Everything the Village Chief did was an effort to break free from fate

It seemed that the Cao family really had secrets. Cao Heihei had been in the game from the start in the sacrificial hall and had never been given a chance to return home. This suggested there might be clues at the Cao household, and they needed to search it.

Xing Ye saw that the village party secretary didn’t want to talk about the Cao family, so he said: “Tell me where the Cao family lives, and I’ll go check myself.”

“This…” the secretary hesitated.

Cao Qian pulled out a kitchen knife she had slipped away from the kitchen and slammed it down on the kang.

Immediately, the secretary said: “Next door to the Village Chief, the two families have always been neighbours.”

At that moment, Qian Daniu burped, patting her stomach: “I’m full now.”

Xing Ye gave Cao Qian a look: “Watch them. I’ll take Qian Daniu down to look for things.”

He then led Qian Daniu to another room. The secretary’s house was much bigger than Yang Xiaomao’s—there were two bedrooms: one for the secretary and his wife, and one for Qin Xiao’er.

Xing Ye brought Qian Daniu into Qin Xiao’er’s room, drew a ‘Test tube’, and had her lie in it, confirming she had not been poisoned.

After waiting a few dozen seconds, the analysis chamber disappeared. Xing Ye took Qian Daniu back to the secretary’s room and said to Cao Qian and Yan Hebi: “The dishes and water Qian Daniu just had are safe—no poison.”

Qian Daniu: “???”

Wait a minute… recalling Xing Ye’s method, he let her eat first, then confirmed she wasn’t poisoned with the Test tube, and only then would the remaining three eat? So her role was essentially the guinea pig for poison testing.

Qian Daniu glared at Xing Ye and the others, furious and hungry again. She grabbed a corn bun and started eating.

Xing Ye, eating while speaking, asked: “Why do the people chosen as sacrifices have to eat wild vegetables? Aren’t there any decent dishes in the village?”

“Isn’t it to prevent you from running away?” said the secretary. “No meat, no salt—just coarse rice and wild vegetables. Enough to keep you alive, that’s all.”

Xing Ye and the others: “……”

Too cruel.

Yan Hebi pointed to himself: “What about us? Why do we guards eat so poorly?”

The secretary said: “You’ve been blessed by the mountain god, so you won’t die even if you don’t eat. No need to waste the food.”

Xing Ye narrowed his eyes slightly: “You seem to know a lot. I’ll give you one last chance. If you don’t speak, I’ll have to take more extreme measures.”

The secretary said: “Go ahead and ask.”

“Fine,” said Xing Ye. “Do you know about the walking corpses at night?”

The secretary stiffened, opened his mouth, then sighed when he saw Yang Xiaomao looking at him seriously and Cao Heihei eating while holding a knife: “Yes. Most of the villagers know. After about the fourth mountain god sacrifice, the black mist appeared. At first, it was parents who refused to offer their children as sacrifices—they were killed by the paper-people in the village. These paper-people were previously living sacrifices. At night, the dead would return for revenge, targeting paper-people. The black mist started small but gradually grew. Initially, only the killed became walking corpses; later, any corpse could become a walking corpse.”

“Don’t you have cremation customs?” Xing Ye asked.

If the villagers knew Aunt Yang would become a walking corpse, why didn’t the village chief burn her body?

“It's useless,” the secretary shook his head. “The mountain god dislikes cremation. Villagers’ bodies must be buried. Day or night, corpses just won’t burn.”

“Didn’t you try indoors?”

“Tried it, couldn’t burn,” he said bitterly. “During disaster years, everyone ate mountain god herbs—after eating, corpses couldn’t be lit. The mountain god is watching. Fifty years ago cremation was actually popular here, but after the mountain god appeared, it stopped.”

After eating, Xing Ye continued questioning the secretary: “You know that carrying a guard’s spine prevents becoming a sacrifice. Does that mean you or someone you know has done this? Have you ever been a sacrifice?”

