Many old villages and towns have traditions that have been carried on, such as sacrifices and prayers.
For a while, Su Er had quite an interest in these; it so happened that a TV channel was showing a documentary then, and his overall impression was: a bit strange, but very devout, mysterious.
Now, these villagers were gathered at the west end of the village, kneeling at the edge of a well and chanting rapidly, the words too fast to make out.
The village chief bent low to the ground, hands before him as he knocked his head heavily on the earth, until at last he spoke clearly: “Please, O god, forgive us our sins.”
Su Er frowned. This was completely different from the documentary—this kind of prayer clearly belonged to the domain of something sinister.
“They’re bowing toward a direction,” Ji Heng said in a low voice.
Following his hint, Su Er looked and noticed that every villager, while kowtowing, glanced at the right side of the well.
The village chief was helped up, his tone carrying a warning: “The sacrificial rite is the day after tomorrow. Mind your words until then—don’t say the wrong thing.”
At the mention of the sacrificial rite, excitement flickered in many villagers’ eyes, shoulders trembling as if they could hardly wait for that day to come.
Pushing away those supporting him, the chief said blandly: “That’s enough—disperse.”
The villagers rose one by one. Su Er gestured behind them with his eyes, asking whether they should leave or stay.
Ji Heng: “Let’s take a look at the well later.”
But Su Tangyi voiced another concern: “If the villagers notice we’re not in our rooms, it won’t be easy to explain.”
Ji Heng was calm as ever: “God envoys need not explain.”
Su Er nodded in agreement: “Right, every night we sleepwalk to pray anyway.”
Su Tangyi muttered awkwardly: “Do we?”
On serious matters, Yi Zhu’s words and actions were always different, very solemn: “As long as that last layer of paper isn’t pierced, there’s no need to play our part too perfectly.”
The villagers had their secrets, and they too had their goals. It just wasn’t time yet to tear off the mask.
Hiding behind a wall, Su Er watched most villagers head straight into their own courtyards, with no sign of going to pay night visits. That finally put his mind at ease about not returning to his room. When the place had fully cleared, he slipped out, ready to study the well.
He wasn’t bold enough to stick his head in—who knew whether some ghostly thing would crawl out?
Ji Heng’s attention didn’t seem fixed on the well itself. He snapped off a sturdy tree branch and began loosening the soil. Seeing this, the others joined in, digging with their hands once the dirt was soft.
Su Er’s movements suddenly froze as his hand touched something. The others stopped as well.
“What is it?” Ji Heng asked.
Su Er glanced at the thing half-buried in the soil: “Looks like a bone. What are the odds it’s from an animal?”
With a tug, a few pebbles scattered into the air, and what he held up was revealed: a charred, blackened hand bone.
It wasn’t as though they hadn’t seen worse, but suppressing the urge to retch, he only dug faster.
Bone after bone emerged from the soil. Su Er’s eyes darkened. They hadn’t even dug deep yet, but already four hands had been uncovered. Who knew how many bodies were buried below.
Su Tangyi asked, “Are these the villagers’ bones or outsiders’?”
No one answered, but all knew the latter was more likely.
Su Er made a straightforward guess: “The sacrificial rite is probably about burning the god envoys.”
“......”a
It did make some sense.
They hurriedly reburied the bones and then turned their attention to the well. Su Er politely knocked on the stone rim: “Excuse me, anyone in there?”
He leaned in for a quick peek, then pulled back at lightning speed.
His movement was so exaggerated Ji Heng sighed: “Aren’t you worried about throwing your back out?”
Su Er shrugged, confident in himself.
Yi Zhu’s lips twitched: “Why bother asking out loud—just look directly.”
Su Er: “If there’s a ghost, it’ll be stunned by my politeness for a few seconds. That’s the time to strike.”
Yi Zhu asked dryly: “So what did you see?”
He’d only had three seconds at most, enough to see nothing more than a pitch-black bottom.
Su Er’s smile faded, his gaze piercing through the barrier as he spoke slowly: “A drawing.”
“A drawing?”
