Chapter 54 The Vanished Villagers Worship the God of Wealth! First Bow—May the Grains Be Abundant…
No one refused.
The villagers under fifty were all in high spirits, packed their tools and set off, leaving only a few elderly people dejectedly standing in the village saying goodbye to everyone.
Du Yu was puzzled. It seemed as if the age of fifty had been predetermined, as it had taken almost everyone in the village with it.
But Redwood Village is the richest village in the vicinity, with no shortage of food, so why are there so few people over fifty years old?
All these thoughts lingered in my mind. I followed the shadow of a celestial being, traversing a winding mountain path, far from human habitation. The vegetation was growing wildly, the weeds almost reaching my chest, yet I could not hear a single bird's call or insect's chirp.
In this deathly silence, a mountain of flesh suddenly burst into view.
The grasslands, which had been expanding wildly like a plague, suddenly stopped at the foot of the mountain, like soldiers kneeling before a king, trembling and not daring to step out of the way.
However, Du Yu had no energy to pay attention to these unusual plants at the moment.
A towering mountain of flesh stood before us, its entire body a dark brown like cured meat, its surface uneven and bulging, resembling a collection of giant tumors pieced together, even the exposed stone surfaces glistening with oil.
Beneath the main peak, several raised tributaries extend in different directions like tentacles, gripping the ground firmly, like monsters nourished by the earth's nutrients. Dark shadows are cast upon the earth, like blood that has dried up for many years.
The visual impact was secondary; as soon as Du Yugang approached, his senses went into overdrive, sending a frantic warning. The chaotic and distorted aura was heavy and viscous, as if what stood there was not a mountain of flesh, but a constantly twisting, indescribable, and frenzied monster.
Du Yu held her breath. The pressure from the mountain in front of her was even more terrifying than when she faced a wisp of [Mi Mi Yin]'s divine consciousness!
If it weren't for her talent of "Golden Will," Du Yu suspected that she might have ended up like the surrounding villagers, kneeling down and keeping her head down, too ashamed to look at the sky.
Is this what's called Tai Sui? What exactly is this so-called Tai Sui?
Wearing Blue Grid Communications uniforms, the six Blue Grid employees, whom the villagers called "fairies," all put on goggles at this moment.
One of the men, a middle-aged man with blond hair, sneered at the villagers who were kneeling down. He glanced meaningfully at Du Yu, who was not kneeling, and with a flick of his sleeve, a long table appeared out of thin air on the flat ground at the foot of the mountain.
"The Tai Sui is shaped like flesh. It attaches itself to a large rock, possessing both a head and a tail, and is a living organism. The red ones resemble coral, the white ones resemble fat, the black ones resemble lacquer, the blue ones resemble kingfisher feathers, and the yellow ones resemble purple gold; all are bright and clear like solid ice." [Note]
After he finished reading a passage that was rather cryptic, several employees behind him, each holding an incense burner, placed it on the table, while another pulled out a bundle of long incense sticks.
A man behind him flicked his sleeve and pulled out a long incense stick, distributing one to each villager.
The blond-haired man narrowed his eyes, lit a long incense stick and stuck it in the incense burner, his expression a half-smile. "I don't need to teach you this, do I? It's time to worship Tai Sui."
"First bow—May the five grains be plentiful!"
"Second bow—may everything go smoothly!"
"Three bows—may Tai Sui bring you peace!"
As the man chanted in a drawn-out, strange voice, white smoke spread like mist. The kneeling villagers rose shakily, took turns inserting incense sticks into the incense burner, and then knelt down again like a gust of wind blowing through reeds.
Du Yu still didn't kneel, and the employees who were suspected to be from Lan Ge were not surprised. They bypassed her and didn't even offer her any incense.
There were two other people like her. One was the village chief, Gu Yinglan, and the other was Xiao Qi, who stood at the back with her eyes down, seemingly lost in thought.
Du Yu inhaled the fragrance, her brow furrowing slightly. Although the incense seemed intended to protect the villagers from the oppressive power of the Tai Sui, she noticed that everyone who inserted the incense into the burner had a slightly vacant look in their eyes, as if a wisp of their soul had been ripped out.
