The trembling ground suddenly stopped.
It was as if the earth-shaking tremor just now was merely an illusion. The world fell silent, save for the crackling of the torches.
The two groups faced each other with drawn weapons. A sinister smile slowly spread across Uncle Jiu’s face as he brandished his axe and walked toward the players. Just as he took his first step, a skeletal hand suddenly emerged from the still ground and grabbed his ankle.
Caught off guard, Uncle Jiu stumbled to the ground, his axe slipping from his hand. The smile he had yet to retract froze on his face.
It was a hand made of several white bones, and a mixture of cement and blood trickled from the bones. Then, another hand reached out. The two skeletal hands pressed against the ground, straining to pull the rest of the body out from below.
Someone’s torch fell to the ground, the noise snapping the villagers out of their terror-induced stupor. The villagers, who moments before had been filled with rage, now scrambled to flee, rolling and crawling as they bolted away.
The skeleton had almost fully emerged from the ground. Its massive frame was grotesquely distorted, with seven or eight heads on its shoulders. Where hands should be, there were feet; where legs should be, arms had grown. It looked like a dozen corpses had been tangled together, forming this skeletal monstrosity.
The commotion of the fleeing villagers seemed to infuriate the skeleton. The heads on its shoulders turned simultaneously by ninety degrees, and it quickly wriggled out of the ground. Numerous hands and feet pressed against the earth as it arched its back like a giant spider, crawling at terrifying speed.
Screams echoed one after another. The narrow bridge of Guanping Village, less than two hundred meters long, became a death corridor with no end in sight. Villagers collapsed one after another, their bodies torn in half like paper by the skeleton’s hands.
On the ancient, decaying bridge, blood and flesh flew in all directions. Blood flowed slowly along the bridge, spreading like tentacles in every direction, extinguishing the torches that had fallen to the ground.
In no time, the skeleton had torn apart all the fleeing villagers.
The air was thick with the stench of blood, so strong it made one gag. Under the pale moonlight, the players stood frozen, as if paralyzed by fear. Upon closer inspection, however, their legs were shaking violently. Chi Yi’s face was deathly pale; she tried to hold it in but couldn’t. Her legs gave way, and she collapsed to her knees, vomiting.
Creak—creak—
The skeleton twisted and turned, its bones making unsettling noises. Slowly, it rotated to face the players standing beside the bridge marker, all of its heads staring at them in unison.
Then it began to move, its jointed limbs crunching over the bloody remains, crawling slowly toward them.
Having witnessed its speed earlier, they knew running was futile. Gao Shijun collapsed to the ground, crying in despair, resigned to his fate. Xu Shu tightly gripped his life-saving and offensive tools, desperately thinking of a way to escape.
The skeleton crawled to the spot where Uncle Jiu had fallen earlier and suddenly paused. Then it raised a bony hand and flipped over the man lying on the ground.
Uncle Jiu had his eyes tightly shut, playing dead to perfection. However, his slight breathing gave him away.
The skeleton’s numerous heads stared at him for a moment. Then, it slowly raised a sharp bone, ready to plunge it into his chest and rip out his heart.
Suddenly, Li Zhi took a step forward. “Wait!”
Chi Yi, her voice hoarse from vomiting, reached out in panic, trying to grab her. “Zhi Zhi?!”
But under the moonlight, the skeleton actually stopped its movements at her words.
All its heads turned to face her. Hollow, black eyes watched as Li Zhi slowly approached. The cement mixed with blood dripped from the skeleton’s bones, like tears falling from its sockets, mixing with the warm blood on the ground.
Yet, as Li Zhi neared, the blood seemed to avoid her, as if unwilling to dirty her shoes.
Li Zhi didn’t spare a glance at the skeleton. She crouched beside Uncle Jiu and grabbed him by the collar, pulling him up into a sitting position.
The flesh on Uncle Jiu’s grotesque face twitched uncontrollably.
Li Zhi chuckled softly, her voice gentle, as if she were casually chatting with an elder. “Uncle Jiu, twenty years ago, to finish this bridge before the government’s planning order, did you do something utterly heartless?”
Uncle Jiu finally couldn’t keep up the act anymore. He opened his eyes and glared at her viciously.
Li Zhi waited for a while, seeing that Uncle Jiu remained silent, and quietly spoke: “There is an old, corrupt custom called ‘driving the life stake.’ It’s said that before building a bridge, people would bury a living person inside the bridge’s pier with cement, as a sacrifice to appease the spirits disturbed by the construction. This was done to ensure the smooth completion of the bridge.”
The few people standing behind her gasped audibly.
Li Zhi gazed at Uncle Jiu’s trembling lips. “That’s how you killed our parents, isn’t it?”
