Chapter 43 Gravekeeper
"Can you help me?" The farmer was old after all. After carrying several bodies into the house, his breathing became noticeably faster. "Help me put these people at the door into the innermost part of the house."
Li Ziyue pursed his lips.
Nod slightly.
He bent down, pretending to concentrate on moving the corpse, but his eyes were looking at the chin of a farmer nearby.
There was a very light dark brown long scar there, like a bruise caused by poor blood circulation in the neck when someone was hanged.
This is consistent with the description of the death of the first farmer who committed suicide in the main quest - hanging himself.
However, unseen by anyone, his fingertips moved slightly twice and selected the answer "No" on the screen.
Still, the evidence is insufficient.
What he wanted to know most now was not the answer to the mystery of the farmer in front of him, but whether enough information about the main task had been given.
By extracting the information given in the task, we can get the following analysis.
[Prospects: ① Drought, floods ② Crops destroyed ③ Young people not returning]
【Key words: water shortage, epidemic, hunger, loneliness】
[Villagers' suicide methods: ①Drinking pesticides ②Hanging ③Drowning]
[The first villager who committed suicide: hanging, can breathe]
The biggest problem with the above is that there is too little unique information about the first villager who committed suicide.
Let's talk about 'hanging' first. In the large forest I just walked through, there were hundreds of farmers hanging who had committed suicide. Were they all like this?
Can that be called the "first" farmer to commit suicide? That was a whole group of people.
Secondly, when he cut the rope earlier, he deliberately checked the breathing condition of the hanged body, and there was indeed no obvious air circulation at the nose, so the fact that it could breathe could be considered unique information for the time being.
But there is still too little information.
The final question has four or five rows of text in the stem, and in the end you only have to grasp one key condition. Do you dare to bet on whether you can get full marks with this one key condition?
After the heavy corpse was put down, Li Ziyue took a deep breath, and then straightened the corpse on the other side that was twitching uncontrollably, then he slowly stood up.
However, after recovering from a serious illness, not having eaten for a day and a night, and doing heavy work, it is inevitable that one will have some anemia.
He felt his eyes go dark for a brief second, his legs instantly went weak, and his entire consciousness seemed to be sucked into a black hole.
The next moment, someone supported his lower back. Li Ziyue quickly adjusted his condition. He opened his eyes and saw Zhang Lian looking down at him.
He saw his face imprinted in Zhang Lian’s eyes.
Perhaps wanting to know whether Li Ziyue was still running a fever, Zhang Lian's face came very close to his. If Li Ziyue had not suddenly opened his eyes, their foreheads would probably have touched each other.
At this moment, Zhang Lian's movements suddenly stopped.
It would be better to stick it directly on. If you pause like this, it will seem like you have a guilty conscience.
Li Ziyue's expression froze for a moment, and it was unclear whether it was out of embarrassment or something else.
He quickly turned his body and passed by Zhang Lian.
In order to maintain his balance, he didn't care whether there was a pile of corpses next to him.
He put his hands on it without hesitation, his fingertips stuck in the gaps between the bodies, trying to pull himself up.
Zhang Lian blinked slowly, and his beautiful, slender phoenix eyes narrowed slightly for half a second, with an innocent and simple expression on his face.
It seemed that only Li Ziyue was panicking.
However, when Li Ziyue reached into the corpse, there was a visibly pause in his movements.
He showed his surprise without disguising his expression.
Put your hand deeper inside.
Warm.
The center of the pile of countless cold corpses was hot.
good.
If his guess is correct.
Then the fact that “can breathe” is not exclusive to the “first farmer who committed suicide”.
All previous inferences were overturned at this moment.
The system made a “ding” sound in his mind.
[You have new message]
…
The sun was setting over there, and the forest here was becoming increasingly gloomy.
Li Ziyue walked silently behind, while the farmers in front were struggling with the zombies that were about to be exiled to the foot of the mountain.
