Was it even necessary to point that out? Anyone with eyes could see it.
Under Zhou Qi’an’s sarcastic, “You’re a genius” kind of dumbfounded look, the square-faced man quietly began to resent him.
Zhou Qi’an waited for others to speak up—surely not everyone was as foolish.
Sure enough, after the square-faced man embarrassed himself, the blind-box teammate who insisted on living alone finally spoke up:
“The village chief deliberately blurred the key points last night. Before leaving, he emphasized waking up early, but what seems more important are the first few words—‘When in Rome, do as the Romans do.’ In a small rural village, which tends to be quite conservative, the separation of men and women is a crucial taboo, followed by clothing.”
Men and women living together breaks a taboo.
“The ghost couldn’t have killed six people overnight. The missing Ms. Zhao was the one dressed the most revealingly among them, so she became the unlucky chosen victim.”
As she spoke, the woman’s gaze casually swept over Zhou Qi’an.
Zhou Qi’an felt this scenario needed a female player as a teammate and guessed that she had chosen him.
Now he was certain his judgment was correct.
Under the same rule violation, deciding who dies based on how revealing their clothes are is unfair. In a conservative, remote village, if a bare-chested man and a woman in a camisole walked past together, the woman would definitely be the target of harsh criticism.
Fairness is the supreme law of game operation.
Female players are disadvantaged in this regard but surely hold advantages in other ways—they just hadn’t discovered them yet.
Zhou Qi’an’s nose twitched suddenly—he smelled a faint scent of blood, too faint, mingled with a peculiar metallic odor in the air, almost gone.
At this moment, Shen Zhiyi strode over. As square-faced man awkwardly tried to change the subject, Shen Zhiyi suddenly moved to the window.
The young girl was still shaken: “How does a grown person just disappear? There’s no sign the door was forced open.”
Seeing Shen Zhiyi staring at the window, square-faced man shook his head, “The window is too small, no one could get out.”
“Gloves.”
Shen Zhiyi unexpectedly turned his head, startling square-faced man.
No one would steal another’s belongings so openly. square-faced man hesitated, then took off his glove and handed it to Shen Zhiyi.
Shen Zhiyi took it with some disdain and tossed it to Ying Yu, who tossed it back to square-faced man—the whole process resembling a germophobe’s game of hot potato.
Before square-faced man’s face could get any worse, Ying Yu took out a small shovel from his bag and scraped the edge of the window.
There was little dust on the shovel but tiny crystal fragments fell off.
Everyone focused, noticing the patterns in the crystals resembled coagulated flesh tissue. A few strands of hair were caught in the window frame, hard to spot without close inspection.
The hair was wine-red.
Missing Ms. Zhao’s hair was also wine-red.
Those few strands fluttering in the wind sent a chill down everyone’s spine.
Ying Yu moved toward the door, seeming to want to step outside.
Zhou Qi’an suddenly pulled out a white cloth-wrapped object from his pocket.
When the cloth was unfolded and the contents revealed, the others instinctively stepped back.
Inside were half an ear and torn pieces of upper lip flesh, the remnants of lipstick dried and cracked.
Zhou Qi’an had found these earlier outside the window.
“There’s also a faint water stain on the outer wall. I suspect a ghost climbed in at midnight, dismembered the person, and carried the pieces out one by one.”
As for why there was no blood, it might be related to these crystals.
Most of the blood had taken on a strange coagulated form.
The air grew extremely quiet.
Zhou Qi’an spoke in a calm tone, describing the most horrifying scene. For a moment, only the sound of labored breathing filled the room.
Last night, while everyone was asleep, a ghost crawled in here into this cramped room and dismembered a player alive.
Just imagining the scene sent chills through everyone.
The young girl, looking at the dry, shriveled flesh, couldn’t hold back and ran out to vomit several times.
Her pale face turned even more ghastly.
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of an old figure.
—The village chief had arrived.
The large tumor on his back seemed bigger now, like a hunch pressing down hard on his spine. His murky eyes scanned the room. Pretending to be curious, he asked, “Where’s that expert?”
Everyone tensed, pursing their lips, until square-faced man finally said, “She went for a walk nearby.”
The village chief chuckled twice: “Alright then. I’ll take our honored guests for a field investigation, and I’ll pick some fresh vegetables to have the villagers cook for you later.”
