The Village Chief appeared at the doorway at some unknown moment, quietly watching the scraps of cloth in their hands.

 

Because moving around during the day was inconvenient, the group decided to freeload at the Village Secretary’s house until nightfall. Seeing how pitiful the couple looked as they cried, Yan Hebi told them that they didn’t need to return the spine bone; they could keep it to protect Qin Xiao’er.

The Village Secretary himself didn’t mind; he had never felt much guilt toward Li Datou anyway. In his eyes, the paper men, especially those blessed by the Mountain God, were nothing but enemies. To him, not only was removing a piece of bone from such a body acceptable, even killing one outright would cause him no hesitation.

Unfortunately, the paper people could neither be burned nor beaten to death, and the Village Secretary had no idea how to kill them. However, the black fog at night could destroy them, though by what method he didn’t know.

After hearing Yan Hebi’s words, the Village Secretary’s wife was especially grateful, promising to cook another good meal for them that evening and assuring them she would not make it with drugs.

By this time, Qian Daniu’s skill “Steady Stream” had come off cooldown. To ensure combat strength, she cut open Yan Hebi’s back, removed the substitute bone lodged there, and cast “Steady Stream” on him. Qian Daniu had worried that, since Yan Hebi was a paper person, he might not be able to recover. Fortunately, the system-granted initial skills were magical indeed: before their eyes, a new bone slowly grew in his back, and the wound healed.

As Qian Daniu had explained, broken bones required half an hour to regenerate, while surface wounds needed only a minute or two. Once the bone had regrown, Yan Hebi’s back wound quickly closed up.

Cao Qian observed the entire healing process and was very satisfied with Qian Daniu’s abilities. With this teammate, she could now fight boldly, supported by what was essentially a healing aura.

As evening approached, the Village Secretary’s wife delivered dinner to the group’s room. They ate while discussing their plan for the night.

“It sounds like the Village Chief knows a lot. Should we go find him?” Qian Daniu asked.

Xing Ye shook his head, chewing quietly while silently thinking about the strange events of this village.

So far, they had gathered more than enough clues. From the Village Secretary’s words, it was clear that the history of Shanshen Village spanned only fifty years. Even someone like the Village Secretary, who was already over fifty, had little memory of anything earlier. This indirectly confirmed Lu Mingze’s guess: Shanshen Village was merely a game, a story, or even a toy.

If so, then what exactly was the Mountain God to whom sacrifices were made? Did the Village Chief know the truth, and what was he preparing for through all his actions?

And for Xing Ye himself, who now knew all of this — how could he defy fate? What was the correct path? Could Shanshen Village truly have a future?

Thinking this, Xing Ye said, “Let’s go to Cao Heihei’s house. According to the Village Secretary, fifty years ago, the first child to go missing in Shanshen Village was from the Cao family. And Cao Heihei’s family has always refused to become paper people. They may know something.”

“My house is right next to the Village Chief’s,” Cao Qian said. “Will we run into him?”

Yan Hebi said, “If the Village Chief is a paper man, then with the black fog out at night, he shouldn’t dare move recklessly.”

Cao Qian looked at Yan Hebi and said, “I don’t think the Village Chief is a paper man. The Village Secretary said he only learned to use the guards’ bones to protect himself because he saw the first person to do so was the Village Chief. Over forty years ago, the Village Chief was one of the Mountain God’s sacrifices. By rights, he should have been blessed and turned into a paper man. But if at that time he used another paper person’s bone to survive, could he really still be a paper man?”

“If he’s human, then his appearance and age don’t match. Also, Xing Ye mentioned that yesterday, under the sun, the Village Chief didn’t look controlled,” Yan Hebi said, debating with Cao Qian.

At that moment Xing Ye interjected, “So it’s highly likely the Village Chief is a being who is neither controlled by sunlight during the day, nor harmed by black fog at night. He’s been plotting for over forty years. The Black Fog Village Chief fears him deeply, yet has never been able to deal with him — likely because of this.”

“Wow!” Qian Daniu clasped her cheeks. “Then doesn’t that make the Village Chief the Boss in this story?”