The secretary looked at Xing Ye, then sighed: “You’re such a smart child. I was lucky. My older brother became a sacrifice during the third ritual. In the following years, our family didn’t have to send anyone. When I married, I couldn’t be a sacrifice. I was close to my brother as a child, so on the day of the ritual, I secretly followed behind, and saw a sacrifice kill a guard, take his bones, and escape. That’s how I learned it.”

“Third ritual?” Xing Ye calculated and asked: “Was the village chief the one who survived the third ritual? The person you saw—was it him?”

The secretary was stunned, then nodded: “You guessed correctly. I was little, hiding behind a big rock. I heard the village chief kill someone but didn’t dare make a sound. I didn’t witness the ritual itself, just that my brother became a sacrifice while the village chief survived. From then on, I was afraid of him, so I refused to become a paper-person—what if he cheated? Also, I suspected he had not received the mountain god’s blessing and wasn’t a paper-person made by the mountain god.”

The reasoning was very logical. Xing Ye recalled that when Aunt Yang died the previous day, the village chief had been standing in sunlight, but didn’t seem controlled. Whether living or made into a paper-person by the mountain god, they would be controlled—this showed the village chief was not alive; he had turned himself into a paper-person.

It seemed necessary to meet the village chief. He had clearly done many evil things. Normally, a player would conclude here that the village chief was the boss. But Xing Ye didn’t think so—everything the village chief did was in an effort to escape fate, trying to prevent himself and those around him from being controlled by black and white forces, keeping his own thoughts.

However, his methods were not righteous—he was willing to do anything to achieve his goals.

“Last night I entered the black mist. Inside, a walking corpse claimed to be the village chief’s father and said he knew what you did,” Xing Ye told the secretary.

The secretary tapped his pipe: “Someone did the same thing I did. I discovered that walking corpses wouldn’t attack the living, so I went in and spoke with that former village chief. I felt the walking corpses weren’t smart. Only the uncle had some awareness, but not very sharp.”

It seemed the secretary’s knowledge was limited. Xing Ye thought for a moment and asked the last question: “Does your village have any records from fifty years ago? Did anyone leave the village? Did anyone enter?”

This stunned the secretary. Unlike before, he truly didn’t know.

He shook his head: “Fifty years ago… I was too young. I don’t remember. No, even if I don’t remember, my parents should have told me. Why do I have no memory? I never even considered this question. And outside the village… what was it like? I don’t know…”

He put down his long smoking pipe, covered his head, and looked distressed: “I don’t know. I don’t know!”

The secretary’s wife held him, crying: “We’ve told you everything we know. Stop asking. Our old man isn’t easy. Our son is still a sacrifice this year—he just wants a normal life. Why is it so hard?”

Qian Daniu looked pained. Xing Ye, however, gave Yan Hebi a look.

‘Women’s Friend’ Yan Hebi stepped forward: “Auntie, we’re here for the village too. Is there anything else you want to tell us? Last night, Qin Xiao’er sneaked out—did he make it home?”

Hearing Yan Hebi’s words, the secretary’s wife’s expression softened. She said:

“Xiao’er came back with Si Pang yesterday. They chatted with my husband in the room for a long time; I don’t know what they talked about. My husband doesn’t say much, so I’m unclear as well. But actually, I have an eldest daughter—she’s seventeen or eighteen years older than Xiao’er. Twenty-one years ago, she was also a sacrifice. That year, my husband tried to use this method to save her, but the one who accompanied her up the mountain was the village chief.”

Yan Hebi asked: “How many times did the village chief go up the mountain as a guard?”

The secretary’s wife said: “I don’t really remember. It was quite a few times, but it seems that after my eldest daughter became a sacrifice, he never went again.”

It seemed that the secretary’s family truly didn’t know much. The group left the room to let the secretary and his wife calm down, and then went to Xiao’er’s room to discuss their next plan.

 

Translator : DarNan