Thinking of those deformed vegetables, the players hesitated, wondering if they should find an excuse to refuse.
“Thank you then,” said Miss Shen, standing very straight, chest out, head held high, showing off her graceful figure.
As team leader of the experts, Miss Shen had decision-making power.
Zhou Qi’an said, “No thanks necessary, let’s go into the mountains.”
Miss Shen was taken aback.
“There are wild vegetables and bamboo shoots in the mountains, just dig a little. The village’s grain harvest is limited. We have too many mouths here. If we eat up the vegetables, what will happen to the villagers?”
Village chief: “Nine people, how much can you eat?”
He didn’t count Miss Shen, and no one knew what the NPC thought about the monkey-headed staff member’s actual form.
“Nine people, ten mouths,” Zhou Qi’an said, spreading open the white cloth with the body parts inside.
The players were speechless.
The village chief was speechless too.
Somehow, the cloth’s pattern looked familiar—somewhat like clothing hung outside a villager’s house.
Zhou Qi’an nonchalantly rewrapped the pieces and slipped them into his pocket.
Watching this, the other players felt uneasy. No one knew what the young man was thinking, carrying around pieces of flesh in his pocket.
Zhou Qi’an didn’t explain but urged, “The early bird catches the worm. Let’s go into the mountains.”
Village chief: “Let’s go.”
One player muttered: “He actually agreed.”
On the way to dig wild vegetables, Zhou Qi’an walked at the back, humming quietly, his eyes darkly fixed on the village chief’s back.
As expected, once in the mountains, the players’ attention was mostly on the white building in the distance.
The church wasn’t far from the village and was very eye-catching.
When they asked to check it out nearby, the village chief mysteriously said, “If you’re interested, I’ll invite you to visit tomorrow afternoon.”
They didn’t stay long in the mountains. The village chief then led them to his own home.
Along the way, some villagers sat chatting in the fields, some were farming, and others were drawing water from the well. Seeing the expert team passing by, they waved enthusiastically.
Those heartfelt smiles sent shivers down the players’ spines.
In the sunrise, under the morning sun, every villager’s skin was unnaturally pale, so delicate that pores were almost invisible. In such a remote place, exposed to wind, sun, and farm work, such skin was impossible.
Because they were so white, their expressions were nearly erased.
Even stranger, after staring for a while, players’ eyes would blur, and the villagers’ fuzzy faces seemed to merge into one.
Zhou Qi’an couldn’t help but glance at the village chief, whose skin color was relatively normal.
It felt as if someone was watching him. The village chief’s eyes shifted furtively toward Zhou Qi’an, and in a hoarse voice, he asked, “What are you looking at?”
Zhou Qi’an replied, “Just looking at how handsome you are — so sharp and angular.”
What a sharply defined face!
“…”
The square-faced guy seized the opportunity to help the village chief save face and asked, “When did the crops here start going bad?”
The village chief shook his head. “Can’t quite remember.”
“Have you ever called in experts before?”
“No, can’t afford it,” the village chief sighed. “This time it’s only thanks to a subsidy we applied for.”
The square-faced guy’s expression darkened upon hearing this. According to the backstory, an expert team had already come through before them.
·
The village chief lived on the west side of the village, deeper inside, with the largest homestead in Fengshui Village. It was a brick house like the others, but his place had much better lighting and normal windows.
In a place where people could barely get enough to eat, the village chief even had a personal cook. According to him, the large lump on his back affected his mobility, making it inconvenient to cook for himself.
Zhou Qi’an just wanted to say one thing: bullshit.
Last night, on the far mountain road, the village chief was walking almost briskly.
The cook’s face was smoothed out as if by a beauty filter, making it hard to tell her age. She took the wild vegetables picked by the players and went into the kitchen to cook.
Zhou Qi’an followed along, acting like he was at home and making a request: “Don’t make it too spicy.”
The cook twisted her neck; her eyes looked somewhat fierce amid the kitchen smoke and grease.
Zhou Qi’an took out the white cloth again, revealing the thin meat scraps right under the cook’s eyes. “Look, my friend has a mouth inflammation — her mouth’s moisture has evaporated a lot. She can’t eat spicy food.”
The cook was shocked.
After all, who could have imagined such a scene?
A few seconds later, the cook was shocked again — she snatched the cloth wrapping the dried meat pieces from Zhou Qi’an’s hand.
“This is… my family’s clothing?!”
