It was finally daybreak when Gu Jiu, with large dark circles under her eyes, dragged herself out of bed.
Not only her, but the other people also didn’t look well-rested; clearly, they had been kept awake by noise all night.
Gu Jiu glanced at her roommate. Lu Ji’s complexion was an unhealthy pale shade. Although she didn’t have dark circles, she looked perpetually sickly—frail, pale, and always lacking energy.
After breakfast, Wu Yang spoke seriously, “I hope we can cooperate. No matter what information we find, let’s share it as much as possible so that we can pass the level quickly and leave the game world smoothly.”
Some players, to gain more points for clearing the level, would deliberately withhold information, leading to incomplete details among the group, preventing them from making the right judgments, and ultimately dying in the game world.
Everyone nodded. They were novice players in a D-Class field, not very strong, so working together was indeed the best approach.
Seeing their agreement, Wu Yang’s expression softened a bit. He continued, “Let’s gather one hour before dinner at Old Li’s house to share any information we’ve found.”
After dinner, it might already be dark, and nighttime wasn’t a suitable time for discussions as it could easily trigger unexpected incidents.
No one objected.
After that, they each went their separate ways to gather information about the curse in the village.
Gu Jiu, still tired from last night, didn’t want to move around.
She went back to Old Li’s house, took a shower, changed into clean clothes, and sat on a stone by the roadside, resting her chin in her hand as she observed the daily routines of the villagers with great interest.
Lin Dandan passed by and saw her like this, sneering coldly.
In these game worlds, if players don’t make an effort to find clues to clear the level or avoid dangers, they won’t even know how they’ll die in the end. No one who enters the game world is lazy; to survive, even the laziest person would become active.
Unless they no longer wished to live.
But if you could stay alive, who would choose to die?
Lin Dandan walked away indifferently, not bothering to offer any advice.
The warm sunlight bathed Gu Jiu, and she noticed that Qingshan Village was likely in autumn.
It wasn’t until lunchtime that Gu Jiu lazily got up and went to the village chief’s house for lunch.
After lunch, the group continued their investigation of the village. Gu Jiu, however, found another spot to sit lazily.
The chubby and skinny brothers happened to pass by and saw Gu Jiu sitting under the shade, playing a game of tossing stones with the village children. They couldn’t help but twitch their lips, almost doubting whether they were still in the real world rather than a dangerous game.
Seeing the two brothers, Gu Jiu greeted them warmly.
As the saying goes, one doesn’t hit a smiling face, especially when it belongs to such a beautiful person. The chubby brother cheerfully pulled his sibling over.
Compared to the cheerful and loud chubby brother, the skinny one was quiet and taciturn; he hardly ever spoke. However, no matter what decision Fatty made, he never objected, silently following by his side.
“Miss Gu, aren’t you going to the village to gather clues?” Fatty asked.
Gu Jiu adjusted her glasses, drawing on the ground absentmindedly with a willow branch in her hand. “I’ve been frail since childhood; I don’t have the stamina you all have, so I’m not going.”
The chubby brothers were taken aback.
This is a dangerous game world; you can’t just sit around because you’re weak.
Did she plan on freeloading off them for a victory? Even Wu Yang, who had experienced four game worlds, didn’t have the confidence to clear the level smoothly. Every game carried risks; one mistake could lead to death, or even the demise of the entire group.
The chubby brother, unable to bear the thought of her dying out of ignorance, spoke seriously, “Miss Gu, the various game worlds are divided into five levels: D, C, B, A, and S. The D-Class game fields are the easiest. Beginners typically enter a D-Class field, like this cursed village we’re in now. If you survive ten D-Class fields, you can progress to C-Class. Players earn points through the games, and these points can be used in the game shop to purchase items, which help protect you and increase your chances of survival in future games.”
Gu Jiu listened quietly. This was information that newcomers in their first game would not know.
“After each game ends, the system calculates and summarizes the points for each player. The points are based on their performance in the game world. If a player does nothing and relies on their teammates to carry them to victory, their points will generally be very low.”
This was a subtle reminder that if she wanted points, she needed to be active. The faster they cleared the game, the more points they could earn. Points were very important for players as they could buy life-saving items.
Gu Jiu curiously asked, “Is there no time limit in a D-Class game field?”
