Chapter 152

Being lost in the mountains in the dead of winter is not a fun thing, it can even be scary.

You know, winter in the north can be freezing.

Ping Chu put his hands in his pockets and walked forward slowly. Not far away was a piece of red cloth. He put his mobile phone in his mouth, and took off the red cloth from the book while holding the phone. He soon saw the handwriting.

【Turn right 300 meters ahead.】

As he was trying to find a shelter like a headless fly, he suddenly saw a different red cloth. After Pingchu took it off, he found that it was a message guiding to a place. It still used the official sign, but this route was neither downhill nor uphill.

Ping Chu realized that there was also an official who had gone down the mountain like him and was chased by the villagers on the mountain when he came back halfway. He finally escaped from the villagers and was trapped on the mountain.

While patrolling the route, Ping Chu indeed saw a concave cave. He went into the cave with his mobile phone and soon saw some signs of human life.

The good thing about the playground is that there are no wild animals in the cave, it is stable, and there will be no natural disasters that will cause the buildings to collapse.

Ping Chu felt the wind die down and his body warmed up a little, but soon he saw a skeleton.

The skeleton was wearing their official uniform, but it was an old style from five or six years ago, and it was a summer style. It was obvious that he was unlucky enough to be trapped in the playground during a summer inspection, and most likely froze to death here.

Ping Chu looked at the things inside. He missed the small stove and pot in the outpost, the hot water and the dry food that was so hard that he couldn't even chew it.

Unfortunately, he has nothing now and can only survive in the wilderness.

Ping Chu found a place to sit down, which happened to be next to the skeleton. He was not afraid. After sitting down, he apologized while looking for something useful on the skeleton. Unfortunately, there was no food or drink on the skeleton, only a piece of paper that he had hidden in his arms.

Ping Chu unfolded the paper and saw the words on it. The handwriting was a little messy, as if it was written when he was so cold that he could hardly hold the pen.

[The Xiaoqing line cannot leave the mountain village. The end of the Xiaoqing line is an extension of the game field. Once you enter, you will face Xiaoqing's revenge.]

[Ya Ya is a strange creature created by Xiao Qing. She targets the villagers in the mountain village. Any player who sees Ya Ya will be killed by her, so if you encounter Ya Ya, you must pretend not to see her.]

[Ya Ya is dead. She is a strange creature and cannot be communicated with! ]

[The village chief line has not yet been opened, but it must be very important! If you want to leave the village status, you must pass the village chief line! ]

[You must get rid of your villager identity as soon as possible. Xiaoqing's line targets all villagers. Soon Yaya will kill all villagers, including the player!]

[If you reach the end of your rope, guide Yaya to kill the village chief. After the village chief dies, the villagers will fight among themselves.]

Ping Chu exhaled, and his breath spread on the paper. He could feel his hands shaking. The words, which were not clear to begin with, became even more unclear because of the shaking hands. But there was nothing he could do. Ping Chu was very cold, and the trembling caused by the cold was a physiological phenomenon. This subconscious physiological phenomenon was difficult to control.

He turned to the next page with trembling hands and read the words on the second page.

[The Punishment House is very important! I've looked up countless resources and confirmed that there is no Punishment House in this village, and even in reality, there is no such house.]

[But after we entered the playground, we all subconsciously ignored the issue of the punishment room.]

[There must be something wrong with the Punishment House! ]

Punishment house?

Ping Chu recalled with his brain that was almost frozen by Dong.

They appeared in the punishment house at the very beginning. As to why they appeared there, He Yufeng guessed it was related to Shen Yunzhe. Shen Yunzhe directly substituted Xiaoqing, causing them to appear in the punishment house together. Moreover, according to the clues, they arrived earlier than the timeline of other official personnel.

The punishment room was very dark, but they did not immediately realize that they were in a mountain village because it contained only the decorations of their outpost.

It was only when they looked through the telescope that they realized they were looking at their lighted outpost and that they were inside a mountain village.

The village chief, Yaya and the punishment house.

Ping Chu was a little unsure about the paper in his hand. He slowly lay down, took off the summer uniform from the skeleton and put it on himself.

Never mind that for now, he had to figure out how to get through the night.

If you freeze to death here, all your efforts will be wasted.

