Chapter 41: Carnivore (13) The Village Chief

The arrival of God was long before the famine; He descended along with the flowing fire and was sealed in the well by chains woven from vines, existing as a secret for a long time.

The girl chosen by God often sat by the well, and from then on, the secret began to spread throughout the countryside. The villagers regarded her as a God-maiden, letting her preside over sacrifices every year to pray for a bountiful harvest.

The girl grew into a woman, and the flames of war from the outside world reached Su Clan Village. Countless villagers were left homeless and separated from their families; her own son and daughter also died in the war.

People prayed to gods and Buddhas, but their cries went unanswered. God had no mercy for the world, so the tradition of sacrifice and the legend of a god beneath the well both crumbled into dust; the world no longer believed in gods.

Later, the woman grew old, depending on her grandson and granddaughter for survival, making a living by doing odd jobs for others.

The dynasties changed, and the authorities no longer allowed the people below to believe in gods. Having received an education in her old age, the woman knew that there were no gods in the world.

From then on, Su Clan Village no longer had sacrifices or a God-maiden, only an ordinary old woman known as “Granny Su.”

When Granny Su was free, she often sat by the well, talking to herself about the trivialities of life and the changes in the outside world.

She was old and couldn’t keep up with the times; everyone had unfamiliar faces, and only this well remained as she remembered it.

But God never answered.

So she finally believed that there really were no gods in the world.

Days passed like this until an unprecedented great famine swept across the land.

From time to time, the old, weak, women, and children starved to death in the fields; from time to time, buried corpses were dug up. Springs and ponds dried up, and bark and grass roots were all dug out, as if the land were dying along with the village.

In the face of survival, all the veneers of humility and courtesy were stripped away, and the naked evil of human nature and the instinct for survival grew wildly like shrubs and thorns.

With nothing to eat, humans could become food. A group of thugs banded together, wantonly slaughtering the elderly and children in homes that lacked able-bodied men.

They set their sights on Granny Su and broke in brandishing kitchen knives. With no way out, Granny Su could only throw herself into the well while holding A-Xi.

How she wished there were a god in the world; she wanted to beg God to save A-Xi, just as He had saved her back then.

“That old hag jumped into the well with her grandson. How unlucky! She’d rather jump into a well than let us cut off her meat to eat,” a young voice said resentfully.

“There’s no water in the well. Go down and bring her up,” an old voice said. “It’s at least two pieces of meat. They fell to their deaths themselves; they can’t blame us.”

The courtyard was full of people whose faces couldn’t be seen clearly. Two figures, one old and one young, sat in the middle of the crowd, talking back and forth.

The young man left for a moment and then returned, his voice filled with unease: “Village Chief, that old hag and her grandson are gone. There’s only a man at the bottom of the well. He’s clearly dead, but he looks like he’s still alive. He’s so beautiful, he looks like… a god.”

“What gods or ghosts are there in this new era? Careful you don’t get sent for re-education!” the Village Chief scolded sharply. “Bring up whatever is down there! If we can’t start the fire today, I’ll cut off your arm!”

The young man led a group of people away and returned to the courtyard with a male corpse.

It was a corpse that could not be described in worldly terms, as if it had been dead for a long time, yet also as if it were still alive, merely in a deep sleep.

His long hair fell down, his skin was fair, and his blood-red robe was embroidered with gold patterns, yet it was seamless like the legendary Heavenly Garments.

At the moment of sight, everyone—believers and non-believers alike—unanimously had one thought—

He is God.

He was so beautiful, so beautiful that a single glance would give rise to overflowing faith and love, and produce an intense appetite.

Like an angel falling into hell, the devils couldn’t wait to tear the feathers from his wings and stick them on themselves to show off.

They knew beauty couldn’t last, yet they wanted to possess it, so they had to gorge themselves desperately, wasting precious ingredients to fill their stomachs.

They imagined the moment the stomach walls pressed together, the illusory sense of fulfillment from becoming one, and they couldn’t help but shed tears of excitement.

But in this era, there were no gods, and there could be no gods.

No authority, no awe; if there was opposition, strike it down; if hungry, eat—everyone had lived this way.

So they didn’t need to think, didn’t need to shrink back, didn’t need to hesitate.

“Let’s eat Him,” they said in unison… “Fuck!” Allen, in the middle of the group, suddenly shouted.

Everyone paused in their tracks, turning their gazes toward the source of the sound.

Allen raised his hand to wipe his face and held his right hand, stained with some unknown substance, in front of him: “Help me look, what is this? It just dripped on my face, it’s slimy.”

“Making such a fuss, are you trying to scare everyone?” the Tattooed Woman complained dissatisfiedly, but she still leaned in to take a look. “I don’t know what it is. It looks like snot, totally disgusting.”

Zhou Yilin followed beside the Tattooed Woman and wrinkled her nose: “Could it… could it be the God Meat we’re looking for? I… I don’t want to eat this thing…”

Qi Si came to his senses and looked from a distance. He could see that what was on Allen’s hand was a clump of flesh-colored slime, like minced meat scraped from a living creature, with the texture of grease. At this moment, it was slowly wriggling and flowing on his skin as if it were alive.