The blond employee ignored the three who refused to worship, confirmed that everyone else had offered incense, pointed his finger to the sky, and sent out several drones that sprayed silver-white paint, dividing the nearest, bloated mountain range into several sections.
"Come on, follow me."
Huang Mao retrieved the drone, walked up to Du Yu, looked her up and down with a half-smile, and then pointed to a few dozen villagers: "I'll take care of you. Come with me."
After the ceremony, it seemed that all the villagers knew what to do next. Several villagers pushing carts began distributing tools—a basket, a hoe, a chisel, and a smaller bag of tools.
After receiving his share, Du Yu felt that these tools didn't seem like something for some mysterious ritual of worshipping the Tai Sui, but rather something for mining.
The villagers, pointed at by the yellow-haired immortal, were filled with excitement and quickly assembled.
He led a group of people up the mountain, to an area marked by laser beams. The flying skateboard beneath his feet "whooshed" and propelled him into the air.
He sat cross-legged, propped his chin on one hand, and blatantly pulled out a personal terminal. Staring at the screen, he said casually, "Let's begin. Same rules as always, 90/10. After handing it over to the Immortal Sect, the rest is yours."
Goodness.
Du Yu couldn't help but click his tongue and mutter to himself, "Nine-one percent? Even loan sharks would call me an expert."
But the surrounding villagers looked normal, without the slightest resentment, which clearly indicated that this blatant rip-off was already a common practice.
The blue-clad employees sat cross-legged on their flying skateboards, their clothes fluttering in the wind. If it weren't for the fact that the flying skateboards were so familiar to Du Yu, one would have to admit that their arrangement had a somewhat ethereal, otherworldly air about it.
The employees either stared blankly at the deep mountains or took out their personal computers to fish. There wasn't a single supervisor, as if they weren't afraid at all that the villagers were fishing or stealing ore.
Du Yu looked away in confusion. Although one could only worship Tai Sui upon reaching a certain age, it was a skill that almost every villager in Redwood Village learned from the moment they started walking. Having taken over this body, Du Yu naturally knew the specific procedures for worshipping Tai Sui.
After bowing at the incense table, all that was left was hard labor.
Du Yu found a quiet area. With one swing of the hoe, he felt a sharp pain in his hand from the recoil.
Is this really not like chiseling through a mountain? Du Yu thought to himself, but mindful of his weekly tasks, he followed the example of the surrounding villagers and started digging.
"Bang, bang, bang!"
After digging several times, Du Yu finally found the trick.
Beside several crater pits, Du Yu swung his hoe again, and with each strike, he dug out a slightly darker-colored pit. The sensation was not like chiseling stone, but rather like cutting through the supple skin of some kind of hairy animal.
Du Yu's eyes lit up; he knew the main event was about to begin.
She put the hoe aside, took out a brush from her cloth bag, and carefully cleared away the pebbles around the patch of ground.
After determining the area of the dark region, Du Yu squatted down and used a chisel to cut at an angle, striking the edge between the dark region and the surrounding ground. A hissing sound was heard, like a balloon being popped.
After digging for so long, they finally got the goods. Du Yu rubbed his hands together and carefully used a chisel to chisel around the area.
Strangely, nothing happened except for that strange noise when the chisel struck.
But as Du Yu carved a circle around the dark area, completely separating it from the normal area, the dark stones in that circle seemed to shrink and recede towards the center.
In a short while, it shrank into a black lump of flesh the size of a fist.
With this yield rate, digging for Tai Sui (a type of rare fungus) is no easy task. But Du Yu knew that this was just the beginning. She carefully picked up the black stone that looked like coral, its surface full of holes.
Then, she took out the more refined set of tools from her cloth bag and carefully tapped around the black stone.
Soon, the uneven, hollow spaces, resembling those of dead coral polyps, were cleared away. Dark gray dust poured down from his fingertips, until only the solid core, now halved in size, remained.
This is the real black jujube meat.
Du Yu patted the piece of Tai Sui meat in his hand, which was about the size of a small orange. The thought of digging out a full ten pounds of this thing made him feel dizzy.
Was she really bound to a synthetic game and not some slave simulator?
Despite the complaints, this task clearly has follow-up tasks. If you miss this one, you don't know when you'll be able to trigger another task that rewards elemental cores.