As evening approached, the zombies gradually woke up, like worms that had temporarily fainted and were left with only their instinctive struggle. Sometimes they trembled wildly, and sometimes they were as still as a pool of stagnant water.
"Uncle," Li Ziyue suddenly called out to the farmer. His dark eyes, slightly cold, stared at the man in front of him, and he opened his lips slightly, "Are you dead?"
[What the hell? Just asking? Is there such a thing?]
[I didn't say you can't ask, what's the matter, do you like to watch the riddles? ]
[Li Ge’s previous actions made me think that he had already determined that the farmer was dead. Now I am confused again]
[Class representative! Calling the class representative! Have you started taking notes? ]
The forest was very quiet, so quiet that the only sound one could hear was the friction of old clothes made by the zombies shaking, and the breathing sounds hidden within.
He heard his own heart beating rapidly.
Zhang Lian leaned against a tree with his eyes half closed, looking like he was about to fall asleep.
The farmer paused, as if chewing the plum to get over the question.
He turned around very slowly, and his cloudy old eyes looked even darker in the gloomy woods.
"Did you see the marks on my neck?"
Li Ziyue did not refute, which was considered as his consent.
"I did try to hang myself, but my life... God didn't take it. So, I'm still alive."
This answer was exactly what he had expected.
“But I lived a long time.”
Li Ziyue was stunned for a second.
This answer is unexpected.
Lived a long time?
What's the meaning?
Why did he answer the question "dead person" and then say "lived a long time"?
Is there any necessary connection between the two?
Or say?
This was the first time the farmer showed such a kind expression of relief.
No, maybe he didn't have any strong ill will towards Li Ziyue from the beginning, it's just that his face was too fierce, and no matter what expression he made, he looked like he hated someone.
"I can't calculate exactly how long I've lived. My physical age is eighty," he continued, turning around to fiddle with the corpse, "but in reality I've lived at least two hundred years."
Li Ziyue frowned slightly.
"I have sent away all my relatives." The farmer put his hands on the shoulders of the zombie in front of him, and his calloused fingers stiffly adjusted the zombie's clothes.
He raised his eyes and smiled nostalgically: "This man is my father."
The zombie lowered his head, and Li Ziyue could not see his face. He could only guess based on his clothes and some details.
A tattered long-sleeved shirt with the ends of the sleeves covering the protruding bones at the wrists.
His lower hands were long and slender, and compared to the thick and strong joints of ordinary farmers, his were much thinner and he did not look like someone who did heavy work on a daily basis.
"He was a teacher," the farmer added. He walked around to the back and said to another corpse, "This is my grandfather, he was also a teacher."
Next in order are his mother, sister, and brother.
It seems that the elder brother is the only one in the family who focuses on farm work on weekdays. Even though he has become a zombie for a long time, you can still see that he has a strong body and powerful fists.
After cleaning up the bodies, the farmer slowly stood up. He didn't even look at Li Ziyue and Zhang Lian standing beside him, but just walked forward.
The dead branches fell on the soft soil. Because the air here was humid, people stepped on them and they did not break, but bent silently.
The coarse cloth he was wearing rustled as his body swayed.
The farmer stood on the top of the mountain, looking down expressionlessly at a group of players busy farming below the mountain, and the farmers standing beside them like sculptures.
"Do you know how zombies are formed?"
Li Zi lowered his eyebrows.
"The zombies were supposed to be villagers originally, but some were eaten by the 'evil god' and became zombies." This was the answer the old woman had told them in the house earlier, although he himself had some doubts about it.
"'Evil God'?" Upon hearing these two words, the farmer laughed out loud, "So that's what our fellow countrymen call 'it'."
Li Ziyue realized that something was wrong. He temporarily put aside this strange part and continued his previous answer: "There is another part..."
Combine the main quest and the dungeon title.
"Is it the villager who committed suicide?"
