Chapter 32: Carnivore (IV) – Entering the Residence

The old woman called herself “Granny Su.” She was the oldest person in Su Clan Village and could be considered a person of high standing and prestige.

While leading the players into the courtyard, she gave a brief overview of the village’s general situation.

Su Clan Village had no village chief and no other village officials; all affairs were handled by Granny Su and her grandson, A-Xi, and all travelers were received by their family.

For the next five days, the players would live in her house, eat her food, and follow her rules.

—She was effectively the master of the village.

Upon hearing Granny Su’s introduction, Yang Yundong knit his brows and asked the question Qi Si had already asked: “Where are the other people in your village?”

Granny Su smiled and replied, “It’s broad daylight, so they’re all resting. Once the sun goes down, they’ll crawl out to work.”

The way this was phrased sounded incredibly strange. Zhang Licai lowered his voice and muttered, “Oh my god, don’t tell me everyone else in the village is a ghost? Did they bring us to a ghost village?”

No one paid him any attention.

Zhu Ling looked at Granny Su, who seemed no different from a living person, and a beaming smile spread across her lips. “Granny Su, your grandson is truly cute, but he’s a bit too thin. Young boys need to eat more meat.”

She was intentionally or unintentionally steering the topic toward “meat,” which was the thing the players cared about the most.

Granny Su’s expression suddenly fell, and her tone turned unfriendly. “You cannot eat meat. If you eat meat again, something bad will happen.”

This statement pointed directly to the key of the instance, and several players couldn’t help but step past Zhu Ling to press for more details.

“What will happen if we eat meat again? Why would something happen?”

“Your grandson said something happened in your village, and no one has come to travel here for a long time. What was that about?”

“Why does the ancestral hall need someone to look after it? Is there some specific custom or reason?”

The questions that had been building up were thrown at her all at once, a noisy cacophony of voices.

Granny Su said coldly, “This is our village’s business and has nothing to do with you outsiders. You just need to stay here for five days and then leave.”

She turned around somewhat sluggishly and walked ahead with a swaying gait.

The eleven players didn’t dare to be slow; they followed silently, and before long, they were all standing inside the residence.

The residence before them didn’t have much furniture. The surrounding walls and the walls of the houses were heavily worn, revealing red broken bricks beneath the plaster and cement.

A well in the corner of the courtyard had been sealed for some unknown reason; its edges were damaged and it had long been abandoned. Yet, the washstand next to it, which clearly drew water from the well, was eerily functional, with a rusty faucet continuously dripping water.

In the center of the courtyard sat a huge round table, surrounded by a circle of stools packed tightly together. Although no food had been served yet, it inexplicably added a touch of human presence to this desolate residence.

The woodshed on the west side was piled with crooked firewood, and beside it lay tools like a woodcutter’s knife and a hoe, their blades deformed and curled; if used to kill someone, one would probably have to beat them to death alive.

The door of the main house on the north side had a bright, inverted “Fu” (fortune) character posted on it, while the east side had a row of wing rooms divided into small compartments. The roof tiles were scattered, the doors were tightly shut, and they were covered in tattered yellow talismans.

Zhu Ling pointed to the talismans on the doors and lowered her voice. “These are just the most common talismans for exorcising ghosts and seeking peace, but they’ve already lost their effect. They should be clues.”

Zhou Yilin sniffled and analyzed in a low voice, “I guess that even before the villagers turned into ghosts, the village was… was already haunted.”

Yang Yundong shook his head. “It’s also possible that these villagers had ghosts in their hearts. If you don’t do anything shameful, you don’t fear ghosts knocking on your door.”

“Comrade, I’ve seen these kinds of talismans. After a major disaster where people died, every household would post them to ward off bad luck.”

An old man with an accent interjected, “Especially during famines—starving ghosts, ghosts who were eaten—there were just too many. If you didn’t ward off the bad luck, your descendants would all be cursed.”

His name was “Zhu Dafu.” He wore a faded blue cloth shirt and had a full head of white hair; he looked just like an honest, simple old farmer.

Seeing all the players looking at him, he rubbed his similarly rough arm with his rough hand and said somewhat awkwardly, “This place looks familiar to me.”

“My family used to have a courtyard like this, where several households lived in one big compound. To say that the whole courtyard belonged to one person—back then, you wouldn’t even dare to imagine such a thing.”