Without warning, Allen convulsed, his gaze going blank as he stared at the slime on his hand, an obsessed expression appearing on his face.

He murmured “So fragrant,” slowly raising his hand to his mouth and sticking out his tongue to lick the back of his hand stained with slime, as if it were some rare delicacy.

Anyone with eyes could see something was wrong with him. Zhao Feng, who was closest, was the first to react, slapping him across the face. Even so, the tip of Allen’s tongue still touched a few drops of slime.

His eyes alternated between clarity and daze as he protectively guarded his right hand, sticking out his tongue and making a move to take another lick.

“What’s wrong with you?” Zhao Feng cursed, delivering a few more slaps. The crisp “snap” sounds were particularly piercing in the silence.

Allen was dazed by the blows, and his eyes finally regained clarity. The muscles on his cheeks twitched violently, and his right shoulder shuddered as he shook the slime off his hand onto the ground.

Once the clump of slime hit the ground, it seemed to find a point of leverage; fine pedicels grew from underneath as it slowly crawled into the shadows.

Allen finally realized what he had just licked, bent over and began to retch, wailing loudly: “Oh God! What on earth is this thing?”

Nobody could answer him.

Qi Si looked up at the curtain serving as a ceiling and suddenly realized that the reason no light filtered into the courtyard was not because of the thickness of the curtain itself, but because another layer of slime covered the thin fabric, acting as a shield.

The other players also looked up.

Several holes had opened in the curtain overhead at some point, and clumps of flesh-colored slime were dripping down. Fortunately, they weren’t falling fast, and the players were able to dodge before being touched.

The slime continued to move after hitting the ground, gradually connecting into a single sheet. It was conceivable that in less than five minutes, there would be no place left to stand in the entire courtyard.

Even worse, a rich fragrance wafted through the air like silk threads, teasing the players’ sense of smell and stirring the appetite at the bottom of their stomachs.

Broken bell sounds rang in their ears, like the music and dance during a sacrifice.

The auditory hallucinations became more vivid, and the illusory and real blurred into one; Qi Si saw a raging fire.

Golden vines, flowers, and fruits bloomed on a pure white altar. Faceless figures draped in white shrouds danced and prostrated themselves, like the frenzied prelude to a Dionysian feast.

Rain and scorching sun appeared in the sky simultaneously. Someone stepped on white bones and skulls to climb a high tower, only to fall from the high heavens in an instant, their flesh bursting into shimmering meteors… “Hurry up, take the God Meat and let’s go!”

Yang Yundong kicked open the door to the main house, holding his plain blade in front of him, but his steps stopped abruptly before the threshold, and he even instinctively took half a step back.

In the center of the main house, on the bed, lay a huge sarcoma as tall as a person and half as wide. Slime like candle tears flowed across its surface, and blood-red, stripe-like veins throbbed like breathing.

Slime overflowed from the fleshy skin onto the bed, dripping from the edge like a waterfall, turning into countless streams winding on the ground, climbing up the doorposts, and spreading to the ceiling made of curtains.

The slime the players had seen earlier was clearly an extension of the sarcoma’s limbs!

The intense meaty fragrance suddenly exploded, filling all the surrounding air. The hallucinations became so thick that they obscured all vision belonging to reality.

Humans were like drunken fruit flies, drowning in the wine cups of the gods.

Allen dropped to the ground on the spot, sticking out his tongue like a camel that had just finished a desert journey, licking the slime on the ground with a “slurp-slurp” sound.

Half of his face became transparent, sprouting dense meat buds, each turning into the shape of a tongue, all sucking the ground together.

The Tattooed Woman grabbed a handful of slime and put it to her mouth, her expression switching between clarity and daze; Zhang Licai puckered his lips, about to kiss a house pillar… Zhao Feng kept slapping himself, barely suppressing his appetite; Zhu Ling closed her eyes, her lips trembling as she recited a Heart-calming Mantra; Zhou Yilin took off her jacket to cover her head, tying the sleeves into a dead knot.

The Skinny Man who claimed to be hemophobic saw that he was about to lose control, so he cut his left arm, stared at the bleeding wound for a moment, and successfully fainted.

Qi Si swallowed his saliva and squinted at the main house.

A blurred, old face was embedded in the top of the sarcoma. The nose and mouth were merged with the slime, and only two eyes stared straight at the doorway.

It kept murmuring, like ventriloquism or moaning: “We killed God, we are guilty… Go to the Ancestral Hall and worship, to atone… You ate God, you are also guilty… You ate me, we’ll suffer retribution together…”

This thing must be the Village Chief.

Qi Si raised his hand and pressed his temples, trying his best to commit the Village Chief’s murmurs to memory. His remaining rationality told him that they were very important clues.

But his vision was blurred, and his thoughts were scattered and extremely chaotic. Specific words fell into the ocean of his mind, difficult to settle, splashing restless waves.

He licked his lips, and a strong thought suddenly arose: The Village Chief’s meat must be delicious, so delicious, I really want to take a bite…