house, with a half-length mirror on the wall directly facing him.

In front of him was a person covered in blood, clinging to the village chief’s leg, begging desperately. The village chief nodded and let them lie on the kang.

The village chief left and returned shortly after holding a box. He opened it to reveal a bundle of green grass.

The process seemed rather long, so the Little Mirror used fast-forward mode. Everyone saw the village chief, by some unknown method, turn the green grass into a human skeleton and a piece of human skin. He first fed the person lying on the kang some green liquid, then draped the paper skin over the person’s body. The skin gradually fused with the body, the wounds disappeared, and the face became visible.

It was Yang Dazhuang, the father of the body Xing Ye was occupying.

The village chief didn’t replace Yang Dazhuang’s bones but said something to him instead. Yang Dazhuang nodded and was led away by a strong man.

The village chief placed the green bones into a cabinet, locked it, and muttered something to himself.

The footage ended there. Having watched two full “skin and bone replacement” scenes in a row, everyone felt somewhat nauseated. The living Xing Ye and Cao Qian were okay, but Qian Daniu and Yan Hebi looked very pale. What kind of messed-up worldview was this?!

Cao Qian thought for a moment and asked: “I’m not good at reading lips. What did the village chief say in those two sentences?”

Yan Hebi and Qian Daniu hadn’t been trained in lip reading either, so they didn’t understand.

Xing Ye said: “I don’t know much about lip reading, and many of the scenes show him in profile, so we can’t clearly see his lips. I’ll try to reconstruct it based on facial muscle movements—see if you can figure out what he said.”

Xing Ye recalled the footage in the mirror and began silently speaking.

After watching for a while, Qian Daniu tilted her head and said: “Two days? Not enough?”

Cao Qian: “Stay there first?”

Yan Hebi: “The bones?”

Lu Mingze watched Xing Ye’s lips for a while, then guessed: “The first sentence, the village chief told Yang Dazhuang that skin and bones can’t be replaced all at once. The paper skin needs two days to fuse with the human skin. Stay there for now, and I’ll replace the bones in a couple of days.

“The second sentence, he muttered to himself while holding the box: the paper grass might not be enough. Hopefully, after this Mountain God Festival, I can get all the paper grass.

“That’s roughly what it means, I’m mostly guessing.”

“You guessed perfectly,” Qian Daniu sighed. “I don’t know why, but I feel like whatever you say must be right.”

Cao Qian, having once completed a level in the Spiritual World using a strategy guide, nodded vigorously. She felt that through the scenes displayed by the Little Mirror, many scattered clues had fused together and were no longer chaotic. The outline of this world was gradually becoming clear.

 

Translator : DarNan