On the other side, Xiaoqing had already fallen asleep, and Shen Yunzhe immediately decided to go out and take a look.

When Xiaoqing was awake, he had an absolute restriction, which was that he could not leave Xiaoqing too far away and had to always be where Xiaoqing could see him. But at night, when Xiaoqing fell asleep, there was no such restriction.

Shen Yunzhe has always felt that the village chief should have a clue, especially today when the village chief led the villagers to fight Ping Chu, which made him more convinced of this idea.

Even if it didn't matter, he must know why there was a rule that 'villagers are not allowed to leave the village'.

The village chief's house is easy to find. The houses in the mountain village are in a mess. The biggest and most beautiful one is the village chief's house. Although this biggest and most beautiful one does not look very good, after all, it was an isolated mountain village more than 20 years ago. Stone houses are better than yellow mud and thatched houses.

When he walked to the village chief's house, Shen Yunzhe unexpectedly saw light coming from the crack of the door. Shen Yunzhe reached out and pushed the door, and it opened with a creak. The wind blew in and made the candlelight flicker.

The village chief, who had not yet slept, was stunned for a moment. He walked to the door and looked outside. Shen Yunzhe also took the opportunity to come in.

"No one." The village chief frowned slightly. He looked around again and then closed the door. "Maybe the wind is too strong."

Because he couldn't see Yaya, the village chief couldn't see Shen Yunzhe coming in, so Shen Yunzhe was circling the village chief's house openly.

He wanted to see if any official from the past had left any information here, but unfortunately there was none.

I don’t know if the village chief is too secretive or they didn’t realize there was a thread on the village chief, but at least there were no traces left in the village chief’s house.

The village chief sat on the bed without saying a word, and Shen Yunzhe stood beside him and looked at him.

After a long time he was still the same.

"What on earth is he doing?" Shen Yunzhe asked, stroking his chin. "Speaking of these role-playing games, aren't those weird creatures who don't have any roles just sitting around at home?"

"Can I scare him?"

Anyway, his current identity is Yaya, the only strange creature at present, who specializes in killing villagers!

[Your bad taste has increased a lot more than before. ]

"This is definitely not my fault. It's Codename Qianmian." Shen Yunzhe found a scapegoat without blinking. "I never acted like this before. Now I have such a bad taste. Of course it's the influence of my allopath."

[What I mean is: Don't do this kind of bad taste. If there is a problem with the character setting, you will be killed by the plot.]

"Ya Ya's only constraint now is Xiao Qing. Beyond that, there are no other restrictions," Shen Yunzhe said. "Even the villagers don't know what kind of existence Ya Ya is. And I'm different from the living Ya Ya. I'm a strange creature born from Xiao Qing's longing and self-blame."

"In other words: As long as it benefits Xiaoqing, I'll do anything."

The system stopped talking, as if it had been persuaded by Shen Yunzhe.

But just when Shen Yunzhe was about to take action, the village chief suddenly spoke.

"Damn it! Someone escaped again, someone went down the mountain again."

"Why? Isn't my village good?"

Shen Yunzhe was stunned for a moment. He blinked at the village chief and even rubbed his eyes.

Because at that moment, the village chief's voice and posture were more like that of a graceful woman, compared to the little old man during the day. He stood up, and even his pace was very feminine. Shen Yunzhe just watched the village chief walking around in the house.

"Why did you leave the village? Why did you leave me!"

The village chief let out an angry cry, "You clearly agreed to never leave!"

Finally, the village chief took out a portrait from under his pillow. The portrait showed a man hugging the portrait, with resentment and hatred in his eyes, but his hands subconsciously relaxed. The village chief lay on the bed with the portrait in the posture of a little girl.

"Why did you leave me? Do you like Xiaoqing that much?!"

"Damn Xiaoqing! A seductive bitch!"

"I'm going to kill her!"

Shen Yunzhe watched this scene.

"I don't know what happened, but the village chief has developed hostility towards Xiaoqing. That should be enough to make her a target for Yaya, right?"

【But I think this village chief will have more roles to play later.】

Shen Yunzhe sighed. If he had known earlier, he would not have asked the system and would have taken action directly.

After that, the village chief kept talking to himself, which was different from Shen Yunzhe's monologue. Shen Yunzhe was talking to the system, but the village chief was really talking to himself.