Uncle Jiu’s breath became heavy as he struggled to free himself from her grip. Suddenly, the skeleton beside them reached out and pressed its hand on his head, cold cement dripping from its bony fingers onto his face, as if ready to crush his skull at any moment.
Uncle Jiu froze, not daring to move, but still spat out viciously, “It wasn’t murder! It was a sacrifice! Building a bridge is a serious matter; sacrifices to the spirits are necessary! The bridge collapsed halfway through construction because we didn’t make an offering!”
His expression became crazed. “It was their fault! They disrupted the feng shui and angered the spirits, bringing punishment. They had to pay for it! Your parents made excuses, saying it was because the wind-resistance supports weren’t strong enough, that the collapse of the arch ribs was due to technical errors. Lies! Lies! It was the mountain god’s wrath! Only a human sacrifice could calm the mountain god’s anger! We had no time! We had to finish the bridge quickly. Guanping Village only had one chance. We needed that bridge! The village needed it!”
“So you used living people’s lives to complete the bridge?”
Li Zhi tightened her grip, causing Uncle Jiu’s face to redden as his collar constricted him. Yet he still wore an expression devoid of remorse.
“Guanping Village accepted those outsiders when they fled here! We gave them land, we built houses for them! It was their ancestors’ good deeds that allowed them to join our village. They owed us! They were supposed to repay us!”
He shouted self-righteously, as if to justify his actions. But his mind couldn’t help but recall the scene from back then.
Thirteen of them were tied at the bridgehead with hemp ropes, crying and kowtowing, begging the villagers for mercy. Their children were still young; they couldn’t be left without parents.
The man who had attended a few years of school said they could fix the bridge. He claimed it was just a construction error—the wind-resistant ropes weren’t properly secured, and the stabilizing cables hadn’t been fixed correctly, which caused the arch ribs to collapse.
He used a lot of technical terms, but the illiterate villagers couldn’t understand. They only shouted that it was the mountain god’s anger, and only by sacrificing these outsiders could the mountain god’s fury be appeased and the bridge be successfully completed.
The village chief stood up, promising to take care of the children and raise them well. He told the parents to go in peace, assuring them that the village would remember their contribution.
And so, thirteen people were bound and thrown into the bridge pier. They struggled, cried, cursed, but in the end, their voices were drowned out by the cement poured over them.
Under the guidance of the village elders, the villagers built symbolic graves for these sacrificial victims, along with a bridge monument, meant to suppress their souls forever. They were never to be reincarnated, eternally trapped there to guard the bridge.
Not long after, the government sent people to survey the area. Seeing the village’s efforts to fund the bridge construction, they enthusiastically dispatched experts to provide technical assistance. The experts pointed out that the wind-resistance supports had indeed been improperly secured—exactly as the outsider had said.
Everyone heard it, but no one mentioned it again. Under the experts’ guidance, the bridge was finally completed, and the village chief was overjoyed for a while.
The government had sent help to build their bridge! Surely Guanping Village would be chosen for the ecological village project this time!
But for various reasons and concerns, Guanping Village was ultimately not selected. The once-thriving village, surrounded by mountains, was abandoned, fading away into history’s oblivion.
No matter how hard they tried afterward, they could only watch helplessly as the village continued to decay.
And now, tonight, the last of the village’s elders had been torn apart by the skeleton. Uncle Jiu knelt amidst the scattered limbs and bodies, laughing hysterically, “We didn’t do anything wrong! We didn’t do anything wrong. We just wanted to save the village…”
Qinglin, consumed with rage, stormed over and kicked Uncle Jiu to the ground, pointing at him and shouting angrily, “You were wrong! You killed innocent people for your own selfish reasons. That’s why Guanping Village turned into a desolate wasteland—this is the retribution for your evil deeds!”
Even after kicking him, Qinglin wasn’t satisfied. He punched him twice more. “I swear, when we finish this game, I’ll beat you again!”
The skeleton, which had been slaughtering people with ease moments ago, remained motionless. Despite its large, eerie frame, the players now looked at it and could somehow sense a deep sadness and gentle protectiveness in its presence.
The others hesitantly approached, standing on the bridge, looking up at the skeleton. The skeleton lowered its heads, quietly gazing at them in return. This was a reunion, twenty years in the making, between parents and their children.
After a long pause, Li Zhi softly said, “Mom, Dad, we’ve come back. Rest in peace now.”
A mountain breeze arose, carrying with it the fresh scent of trees, dispersing the nauseating stench of blood in the air, and lifting the fog that had long shrouded the bridge.
The players had once tried to cross this bridge, only to be forced back by the ghostly mist.
