197 Ten years ago
The fire has not yet started
Ten years ago, the fire that burned the village happened at 3:13 in the early morning of the 27th day of the 12th lunar month.
And at this moment, it is the 26th day of the twelfth lunar month, 11 o'clock in the evening.
The villagers are extremely excited tonight. The right time is coming and they can no longer suppress their inner restlessness. It has been ten years. They have been waiting for ten years. As long as tonight is over, they will be able to bid farewell to their identity as paper men and become human beings completely.
Wu Shanyue walked across the yard, quietly came to the door and looked out through the crack. It was like a hundred ghosts parading at night. Under the dim street lights, villagers with fierce looks on their faces were coming and going. In order to prevent the returnees from escaping and some inevitable accidents, they were even equipped with weapons today.
Pickaxes, axes, hoes, sickles... the sharp blades emit a cold light under the illumination of street lamps, looking scary and eerie.
“…”
Wu Shanyue quietly retreated to the main room, looked at the players who were already prepared for battle, and hesitated, "What should we do?"
"Listen to Axue." Liu Ge turned his gaze in the direction of Qi Qiuxue. Until now, Qi Qiuxue still had not given up thinking. The photos in the camera, the audio in the recorder, and all the clues that had been obtained were repeatedly watched, listened to, analyzed, and summarized by her, and carefully dug them over and over again.
But it was useless. Many clues could not be formed or connected, and no key inferences could be drawn.
Time passed slowly, and soon another hour passed. Qi Qiuxue put away her camera and recorder and finally stood up. Like other players, she quickly drew out her weapon and held the bone knife tightly in her hand.
"According to the rules of the game, players shouldn't attack NPCs without proper guidance. Otherwise, there could be consequences the player can't handle, potentially affecting quest progress or even endangering their lives." Her gaze wandered over the player, her expression serious and earnest. "But right now, this is an emergency."
"We must prepare for battle. Rather than being sacrificed, killed, and forever sealed in a paper doll, why not try to fight our way out through force?" She spoke softly and calmly, "But before that, I have somewhere to go."
"The fire started ten years ago." Bai Shien followed up, "Is that right?"
Qi Qiuxue nodded gently: "Yeah."
"Perhaps tonight, there will be some information we want there."
-
The main gate is now impassable.
The villagers were organized and planned to guard the door in batches, blocking it tightly. Fortunately, the light was dim at night, and some subtle changes hidden in high places were not easily discovered. Qi Qiuxue planned an escape route based on her memory. There was a forest at the end of this row of houses. After passing through the forest and walking a few hundred meters west, she would reach the fire point.
They had to climb onto the roof in the shortest time and with the lightest movements, walk past one house after another, and finally jump into the woods. Once they got there, with the night and trees as cover, it would be much more difficult for the villagers to catch them.
Everything went relatively smoothly.
The six people walked through one house after another with difficulty and caution, and successfully arrived at the woods. There were relatively few villagers nearby and they did not notice their whereabouts, so they quickly came to the fire point, found a suitable cover, and squatted down.
At this moment, there are more than two hours left since the fire broke out ten years ago. Several people squatted here quietly, and they had never felt that time passed so slowly.
What will you see?
Can any useful clues be gathered?
How can they pass the Chigu Village dungeon?
No one knows the answer, including Qi Qiuxue.
——From beginning to end, she kept holding the bone knife tightly.
Time passed by little by little. I didn't know how much time had passed. The footsteps of the villagers in the distance began to become noisy, and I could vaguely hear some conversations coming from all directions.
"Is everything ready?"
"Okay, don't worry."
"Make sure the offerings are in the village, right?"
"Well, so far, no one has managed to escape from here. As long as these guys are still in Chigu Village, our ritual will succeed. No matter where they hide or what they do, it will be useless."
"Soon."
"Soon."
"The last seven minutes."
“…”
Seven minutes left.
Qi Qiuxue gripped the hilt of the knife tightly, feeling her blood almost freezing.
Sudden--
There seemed to be two figures running towards her from a distance, but because the light was too dim, Qi Qiuxue could not see their faces clearly.
But she vaguely recognized the figure of one of them. It was the homeless man! The homeless man who had disappeared from everyone's sight after only a brief encounter a few days ago!
Two figures were chasing each other. I don’t know who the homeless man had offended. The other party seemed to be very angry and wanted to kill him. There was a big gap between the two in speed and physical strength. But after a moment, the man finally caught him.
Immediately followed by a cry of "Ah", the homeless man was hit on the head with a stone by someone behind him and fell to the ground in pain.