He was insulting Xiaoqing fiercely, and even after that he was still missing a man, whose name was Shengli. He spoke well of Shengli, saying that Shengli was deceived by Xiaoqing, and why Shengli left him and left the village. Then the original voice of the village chief came out, calling his daughter and asking her not to panic.

Only then did Shen Yunzhe realize that the little girl in the posture just now was the village chief's daughter, named Yuehong.

"The village chief and his daughter are one and the same?" Shen Yunzhe said, "Isn't this a setting in novels?"

[This is a playground, and even the strange creature Yaya has appeared.]

"Too."

Shen Yunzhe continued to listen. From Yuehong, Shen Yunzhe learned that Shengli was a boy who grew up in the village and lived very close to the village chief's house. He and Yuehong were childhood sweethearts and had agreed to get married when they reached the age of fifteen. In such a mountain village, it was normal for girls to get married at the age of fifteen.

But unexpectedly, Erniu, who couldn't find a wife, bought one from the foot of the mountain, Xiaoqing.

Xiaoqing was a trafficked college student. She was only 20 years old when she came here. She tried to escape several times but failed and was almost beaten by Erniu. So she had to give up escaping temporarily and try to find another opportunity. In this way, she became quiet and gave birth to her first daughter, Yaya.

Shengli met Xiaoqing outside the punishment room. At that time, the boy still had some conscience, and he couldn't help but give Xiaoqing in the punishment room a corn bun.

Seeing Shengli, Xiaoqing had a second idea. She wanted to teach this child who had not been completely corrupted. She decided to teach him to write and let him leave the village and go to the big city to find someone to save her.

Shengli, who was born and lived in a mountain village since childhood, was indeed attracted by the big and wonderful world that Xiaoqing talked about.

So, after learning writing with Xiaoqing for a year, he decided to leave the mountain village.

On the third day after he left, Erniu beat Xiaoqing half to death and found out that Shengli had gone down the mountain. Yuehong, who thought she and Shengli were childhood sweethearts, quietly left at night to look for Shengli. As a result, she slipped and fell to her death on the mountain in the middle of the night. They only brought back Yuehong's body.

From then on, the village had its own rules.

After the village rules were established, the village chief suddenly found that his daughter Yuehong had awakened in his body.

"Based on Yaya's age, Shengli left the village at least three years ago," Shen Yunzhe said, "but he never came back."

"Xiaoqing waited for three years, but no one came to save her."

Xiaoqing's madness may not only be due to Yaya's death, but also because of the hopes she had carefully preserved for three years. With Yaya's death, all of them were wiped out, and she could only go crazy.

The next day, when He Yufeng came to see him, Shen Yunzhe told him what he had seen last night.

"Since this rule works, it can only mean that Yuehong is a strange creature just like Yaya," He Yufeng analyzed. "Because of what she went through, she wrote down the rules not to help Xiaoqing, not to ignore the punishment room, and not to leave the village."

"Because he is the creator of the rules, the village chief is the first to know who has left the village. In other words... the villagers may be the village chief's puppets."

"He can know the status of every villager."

Shen Yunzhe frowned slightly. "But if that happens, won't you always be a villager? Yaya kills villagers every day. One day she will kill the village chief, and one day she will kill you too."

He Yufeng also frowned, "We need to get rid of this identity as a villager as soon as possible, but the village chief will never let the villagers leave."

He Yufeng sorted out the clues and thought for a long time. "If the villager's identity cannot be handled, Yaya will definitely kill the villagers. Will it work like Pingchu did?"

"You mean, like Pingchu, you won't leave the mountain, but leave the village? Move within that mountain?"

Shen Yunzhe thought for a moment and said, "But we can't leave the playground like this."

"That's right." He Yufeng nodded. "Then what should we do?"

Shen Yunzhe thought about it with him, and after thinking for a long time, Shen Yunzhe felt more and more that his idea last night was really great.

"He Yufeng," Shen Yunzhe said, "What would happen if I killed the village chief as Yaya?"

"What?!" He Yufeng was a little surprised. "Do you want to think about it again? Putting aside the fact that the Yuehong in the village chief's body is a strange object, the village chief is clearly involved in the plot. Killing him now will clearly mean you don't want any clues about the village chief's future. You might even end up killing him because of the plot change."