She said that all the clothes hung outside to dry that morning were missing, including the neighbors’ — even the clotheslines had disappeared.
Zhou Qi’an’s brow twitched at this.
Quickly, he calmly asked back, “I just picked it up on the roadside. Maybe the strong wind last night blew it away?”
The cook’s suspicious gaze never left him.
Zhou Qi’an remained composed, expression unchanged, took back the cloth, and walked out.
The kitchen had only a cloth curtain as a door — no soundproofing — so everyone could hear what was being said inside. The village chief was outside fetching water, drinking greedily as if very thirsty.
Seeing the corner of the cloth sticking out of Zhou Qi’an’s pocket, the square-faced guy disapproved: “Using pieces of a player’s corpse to mess with the NPCs isn’t right.”
A player inexperienced with the game instinctively nodded along.
“Mess with them?”
Zhou Qi’an gave a half-smile but didn’t explain. “Better to use the dead than the living, right?”
His casual implication made the square-faced guy’s serious face stiffen slightly. While the village chief was still drinking outside, the young girl eased the mood, and the group began their belated self-introductions.
Because of the special circumstances, Zhou Qi’an paid more attention to the female players.
The woman he had arranged to team up with was surnamed Xu, with a single given name — Gui. The others were a young girl and a female teacher.
Among the male players, the square-faced guy appeared hypocritically friendly. The ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ member was closest to him, and the last male player had a reddish butterfly-shaped birthmark on his temple, which didn’t detract from his elegant appearance.
Before much more could be said, the village chief finally finished drinking, stooped, and returned.
The cook came out at exactly the right time, bringing dishes to the table.
A steaming pot of mixed stew was the main dish, accompanied by a clear stewed fish, with porridge as the staple.
The fish came from the village chief’s home and was said to be specially reserved for the expert team.
The village chief sat down with a smile and said kindly, “Eat.”
No one wanted to be the first to move their chopsticks, and the atmosphere instantly stiffened.
“Why aren’t you eating?” The village chief asked again, his tone much darker this time.
The first to pick up chopsticks was Zhou Qi’an. His white, slender fingers contrasted strikingly against the black wooden chopsticks. This kind of white looked much better than the eerie pallor of the villagers of Fengshui Village.
Of course, only Shen Zhiyi was genuinely admiring Zhou Qi’an’s flawless hands. Everyone else was focused on where Zhou Qi’an would start eating.
The fish.
Zhou Qi’an surprised everyone by picking a large piece of fish and eating it with relish.
Besides the fish, he only took two sips of porridge and never touched the wild vegetables they had brought.
No matter what people thought of him, the players’ cautious nature made them avoid touching the mixed stew.
The village chief ate heartily, occasionally letting out strange chuckles.
As if forgetting about the remains, he asked again about the missing Zhao sister: “Where is that expert who went for a walk?”
Irritated by the question, the square-faced guy said bluntly, “She twisted her ankle last night. She’s probably resting somewhere now.”
He said she went for a walk, then that she twisted her ankle — contradictory, but the village chief didn’t care and shook his head: “Wasn’t there a candle left burning at night?”
If it hadn’t been mentioned, it would have been fine — but thinking of that candle that could lull people into sleep, someone almost snorted coldly.
The cook didn’t sit down. Standing behind the cloth curtain, her pale hand was stained with some unwashed fish blood.
“There aren’t many candles in the village. We save them specially for the guests. Are the guests… useless?”
No one answered. The cook wiped the fish blood off her hands and muttered, “Are you reluctant to use them? Actually, fish fat can make candles. If anyone’s free later, come help me make some.”
A mission?
Everyone was tempted but hesitant — the candle could cause people to faint, and the raw materials to make it were likely even more dangerous.
The cook first looked at Zhou Qi’an, suspected of stealing clothes.
Zhou Qi’an leaned back in his chair like a nobleman: “I’m not going. I’m an expert.”
“We experts talk, not work.”
The cook’s hand trembled as she raised the knife, then shifted her gaze to Ying Yu.
Ying Yu, wearing glasses and a white shirt, looked like a harmless scholar, a perfect target for harassment.
Ying Yu hesitated briefly, then agreed: “Okay.”
Seeing this, Shen Zhiyi sneered quietly. Two thieves — this cook was definitely taking one home.
Crazy.
After Ying Yu nodded, the cook immediately took him along.
