Chapter 129 The sound of the suona brings joy and sorrow to the mountain. "The idler on the east side discards his card..."
Ouch!
The moment the door to the west wing opened, a scream rang out. The eldest son, who was mending the window paper, lost his footing on the stool, fell forward, crashed straight through the ajar door, and rolled several times on the ground. His leg was bent at an angle that looked painful, and he cried out in pain.
Then a child's shrill cries rang out from inside the house. The eldest daughter-in-law, disregarding both sides, rushed out to help him, but with his leg in such a state, she dared not move him easily: "Quick, quick, go call the doctor!"
The three players sat there eating, showing no intention of helping. When the attendant of God came out to help, the peacemaker took a sip of tea and gently advised, "Seeking a doctor is useless; find a master to exorcise the ghost."
These words struck a nerve, and she suddenly sat down on the ground, covering her face in despair and wailing. The "Xia Xia" divination slip slipped from her hand: "The snow has stopped, why isn't it over yet! What kind of ghosts or gods are you? If you want to kill or torture someone, just do it! Why torture people like this!"
Xue Chao reached the courtyard gate, glanced back, picked up the "worst" fortune stick from the entrance of the mansion, put it back in the fortune stick container, and then turned and left.
The wails of men mingled with the cries of women and children, making one's temples throb.
Lü Lianshan didn't plan to go out, so he put down his chopsticks and went back inside. The two remaining people seemed to have no specific destination, so they simply followed Xue Chao and went out as well.
There were general stores in the village, but not shops. It wasn't until they and Xue Chao came from opposite sides and passed by the same courtyard that they saw a black and white funeral couplet pasted on the back wall of another courtyard. The words were half covered by wild grass. It said something about noble character and good conduct, but the horizontal scroll was not "passing away on a crane to the west" but "wealth flowing in from all directions" written on a festive red background.
Experienced players recognized it immediately as the entrance to the game store.
Xue Chao stood still to one side, took out a thin cigarette, lit it, and leaned against the tree to steal a moment of leisure. Zhuo Yi knew that he had been there.
The cigarettes have rather fancy packaging; the cigarette box is pure black and embroidered with bright red and purple flowers, which is quite rare in a village like this.
The two players did not approach rashly, but stood a distance in front of Xue Chao, avoiding the faint smell of smoke.
In front of them, at a position that was neither too straight nor too off-center, stood something that looked like a sundial, divided into twelve equal parts, engraved with the Chinese zodiac animals, some of the animal patterns of which had become blurred.
However, sunlight is a rare visitor to Mount Xibei, and there is no gnomon, so this is not a sundial.
It still features a hollow design, with the zodiac animal pattern made of some kind of dark red crystal that is not very translucent, somewhat resembling unbroken rocks.
Behind the sundial, there were several black circles left from burning, as if someone had burned paper money there.
Zhuo Yi borrowed some paper money from a nearby house and burned it there. The fire, which seemed to have been aided by some eerie wind, suddenly shot up and blazed brightly, casting the still-intact zodiac animal pattern onto the blank space in the middle of the couplet.
The red light and shadow were stretched into an ellipse filled with "doors," like an interdimensional passage opened by a spell.
Just then, the Five Poisons group came out of the door.
As they passed through the "door," they were enveloped in a red shadow, which also appeared red, while the shadow itself was black, like a filter adjusted to its extreme, leaving only extreme warm and black colors.
The two teams met face to face. The leader, Naga, did not react much, but her two protectors behind her slowly raised their heads and looked over with their covered eyes.
"Ah, there's a witch too?" Zhuo Yi looked her over and remembered who she was. "The Five Poisons, and you even met the Poison King. Do you really have snakes in your veins?"
Having just gotten the other party's secret, Naga remained silent, as if she hadn't heard him. However, her two henchmen, deeply offended, said in a sinister tone, "Disrespectful..."
The middle words seemed to have been vaguely mentioned, but Zhuo Yi had no interest in investigating and simply waved his hand.
The peacemaker was still smiling, waving as if he were greeting a colleague he bumped into on his way to the cafeteria. Just then, the compass of the peacemaker and the man in the cloth suddenly started to turn.
Then, both teams present heard the Keeper's voice:
Should the player on the east side who discarded a "three of a kind" be "pong" (triumphed)?
Everyone: "?"
Naga, Zhuoyi, and the peacemaker instantly looked towards the bushes behind the well not far away.
The wind blew quietly, turning the long, dense wild grass into waves that seemed to tremble, and the whole place was silent.
"[Naga]?"
"【Zhuo Yi】?"
...
"What's going on with [Zhuo Yi]?"
"【Zhuo Yi】Is this side of the fox's house to the south?"
"[Naga] Sister Naga is from the north, where did she come from in the east?"
"【Zhuo Yi】Is he hiding in the bushes? Didn't the three big shots notice?"
"【Wang Cheng】Hahahaha, this is hilarious!"
"[Naga] Grab the guy next door, quickly show yourself and tell us!"
Here's what happened: before Xue Chao and Qi Sha arrived, the travel agency found the shop ahead of them.
However, they were originally in the courtyard and were just about to come out through the side gate when they heard the voices of other players. They instantly went into alert mode and hurriedly hid back through the side gate.
Then they heard the two teams greeting each other. The team leader was a bit knowledgeable and recognized Zhuo Yi's voice. He was able to talk back to the fourth-ranked player... oh right, he's third now. They were not someone the other team could afford to mess with.
Judging from the menacing tone of these people, the travel agency was afraid that if the two groups of immortals got into a fight, it would affect them, so they decided to slip away quietly.
Predicting the location and using the compass are both important. At least one of the team leader and Pu Fengchun has left, so the team leader is mentally calling for the keeper to complete a stealth mission.
