Chapter 1 Chapter 1 The Scam That Came True

"...Pray to the gods to bless us believers."

The whispers in my ears gradually became lower and disappeared like the rain stopping.

Gong Zhili opened his eyes and regained his vision, and at the same time he saw the ice-blue halo slowly falling from the sky.

The halo had a very large range, falling towards the dark green mountains and clear lake in the distance, and for a moment, the end could not be seen.

The people gathered in front of her could also see the halo. They first moved their bodies in surprise and joy, and talked noisily, "The witch didn't lie to us," "The god of the land responded to the witch!" "Is the light falling on every corner of the village?" "The witch has shrunk--" "Shh--don't say such things!"

Gong Zhili remained calm and slowly scanned the crowd.

The village chief held the iron box and bowed slightly respectfully: "This is the land deed that can be transferred by the village. Please check it."

Gong Zhili took it without saying anything. The village chief looked at her suddenly shrunken height, hesitated for a moment, and whispered, "Sir, your body..."

Gong Zhili quickly reviewed the fragments of what he had just heard in his mind and said, "It's okay."

The village chief immediately shut up, and the crowd of villagers behind him stopped talking. Most of the older people bowed to her devoutly again.

Gong Zhili closed the iron box and, taking advantage of the darkness that had not yet fully fallen, saw the winding wooden trestle and the vast lake behind where the crowd was standing. He said, "That's all for today. You can go back."

Sure enough, the crowd began to turn around and walk along the wooden pier towards the small pier on the other side of the lake.

The crowd dispersed. Gong Zhili held the iron box tightly and watched the lights of the houses on the opposite dock turn on. After the dock was empty, she slowly backed away to the gentle hillside made of piles of stones and looked back.

Behind her were layers of terraced fields, and at the top of the staggered terraces was a large dark house. The stone slope in front of her looked like a "road" connecting the terraces.

She climbed up the hillside. Her intuition told her that it would be easy to climb such a short and gentle slope, but she slipped on the first step she took with the iron box. Fortunately, she stretched out her left hand and grabbed the branch next to her.

At a moment when everything seemed to be wrong, Gong Zhili looked at the branches in front of him and smiled slightly.

It seems that not everything is lost.

She climbed up the hillside to the house at the top and stood in front of the door. Although it was dark, her eyesight was not affected. She could see the steps in front of the door clearly. She walked up slowly and turned on the light on the porch.

The porch light came on, and Gong Zhili didn't take off her shoes—the house was empty, devoid of any trace of life. She closed the door behind her, walked into the house, and turned on all the lights.

She looked around the house. When she came in through the door just now, she noticed that there were stairs outside but no stairs inside. It seemed that she had to go outside to go to the second floor. However, she was not in a hurry to explore the second floor at the moment. There was a small area inside the house that attracted her more.

In the corner of the room was a simple tatami mat with a quilt folded on it. She walked over and picked up the quilt, revealing a flat box underneath.

She raised her eyebrows, picked up the overly simple box, and opened it easily. The diary inside the box looked even more shabby.

Gong Zhili was amused even though she couldn't remember anything and her physical condition was not what she expected.

She opened the notebook.

[On January 23rd, I got the item. As long as I have this, my dream will come true!]

On March 11, I chose the perfect place.

[May 31st, these people are obviously ignorant peasants... Why can't they reach an agreement?]

[June 4th. The cursed spirits in the village are not strong, which is very favorable to me.]

July 20th: Today's negotiations have made some progress. The village chief has accepted the exchange terms. He completely regards me as his savior.

[August 1st. Although it cost a lot of money, the mountains and lakes nearby are cheap, and the nodes are connected! ]

[August 3rd, the seal on the cursed object has loosened somewhat, but it doesn't matter. The power of the entire village will help me suppress it when the time comes.]

[August 4th, the seal looks strange.]

August 5th, I need to speed up.

[August 31st, if the ritual succeeds tomorrow, I will have power!]

...

The diary ends on August 31st. If the "tomorrow" referred to above is today, then today is September 1st.

The day school starts.

Gong Zhili shook his head, this was no longer the point.

She flipped through the diary again, the more she read, the more she felt it was a massive scam, akin to a cult deceiving the aging population into buying and selling land at low prices—but apparently, they paid for it? Perhaps they were buying land in places like this to perform some kind of cult ritual. Gong Zhixiang thought of this and felt around, finding a square somewhere on her somewhat cumbersome miko's clothing.

Ah, mobile phone.

She silently took out her cell phone and made sure she remembered the name of the thing and how to use it clearly.

Hoping it wasn't a combination lock, she fiddled with it for a few seconds and successfully unlocked it with her fingerprint. Gong Zhili raised an eyebrow. Was the being who sent her here truly determined to have her replace the previous curse master? Besides being shorter, could appearance and fingerprints also be used?

She didn't feel that there was anything strange about her body. If she had a different body, she would definitely feel misplaced, right?

However, her memory had gaps, and she couldn't guarantee her thoughts were correct. Right now, she was only focused on what she could grasp. The first thing she did when she opened her phone was to set a password lock and disable the fingerprint lock. Then she checked the time. Sure enough, today was September 1st, and the current time was 7:32 PM.

Then she slowly looked through the contents of the fake witch's phone.

As she flipped through the pages, she leaned against the wall, her expression becoming serious.