Noticing there was only one spot available to make candles, the others weren’t disappointed; they even felt a faint relief—right now, no one wanted to leave the main group.
A moment later, the village chief spoke up: “The village has been plagued by rats lately. It’s best to deal with the rodent problem before the inspection.”
A small separate shed next door was used as a storage room, its light blocked by a towering tree outside. The village chief pointed at that isolated, hidden shed and said, “The warehouse has rat-catching tools.”
Zhou Qi’an yawned but stayed cool and calm in his seat, determined to act as an absentee manager.
The village chief didn’t push him.
Even if Zhou Qi’an didn’t do it, someone else would eagerly take on the task.
Then the village chief went on to assign tasks like fetching water from the well, cleaning the yard, and so on. Eventually, only Zhou Qi’an and Shen Zhiyi were left sitting idly.
Zhou Qi’an crossed his legs and watched everyone busily moving around. “Tell me, what exactly is that building at the back mountain?”
The village chief ignored him.
But Zhou Qi’an kept asking, one question after another, until his throat was hoarse. When he reached for water, Shen Zhiyi gently pressed his wrist and shook her head slightly.
“No big deal.”
Zhou Qi’an took a sip and continued talking non-stop.
In the courtyard, the recently returned Little Red Riding Hood member wiped sweat from his brow. He glanced at Guozi Lian, who looked slightly injured after coming back from the storage, and muttered, “I think that guy’s brain is really a bit messed up.”
First time seeing someone try to get info by talking so much.
Little did he know, it would only backfire, making him the prime target.
Soon Zhou Qi’an’s throat felt dry again, but this time he just swirled his cup around without drinking.
When he stopped talking, a rare silence swept over the courtyard. The contrast created an unsettling unease.
The village chief, originally giving orders with some malice, suddenly had his face darken as clouds blocked the sun above. The shadows deepened the furrows on his face. His expression froze for a few seconds as he stared fixedly at the empty space above. His eyeballs suddenly stopped moving.
“Altar, altar…”
As if seeing something, a few words squeezed out through clenched teeth. The village chief trembled violently all over.
“Saintess…”
His trembling lips spat out strange words, and at last, the village chief suddenly knelt down and kowtowed toward the void in mid-air: “Saintess…”
This scene terrified the surrounding players, who immediately went on high alert. However, when they looked in the direction the village chief was kowtowing to, they saw nothing.
Everyone instinctively stepped away from the village chief, but only Zhou Qi’an moved closer.
He bent down, eyes flickering, and repeated, “Saintess what…”
The village chief, guided by him, spoke up: “Saintess, the Saintess is on the altar…”
His voice suddenly rose an octave: “On the altar!!”
Zhou Qi’an narrowed his eyes.
After trembling and uttering a few more words, the village chief foamed at the mouth and convulsed uncontrollably. Because of the intense emotional fluctuation, he finally fainted.
The thud of his body hitting the ground echoed throughout the courtyard. Everyone snapped back to reality.
After a few seconds of silence, they all looked toward Zhou Qi’an.
Even the aloof female player, who hadn’t taken the initiative to approach before, couldn’t help but ask, “What did you do to the village chief?”
Did he cast some kind of dark magic?
Zhou Qi’an replied calmly, “The poisonous mushrooms I picked from the mountain took effect.”
“…”
Indeed, Zhou Qi’an had deliberately gone to the kitchen earlier to distract the cook and secretly add some poisonous mushrooms into the pot.
Since the water in Fengshui Village was mostly contaminated, before eating, Zhou Qi’an used two drops of the [Tumbler Potion]. This was a reward from the school infirmary quest, which granted immunity to all mysterious elements.
Then he devoured everything except the stew, confident that others wouldn’t dare touch it.
Of course, the village chief was the exception—he greedily ate all the wild vegetables himself, forcing the players to eat other things.
Hence, the village chief ate especially heartily.
What came next would be much easier: by skillfully manipulating the subconscious, if the villagers mentioned the church repeatedly during questioning, there was a chance the village chief would reveal useful information in his hallucinations.
Even if no useful information came out, it wouldn’t matter.
Zhou Qi’an raised his foot and, to everyone’s astonished gaze, stomped hard on the village chief’s body.
At last, a slow smirk curled at the corner of his mouth: “Old bastard, how dare you mix something into the candle.”
You won’t die from the poison.