He nodded: “There are carvings on the inner wall. Put together, they look like a picture.”
Yi Zhu’s expression turned a little odd.
If he wasn’t mistaken, this was a very important clue. But climbing down was dangerous. She wasn’t eager to take the risk, yet unwilling to freeload, so she offered: “If you go down, I’ll give you a healing item.”
That kind of item was worth two or three normal ones.
“......”a
Su Er grimaced. In the daytime she’d been eyeing his body, and now at night he was disposable?
A soft, unkind chuckle came from the side. Su Er turned—Ji Heng’s lips were pursed, but he was sure the laugh had been his.
Ji Heng gave a token reassurance: “At least study will never abandon you.”
“......”a
That little episode passed quickly. Ji Heng stepped up to the well, not nearly as cautious as Su Er, rolled up his sleeves, and reached in to feel along the inner wall.
A moment later he said, “Bring a lamp and a thick rope. I’m going down.”
Su Er’s lips parted as if to speak, but in the end he didn’t stop him. If Ji Heng had decided, he must have at least seventy to eighty percent certainty.
Yi Zhu and Su Tangyi went to fetch the items. Su Er suggested, “Better arm yourself with a tool.”
Ji Heng’s spiritual power wasn’t low. Judging from the current sense of things, even if there was a ghost below, it shouldn’t be too strong. But seeing him so serious, Su Er still pulled out a Bagua mirror and hung it on his chest.
Bagua mirror with modern clothes—it looked a bit ridiculous, though his good looks saved the scene.
When the rope came, Ji Heng tied it around his waist with practiced ease.
For safety, Su Er tied a second loop around him. When he was about to add a third, Su Tangyi quickly stopped him: “He’s not a pig you’re trussing up.”
Blunt words, but true. Su Er glanced at Ji Heng, who now had two thick coils around his waist, and saw him wearing a rather helpless smile.
Su Er cleared his throat and waved his hand: go ahead and descend.
The well air was damp. Ji Heng squinted, scanning the wall paintings carefully, descending slowly. Thankfully his arm strength was good.
He often had to twist and turn inside the shaft, and by the time he neared the bottom, almost a quarter of an hour had passed.
Su Er lay by the edge of the well. From his perspective the carvings were upside down, so he couldn’t make out their meaning, but he did notice Ji Heng’s brows gradually knitting together.
“A traveler collapsed in the desert, made a deal with a god, later reached an oasis but regretted it, then married and had children…”
The voice floated up from the bottom of the well, hollow and echoing, enough to sound eerie.
While Ji Heng narrated the story from the wall carvings, a ghastly pale hand rose from the water. Without changing expression, he struck it down, as if he had already noticed the water ghost’s presence, then ignored it and continued reading: “The god was angered, and the oasis suffered years of drought, nearly becoming a desert again.”
Su Er frowned. “That doesn’t make sense.”
If it’s a god, wouldn’t it be simpler to take the mortal’s life in anger? Why punish the entire oasis?
“That’s as far as the picture goes,” Ji Heng said. “There are two other wells. Maybe we’ll find more clues there.”
As he prepared to climb back up, he suddenly changed his mind, seizing the water ghost by its hair and hauling it upward.
The rope swayed precariously in midair, but fortunately the ghost wasn’t heavy. Both man and ghost made it up safely.
The water ghost was tossed onto the ground. By instinct it reached out, trying to drag a living person down. Ji Heng glanced at Su Tangyi and Yi Zhu: “Please go find Wan Yi and the others. Cross-check what’s on the murals.”
They all knew he was deliberately sending them away, but since Wan Yi and Li Zicang were already inspecting wells, there was reason to go.
Once they left, Ji Heng dragged the water ghost before Su Er.
Su Er pulled out his stun gun. Before draining its yin energy, he studied the ghost. “Everyone else was burned to death, so how did this one turn into a water ghost?”
“It was a player,” Ji Heng answered. “Its name badge dropped on the way up.”
Su Er tried several times to communicate with the water ghost, but each attempt failed. He finally concluded it was completely mindless.
