Chapter 15: Village in the Rain (15)
In the book of local chronicles, Zhao Shuo found the man he saw in the illusion, who welcomed the high priest from the black car.
He is the village chief of Qiyun Village.
The whole story is very clear here.
The village chief made a wish to the high priest, hoping that Qiyun Village could restore its former prosperity.
The high priest agreed to his request, but the price was that later tourists and even some villagers in the village would become sacrifices under her paper man witchcraft.
Now there is a beautiful sea of clouds in the village, but at least half of the villagers have become paper people.
"So the village chief is colluding with the priests to deceive the villagers?" Zhou Hu asked. "That's a bit inhumane."
"I tend to think he's unaware of the priest's true intentions, or perhaps he's simply a fanatical believer bewitched by the priest," the briefcase-carrying man replied thoughtfully. "A village chief who hopes to restore prosperity wouldn't volunteer to sacrifice his entire village to the priest."
The details are not that important.
What is important is the solution to the witchcraft.
From the local chronicles, we found records related to the priest. The village chief invited a belief called "Paper Buddha", which is the blurred statue in the stone chamber.
All the related ritual implements in this belief are made of a kind of paper with a strange texture, such as the statue and the paper-cuts in the room.
The doctrine of "Paper Buddha" is equal exchange, offering one's own things to God in exchange for God's mercy.
From a player's perspective, this is clearly the behavior of a charlatan.
But the villagers in the game world are not so knowledgeable. They firmly believe until their death that the "God" they invited will save them.
The high priest came to the village as a "Paper Buddha". In fact, she was the key to this paper-cutting witchcraft. The paper Buddha statue was just a cover to deceive the villagers. She transformed the village ancestral hall into her own residence, and tricked the villagers into worshipping the paper Buddha devoutly. The most devout believers were the first to be turned into her paper figures by witchcraft, for her to command and control, and foreign tourists also became part of the paper figures.
.
This kind of plot is quite common in game scripts. However, because it was such an immersive experience, the newcomers were deeply shocked. This gave them great motivation to look up materials, and soon they found records related to the Paper Buddha and the Nightmare Suppression Technique in the book on witchcraft.
The worship formation for the Paper Buddha requires a total of three formation centers.
One of the core points of the formation is made by condensing the resentment of the dead and enshrining it with a spiritual stone in a room of ten feet, so that the soul cannot escape... It is used to nourish the Buddha's body.
It is talking about the deep well-like room where the little girl is in the stone chamber, where there is a huge paper doll locked in a crystal coffin.
The second eye of the formation is nourished by the vitality of living people... sucking their essence and blood, and guiding their spirit.
It refers to the guest rooms in the inn. There are paper-cuts pasted on each room, and when there is no light, the paper-cuts will look like ghost faces.
The three eyes of the formation are named "Joy" and it is the leader of the formation... The three eyes of the formation are connected in a line, gathering the negative pole and gathering the evil spirit. If you worship them with piety, the infinite true Buddha will appear in the world.
The third eye of the formation should be the key to breaking the formation. The small paper doll, which is the ninth piece of the ghost pattern puzzle, should be in it.
Although the location is not explicitly stated, it mentions that "three array centers are connected in a line", so it is easy to find.
Su Yue opened the selfie he took with Cang Zhi outside the valley.
When Zhao Shuo and Zhou Hu came over, they subconsciously flattered him: "Boss and Brother Cang are so loving!"
When Su Yue enlarged the selfie and revealed the map of Qiyun Village on the right side of the screen, everyone else's mouths opened into "O" shapes in surprise.
Zhou Hu muttered to himself, "The game starts with the layout, is this the level of a veteran player?"
Zhao Shuo looked at him doubtfully: "Brother Zhou, aren't you also a veteran player?"
"..." Zhou Hu's face turned pale and then red, "Get out!"
Last night, Su Yue sneaked out of the village and provoked a fight between the paper villagers who wanted to take his soul and the wild beasts that lived in the mountains and wanted to kill him. Then, while both sides were injured, he rescued the paper villager who was almost killed by the wild beast.
At that time, the paper villagers had lost their strength and turned into their true forms, that is, paper dolls, which were the "hostages" that Su Yue used to threaten the High Priest.
In the morning, when Su Yue was holding a bunch of paper dolls and returning to the inn with Cang Zhi, he noticed that at breakfast time, there was no smoke coming out of many houses in the village.
People living in the countryside usually get up early and return home at sunset, and their lives are very regular, so there is no smoke at breakfast time, which means there is no one in the house. These "people" are probably in Su Yue's hands now.
So, Su Yue marked the residences of the paper villagers on this photo, which was apparently a selfie but was actually both a selfie and a map.
All the residences were connected together to form the shape of a paper doll.
The heart of the paper doll is the ancestral hall, which is the center of the formation where the little girl is. The fingertips of one hand are the inn in the southeast corner of the village, and it goes straight down and points to the fingertips of the other hand.
The location is actually outside the village.
This result was unexpected. Briefcase hesitated for a moment and was the first to ask, "Is this a mistake?"
"The guide said the third rule is not to leave the village," the girl said softly. "Is he really mistaken? If we're not allowed to leave the village, how can we leave the village to complete the mission?"