“Exactly.” Xing Ye said to the others, “We received a mission from the Black Fog Village Chief: to kill the Village Chief and his paper people. The Guard Corps received a mission from the Village Chief: to kill the sacrifices and then use their heart’s blood to kill the Mountain God. From the perspective of the Sacrifice Team, the Village Chief is certainly the Boss. If we ignore the Toy House hypothesis, then with the black fog’s help, killing the Village Chief should count as our victory.”

“But not a perfect victory,” Yan Hebi noted. “That would solve nothing. The problems of Shanshen Village would remain unresolved. The daytime mind control would persist, and the living corpses of night would not rest. The Village Chief’s methods may be extreme, but his goal is also to free Shanshen Village from control. If he dies…”

“Then Shanshen Village truly falls under the sway of Black and White forever, never again to gain freedom. The villagers will become walking corpses, like the Mountain God’s puppets, living hollow, false lives,” Cao Qian said.

“And what about us?” Qian Daniu asked. “You said before that in games where the rules of Black and White intervene, defeated players may not return to the real world. What happens to us if we lose?”

“Don’t forget, sunlight can control thought,” Xing Ye mentioned, pointing at the sky. “Under the sun’s rays, we can’t even use our initial skills. And the Mountain God Festival takes place in daylight. If we don’t achieve a perfect victory, the losers’ consciousness will remain trapped in this village forever, unable to escape.”

Qian Daniu swallowed hard, rubbed her face vigorously, and said: “Then let’s still fight with all our might to achieve a perfect victory!”

After dinner, just as the sun set, the group bid farewell to the village party secretary and his wife, then hurried to Cao Heihei’s house.

The party secretary’s house, the village chief’s house, the village committee office, and Cao Heihei’s house were all close to one another—this area was the power centre of the village. Heads lowered, the group sprinted quickly and reached Cao Heihei’s house within five minutes.

White mourning cloths still hung there, for according to the village party secretary, the head-seven for Cao Heihei’s parents had not yet passed.

(NT: the head-seven is a traditional Chinese mourning ritual held on the seventh day after someone’s death. It is the most important in a series of memorial ceremonies that occur every seven days, for a total of seven times, spanning 49 days)

“I only just lost my parents as well,” Xing Ye said, frowning. “Your experience is not much different from mine.”

They slipped silently into the house, not daring to light a lamp, fumbling about in the dark to search.

Xing Ye said: “Among us, Cao Qian is the only one who doesn’t even know where her home is. That means there must be some secret about her family. But if her parents really were killed by the village chief, then her house must also contain something the chief is after. Either he has already obtained it, or it’s hidden very well.”

“So you fate defying players had better rest; searching for things requires fate following players to act.” Qian Daniu rolled up her sleeves as she spoke.

Who would have thought—Cao Heihei and Yang Xiaomao just sneered at her and each produced their own fate following tools.

Qian Daniu: “……”

In the mirror, Lu Mingze said: “I just investigated several mirrors in this house. Yesterday afternoon and this morning, the village chief’s reflection appeared in one of them. That proves he was still searching for something here in Cao’s house today.”

Qian Daniu asked curiously: “Little Mirror, how did you check what was shown in the other mirrors?”

To protect Lu Mingze, Xing Ye had already prepared an excuse. They had agreed that the ability to transfer consciousness was his absolute bottom line—he could never reveal it to outsiders, no matter who they were.

So Lu Mingze said: “It’s just like a surveillance camera system. I and the mirrors in the same world are like cameras on the same network. I have administrator access, so I can view what’s been recorded in other mirrors.”

He cleverly used the concept of cameras to explain his ability.

“I see,” Qian Daniu nodded.

At that moment, Cao Qian’s swan crystal weakly said: “Gu-gua, gu-gua, gu-gua, open this cabinet and take a look.”

Xing Ye glanced at the swan crystal. “Why is she always calling like that?”

Cao Qian shrugged, suppressing a laugh: “Who knows? The system said a swan must act like a swan, so whenever she speaks, she has to imitate the swan’s cry. That’s why Linlin doesn’t want to talk to you guys.”

She forced herself not to laugh, so that Linlin wouldn’t feel embarrassed.

