Chapter 31: Carnivore (Part 3) Couplets

After everyone crossed the stone tablet at the village entrance inscribed with the three characters “Su Clan Village,” a crisp child’s voice rang out in the air, singing a nursery rhyme:

【The year is hungry, the year is barren, with no rice or flour to survive the disaster.】

【Outside the ancestral hall, beside the locust tree, set up a big pot to boil meat and taste.】

Qi Si looked in the direction the sound was coming from.

On the bleak, dead old tree sat a skinny, pot-bellied boy. His skeletal body supported a swollen head, with veins and blood vessels protruding from his thin skin. His face was as dark as if it had been rolled in mud, but his eyes were terrifyingly white.

He chanted the nursery rhyme while constantly swinging his feet, the bells tied to his ankles chiming.

Seeing the players approaching, the boy jumped down from the tree, tilted his head to examine them, and giggled, “You must be the guests Grandma mentioned, right? I’ve been waiting for you for a long time.”

He clutched his stomach with his twig-like hands, staring straight ahead with pupil-less eyes, and began to mumble, “I’m so hungry, I’m so hungry, who has meat to give me to eat?”

The boy’s gaze wandered over the players, greedy and salivating, as if he might pounce and bite them for food at any moment.

Qi Si had never liked children, especially when this one clearly harbored malicious intent. He rubbed the special wristband on his right wrist, inexplicably recalling the supple sensation of a thin blade slicing through skin and flesh.

He quickly realized that this state was unusual, as if his hostility had been deliberately triggered by some mechanism.

The unkempt man beside him didn’t think much about it; he stepped forward and slapped the boy across the face, producing a sharp “smack.”

A cross was tied to his palm with a black string. The moment it made contact with the boy, it emitted a blinding white light, and the charred scent of burning flesh filled the air, mixed with a foul smell of sulfur.

This was likely an item he had obtained in his first instance, useful for dealing with Ghosts, and it clearly had remarkable effects. His sudden outburst was not without reason.

“I’ll beat you to death! I’ll beat you to death!” The man swore while slapping the boy, as if to bolster his own courage or to put on a show for others.

The two newcomers watched with awe, and the other veteran players had no intention of interfering.

Rashly attacking a Ghost NPC could mean courting death, but it could also mean an opportunity to improve evaluation ratings or unlock achievements.

It was best if a bold, combat-oriented player was willing to test the waters; the players understood the principle of dropping the complex of helping others and mocking the fate of others.

The boy did not fight back, nor did he react in any way. As the man’s slaps landed, his head tilted further and further, and when it reached nearly ninety degrees, it fell to the ground with a “thud.”

The man reflexively took a step back. The head rolled on the ground and bit onto his trouser leg.

The boy’s skeletal body stood upright to the side, and a muffled voice came from his abdominal cavity: “Uncle, are you willing to give me meat to eat?”

The system interface prompt sounded at the right moment.

【rule refreshed】

【1. The Ghosts of Su Clan Village cannot be killed by power from outside the village. They hold grudges, but are sometimes forgetful; as long as you are willing to give them meat, they are willing to be friends with you.】

The unkempt man was named Zhao Feng. The moment he saw the refreshed rule on the system interface, a pale look of fear spread across his face, and the previous air of ferocity vanished.

Others whispered words like “can’t be killed” and “it’s over,” looking at him as if he were a dead man.

Qi Si read the newly appeared rule several times, his eyebrows slightly raised.

Unexpectedly, this was another rule-based horror instance, but compared to the last one, the rules of this instance were hidden deeper. They weren’t given directly to the players but had to be teased out by players courting death.

The rule said that Ghosts could not be killed by power from outside the village. Did this mean players had to utilize power from inside the village?

Power from inside the village… what could that be?

“I’m so hungry, I’m so hungry, give me meat to eat…” Bloodshot veins seeped into the head’s eyes, and it grinned to reveal dense rows of teeth, stained with mucus and shreds of meat, which was nauseating.

The murmuring droned on and on, incessantly, irritating the players inexplicably. A few even had the impulse to follow in Zhao Feng’s footsteps and slash this ghost child.

“Agree to him,” Yang Yundong said in a deep voice.

Zhao Feng kicked his legs, trying to shake off the head, while shouting at the top of his lungs, “How can I agree to him? Where the hell would I get meat to feed him?”

Yang Yundong raised his voice, “If you don’t want to die immediately, agree to him!”

Zhao Feng was stunned, his body stiffening.

Watching the head’s face become increasingly ferocious, he had no choice but to glare and shout, “I agree! I’ll give you meat to eat!”

The head loosened its bite, turned its face upward, and stared fixedly into Zhao Feng’s eyes.

Yang Yundong said, “Tell him you don’t have meat to feed him for now, and that you’ll have some in a few days.”

Zhao Feng looked down, locking eyes with the head on the ground, “I don’t have meat to feed you for now, I’ll have some in a few days.”

After saying this, he held his breath, waiting for an answer.

After some time had passed, the boy’s body bent down, picked up the head rolling on the ground, and skillfully reattached it to his bare neck.

“It’s a deal. Tomorrow, tomorrow I want to eat meat.”

He paused, then smiled at the players as if nothing had happened: “You must be the guests Grandma mentioned, right? My name is A-Xi. Follow me to my house; we love guests the most.”

