The sound of something heavy hitting the ground echoed from the ancestral hall, making the two villagers talking to Fatty suddenly pale and stand up abruptly.
“Someone broke into the ancestral hall?”
The two men’s previously calm demeanor vanished as they scanned everyone present with fierce gazes, making Fatty and his friends’ hearts race.
Fortunately, they didn’t make any moves, quickly dashing toward the ancestral hall.
Fatty tried to stop them, casually saying, “Brother Sangeng, maybe a rat or some small animal crawled in through the window. No need to get so tense; we weren’t done talking yet.”
The villager called Sangeng relaxed slightly but still resolutely headed over.
The two arrived at the hall’s entrance and took out a key to unlock the door.
The lock on the ancestral hall door was a heavy iron chain lock, with a padlock as large as an adult man’s palm—one that would be nearly impossible to break with an axe. After removing the lock, they opened a crack just big enough for one person to enter, letting one villager inside while Sangeng stayed outside, vigilantly watching the five of them with sharp eyes.
Lin Dandan, Wang Peiping, and Fatty were so nervous that their palms were sweating.
The light inside the hall was dim, making it impossible to see what was happening, even if they craned their necks. With Sangeng staring at them, they couldn’t get close, much less spy on anything.
After a while, the villager who had gone in returned.
Looking a bit unsettled, he said, “A cat climbed in through the window and knocked something off the table.”
Sangeng, still on edge, asked anxiously, “Is everything okay?”
“It’s fine. I put everything that fell back in place.”
Both villagers looked uneasy, with a hint of irritation toward the group of outsiders, their expressions suggesting they wanted them gone.
The five took the hint and left.
Once they had moved far enough away from the hall, they let out a collective sigh of relief and glanced back up the hillside, searching for any sign of Wu Yang and Skinny.
“What’s in that ancestral hall anyway? Do you think Wu Yang and Skinny are alright?” Lin Dandan asked anxiously, biting her nails.
Wang Peiping looked disheartened and asked, “The noise just now was pretty loud. You don’t think something happened to them, do you?”
“Don’t say such things,” Fatty scolded, displeased.
The five of them continued to stroll slowly, not particularly to cooperate with Gu Jiu but to buy as much time as possible, hoping for Wu Yang and Skinny to return.
After about twenty minutes, they finally saw Wu Yang and Skinny coming up along another path.
Neither of them seemed injured, but Gu Jiu and Fatty noticed several tears on their clothes. When they left, their clothes had been intact, with no signs of damage.
It was clear something had happened inside the hall.
“Wu Yang, Skinny, you’re alright!” Lin Dandan exclaimed with relief.
Fatty ran over to check on his brother, pulling at the tears in his clothing to examine them. He found that the rips looked like they’d been made by a sharp blade, clean and precise, though luckily, their skin hadn’t been cut.
Wang Peiping squeezed in, asking eagerly, “Wu Yang, did you find anything in the hall? Any information about the curse?”
Lin Dandan, Fatty, and Gu Jiu all looked over with concern.
Wu Yang held up a hand to stop their questions. “Let’s talk about it near the village entrance.”
Villagers were walking around, making it inconvenient to speak openly. The area near the village entrance was open and quiet, so they wouldn’t have to worry about villagers overhearing them.
The group gathered under the large willow tree at the entrance.
Gu Jiu intentionally looked toward the base of the tree. Near the soil, there were dark red bloodstains, barely noticeable unless one looked closely.
The soil in Qingshan Village was dark, making any bloodstains less obvious.
As a nurse, Lin Dandan was highly sensitive to human blood and confirmed that the stains on the tree roots were indeed human blood, not from poultry.
Wu Yang then shared with them what he and Skinny had discovered in the ancestral hall, making everyone shiver with fear.
“Are all the villagers in Qingshan Village actually dead?” Fatty asked, trembling.
Wu Yang and Skinny nodded. They suspected the villagers had restricted their entry to the hall to keep them from discovering that all the villagers were actually dead. Plus, there were those two terrifying dolls guarding the hall—malicious spirits that were truly dangerous. Had they not carried protective items against ghosts, they might have perished in that hall.
“They’re really ghosts? Does that mean we’re in a den of ghosts?” Wang Peiping nearly lost his mind with fear.
In the two games he had played previously, there were also ghosts, but they weren’t that numerous; the other NPCs were real people. As long as you knew how to avoid the ghostly threats, clearing the game was fairly manageable.
This was the first time he’d encountered a village entirely populated by ghosts, making this scenario far harder than any of his previous experiences.
Lin Dandan’s face was pale, clearly terrified by the revelation that all the villagers were ghosts.
Noticing everyone’s fear, Wu Yang found it interesting that the two newcomers remained unusually calm. Thinking back to Gu Jiu’s bold actions at Old Li’s house, he thought it made sense.
He continued without overthinking it, “Regarding the curse, I believe I’ve uncovered some clues.”
“What clues?” Everyone looked at him in surprise.
Instead of answering, Wu Yang turned to Gu Jiu. “Miss Gu, did you happen to notice the expression on that doll’s face back at the hall?”