Granny Su heard this and grinned. “This courtyard isn’t mine; only that main room is. There are six rooms in total for the neighbors; it was only after everyone died that they became vacant.”

She pointed to each room and counted them off one by one. “This room used to be home to Stone’s mother. She grabbed a handful of wheat and hid it in her pant leg instead of handing it over; she was caught by the commune and beaten to death.”

“That room was home to a family of six. They boiled grass roots and elm bark to eat, but they couldn’t pass it, their bellies swelled up like balloons, and they all died.”

“The room at the very end—that old man had bad legs and couldn’t get out of bed. When he was found dead, he had starved until he was nothing but skin and bones…”

According to Granny Su, people had died in every single room. The methods of death varied, but without exception, they were all extremely miserable.

The players’ expressions were all grim.

In reality, hearing about others’ suffering might serve as a novelty for conversation, or one might shed a few tears to show sympathy; but in an instance, they knew for a fact that the dead could truly turn into ghosts and come to claim their lives.

Zhang Licai, with a pale face, stammered, “Do we really have to stay here? Can’t we change to another place?”

Granny Su sneered, “Our village only has these six vacant rooms in total, and each room can hold at most two people. You are acquaintances who arrived together, so discuss it amongst yourselves.”

It seemed there was no room for negotiation.

A short-haired woman with a blue dragon tattooed on her shoulder walked a few steps to Zhou Yilin’s side, pressed down on her shoulder, and said, “Little sister, I’ll room with you. I’m from the streets; I’ve never lost a fight in my life.”

Among the eleven people, there were three women and eight men. Following the traditional method of separating by gender, there was a high probability that one woman would be left alone.

The Tattooed Woman undoubtedly did not want to be the one left alone. Weak as Zhou Yilin might be, she at least counted as a person; if something happened, she would make a decent scapegoat.

—Old players were threats, while new players were “resources.” That was how realistic the Eerie Game was.

Zhou Yilin was startled and stammered for a long time without being able to say a word.

Zhu Ling leaned over and smiled to help out, “I suggest that one veteran player who has entered an instance for the third time should take one newcomer. That way, if any special situation is triggered, it will be easier to respond in time.”

The Tattooed Woman was not to be outdone. “So what if you have many clearances? Who knows if you just rode on someone else’s coattails to get through…”

Listening to the players’ bickering, Qi Si silently moved a few steps toward the edge and walked toward Granny Su, who was standing to the side.

The old woman, as old as could be, was extending her swollen fingers and playing the “Carry the Little Girl” game with the skeletal A-Xi.

Seeing Qi Si approach, she stopped and looked him up and down. “This guest, is there something you need from me?”

Qi Si smiled politely and said, “Granny Su, you should know that we tourists all came from far and wide after hearing the legend of the ‘God Meat’.”

“It’s just that this legend has been passed around and become more and more confused… Given your age, you must have experienced it personally. Could you tell me what this ‘God Meat’ is really all about?”

“‘God Meat,’ huh? Back then, we all dreamed of a deity…”

Granny Su began her story, a look of recollection appearing on her face. Beneath her wrinkled eyelids, her turbid eyeballs slowly turned, as if looking past Qi Si’s shoulder into the distance, and further, into those bizarre and convoluted years of the past.

“We were hungry back then; we had nothing to eat and were so hungry we couldn’t sleep at night. But that night, we all fell asleep and had the same dream. We dreamed of a deity whose face we couldn’t see, and it told us that its body had fallen into our village. As long as we agreed to worship it, we could eat its meat.”

“The next morning, we all woke up at the same time and went together to see the place the deity had told us about. The deity was truly beautiful; it didn’t breathe and didn’t move, just as if it were asleep. We knew that was the deity’s body, but even though the deity pitied us and allowed us to eat its meat, we didn’t dare to…”

“We just left it there, but it started emitting the aroma of meat. In our whole lives, we had never smelled anything so delicious.”

Granny Su swallowed, making a sticky, almost snoring sound, and a greedy glimmer flowed in her eyes, as if she were savoring the delicacy she had tasted all those years ago.

Qi Si always felt that Granny Su’s gaze was lingering on him, intentionally or not, conveying a message of wanting to take a bite to taste him, which made him very uncomfortable.

He turned slightly to avoid Granny Su’s gaze. “And then?”