“If the mission doesn’t specify a time limit for clearing, then usually there isn’t one. However, even if there’s no time limit, the ghosts and malevolent entities in the game world won’t patiently wait for players to leisurely search for clues. They’ll get impatient and start killing players, leading to a team wipeout.”
Gu Jiu nodded, finding this quite reasonable.
The chubby brother chuckled, “Actually, having newcomers in the team can be a good thing; it slightly lowers the difficulty of the level. To prevent experienced players from misleading newcomers with false information, the system rewards old players with some points for explaining things to the new ones.”
This meant that Wu Yang, the most experienced player in their team, had already received some points from the system.
Gu Jiu mused silently, it seemed the game system was quite considerate, ensuring the safety of those who had just entered the game world without any prior knowledge.
After a moment of thought, she asked a question she was curious about, “How does the game world select its players? Is it random?”
The chubby brother wasn’t surprised by her question, as it was something many newcomers were curious about. He smiled and said, “It’s not random; there are selection criteria. This question will be answered by the system after you successfully complete your first game task. We can’t tell you now.”
Gu Jiu understood. To truly learn the intricacies of the game world, she needed to survive the first game. The first game was essentially the player’s entry ticket.
She then asked, “If we spend a long time in the game world, when we return to the real world…”
“It doesn’t affect the real world. The time when you enter and when you exit will have no time difference in reality. This is to maintain the stability of the real world,” Fatty explained, “unless you enter…”
The latter part of his sentence was muffled. Gu Jiu raised an eyebrow, understanding that this was part of the game’s protective mechanism. Newcomers who had not successfully survived their first game were temporarily not qualified to know this information.
Sure enough, Fatty continued, “Once you survive your first game, the system will explain all these things to you.”
Gu Jiu responded nonchalantly with a simple hum, and continued to ask about details regarding game completion. As long as it didn’t touch on the protected mechanisms the game system didn’t allow to be disclosed, Fatty patiently answered her questions.
After the chubby brothers left, Gu Jiu continued playing with the village children.
These children were quite young, the oldest being seven and the youngest six. In such remote mountain villages, children didn’t attend kindergarten; they went straight to elementary school.
She used a willow branch to write numbers on the tree, teaching them to recognize numbers from one to ten.
As evening approached, the village women stood at their doorways, calling their children home for dinner.
Just as Gu Jiu was about to leave, a dark-skinned, skinny child ran up to her. He looked at her with an innocent and pure expression, offering her something.
“Sister, thank you for teaching us to read. This is a gift from us.”
Gu Jiu looked at the brightly colored, intricately crafted cloth doll the child held out to her. The craftsmanship was far too refined for a rural village—something about it felt completely out of place.
The other children remained silent, standing quietly on the side, watching them. Their innocent eyes fixed unblinkingly on her, giving an especially eerie feeling.
These children suddenly lost their innocent and pure demeanor, becoming unsettlingly strange.
“Sister, won’t you accept it?”
—
An hour before dinner, everyone gathered in Old Li’s courtyard to share the information they had gathered.
“I think the village’s ancestral hall is very suspicious,” Wang Peiping said, looking at the others with a hint of pride. “There are guards there, and they won’t let us in. Most places in the village are open for us to explore, so why not the ancestral hall?”
Wu Yang agreed, “Indeed, we should find an opportunity to sneak in and take a look. Also, there’s an old widow at the east end of the village, Granny Wang. I’ve heard she makes beautiful cloth dolls. We should keep an eye on her.”
Hearing about cloth dolls, many people immediately thought of cursed dolls and similar things.
Lin Dandan added, “There are bloodstains under the willow tree at the village entrance. Willow trees are traditionally protective against evil in rural areas, so there shouldn’t be blood there.”
The chubby brother and his skinny sibling shared their findings. “We tried walking out of the village today, but even when we reached the end of the road, we were still in Qingshan Village. No matter how far we went, we couldn’t leave. But the children who go to school don’t seem to be affected; they can leave.”
The village children of school age typically traveled to a primary school ten miles away.
No one was surprised by this revelation. The fact that the chubby brothers had tested it confirmed what they all suspected.
After the five had finished sharing, they turned their attention to Lu Ji and Gu Jiu.
