The Village Chief’s brain really was broken.

 

“Heh heh heh,” the village chief laughed a few times, “do you think I’d tell you?”

He wasn’t that foolish after all; putting that matter aside, he continued: “I was still young then — the first time I killed someone, I was terrified. After the guard died, his body gradually disappeared, melting into the earth. I watched him vanish so fast that I grabbed a skull and tucked it into my chest pocket. Strangely, that skull did not disappear.

“Later we went into the cave. The guards stayed outside while we all fainted inside. I don’t know how long we slept, but I vaguely heard sounds and opened my eyes a little. I saw a person wearing a mask and a black robe turning a child into a paper person, and Qin Laoda was already gone by then.

“I saw, with my own eyes, the whole process of turning a person into a paper person. I also saw that the man in the black robe dripped two drops of blood onto the freshly made paper person. Then he came looking for me, but when he sniffed me and smelled my chest, he left.

“Long after he left, I dared to feel my chest and found the guard’s skull hidden there. It turned out he mistook me for already being a paper person because of that skull, and so he spared me.

“In the years that followed, I became a guard and escorted sacrifices up the mountain for many consecutive years. Each time I would try to knock out a guard and study the paper people’s bodies, conducting experiments on people back in the village. About twenty years ago, finally, I succeeded. After succeeding with a few people, I then turned myself into a paper person as well.”

“Wait,” Xing Ye asked, “during that time, weren’t you controlled by the sunlight?”

“Once you’re on the mountain you aren’t,” the village chief said. “As soon as I went up the mountain my mind cleared a lot — otherwise I wouldn’t have developed the idea of resisting. As for when I’m back in the village, as long as I behave without causing trouble and don’t run around, I won’t be controlled. Only if I do something that goes against the Mountain God’s will will I lose control. I did my experiments inside houses; I didn’t dare do them outside.”

“After you became a paper person, you were no longer affected by sunlight, right?” Xing Ye asked.

The village chief nodded: “Who knows why. When we were human we were controlled; those paper people who were blessed by the Mountain God were controlled too — but the sunlight can’t reach people like me.”

Xing Ye said, “You’ve said so much, but you still haven’t explained why the blood of the sacrifices can kill the Mountain God. Tell us that and we’ll cooperate.”

The village chief continued, “It was also a coincidence. About six years ago, when your Ermao went up the mountain, I followed and even dared to enter the cave, hiding as a paper skin person in a crack of rock. I just wanted to see what the Mountain God looked like, but the black-robed man spotted me immediately.

“His speed was extremely fast. I dodged and dodged, and no matter how I attacked with the knife I couldn’t hurt him. Until my knife accidentally cut Yang Xiaomao’s arm, and the blood splattered into the eyes under that man’s mask. He became extremely pained and screamed; I took the chance to run away.

“From then on I knew the sacrifice’s blood affected the Mountain God. This time, if we gather the heart-blood of you five, we should be able to kill the Mountain God.”

After hearing him, Xing Ye sighed slightly. So the idea that “heart-blood kills” was the village chief’s speculation — yet the fact that blood harmed the Mountain God was useful.

He understood why the chief staked the plan to kill the Mountain God on this ritual: after this year there would be no more purely living children left in the village, and nobody knew what the Mountain God would do if a future ritual had no living offerings. So the chief had to try to end the Mountain God this time. Unfortunately, the plan was too hasty and the evidence for blood-killing was incomplete; his words couldn’t be fully trusted.

“Why do you need what grandmother Cao left?” Xing Ye looked at the scraps of cloth. “This can only be considered a diary.”

The village chief chuckled, “Heh heh, of course it’s to learn about the outside world. We’re finally going to get out of this mountain. The only one who remembers things from fifty years ago is Aunt Cao. Among the parts I can’t read on that page, there must be important information about other villages. Heihei, read it to Uncle the village chief, be a good girl.”

Xing Ye gave Cao Qian a look; Cao Qian, who had worked with him across countless worlds, understood his meaning and said, “I can read it, but on one condition.”

The village chief, anxious, rubbed his hands. “Didn’t I already agree to one condition?” he said. “Why another condition?”

Cao Qian said, “After hearing you, I wonder one thing: why would you want to kill us before the Mountain God ritual? If killing the Mountain God requires live blood — that is, the blood of living people — and you kill us ahead of time, won’t there be no way left?”

The village chief: “…Isn’t the blood of the living the same as the blood of the dead?”

“How can they be the same?” Qian Daniu chimed in. “If you leave pig’s blood sitting for two days and then eat it, see if it still tastes good.”

The village chief pondered briefly: “That makes sense. When I attacked the Mountain God six years ago, Ermao was still alive.”

Xing Ye said, “I suggest you keep us alive — either keep us tied up like this, or post guards. After you go up the mountain, you can take blood from us to attack the Mountain God. Maybe we don’t have to die; as long as enough blood is released, it might work. We don’t want to be sacrifices; we want to live, and after killing the Mountain God go out into the world. Can’t we have a win-win?”

Cao Qian added at the right moment, “If you don’t trust us, after you succeed in killing the Mountain God you can turn us into paper people.”

The village chief thought carefully and nodded repeatedly. He looked at Yang Xiaomao and said, “You really are clever.”

Xing Ye thought it wasn’t that Xiaomao was clever but that the village chief had become duller than when he first entered. He looked at the village chief’s forehead, puffed up with pride, and wondered if the scalp had been away from the brain for too long and made him gradually stupider.

Xing Ye asked, “Uncle village chief, after someone becomes a paper person, the skin is paper, the bones and organs are paper straw bundles — what about the brain? What is the brain made of?”

The village chief replied with a grin, “When the Mountain God bestowed its blessing, its blood became the brains of the guards. I used the juice from my paper straw and mixed it with the original brain matter and blood to replace it.”

Everyone: “……”

No wonder the intelligence was so low — turned out their heads were full of straw!

Cao Qian asked, “So you promise not to kill us now?”

The village chief replied with a chuckle, “Yes. I’ll keep you together with the guard squad. Once we’re up the mountain, I’ll kill you then. Heihei, you can tell me what Aunt Cao embroidered on the scrap now, right?”

Cao Qian nodded: “My grandmother wrote this thing called ‘pinyin’ — it’s the pronunciation of Chinese characters. I tried to spell it out and it says the name of the village where she lived, Xiangyang Village, and lists several households — relatives. She told us that if anyone from the Cao family ever left Mountain God Village, they should go to her relatives in Xiangyang Village.”

“Hahahaha, excellent — that’s exactly what I wanted!” the village chief said. “First go to Xiangyang Village to join relatives, turn the people of that village into paper people, then slowly expand Mountain God Village. When people outside are all paper people and obey me, then I’ll be a god, hahaha!”

Everyone: “……”

The village chief’s brain really was broken.

 

 

Translator : DarNan