“And then, our old village chief took the lead in cutting off a piece of meat and cooking it for us to eat. That meat was truly delicious; it was God Meat, after all…”

Granny Su chuckled and continued, unhurriedly. “Not long after, we discovered that the places on the deity’s body where the meat had been cut had grown back; you couldn’t tell it had been cut at all. No wonder the deity was willing to let us eat its meat; no matter how we ate it, it wouldn’t suffer any harm.”

“All of us survived. Later, when we had harvests, we stopped eating the God Meat. We built an ancestral hall and enshrined it inside. But we were poor, so the deity told us in another dream that we could let outsiders come to our village, eat its meat, and pay us money…”

Qi Si asked, “What about your old village chief?”

Granny Su had previously said that Su Clan Village had no village chief; yet, the character “old village chief” had appeared in her story, which was truly suspicious.

Granny Su said, “The village chief? He went with the deity and went to become a deity himself.”

“Can you tell me specifically how that happened?”

“Becoming a deity is just becoming a deity; what else could there be to it?” Granny Su muttered, her tone showing obvious impatience.

He couldn’t keep asking.

Qi Si knew well that he needed to maintain a sense of proportion, so he smiled, said goodbye, and retreated back into the crowd.

By now, the players had already assigned the rooms. The Tattooed Woman had lost in the struggle against Zhu Ling and had to shout, “Since when are there so many rules in the Eerie Game?” as she forcibly dragged a skinny, pole-like man to team up with her.

Qi Si, having been briefly absent, naturally became the one left alone and was assigned to the room closest to the main house.

He didn’t care about this; or rather, after entering the instance, he had deliberately acted unsociable, precisely in the hope of this result.

During famine years, people ate each other. Although he wasn’t sure if this instance would involve that aspect, Qi Si still felt that, given his combat strength, it was safer to be alone.

The others didn’t react, but Zhu Ling walked over, a look of worry on her face. “Qi Si, if you encounter any danger, just shout out loud. I’m staying next door to you, and I’ll definitely be able to arrive in time if I hear you.”

She looked full of worry, as if she were genuinely concerned for a companion she had just met by chance.

Qi Si curled his lips into a grateful smile. “Many thanks, Sister Zhu. If I encounter a ghost, I’ll run to your room to ask for your help. You must make sure to open the door and save me when that happens.”

The concern on Zhu Ling’s face cracked, and only after two seconds did she smile and reply, “If I’m awake, I’ll certainly do my best to help you.”

“By the way, Granny Su didn’t say anything to you just now, did she? It’s always better to pool everyone’s wisdom than to rack your brains alone.”

Qi Si pretended not to hear her probing and readily recounted the story Granny Su had told, being vague about the details.

Zhu Ling rambled on for a long time, and realizing she couldn’t get any more detailed information, she turned back to Zhou Yilin’s side and began to meticulously instruct her.

A moment later, with a nervous yet determined expression on her face, Zhou Yilin timidly walked toward Granny Su and began gesturing while saying something…

Soon, other players noticed what was happening and walked over to listen in silence, more attentive than kindergarten children listening to their teacher tell a story, with expressions of surprise and sudden realization appearing on their faces.

When most people know a certain piece of information, the cost and value of spreading that information decrease accordingly, ultimately leading to a Nash equilibrium where everyone knows the information.

Qi Si couldn’t be bothered to join the fun and walked straight to the wing room he had been assigned.

Granny Su hadn’t handed out any keys, and naturally, the doors to the wing rooms weren’t locked; they were just left slightly ajar.

Qi Si pulled the door open, and a putrid, damp smell rushed at him, accompanied by choking dust.

Before his eyes was a 1.5-meter-wide wooden bed, covered with floral bedding that had a rich rustic flair. Like the couplets and talismans on the door, it was severely faded, and from a distance, it was mottled with patches of gray stains, as if it had been stained with something dirty.

Beside the bed was a rectangular wooden table, its edges embedded with tattered dents that looked like they had been carved out with a knife, or perhaps from bumping into something somewhere.

On the table lay a crudely made travel brochure, clearly just a piece of cardstock folded in half with a few lines of text written on it casually.

The dust on the table was too thick, and Qi Si didn’t want to touch it directly.

He walked over and lowered his eyes to scan the opened front page of the travel brochure.

On it was written a vague poem:

【The granaries are empty of grain, how can one soothe a hungry gut?】

【For a hundred miles, all eat human, flesh and blood pass through the belly to death.】