After seeing the homeless man fall down, the man finally stopped and breathed in deep gulps of air. Then he moved forward, peeled away the reed pile, and took out something that looked like a gasoline barrel hidden inside.
He opened the gasoline barrel and poured all the gasoline inside on the homeless man. Then, with a "click", a flame lit up from his fingertips.
Don't let it ignite successfully! Otherwise all the clues will be burned!
Qi Qiuxue stood up at the critical moment, holding the bone knife tightly, and rushed forward quickly. When she noticed someone approaching, the person was startled and the action of lighting the fire was immediately interrupted.
It turned and left as if escaping, and in almost an instant, its figure disappeared from Qi Qiuxue's gaze.
The only things left there were a set of clothes that looked very youthful and handsome and an extinguished lighter.
Qi Qiuxue turned around to look at the homeless man lying on the ground. The huge rock hit him right on the temple. The moment he was hit, he died silently on the spot. Countless blood slowly flowed out of his wound, staining the ground beneath his feet red.
Qi Qiuxue slowly widened her eyes.
It's blood.
What he shed was not pulp, but blood!!!
Qi Qiuxue quickly squatted down, took out a tissue and wiped the homeless man's face desperately. Soon, the dirt on his face was wiped away, and the two big red spots on his cheeks also spread out, looking extremely messy.
The bright red color might have been painted by him or someone else. His body was not taken over by the paper man at all. He was still a human being!
"Turn over his clothes!" Qi Qiuxue gave orders to the other players who followed.
"Okay!" The players acted quickly and soon found two things in the homeless man's shirt pocket: a train ticket and an ID card.
Judging from the time on the ticket, he was also a returnee who had just returned to Chigu Village a few days ago.
"After getting off the train, he didn't return with Wang Shan's car. I don't know how he managed to get back to the village on his own, so none of the returning groups saw him." Qi Qiuxue spoke quickly, sharing all the clues she had gathered. "From the information on his ID card, we can see that the birth date on the back of the paper figurine is indeed correct. But that was probably just a random scribble by him or someone else, and has nothing to do with whether or not he was possessed by the paper figurine."
"Now I can finally see his appearance clearly." Qi Qiuxue's chest heaved violently. She repeatedly examined the homeless man's face and the clothes scattered on the ground, and always felt that both looked particularly familiar.
So she took out her camera again and found the few photos of homeless people that she had accidentally taken. Then, she discovered something that was enough to shock all the players.
Behind every homeless man standing with his head down and in a daze, there is a man who looks very similar to him, and the clothes the man wears are exactly the ones that are now scattered on the ground.
At first glance, the man seemed to be about nineteen years old, a full ten years younger than the homeless man.
“…”
"For some reason, he seems to have two different timeframes." Qi Qiuxue frowned. "Ten years ago, he killed his future homeless self, but he was still alive. That's why there was no body at the scene, only clothes scattered on the ground."
"Ten years later, he was killed by his past self, so there was no murderer at the scene, only the body."
Ding Dong.
A voice rang in every player's mind, and then a door suddenly appeared out of thin air next to the homeless man's body.
[Detected that the player triggered a key clue. 】
[Players can use key tools to open the door in front of them, such as fabrics, lighters...]
"Where does this door lead to?" Su Wen asked.
The system did not respond.
"You..." Su Wen wanted to say something, but before he could open his mouth, he felt a sudden strong wind blowing around him, the ground began to shake, and a violent roar came to his ears.
The sacrifice was about to begin and they had no time to waste.
"Only one thing is needed to open the door, right?" Qi Qiuxue used a bone knife to cut off a few pieces of cloth, then lowered her eyes and picked up the lighter. She needed to keep a backup plan for herself and everyone else. These things were all key items. If she could use them to enter the door, she could definitely use them to get out.
[Yes.] The system replied.
So Qi Qiuxue opened the door with cloth.
In an instant, a pitch-black vortex emerged from behind the door and swallowed all the players into it.
When they opened their eyes again, they were standing on the ground of Chigu Village again, but the surrounding houses, buildings, equipment, etc. were very different from before.
"What time is it now?" Qi Qiuxue asked.
【Congratulations to the players. 】
The system answered Qi Qiuxue's question with a smile.
[It is the twenty-sixth day of the twelfth lunar month, ten years ago.]
[At this moment, Chigu Village is still intact and the fire has not yet started.]
【Author’s words】
Here we come!
Thank you for your Bawang tickets and nutrient solution, and thank you for leaving comments and reading~
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