The keeper of the secret was smoking under a tree by the battlefield when he heard this and raised an eyebrow.
The "Stealth" check result was 23/30, successful.
The tour leader's anxious heart was finally put at ease, and a wave of joy washed over him. A miracle had occurred at 30 o'clock!
He gestured to his teammates and went ahead, with Pu Fengchun following closely behind. She remembered the card patterns on the compass and quickly discarded the extra "three of a kind" without even looking at them.
However, an inspection is required.
But she couldn't get through; she felt the compass suddenly start to turn.
Looking down, the pointer on the Tianchi Lake still points to "East," but three more characters are engraved on the outer ring of the square, corresponding to the direction of the Tianchi Lake: "North," "South," and "East."
Meanwhile, the letter "Dong" was lit up, like a fluorescent glow painted with blood.
Then came the notification that Xue Chao gave them through the mahjong dice system.
The team leader felt several intense, unsettling gazes fixed on him.
In this strangely awkward silence, Xue Chao, as if thinking they hadn't heard what the mahjong dice system said, leaned against the tree and asked again, "The player on the east side discarded a 'three of bamboo' tile. Should they 'pong' it? I'm talking to you guys on the south side. The player on the north side can only 'eat' it. 'Pong' takes priority over 'eat'."
When you have two cards that can form a sequence with the card played by the player before you, you can "eat" them.
For example, if you have two and three of a kind in your hand, and the player before you plays a four of a kind, you can "eat" it, take the card, and form a straight of "two, three, and four of a kind".
Note that you can only eat at the restaurant above you.
When two cards can form a set of three (three of a kind) with the played card, you can "pong".
For example, if you have two of a kind in your hand, you can "pong" (claim) any two of a kind that another player discards.
When someone has a set of three identical tiles, and another player plays the same tile, they can "kong" it, which is called "open kong".
If you have a set of three identical tiles and you draw another tile of the same set, you can also "kong" it, which is called "concealed kong".
"杠" and "碰" take priority over "吃".
"'Kong' and 'Pong' originally had no priority order, because to 'Kong' means you have at least three of the same tile, and there are only four of each type of tile, so no one else can have a pair of the same tile. However, to make it easier for you to check your own tiles, each team has a complete set of mahjong tiles. You also saw the mahjong box when you entered the village, so there will be situations where you can 'Kong' and 'Pong' at the same time, or even both 'Kong'. Just add one rule: 'Kong' takes priority over 'Pong'. If you can 'Kong', then it's a test of who can react faster."
Xue Chao explained the rules of "eat, pong, kong" for a few minutes, and Zhuo Yi understood immediately, saying, "Pong!"
The peacemaker's compass spun out a "three stripes" pattern, and the character on the outer plate that was glowing with blood changed to "South," which meant their team.
Then, not only did the points increase, but also:
[Each member of the team receives a reward die; save temporarily.]
Xue Chao tapped them with his cigarette: "You all discard one more card."
The peacemaker became interested and took the compass and tarot cards he was hanging up more seriously.
He took out a compass from inside his coat and glanced at it. The outer dial had three inscriptions, indicating that the three teams were close together and therefore played at the same table at the same time.
In other words, when different teams collide, the decision-making process becomes more transparent to some extent, at least indicating to all players at the table which team "folds".
On the same card table, players can "eat, pong, and kong," which means using the checks of other teams to adjust their own team's hand.
He studied his own cards. He couldn't see the Five Poisons compass, but he deduced the opponent's hand based on the cards played by the guild to the east, and then discarded a card.
The man in the cloth-wrapped sleeve also noticed the change in the compass. His gaze shifted from "east" to the grass, and a poisonous insect quietly crawled out of his sleeve, about to fly into the grass.
However, the tour leader stood up first, both frightened and wary, his raised hands trembling: "...It's not an ambush, it's not an ambush...we just don't want to bother you, we'll leave right away."
"[Wang Cheng] I'm dying of laughter. You've successfully completed your stealth mission, even though everyone knows you're doing it."
"【Wang Cheng】Opening the book and sneaking around, hahaha."
"[Wang Cheng] Ru Qian".
"【Wang Cheng】You can do this?! The combat wheel won't be able to launch surprise attacks or ambushes easily anymore. It's like announcing 'I'm going to ambush you' with a megaphone, hahaha!"
Zhuo Yi's attitude was quite good: "If it weren't for you, I wouldn't have known there were such interesting rules. We, the Keepers of Secrets, have kept them very well hidden."
Feeling the gazes of the crowd and the rising enthusiasm in the comments section, Xue Chao extinguished his cigarette and politely waved his hand.
Seeing that the group of people lying in ambush posed no threat, the Five Poisons group ignored them. They had already bought their items and stepped out of the strange shop. Seven Killers and the other two went inside.
Seeing that no one was leaving them, the travel agency immediately made their escape.
But the cloth-wrapped boy, who had been walking behind Naga and was completely hidden from view, walked to the strange zodiac sundial and suddenly called out to the keeper of secrets in his mind: "Go through the reconnaissance."
Xue Chao knew that he was more interested in joining in the fun than conducting investigations, so he didn't mind if they explored and publicized the matter further, and readily agreed.
The "Detection" check result was 66/70, successful.
[The player to the north discarded a "One of Bamboo" tile; should they "kong" it?]
The peacemaker stepped through the gate and disappeared first. Zhuo Yi, a step behind, stayed outside the gate upon hearing this, ignoring whether his teammates agreed or not: "Argue."
[Each member of the team receives two bonus dice; save for now]
You can pong or kong once, there's interaction, you can exchange cards, and there are rewards.
Zhuo Yi, like parched land receiving rain, looked with a keen interest at the two teams that were about to leave.
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