Shen Yunzhe shook his head, "No, this is obviously within Yaya's rules."

"Ya Ya is a strange creature born from Xiao Qing. It targets anyone who harms Xiao Qing, whether it's Er Niu, the village chief, or Yue Hong."

"And I've thought about it again and again. If we want to make this rule disappear, we must get rid of the village chief, or Yuehong, who controls the rules."

"At least after this rule disappears, the villagers will no longer besiege Pingchu."

He Yufeng opened his mouth, he didn't know what to say. Indeed, what Shen Yunzhe said made sense. As long as the village chief and Yue Hong were dealt with, then this rule would most likely become invalid, and Ping Chu could return safely. However, the other party was a strange creature. Although Shen Yunzhe's current identity was a strange creature, how could a player be an enemy of a strange creature!

You will really die.

"I know Shen Wei must have left something for you, but don't take any risks." He Yufeng said, "Shen Yunzhe, your value is far greater than ours. Ping Chu and I both have replacements when we die, but you don't. In fact, neither of us has ever thought about leaving peacefully and surviving safely."

"You can't." He Yufeng looked at him, "Although saying this is a bit hypocritical and a bit of a moral blackmail."

"But you are the only miracle we can hope for in the real world."

"What are you thinking about?" Shen Yunzhe said with a smile, "I didn't come here to die."

He came to the mountain village to find the way to the core playground, find the missing Shen Wei, and bring Codename Hope back home.

I never meant to die here, and it is even less likely that I would die here for others.

"There's a very risky method," Shen Yunzhe said. "If it's discovered that it's not the original person, can we immediately replace the person being substituted? What's the probability of discovering the new person being substituted?"

【Can. 】

"Can?"

You've chosen a good identity. Yaya is Xiaoqing's unique creature. She's attached to Xiaoqing and doesn't have a high level of intelligence. In other words, she's just a child, very easy to deceive. As long as Xiaoqing doesn't suspect you, you can always pretend to be Yaya.

"Shen Yunzhe?" He Yufeng called him, "Who are you talking to?"

Shen Yunzhe turned around and made a hushing gesture to He Yufeng. He stood up and walked out. Xiaoqing was cooking at this time. While cooking, she didn't care what was happening outside at all. She was wholeheartedly preparing delicious food for her daughter Yaya.

He Yufeng looked at Shen Yunzhe in front of him strangely, and he immediately followed him.

Shen Yunzhe walked to the village chief's door. The village chief was smoking a pipe at the door, and Shen Yunzhe stood in front of the village chief.

At that moment, He Yufeng was surprised to find that Shen Yunzhe was disappearing. His entire body dissipated into the air, leaving only a familiar child there. The wet girl stood there barefoot. She slowly turned her head and looked at He Yufeng, her dead white eyes reflecting He Yufeng's figure.

She grinned at He Yufeng.

At that moment He Yufeng realized that Yaya had turned back into Yaya.

What about Shen Yunzhe?

The village chief twisted his body, then suddenly stood up and twisted his body in a strange posture. His unfinished pipe fell to the ground.

"Dad!" The village chief made a sound, but it was Yuehong's cry, "Dad, what are you doing?!"

"where are you going?!"

Soon, the village chief, who seemed to be unable to control his body, stopped moving and no longer made Yuehong's shouts. He walked forward step by step, and He Yufeng realized that he was heading towards the cemetery.

He Yufeng quickly caught up with him. He had no idea what the village chief was going to do.

Why did he suddenly make such strange movements? Where did Shen Yunzhe go? Where is the village chief going now?

In this way, He Yufeng followed the village chief all the way to the cemetery. It was a place He Yufeng was very familiar with because Ping Chu jumped from here.

Standing at the edge of the village, the village chief laughed. He Yufeng was very sure that he heard the voice belonging to Shen Yunzhe.

“What happens if the creator of the rules breaks them?”

"Who are you?! What did you do to my father's body?! What are you doing?!"

"No, no!"

Amidst He Yufeng's surprised eyes and Yuehong's screams, Shen Yunzhe controlled the village chief's body and jumped down directly.

From then on: the village chief violated the rules, the strange creature Yuehong violated the rules.