Du Yu pondered to herself, even so, there was no need for her to try her luck digging for the flesh of the Tai Sui like ordinary villagers. She couldn't use the synthesis function in her current mission, but her other abilities remained.
She pulled a worn-out handkerchief from her pocket. While wiping her sweat, she quietly closed her eyes. Beneath her eyelids, a fierce purple fire burned deep within her pupils.
She turned her head slightly. Even with her eyes closed, the terrain of this branch of the mountain range was already vividly displayed in her mind.
As Du Yu hadn't anticipated, although he didn't know exactly what this Tai Sui meat was, it was clear that this thing was definitely inseparable from extraordinary elements.
In my spiritual vision, this branch appeared grayish-brown. Within this large expanse of grayish-brown, there were numerous small, speckled black dots. These black dots were presumably the locations of the *Tai Sui* flesh.
Du Yu moved unnoticed to the nearest piece of Tai Sui meat, swung the hoe a few times, and then felt that strange sensation again.
She pretended to be surprised and squatted down, repeating the action of digging out the flesh of the Tai Sui.
As he dug, Du Yu pondered in his mind.
Besides these gray-black shadows floating on the surface of the mountain, in her spiritual vision, she could sense that as the branches spread, at the end of the branches, deep within the massive mountain of flesh, there seemed to be some enormous, menacing shadow.
What is that? Is it the true form of Tai Sui?
Du Yu discovered that those so-called immortals sitting cross-legged on their flying skateboards, although seemingly indifferent to the villagers' work, would occasionally glance into the depths of the branch vein, as if something was lurking there.
This year marks the first time that such lenient conditions have been observed for worshipping Tai Sui in Hongmu Village. Could this unusual situation be related to a strange entity deep within the mountain?
"ah!"
Among the villagers not far away, an elderly villager suddenly let out a scream.
He looked much older than his actual age, as if he had seen the most terrifying thing in the world. He dropped the hoe and chisel in his hand, his face contorted, and his eyes were filled with horror.
His limbs twisted erratically in the air, like an ancient shaman performing a bizarre sacrificial dance, or like a shadow puppet on a stage being manipulated.
The surrounding villagers dispersed, not daring to approach him.
As the shock in the old villager's eyes gradually turned to joy, his wildly twisting limbs began to take on an indescribable charm, as if he were truly dancing to some unseen song.
In a few breaths, the old villager suddenly slowed his movements. He raised his hands high, his eyes filled with a pure, joyful light, as if he were reborn.
He shouted excitedly, "Paying homage to Tai Sui! One bow—may the five grains be abundant!"
"Second bow—may everything go smoothly!"
"Three bows—may Tai Sui bring you peace!"
"Four bows—Heaven and Earth are one!"
After the villager finished shouting, his whole body seemed to melt like a wax figure, being scorched by some unseen high temperature, and quickly turned into a viscous black liquid, wriggling and seeping into the cracks in the mountain.
They vanished so decisively, as if they had never existed here at all.
Du Yu's eyebrows twitched violently.
But the surrounding villagers, apart from keeping a little distance when the old man was dancing wildly, seemed to be quite familiar with this scene and had no reaction as if they were used to it.
After the black water had completely seeped into the cracks, they continued digging for the Tai Sui as if nothing had happened.
Some villagers even glanced at the old man as he danced wildly and shouted incoherently before turning away without a care, as if all that remained before them was the task of digging up the flesh of the Tai Sui.
There's definitely something wrong with this worship of Tai Sui! But exactly what's wrong with it?
Did that old villager just do something she didn't notice?
Having learned from the old man's example, Du Yu became more vigilant. Even while mining ore, she still devoted half of her mental energy to observing the people around her.
Soon, just as Du Yu had dug up three pieces of the Tai Sui meat, screams rang out from all around. More than a dozen villagers turned into black water, seeping into the mountain crevices and disappearing without a trace.
Du Yu observed these people, and without exception, all of them who disappeared were over twenty-six years old, meaning they were among the group who were not supposed to come to worship Tai Sui!
"The Grand Duke Jupiter seems to be in a bad mood today. He has already summoned many people to keep him company."