It turns out that the bridge wasn’t haunted; it was their parents who were stopping them from entering the village.
Click—
The massive and grotesque skeleton gradually fell apart, scattering bones of varying sizes across the ground. These were the remains of their parents—the family the players needed to properly lay to rest.
The true mission finally surfaced, and the audience felt as if they had watched a suspenseful, emotional movie:
【This cruel and ignorant custom of “driving the life stake” is still upheld in certain places today, and it must be completely eradicated!】
【Even in death, parents instinctively protect their children.】
【Why is this horror show hitting me with such heart-wrenching storylines? Please, spare me the emotional pain!】
【So the system has been setting up the players for failure from the start. Who could have guessed that their parents’ bodies were right beneath their feet?】
【I checked the other livestreams, and this instance had the fewest player deaths, all thanks to Li Zhi saving them!】
【If Li Zhi hadn’t figured out the truth and dug up the bridge monument, this entire group would have been wiped out!】
【Let’s see who hasn’t voted for Li Zhi, the brilliant and fearless player!】
…
Inside the instance, the players gathered up all the bones and placed them into the funeral car. Though they were sharing a vehicle with piles of bones, none of them felt afraid anymore. Lian Qinglin even wanted to drive, but Chi Yi stopped him with a firm refusal.
Li Zhi, though she also didn’t have a C1 license, drove far more smoothly than Lian Qinglin. By the time they returned to the village, it was already the early hours of the morning. After tonight, Guanping Village had truly become a ghost town.
As the funeral car passed under the village’s archway, a black cat leapt out from the roadside, gracefully walking ahead of them. Li Zhi felt a stirring in her heart and followed the cat, driving over stretches of muddy dirt roads until it jumped onto the low wall of an abandoned courtyard.
Li Zhi parked the car by the wall, and the group got out to push open the dilapidated gate. Inside, the overgrown courtyard was laid out like a typical farmstead.
The rooms were covered in thick cobwebs, and dust lay like a blanket. On a collapsed cabinet lay a toppled photo frame. Li Zhi picked it up and brushed away the dust. Under the moonlight, she saw a young couple, their heads resting together, smiling brightly.
The back of the photo had names and a date written on it, matching two of the names from the list of the thirteen people on the tombstone.
Perhaps these were her character’s parents, Li Zhi thought, and they were so young.
From outside came the voices of the other players greeting someone. Li Zhi stepped out and saw Li Jianxi, who had arrived unnoticed. She smiled at him and said, “Mr. Li, we’d like to hold a funeral for our parents. We’ll need your help.”
Li Jianxi nodded. “The grievances have been resolved. Keep the ceremony simple and lay them to rest as soon as possible.”
Not wanting to delay further, the group immediately started preparing for the funeral. They were much more experienced by now, and given that it was hard to distinguish one skeleton from another, they opted for a collective burial. The process went quickly and smoothly.
They chose a peaceful location by the mountains, with good feng shui, to bury their parents. After the last handful of yellow soil fell into place, everyone—including the viewers in front of their screens—heard the system’s mechanical voice:
[—Congratulations, players, for successfully completing the task of properly burying your family members. You have cleared the ‘Burial in the Mountain Village’ instance. Popularity calculation will now begin. Thank you for watching, and we look forward to the next episode. Goodbye.]
The scenery of clear mountains, flowing waters, and the setting sun began to blur, including Li Jianxi, as if dissolving into ripples.
In the background, Xu Shu’s excited voice could be heard: “We did it!”
—
Footnotes:
The custom referred to as “driving the life stake” or similar practices of human sacrifice during construction projects is rooted in certain historical traditions, though it is largely seen as a folk superstition and is not commonly practiced today. In ancient times, especially in China and other parts of East Asia, there were beliefs that bridges, dams, or other large construction projects could disturb local spirits or deities, who might retaliate by causing disasters. To appease these spirits and ensure the success of the construction, legends suggest that a human sacrifice might be offered.
In these stories, individuals—often outsiders or marginalized people—were said to be buried alive at the base of a bridge or building. Their spirits were believed to protect the structure and pacify any spiritual unrest. The term for this practice in Chinese is often referred to as “打生桩” (dǎ shēng zhuāng), which directly translates to “driving the life stake,” referring to the supposed ritual of burying a live person as part of the foundational structure.
While there are many folk tales and oral traditions that describe this, it’s important to note that much of this falls into the realm of myth and superstition rather than documented historical fact. These practices were likely rare, and there’s little concrete evidence of human sacrifice in construction during more recent centuries. However, such stories still persist in folklore, and they serve as cautionary tales about morality, justice, and the abuse of power.