Lu Ji, like the skinny brother, was quiet and reserved. Despite being good-looking, her presence was faint, and coupled with her sickly appearance, people doubted whether she could survive in such a dangerous game world.
Gu Jiu, on the other hand, though she appeared delicate and frail, had a presence that couldn’t be ignored, even if she looked equally useless.
Lu Ji mentioned that she had investigated a few households halfway up the mountain and found that they were growing a medicinal herb called Bone Ghost Herb at their doorsteps.
“The village elders say that Bone Ghost Herb can cure ‘Lost Soul Syndrome.’”
“Lost Soul Syndrome?”
Everyone immediately recalled what the village chief had said the previous night—that mountain spirits appear at night and lure away souls. Could it be that once a soul was taken, it caused this syndrome, and Bone Ghost Herb was needed to treat it?
Finally, they all turned to Gu Jiu, curious about what she had discovered.
Lin Dandan and the chubby brothers knew that Gu Jiu hadn’t done anything today; she had simply lounged around the village. While the chubby brothers didn’t mind, Lin Dandan looked down on her.
Gu Jiu slowly took a cloth doll out of her coat pocket and said, “A village child gave this to me.”
The doll was dressed in an old-fashioned floral cotton jacket and skirt. Its hair was smooth and shiny, resembling human hair. Its round face, with big eyes, a small nose, and a tiny mouth, was smiling. Though it looked cute, it gave off an inexplicable sense of eeriness.
Everyone was startled, taking a step back, their faces full of disbelief as they stared at her.
“You—you actually dared to take that?” Lin Dandan exclaimed, especially when she looked into the doll’s eyes, which shone with an unsettling human-like clarity. A chill crawled up her spine.
Gu Jiu replied, “They gave it to me willingly.”
“And you just accepted it because they offered?” Lin Dandan snapped instinctively, her tone harsh.
Wu Yang, being a reasonable person, didn’t want to see the two girls arguing, so he explained, “In the game world, items given voluntarily by NPCs are usually not something you can refuse. If you do refuse, the consequences might be worse than accepting.”
Although the doll was indeed creepy, they couldn’t be sure that refusing it wouldn’t have led to something worse happening.
In situations like these, the odds were fifty-fifty—good or bad—it all depended on the player’s luck.
Lin Dandan was momentarily speechless, and she could only fume silently, saying nothing more.
Wang Peiping and the chubby brothers exchanged glances, unsure if they should consider Gu Jiu unlucky.
Among the seven players, Gu Jiu was the first to receive an item forcibly given by an NPC. Although they couldn’t tell if it was a blessing or a curse, the game world’s rules could be cruel at times, and most players preferred not to take such risks.
Indeed, if lucky, the doll might be an important item that could help them clear the level.
But what if it’s something that attracts ghosts?
With such a fifty-fifty chance, many players prefer not to take the risk.
After dinner, the village chief repeated the same warning as last night: “If you have nothing to do at night, don’t leave your houses. Mountain spirits will appear and lure souls away.”
“It’s like he’s on repeat. He warned us once last night, and now he’s doing it again today,” Fatty muttered quietly.
Wu Yang’s expression shifted slightly as he glanced back at the village chief’s house. The oil lamp inside had not yet been extinguished; it was the only light still on in the village after dark.
When they returned to Old Li’s house, everyone quickly freshened up before going back to their rooms to rest.
The room was lit by a single oil lamp, the only source of light provided. The oil in the lamp was minimal, likely lasting just an hour before it would go out.
The amount of oil in the lamp was fixed each day, but no one knew who refilled it.
The dim light barely illuminated the room, and the corners remained shrouded in darkness.
Lu Ji leaned against the bed, and the faint light couldn’t hide the pallor of her face, giving her a sickly beauty.
She suddenly asked, “Miss Gu, why did you accept that doll?”
Gu Jiu placed the doll on the bedside table and looked at Lu Ji, meeting her dark pupils. She smiled gently, her expression appearing especially serene and soft under the lamp’s glow. “The child who gave me the doll said something at the time: they hoped I could do something for them—this doll was the payment.”
Lu Ji’s eyes remained dark, seemingly not understanding her meaning.
Gu Jiu said, “We’ll find out tonight.”
Seeing that Gu Jiu had no intention of explaining further, Lu Ji didn’t press the issue and lay down fully clothed.