“Once a player turns into a ghost, the chance of retaining awareness is almost nonexistent,” Ji Heng said.
Native villagers who died could sometimes become powerful ghosts with self-awareness, but players could not—otherwise the balance of the game would collapse.
Su Er thought of this as well, and his mind drifted to Zhu Yun, wondering how much hope remained that she had retained her sanity.
The water ghost was pure animal instinct, thrashing and lunging to devour them. Su Er suddenly understood why Ji Heng had frowned down in the well—not at the mural, but because he realized the water ghost had once been a player.
“Make it quick,” Ji Heng urged.
Su Er raised his head, sighed softly, and in the end chose to act. He watched as the snarling water ghost edged closer to death. At the last moment, its eyes seemed to clear, filled with relief.
“Tha—…” A single syllable squeezed from its throat before the clarity vanished.
Its body convulsed violently, then, after futile struggling, the ghost dissipated completely.
Su Er shook his head. Compared to becoming a ghost after death, complete annihilation within a dungeon was almost a mercy.
He had no time to linger on the thought before Ji Heng spoke: “The figure carved in the well is a woman.”
Su Er was stunned—he hadn’t expected that twist.
Recalling the story from the hotel card—the young traveler wandering the desert—the card had used the character “he,” so instinctively he’d assumed the traveler was male.
But in ancient usage, “he” was often gender-neutral. It was inertia in thinking that made him assume otherwise.
“So Yi Zhu was actually closest to the truth…”
Just then Wan Yi and the others emerged from the dark. Now all the players were gathered.
On the way, Yi Zhu had already spoken with them. Now, idly twirling her hair, she said: “In a life-or-death moment, who still talks about responsibility?”
This wasn’t the time to argue over values. Wan Yi quickly summarized what they had seen in the other two wells: “Man proposes, god disposes. The god intended to take the woman’s life after she gave birth, but unexpectedly, in her terror, she died in childbirth instead.”
Su Er lowered his gaze. “No wonder the god vented its wrath on the village.” After a pause, he asked, “And the child?”
Wan Yi shook his head. “Not mentioned. But there was an inscription: Every year on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, the god comes to the sinful village to take away the chosen god envoy.”
The fifteenth of the seventh month was the day after tomorrow—the moment the god would claim their lives.
Wan Yi’s expression was grim. “Time is short and clues are scarce. We need to lock onto one line of investigation—the missing child, the village itself, or the young traveler. Which one do we pursue?”
No one answered for a long time.
Before speaking, Ji Heng glanced at Su Er, signaling that he wanted his opinion.
Su Er was honest. “I’m not very good at finding information.”
“Say whatever comes to mind,” Ji Heng said. “It doesn’t have to be a clue.”
Su Er held up a finger. “One, destroy the village. The inscription says the god will come to a sinful village to claim a soul. If there’s no village, maybe the rule won’t hold.”
He lifted a second finger. “Two, suicide. If we’re already dead, the god leaves empty-handed.”
“......”a
An utterly ruthless idea!
Li Zicang, who had been silent, trembled. “That’s not just cruel to others—you’re crueler to yourself.”
“Destroy doesn’t mean slaughter,” Su Er clarified. “We can find a way to disable the villagers temporarily and scatter them to different places. With no residents, a village is just a cluster of houses. And if we die here and now, the god will have wasted its effort.”
Su Tangyi pointed out a flaw: “But we just saw a water ghost in the well. If one of us gets dragged in, that’s true death.”
Su Er smiled faintly. “That’s because the god keeps spares.”
If one died, there were still five players left.
Su Tangyi was about to argue, but seeing Su Er’s smile, she shivered involuntarily.
“Anyone who makes it into Deception isn’t weak. If others died in this village, that means the villagers are dangerous.” Su Er’s smile deepened. “That’s why we need to seize the initiative.”
“You mean to…”
Ji Heng said calmly, “He means that starting tomorrow, we’ll walk openly through the village to investigate together. If the villagers try to stop us, we’ll make it look like we’re going to kill ourselves as a group.”
If the god envoys were dead, what would the god use for its sacrifice?
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