Gu Yinglan was over fifty years old and did not participate in the villagers' worship of Tai Sui. She only stood at a distance at the foot of the mountain. As the villagers disappeared one after another, she climbed up the mountain and stood near Huang Mao, who held the highest position.
It seemed that something in the distance was tugging at his mind, and Huang Mao was rather absent-minded.
Hearing this, he glanced at the crowd with disinterest and noticed that a few people were indeed missing. He clicked his tongue impatiently, clapped his hands, and pulled out a megaphone, letting the sound spread far and wide: "Alright, alright, let's take a break."
Du Yu waited a few moments, then got up.
But it was clear that half the people around seemed not to hear, continuing to dig for the Tai Sui.
Du Yu quietly activated his spiritual vision.
Their spirits were the grayish-white spirits of ordinary people, but those of the villagers who moved most violently and had the most fervent expressions had spirits that seemed to have rusted, subtly tinged with a dark brown.
Huang Mao seemed to have anticipated that someone wouldn't listen, so he took off the bell hanging from his belt and placed it near the loudspeaker.
Without him making any move, the bell started shaking wildly, its tinkling sound echoing throughout the entire mountain range.
Du Yu found the sound annoying, but the fanatical villagers, who seemed deaf to the people around them, were struck dumb, their eyes filled with pain. They struggled for a long time before painfully stopping.
"Hehe, if you dig any deeper, be careful the Grand Duke Jupiter might summon you to play chess."
When the people around them saw that they had come to their senses, they made a few teasing remarks without any malice.
Du Yu secretly raised an eyebrow; this matter was not as nonchalant as the surrounding villagers seemed.
Without that bell, the villagers whose spirits were acting strangely would have been quickly devoured—just like the villagers who turned into black water and disappeared.
Du Yu followed the crowd and sat down to rest. Some people took out bamboo tubes to drink water, but she didn't move. For some reason, she didn't want to do anything related to eating in these mountains.
A figure suddenly stood up, standing out from the group of seated villagers. Everyone looked over curiously and saw it was Xiao Qi, who had previously refused to worship Tai Sui.
She stayed there for half a day without even moving a single hoe. She stared at the ground with a pained look in her eyes and remained silent for a moment.
Du Liaoran was deeply saddened. Her mother, a middle-aged woman in her forties, was also one of the villagers who had just disappeared.
Xiao Qi paused for a moment, seemingly having made up her mind. Without even glancing at the surrounding mountains, now riddled with holes, she turned and walked deeper into the mountains.
"Hey kid, where are you going?"
As the flying skateboard spun around, the blond-haired man blocked her way, seemingly having seen something funny, his tone full of mockery.
"I'm going to see what this so-called Tai Sui is all about."
Xiaoqi calmly met his gaze, her expression numb yet revealing stubbornness.
The so-called immortal stared at her for a few moments with a half-smile, then actually let go and ignored her: "Fine, go ahead."
"Xiao Qi!"
Gu Yinglan's voice was unusually intense as she stared intently at her.
"Thank you, village chief, but I've already made up my mind."
Xiao Qi thanked the village chief in a casual tone, looked around, and then surprisingly approached Du Yu.
She has no relation to this Xiao Qi.
Du Yu became more vigilant, only to see Xiao Qi approach without any hesitation, glance at the four pieces of Tai Sui meat in her basket, raise an eyebrow noncommittally, and then turn and leave.
Just before leaving, a voice, barely audible, rang in Du Yu's ears: "If you don't want to die here, leave now."
After speaking to Du Yu, Xiao Qi walked into the depths of the mountains without looking back.
After resting for a while, the villagers spontaneously continued digging for the Tai Sui without needing any prompting from the immortals.
Gu Yinglan couldn't care less about the villagers at this moment. She stared at the spot where Xiao Qi had disappeared, her gaze deep and her brows furrowed so deeply they could almost trap a fly.
Du Yu thought for a moment, then suddenly stood up. "Wait, I'll go with you!"
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Author's Note: The phrase "太岁者..." is quoted from the "Compendium of Materia Medica" and has been slightly modified for better flow.
The update time is fixed, and I don't finish writing until late at night every day, lol.
I might revise the text for the next few days; don't worry about the updates during the day.
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