Chapter 24: Medicine
No wonder there’s only meat hanging on the wall.
It turns out that the child’s bones are all here.
Over the hill, the sun had already hidden half of its body and was about to go out completely...
The bones under his feet seemed to come alive, and Li Ziyue felt a tingling numbness in the soles of his feet that made him feel cold.
If it was an adult's body, it would be fine. Children are good at communicating with spirits, and corpses are the most evil, so he is most reluctant to be contaminated. However...
He grabbed the half-dead plant seedlings from his backpack.
Miao seemed to have just woken up and yawned sleepily at Li Ziyue.
Li Ziyue touched its top and said, "You can sleep here tonight."
The seedling stopped rubbing its eyes, and when it realized where it was, it suddenly cried out in fear.
The cry was sharp and piercing, like the last scream of a living fat pig when it was caught on the chopping board and saw the sharp knife stabbing at it.
The sound lasted for more than five seconds. Ji Mingyun frowned imperceptibly, but also followed Li Ziyue's example and took out the seedlings from his backpack.
Li Ziyue poured some water from his backpack to soften the small piece of soil, and then planted the seedling deeply into it.
Miao let out a cry and shrank completely to the ground.
It seems like death.
Li Ziyue frowned.
It’s fine that people are afraid of dead children, but why are Miao so afraid of it too?
The system prompt sounded.
[Congratulations to player Li Ziyue for successfully planting the seedlings and getting 100 points]
Li Ziyue brushed the dust off his hands and stood up. With his sharp eyes, he noticed a yellow cloth hanging on the raised piece of earth on the other side. The cloth fluttered in the wind, and occasionally a hint of red could be seen.
What seems to be written on the cloth?
Just as he was about to approach, he heard someone calling out from behind.
"Child."
Li Ziyue suddenly stopped moving.
He shifted his gaze back and saw the old woman standing on the other side of the classroom, smiling at Li Ziyue.
"Child."
She shouted again.
The old woman's expression was kind and gentle. The wall of the classroom next to her blocked half of the sunlight on her face, making her face look oddly like a Tai Chi Yin-Yang diagram.
She was like a lifeless stone statue, just standing there, staring at Li Ziyue with narrowed eyes.
His voice was especially gentle: "The sun is about to set, and everyone is tired after a day of farming. The village chief would like to invite everyone to dinner."
Li Ziyue seemed not to notice the strangeness. He just laughed and walked up: "Thank you, Grandma, please lead the way."
The three of them walked on the village road. Li Ziyue slowly wiped the thin layer of sweat from the back of his neck and listened to the old woman's words inattentively.
“You saw it, too.”
Li Ziyue paused, not sure whether this was a test.
The old woman didn't wait for his answer and took the initiative to bring up the topic: "There are indeed no children in our village."
She sighed, her voice full of sadness: "A few months ago, an evil god came to the village and wanted to eat children, otherwise he would massacre all the villagers..."
"us……"
"We can't do anything..." Her voice gradually choked up, "Those children... are so cute... I used to go to see them often during class. Their backs were so straight, and their homework books were so beautiful..."
Li Ziyue lowered his head, his eyes barely covered by the loose hair on his forehead, so his expression was not clear for the time being.
Ji Mingyun also remained silent.
The three of them walked through an area of houses, and the terrain around them began to become complicated.
"The evil god returned the bones to us. We thought those children loved studying, so we buried their bones at the school..."
Tears rolled down the old woman's eyes and her old hands kept wiping them, but her tears were like a broken dam and could not be stopped.
It was indescribably strange to see someone crying like this in such a dry place.
"Yes, it's very touching." Li Ziyue replied without any emotion. He lowered his eyes and looked at the old woman, then gradually walked out.
"But can you answer me a question that has nothing to do with this story?"
His voice was slightly cold.
Ji Mingyun on the side looked at Li Ziyue thoughtfully.
The next second, he was caught off guard and slapped by Li Ziyue. The force from his back made it difficult for him to stand still, and he was about to fall to the old woman's side.
Li Ziyue quickly fled to the wall and shouted to the old woman, whose face had changed slightly, "What's the story behind the smell of blood on your body and the blood stains hidden between your fingernails?"
As soon as he finished speaking, he winked at Ji Mingyun, who had an equally grim expression on his face: "You said I was a bad guy, so I will do what a bad guy should do."
It seemed that he had already memorized this terrain by heart when he was strolling around earlier. He disappeared in a few seconds, and his last infuriating "bye" had not yet dissipated in the sultry air.
…
Although Li Ziyue acted calm at first, he was actually not at peace inside.
And this feeling of uneasiness grew stronger as he ran.
The lingering smell of blood in the air was heavier, but the place he was heading to was the field where most of the players had lingered previously.
Logically speaking, they should still be hoeing the ground and planting seedlings. Could it be that...
But what is the cause of the death? Can the villager NPC kill the player on a large scale? To grab water?
All sorts of messy guesses emerged in his mind one after another. However, when he really arrived at the destination, Li Ziyue realized that the truth was heavier than he had imagined.
The ground beneath my feet had softened, and I could hardly move.
Everywhere I looked, it was all scarlet.
The yellowish mud was mixed with blood that had begun to coagulate. The high temperature caused the fishy smell of blood to rush up and into the nasal cavity and lungs.
My throat became increasingly dry, my empty stomach was churning with endless acid, and my brain was dizzy.
In the distance, the sun had faded from its golden color, leaving behind a patch of thick clouds that were deep orange and even red. Below them, there were densely packed workers still hoeing the fields. They bent their backs, curled up their bodies, and crawled on the ground like old, sick dogs.