The farmer nodded and shook his head: "The zombies are all villagers who committed suicide, and those who were..."
He paused for two seconds, as if thinking about what Li Ziyue had said earlier: "The child eaten by the so-called 'evil god' is still trapped under the mountain."
The farmer's eyes became extremely compassionate at this moment, and his tone became much heavier.
child?
As he thought, there were indeed children in the village, and the bride sent to the evil god was also a child.
but……
This is a bit hard to explain.
"All villagers are actually immortal," the farmer sighed, "Their physical age will be permanently suspended at 80, and there will be no change after that. If they don't want to die, they will never die."
Having said that——
Li Ziyue looked at the dark group of zombies behind him, curled up and half standing up.
“Do you think someone killed them?” The farmer laughed. “No, they all committed suicide.”
"On the surface, it seems that they were the ones who killed them, but in fact, the real 'murderer' is more complicated than you think."
"There is an iron rule in the village," the zombie said, standing firm, "villagers cannot kill each other."
"You have also been at the foot of the mountain. Do the villagers there have enough to eat?" He suddenly changed the subject.
Li Ziyue thought of the row of skinny villagers who sneaked into the old woman's house when it rained last night.
"When you get old, you can't do much, but you still have to eat. Those young people can't even get enough to eat, so where can they get food to feed you, an old man?"
Li Ziyue fell silent.
"This is just one reason," the zombie took a trembling step forward, "The reasons why people die are far more diverse than the forms of their deaths. If you delve into it, it will only make people more painful."
The sun's rays gradually faded, dark purple clouds were vaguely visible in the distance, and the wind began to become restless, bringing with it the sultry heat that had not yet dissipated from the foot of the mountain.
The loose hair on Li Ziyue's forehead was fighting with his long eyelashes below.
The air becomes more humid.
It's going to rain.
"This village wasn't like this before," the farmer said slowly, "Back then 'it' was still loved by people and rarely cried."
"Crying?" Zhang Lian, who seemed to have slept for a while, suddenly became energetic.
The farmer stared at the ground beneath his feet, which was sinking diagonally downwards: "Before, this was flat land. Every time 'it' cries, the village sinks a little bit."
"If this continues for a long time, the villages at the foot of the mountain will either be submerged by rainwater or sink into the ground forever."
He glanced behind him, where there were too many zombies with mutilated bodies and unclear consciousness.
"The rain will drown everything, and the zombies will bite to death the murderer who 'killed' them," the people at the foot of the mountain began to panic, and their movements to cultivate the land became much more agile. "I'm just a gravekeeper, guarding this grave that will soon become a river of blood."
Li Ziyue clenched his fists and then quietly put them down.
He took a deep breath for a long time and finally suppressed the turbulent emotions in his heart, but he heard the farmer speak again.
"My compatriots say 'it' is an evil god?"
The farmer looked at Li Ziyue deeply.
There was a smile on his lips, but his eyes were very sad. His thick black eyebrows were twitching unconsciously, and the wrinkles on his face became deeper.
Li Ziyue heard the farmer's voice as if he was crying: "During my absence, 'it' must have suffered a lot of unspeakable grievances."
"I have been in this forest for hundreds of years, living on rotten food. My body is already stained with an indelible stench. I cannot enter the temple, and I am not qualified to approach it."
"All the bad karma is our own fault. It has nothing to do with 'it'. 'It' doesn't deserve to be treated like this." The farmer turned to Li Ziyue.
Then he bowed to Li Ziyue very cautiously.
"I beg you," his voice began to choke, "I beg you to help me bring 'it' out, bring it to me. Over a hundred years ago, 'it' begged me, but I didn't agree. I have spent the past hundred years regretting my decision."
"Please go into the temple again, please go to the Buddha statue again. 'It' is very timid and will only hide inside the tallest Buddha statue in the temple..."
Li Ziyue stood in front of the farmer with a serious expression.
"I……"
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