“Yes, I noticed,” Gu Jiu replied, taking out the doll. “It looked unhappy at that time.”
Before leaving, Wu Yang and Skinny had instructed her to pay close attention to the doll’s expressions, suspecting that its changing expressions were a hint in the game.
Wu Yang’s face lit up with realization, and he smiled. “This doll is a child cursed by the village.”
What?!
The group stared at the doll in shock. Though they had noted its human-like hair and eyes, they hadn’t thought it was human. They assumed it was some kind of ghostly or magical object, maybe just a tool within the game.
Wu Yang continued, “Yesterday, when we visited Granny Wang, she mentioned that she didn’t make this doll. All her dolls have a mark on them. Do you remember?”
They all nodded.
“The dolls Granny Wang makes represent the villagers,” Gu Jiu added. “There were 238 dolls in her house.”
Wu Yang nodded at her with approval. “The total population of the village is 295. Of these, 238 are adults, and 57 are children.”
On their first day in the village, Wu Yang had specifically asked the village head about the population, and everyone had heard it. However, they hadn’t thought much of it then. Now, hearing him bring it up, they finally had an epiphany.
Fatty hesitantly asked, “So, you mean the adults in the village became those ghost dolls in Granny Wang’s house. What about the 57 children?”
“They also became dolls, like the one Miss Gu is holding.” Wu Yang corrected them, “But it’s not that they turned into dolls; rather, they were cursed. Their bodies are already dead, but their souls are attached to these dolls, becoming ghost dolls.”
Thus, this was the curse of the village—the villagers themselves were cursed.
But they were still somewhat puzzled. “Who cursed the villagers?”
“It was the Mountain Spirit.”
This statement came from Lu Ji, who had been silent until now. Everyone was surprised to hear her suddenly speak up.
Gu Jiu smiled at Lu Ji, “What have you discovered, Miss Lu?”
Lu Ji glanced at her quietly, then spoke in a slightly raspy voice, “The village chief reminds us every day that the Mountain Spirit appears at night and can lure away people’s souls. That’s a hint.”
Lin Dandan, Wang Peiping, and Fatty were stunned, even Wu Yang was taken aback.
They hadn’t expected that Lu Ji would be the first to interpret the village chief’s warnings as clues. Even Wu Yang had only confirmed it after seeing the situation in the ancestral hall. Although they heard the village chief’s warnings daily, most of them assumed he was just trying to scare them or that the Mountain Spirit was just another threatening ghost in the game. They hadn’t connected it to the village’s curse.
“How are you so sure the curse originates from the Mountain Spirit?” Wang Peiping asked skeptically.
“Because of the Bone Ghost Herb,” Lu Ji replied coolly. “Bone Ghost Herb is used to treat Lost Soul Syndrome. That’s the second hint; it’s quite obvious.”
Lin Dandan and Wang Peiping exchanged looks, suddenly feeling they might be the ones missing something. Was the hint really that obvious?
Looking around, Wu Yang and Skinny seemed deep in thought, Fatty appeared utterly confused, and Gu Jiu… she was already sitting on a nearby rock, resting, looking as though she didn’t care much about clearing the game.
The two of them sighed in silent exasperation.
Removing the seemingly useless “spoiled princess” from the equation, Fatty’s bewilderment offered them some comfort.
It wasn’t that they were foolish but rather that they’d lacked sufficient information to connect the dots.
“Miss Lu is right,” Wu Yang continued, “The village’s barefoot doctor mentioned that young souls are light, making it easy for the Mountain Spirit to lure them away. That was another hint. The Mountain Spirit is indeed the source of the curse; it captures the villagers’ souls and traps them inside the dolls.”
“But that doesn’t add up,” Fatty interjected. “The barefoot doctor said it’s the children’s souls that are light, making it easy for the Mountain Spirit to capture them, not the adults.”
Skinny cut in, “What if the barefoot doctor was lying?”
“No way,” Fatty shot back at his brother. “The barefoot doctor is an NPC in the game, and NPCs rarely lie.”
“Rarely doesn’t mean never. Don’t forget, the barefoot doctor is a ghost too,” Skinny knocked on Fatty’s head. “Be a bit more cautious, or you might lose your life to an NPC’s trickery.”
Their exchange left the rest of the group deep in thought.
Lin Dandan frowned, “Could it really be that the barefoot doctor lied?”
“I don’t think so.”
Lin Dandan looked at Gu Jiu, who had finally spoken, with mild irritation. “How do you know that?”
Gu Jiu took out a tissue to wipe her sweat, her cheeks flushed from the long walk. “The barefoot doctor’s first words were, ‘Many children have indeed suffered from Lost Soul Syndrome.’ Only then did he mention, ‘Children’s souls are light, making it easy for the Mountain Spirit to capture them.’ Those are two different things. First, the children suffer from Lost Soul Syndrome, and only then are they lured by the Mountain Spirit.”
Lin Dandan still looked confused. “Is there a difference?”
Wang Peiping tried to hold back, but he, too, felt the distinction was subtle at best.