The red of the mud and the yellow of the sun made their faces red and black. The hands of many players were already blood red, with flies flying and circling on them.
The world was plunged into a dead silence after dusk, with only the sound of flowing water and the sound of swallowing in people's throats.
"Gulu, gurgle."
Liu Fengfeng's body was hanging diagonally on a bent dead tree. It didn't look like a corpse, but more like a piece of dried human skin that had been exposed to the sun and would break at the touch.
The blood in his body had been drained, and the bottle of water in his backpack fell next to his face, with the mouth of the bottle covered with yellow sand.
When the wind blew, fine yellow sand flowed from his empty eye sockets and slightly open mouth.
The person had been dead for a long time. His bones were extracted, his blood was sucked out, his water was taken away, and finally his dried skin was hung in front of everyone.
But his allied players were stealing his blood and mixing the water to soften the soil under their feet.
No one was wailing, only the wind and sand were howling.
Li Ziyue's body froze in place.
The scorching heat waves swept over him, but his fingertips were so cold that they seemed to have no temperature at all.
It would be a lie to say that he doesn't feel guilty. People are all made of flesh and blood. No matter how cruel Li Ziyue is, he is still an ordinary person who can shed tears when he talks about emotions.
However, if he had always been a good person bound by emotions, he would never have lived to this day.
He was powerless to blame these players who sucked the blood of their allies, because he was not sure if he would also reach out to catch a cup of human blood if he saw with his own eyes the hot blood gurgling from the dead Liu Fengfeng's body - there was too little water, and every penny saved counted. Under the pressure of survival, talking about spiritual feelings was the most childish luxury, and saving water to the greatest extent possible was everything.
The last ray of sunlight was swallowed up by the mountains, and the dark shadow in front of Li Ziyue gradually melted into the darkness of the night.
“Boom!”
Thunder rumbled in the distance, the temperature dropped rapidly, and the whole village fell into a heart-wrenching silence.
The gray clouds in the sky continued to pile up, as if they were about to fall in front of everyone. Occasionally, an extremely bright light could be seen, and dazzling lightning flashed between the clouds, and the air suddenly became humid.
In the silence, there was a sudden plop and someone knelt on the ground crying, with his broken paper water cup beside him.
The rich will not give more, but the poor will be plundered doubly - the three levels not only have different amounts of water, but the materials of the cups used to hold the water are also different. The rich's cups are tightly sealed, while the poor's cups are just a very thin layer of paper that will break once opened, and the only 0.5L of water will explode in the air in an instant, and people will get nothing except a wet hand.
This directly breaks the water-saving gameplay of 30% of the poor players. They can only use water once in three days, and they cannot choose the amount, one time is all.
The player who fell to the ground and cried was the first one to try out this unspoken rule. He was already disheartened when the cup broke. However, the thick dark clouds and moisture in the air rekindled his confidence.
This is a copy of dual weather, the sun is strong during the day, and it rains heavily at night, water... There will be a lot of water at night...
Li Ziyue's expression did not seem relaxed at all.
It can't be that simple. If the rain at night could be used by players, the system wouldn't have set up the allocation of water resources.
The rain came quickly, like a brush painting. Large raindrops hit the ground, stirring up a circle of white dust.
The water gradually wets the player's body.
"Well!"
Someone in the crowd screamed, "This rain! This rain...there's something wrong!"
Like fire, the seemingly cool rain drops are like a piece of stone with sparks on it when they touch people's bodies, constantly burning people's skin.
More and more players were screaming and shouting, and people began to run in panic, pushing, trampling, and beating each other. The rain fell on the crowd like throwing a heavy stone into an ant colony. People gathered and dispersed, and chaos arose for a while.
The poor player who had lost all his water was in complete despair at this moment. He knelt on the ground with a dull look in his eyes, allowing the panicked people around him to punch and kick him.
The rain made him look like a cooked red shrimp. He fell to the ground, curling up like a shrimp into a crescent shape. Tears mixed with rain rolled on the ground. Below him, his mouth slightly opened, and he extended his tongue tip that was dry and white.
He was licking the muddy rain water from the ground and the clouds.
There were blisters on the corners of his mouth, but he was like dead, motionless.
Amidst the exaggerated quarrel, his world was so quiet that the only sound he could hear was the crisp sound of raindrops falling on the ground.
His exclusive system prompt sounded: [Player XXX has lost vitality]
At the same time, the celestial phenomena in the virtual world he was responsible for suddenly changed. An extremely large meteorite suddenly pierced through the atmosphere. People on the ground all looked at the strange sky in horror.
Death has just begun.
Return to the copy.
At this moment, all the doors of the houses in the village were closed, and people had nowhere to hide. Even under the short eaves, they would still be hit by the rain blowing in from the wind.
Amidst the darkness and screams, a bright light lit up, and everyone's eyes were unconsciously drawn to it, and they all looked over there -
I saw a bent old woman standing outside the lighted house, squinting and smiling at all the players.
"Come on, everyone."
She bowed slightly and stepped back, leaving the brightly lit door.
Lightning struck directly in front of her, illuminating her huddled, thin body.
Her face looked particularly clear in this bright color - the wrinkles on it, the strange corners of her mouth, the forehead covered with age spots, and the black and red bloodstains hidden between the white and black hair.
The old woman's face became dark again, and beneath the sound of the rain, only her kind voice could be heard.
"Please come in."
"Children."
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