Cursed spirits, cursed objects, sorcerers, curse masters... It seems very different from the environment she lived in before. There are monsters called "cursed spirits" in the world. Although she can't remember where she lived before, she is sure that she has never come into contact with these things before.

The owner of the diary is a curse master.

Not only was he a cult con man, but he was also an informal sorcerer who had swindled an entire village out of their land contracts. Gong Zhili took out the iron box given by the village chief and took out the contracts inside one by one to read.

She did a rough count and put the contract back into the box, while finding the payment record on her phone.

——I spoke too early before. Although this person is not a formal curse master, the money he gave was real money.

Curse Masters make so much money?

Gong Zhili continued to look through his phone and found a blank document in the memo.

She began scrolling down the memo.

After swiping about ten times, the document finally showed its contents.

[The seal on my finger is loose. There is no better solution at the moment. The seal is too expensive and my savings are insufficient.]

[Sacrifice the entire village to reseal the finger]

【Artificial Spiritual Field】

【Artificial Field】

Absorb Curse Spirit

...

Gong Zhili seemed to understand the scattered text, but not quite. After writing down all the content, she clicked delete.

It’s better not to keep such dangerous things.

She memorized all the information she received, and recalled the scene when she first opened her eyes over and over again.

Is this village the realm that the curse master wanted to complete before his death?

She looked at her hands for a moment. Her fingers were slender, their tips smooth, and the knuckles a faint cherry pink. They were truly beautiful hands. She straightened her loose clothing, knelt on the tatami, and placed her handprints on the floor.

An ice-blue halo appeared, spreading out in circles.

Gong Zhili's vision was rising, and she gradually saw the whole picture of the house, then the lake surrounding the house and fields. Her vision was still rising until she saw the whole picture of the village shrouded in ice blue.

"It's really eye-catching," Gong Zhili thought to himself, "Even if there are mountains and forests nearby, this light..."

The next second after the thought arose, the color of the halo faded, and Gong Zhili needed to concentrate to see the vague outline of the so-called barrier.

It was indeed her own ability. Based on what she held, she deduced that the land had absorbed the cursed item prepared by the fake witch, the curse caster herself, and her... height. In other words, her power, too. She was here because both the "finger" and the curse caster had been absorbed, and her power and memories were used to make up for the shortfall.

After pouring so much power into it, even I, the unlucky guy who appeared here, was almost absorbed by it, in exchange for her absolute control over the entire village and land.

So, she's not completely unlucky.

Gong Zhili calmed down and began to observe the entire village from a perspective floating in mid-air.

The village was surrounded by mountains, which were lush with trees. Unless one could float in the air like her, ordinary people would not be able to see the blue barrier. Of course, if one was unlucky and there was an airplane route passing nearby, it would be another matter. Gong Zhili took note of this and continued to describe the terrain.

The mountains on all sides embrace a whole lake, and the lake is connected to the river outside through the gaps in the valley, but there is only one mountain road passing through the mountains. This road is the only connection between the entire village and the outside world.

The two big mountains in the northwest corner and the southeast corner are connected by the lake, forming a roughly square plot of land. The lake also passes through this land. The only land that can be truly lived in is the large piece of land in the center of the lake. The plot where she is located is separated by the lake and occupies a large piece of land in the northeast corner. At the same time, the two large flower-shaped open spaces in the northeast and southeast corners are connected by a road covered with reeds. To the east of the road is the pier, facing the lake and mountains.

The layout of the open space in the southeast corner is similar to the terrain of where she is now. It is also separated by the lake, and there is only a winding wooden plank road leading to the small pier in the village.

The village is not big, but there are docks and small boats on all sides. Judging from the number of lights on in the houses, there are about fifty or sixty households in the village. She recalled that there were about one or two hundred people standing on the dock just now.

There are not many people in this village, but it covers a large area and is very hidden. If you want to do something bad, it is indeed not easy to be discovered.

She raised her hand, and her vision suddenly returned to the room and to herself.

Gong Zhili stood up and began to observe the house. It turned out that the small door he had just entered was not the main door, but only the west door facing the village. The whole house was like an "concave" character, and the real gate faced north and was opened on the concave wall.

She walked out through the main gate and just as she reached the edge of the house, she saw a wide staircase that led all the way down to the lake. There was a wooden dock by the lake with a small boat tied to it.

The lake was calm at night, and the mountains and forests in the distance were also silent.

Gong Zhili squatted by the lake and whispered, "Can you at least give me back my previous memories?" She knew clearly that she had lost her memory, and she also retained a lot of common sense in life, but the most crucial one came from nowhere.

Height...I'm not too picky.

The lake water surged, and then came a vague sense of "there's nothing we can do" and "not now".

Gong Zhili sighed, stood up and shook the water droplets off his hands.

It's just shameless.

The author has something to say:

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To write about this village, I played the game until I vomited and felt dizzy. I hope I can write it clearly. It feels a bit difficult. There are many settings, so I will write it slowly. This book will also be super slow.

I feel like it must be weird to live a pastoral life in the cursed chapter, but I wanted to write about it, so I started this post. There are a lot of minefields to clear out, so if you are struck by them, please retreat quickly. Be in a good mood when reading this post.

The heroine's appearance is different from that of the curser who brought the curse upon herself. The reason why people who come into contact with her don't find it strange will be written later.

The reason I started writing is that I found that if I didn't write, the progress of saving manuscripts would be very slow, and I would only think about playing every day... I might as well start writing, at least I would have a motivation to push myself forward every day.

Please leave your comments!