"It wasn't necessarily true originally, but now that you mention it, it's definitely true," Zhao Shuo said. "I've already noticed. These NPCs are talking backwards, just to protect our paper dolls. They're supposed to enjoy the show, but in reality, they shouldn't be watching it at all. They're not leaving their rooms at night, but that's just to keep our paper dolls tamed. So, when she said not to leave the village, maybe we should actually leave the village."
So the group arrived at the village entrance.
An accident happened and I couldn't get out at all. If I passed through the archway at the entrance of the village, I would be back to where I was. If I wanted to get out from other places, it would be like encountering an air wall in a game, and I would be spinning in place.
Su Yue was a little confused. It was obvious that they were missing some important clue.
But what important clues could be missing? They had found the three key points of the formation.
Su Yue suddenly thought of something and pulled his AI boyfriend over. "Do you remember the third of the three rules the guide mentioned that day?"
Cang Zhi nodded and repeated word for word: "Three, do not leave the village without permission."
"You mean I need permission?" Zhao Shuo realized. "But who should I ask for it from? The High Priestess? What if she doesn't give it to me?"
"If she doesn't give it to me, I'll force her to give it to me." Su Yue said casually, "It's easy."
.
The group followed Su Yue to the ancestral hall again.
The sun was about to set and there was a strong wind. In the square where the celebration decorations were set up, the villagers had been packing up their things and going home since the sun began to set.
Now the flags, wooden sheds and scaffoldings remain in the square, with colorful flags and small paper figures fluttering in the air. Their shadows are very long and cast on the ground, making them look very strange and dancing.
As they walked towards the ancestral hall, the others actually had mixed feelings, feeling nervous but also with a subtle sense of relief.
Although something big is about to happen tonight, when one thinks of Su Yue's words "If she doesn't give it to you, force her to give it to you", it is really hard not to think of the scene where the high priest is incompetent and furious, shouting "Everyone must die" with a ferocious face.
It's simply blood suppression.
However, when they really arrived at the ancestral hall, things were beyond everyone's expectations. The door of the hall was completely open, and after walking a few steps inside, the cold and gloomy atmosphere disappeared.
The incense and candles on the altar had long been extinguished. Walking across the aisle, the room where the high priest was sitting was empty.
"I'll go check that out..." Zhao Shuo said as he pushed open the stone chamber door on the left and screamed heartbreakingly, "Oh my god!!!"
In the deep, well-like stone chamber, dim light descended from the extremely high ceiling.
In the darkness all around, a woman with long hair hanging down stood there like a ghost.
.
When Su Yue walked in, the woman just turned her head. Zhao Shuo screamed like a chicken and shrank behind Su Yue.
At the same time, Cang Zhi felt Zhao Shuo's fear and naturally thought that Su Yue was also afraid, so he stood in front of him without hesitation.
For a moment, a situation like an eagle catching chickens was formed.
Su Yue: "..."
Su Yue: "No, I'm fine."
Cang Zhi: “…Oh.”
He seemed to be quite disappointed that he had not been able to protect Su Yue. He moved away half a body length dejectedly. Su Yue walked forward, and the woman just turned around.
Su Yue was stunned.
This woman turned out to be their guide Yima.
But Yima no longer had her usual sweet smile on her face, nor did she reveal that terrifying paper face. She looked a little lost, and no one knew why.
"What are you doing here?" Su Yue asked.
Yima hesitated for a moment and asked, "Have you seen my child?"
The child she had been holding in her arms was indeed gone.
Su Yue hesitated for a moment and said, "I can help you find your child, but you have to take me away from the village, okay?"
Yima raised her head and looked at Suyue.
She looked very hesitant, but after a while, she nodded and said, "Okay, I'll take you out of the village."
Permission to leave the village was thus obtained.
.
When leaving the village, Su Yue chose to go alone, leaving Cang Zhi, Zhao Shuo, Zhou Hu and others to stay in the inn.
Because if anything unexpected happened in the mountains outside, Su Yue would not be able to take care of it.
But as Su Yue's puppet, Cang Zhi has some combat ability. As long as the main battlefield is on Su Yue's side, there won't be any major problems.
Yima was waiting for Suyue downstairs, and as she left with her, the sun began to set.
The gloomy sky gave Su Yue a strong intuition that there would be a fierce battle tonight. Considering that there was still a ferocious beast outside the mountain and the High Priest was now missing, Su Yue decisively mobilized a little divine power, stimulated the earring, and summoned the chat screen.
Before Supervisor Z sent a message, Su Yue typed first.
-[Su Yue: I might have to fight later, so it's going to be quite noisy, so I'm telling you.]
.
Based on Su Yue's understanding of Supervisor Z, he would immediately bring up a bunch of regulations, tell him that his behavior was inappropriate, and try to lecture him. Many of their old-fashioned gods were like this.
But in reality, he received a very brief reply.
Supervisor Z was first in the "typing" state, supposedly deleting the words he had already written. Then the message popped up.
-【Supervisor Z: Okay, be careful.】
Su Yue was stunned, feeling a subtle sense of strangeness. The supervisor opposite him was very patient in arguing with him when there was nothing to do, but when something really happened, he did not stop his outrageous behavior at all.
It seems like I suddenly changed from a "colleague" to a "companion".
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