They opened the cabinet and found some old belongings—worn-out clothes and shoes, a sewing kit, etc. Everyone took the items out and laid them on the kang, examining them one by one.

Then the little mirror said: “That rag doll.”

It was a hand-sewn, shabby rag doll—probably Cao Heihei’s childhood toy. Xing Ye squeezed it and felt only scraps of cloth inside. It looked like the family had used torn rags to stuff a doll, the outside stitched with black fabric. Clearly, it was meant to be a Heihei doll.

Thinking of his suspicions about the village, Xing Ye picked up scissors and cut open the doll’s seams, revealing the cloth scraps inside.

Each piece of cloth was bundled up. When unfolded, they saw words embroidered on them!

Xing Ye laid out the scraps in order. Under the moonlight, they could barely make out the writing.

The first cloth read:

“More than fifty years ago, Shanshen Village was just an ordinary small village, with contact with neighbouring villages. The Cao family’s daughter-in-law came from the neighbouring village—that was Cao Heihei’s grandmother. This doll was also made by the grandmother for little Cao Qian when she was a child.

The grandmother said, since her daughter-in-law was about to give birth, before her own eyesight failed, she wanted to make a doll for the baby. She had attended high school and had been the elementary school teacher in her home-town village. When she married into Shanshen Village, it was agreed she would continue teaching after marriage. But shortly after giving birth, a famine year struck. The village school could no longer operate, and the villagers were too poor to send their children outside to study.

Then the grandmother’s first child went missing and was never found. From then on, Shanshen Village became a village under the so-called protection of the Mountain God. Every three years, they had to send offerings up the mountain, and from then on, they were cut off from the outside world.

The grandmother discovered something strange: ever since her child went missing, the villagers’ memories started to fade. They forgot how to leave the village. They forgot that there was a world outside.

She herself tried to return to her family, but no matter how she walked, she could only end up back in the village.

Everyone forgot what life had been like before the Mountain God appeared. Only the grandmother still remembered.

Because she never ate the Mountain God grass, whenever wild vegetable porridge was sent, she always smelled the scent of milk—the scent of her lost baby. Seeing that porridge made her cry; she couldn’t eat it.

Strangely, even though she never ate the porridge, she didn’t starve. She survived several famine years, lived to see her second son born, lived to see her daughter-in-law pregnant, lived until Cao Heihei was about to be born.

Knowing she was near death, she gave countless warnings to her children: never, under any circumstances, eat the Mountain God grass. She often told them stories of life before the Mountain God, urging them that if they ever had a chance, they must leave the mountains and see the outside world.

She was literate, but in the village there were no pens. It was as though some force forbade written records. So when making the doll for Cao Heihei, she embroidered her words on cloth scraps and sewed them inside the doll, hoping one day her grandson or granddaughter could escape this man-eating village.”

“So that’s how it is…” Cao Qian whispered, staring at the characters.
“This was originally an ordinary mountain village, but a mysterious force cut it off from the world. Little Mirror was right—this place is someone’s toy village, the villagers and the village itself are nothing but its playthings.”

After reading, Qian Daniu patted her chest and said: “Can we save the villagers? They’ve already become paper people. Even if we kill the Mountain God and rejoin the world, paper people won’t turn back into real people…”

Yan Hebi grew worried too. After reading the grandmother’s words, he desperately wanted to save the village, but had no idea how.

Xing Ye, however, felt more at ease. He sighed lightly: “I originally thought Shanshen Village was created entirely by some mysterious force—that if we destroyed that force, the village would vanish, or perhaps this world had only ever contained this single village, with no future for its people. But since the outside world still exists, that means this village still has hope.”

His words widened everyone’s hearts and ignited a spark of hope.

“You are right,” an aged voice suddenly said from outside the door. “I have long wondered whether killing the Mountain God would give the village a way out. Now I have the answer. Thank you for helping me find the grandmother’s words.”

Startled, they all turned their heads. At the doorway stood the village chief, watching them calmly, the scraps of cloth still in their hands.

Not one of them had noticed him arrive. How had he done it?

Translator : DarNan