The boy called “A-Xi” turned his head, no longer looking at the players, and skipped along, leading the way.

At this point, everyone secretly breathed a sigh of relief; it seemed the first death point had been passed without really knowing how.

The average difficulty of rule-based horror instances was still lower than other instances; as long as one strictly followed the rules and avoided touching the gray areas, generally, nothing would happen.

Ghost NPCs were also restricted by the rules; no matter how malicious they were, they could not attack players who hadn’t violated the rules.

But… what were the rules of this instance, exactly?

Yang Yundong held his plain blade, guarding in front of him, and followed closely behind A-Xi, who was leading the way.

The players lined up behind Yang Yundong, as if playing a game of Eagle Catching Chickens, with Yang Yundong being the mother hen protecting the chicks.

Zhao Feng cursed bitterly, then edged closer to Yang Yundong: “Brother Yang, what should I do tomorrow? This place is in the middle of nowhere, and it doesn’t look like there’s much to scavenge. Where am I supposed to find meat for him? Am I supposed to dig up graves and find some corpses for him?”

Yang Yundong didn’t look back as he replied, “Figure it out yourself. You deserve it for provoking these ghost things for no reason. Be careful not to provoke the Ghosts again. This is a perfectly good rule-based horror instance; don’t turn it into a Battle Royale.”

Zhao Feng was rebuffed, the muscles on his face twitching with extreme resentment: “I’d rather it be a Battle Royale! If it weren’t for these damn rules, I’ve seen plenty of thousand-year-old zombies; I could make them scatter and vanish in a minute!”

“Now it’s over. I can’t kill it, and I’ve let a little ghost ride on my head…”

Zhu Ling, standing nearby, hurriedly tried to comfort him: “Don’t worry, the Eerie Game is different from reality; there are clever methods to deal with every type of Ghost. At the very least, you’ll have a whole day to find meat.”

Zhao Feng glanced at her twice, then said nothing more.

The roads inside Su Clan Village were narrow and rugged, with dilapidated houses crowded together on both sides. The windows were either pasted over with newspaper or nailed shut with wooden planks, and looking at them, they were pitch black, with not a single figure in sight.

The couplets pasted on the doors of the houses had long since faded and become tattered, hanging on the doors like festering scars. The evening wind whistled as it blew, causing the window paper and couplets to rub together, making a soft “rustling” sound.

A piece of pale red paper was blown to Qi Si’s feet, sticking to the muddy ground. One could vaguely see the character “Meat” written on it in black ink.

Where had everyone gone? A village that attracted tourists, even if not bustling with shops, shouldn’t be this desolate…

Qi Si waited for a long time, and when no other player spoke up, he simply asked in a casual, conversational tone: “A-Xi, why are there so few people in your village? Did everyone move away?”

“Not at all,” the boy leading the way answered with a smile. “When night comes, everyone will come out.”

Qi Si narrowed his eyes, feigning curiosity: “Why don’t they come out during the day? I see your tourism industry is quite well-developed; wouldn’t it be more profitable to set up stalls during the day?”

He was completely talking nonsense; Su Clan Village looked dilapidated no matter how one looked at it, not at all like a place with a well-developed tourism industry.

But lies often stirred up the desire in others to refute them, thereby eliciting more information.

The boy fell for it and said loudly, “You’re lying! Grandma said that ever since ‘that incident’ happened, no one has come to our village for tourism in a long time.”

Qi Si pressed, “What was ‘that incident’?”

The boy kept shaking his head, “Go ask Grandma. Grandma won’t let me say.”

“Alright then. But since no one comes to visit, why do you still stay here?” Qi Si feigned disbelief. “I don’t see anyone farming, and staying in the village has no income. It would be better to go to the city and find some work.”

The boy said in an exaggerated tone, “Grandma told me that someone has to stay in the village, otherwise there will be no one to take care of the ancestral hall, and something terrible will happen!”

Qi Si wanted to ask, “What kind of terrible thing?” but the boy pointed far ahead to a courtyard: “Look, that’s my house in front!”

The courtyard had a traditional structure with flying eaves and upturned corners. Two faded red lanterns hung under the eaves, emitting a dim, yellow light in the twilight.

Two “Fu” characters were pasted on the door, and a pair of couplets hung on both sides. On the right was “Year after year, burning incense to eliminate karmic obstacles,” and on the left was “Year after year, eating vegetarian to clear away sins.”

Qi Si’s gaze lingered on the two characters for “eating vegetarian” on the couplet. If he remembered correctly, this instance was called “Carnivore”…

A long “creak” sounded as the door was opened from the inside, and an old woman wearing a red and yellow patterned dress walked out.

Her hair was completely white and coiled at the back of her head. Her wrinkled face looked like a crumpled tissue, as dark as if it had been painted with charcoal. She wore black cloth shoes on her small feet and walked shakily, as if she would fall over with a gust of wind.

Compared to the strange boy, her expression could be described as kind and benevolent, and her face and figure showed no abnormalities; she looked exactly like a living person.

Seeing the old woman, the boy ran up happily, hugged her leg, and turned his head to look back at the players.

The old woman leaned against the doorframe, grinned with her toothless mouth, and said with a chuckle, “The guests are here. Come, let’s assign rooms. Only after the rooms are assigned can we share the meat…”