CH 7.1

Bai Lixin and Xia Chi crossed into the courtyard, and they could hear the heated arguments through the window.

Bai Lixin gestured for Xia Chi to throw the unconscious monster into the courtyard. The two entered one after the other, and they found that the atmosphere inside was even tenser than during the day.

Liang Xi, who was supposed to be tending to the patients, was also present, and all of them had condensed faces and very grave expressions.

And in their midst was someone who should not have been here.

Grandma Sang.

Grandma Sang was tied up with a rope on the ground. Her expression was dazed, her eyes cloudy, and her mouth chanting, “I’m here to collect the corpses, I’m here to collect the corpses.”

“So many corpses have been collected; why not my Bao’er?”

“Bao’er, where are you?”

The other players stared at Grandma Sang with vigilance, the anger on their faces evident.

“This NPC is suspicious. There must be something wrong!”

“Fuck, she almost scared me to death when I was peeing.”

“This ghostly thing is annoying, pulling a dead face all day long . I think there must be something wrong with her!”

“Two female players died as soon as she arrived. Is she the one who killed those two?”

“Most likely. She’s the only female NPC in the whole village, isn’t that strange?”

“She must know something!”

“But we can’t ask anything. All she says is “Bao’er”!”

Bai Lixin glanced at Liang Xi and received a private message immediately afterwards.

[Friend Liang Xi has requested to create a discussion group.]

[Agree/Reject]

Bai Lixin clicked [Agree], and a discussion group suddenly appeared in the chat window. There were a total of four people in the discussion group, including him.

Liang Xi, Bai Lixin, Zhou Guang, and Xia Chi.

Liang Xi: [Let me explain the situation. You have all received the system alert, right? Two more people died just now, and they were the two feverish female players. Li Cancan is still breathing.]

[That skinny guy went out to take a piss, and he saw Grandma Sang standing in front of him when he looked up, startling him.]

[Maybe he was driven crazy with this game, but he tied up Grandma Sang in a fit of rage. I heard the sound and thought someone was hurt and rushed over. I left Zhou Guang looking after Li Cancan.]

Xia Chi didn’t say anything, but his stoic expression betrayed him.

There were still people breathing when he left, but two more people were dead when he came back.

If they could have been a little faster, perhaps…

Bai Lixin: [Grandma Sang came over to collect the bodies?]

Liang Xi: [Yes, the coffin home was opened by her family, and all the bodies floating in the river earlier were fished out by her.]

Xia Chi shoved the satchel into Liang Xi’s arms: [The herbs are in there; go and save Sister Cancan.]

Liang Xi took a glance at the herbs and exclaimed in surprise, “Yes! This is it. I’ll go save her now!”

With that, he pushed the door and left without looking back.

Xia Chi seemed to remember something and was about to remind Liang Xi, but to his surprise, the other party’s movements were even faster. He had already opened the door and stepped out.

The next second, Liang Xi came back with a pale face.

His face was full of panic as he pointed to the courtyard. His lips were trembling and his voice carried a tremor: “Outside… there’s a monster outside.”

Instantly, the argument all but disappeared.

The anger of the players was replaced with fear in seconds, and they didn’t have the energy to care about Grandma Sang anymore. Some of them bravely walked to the door and peered out through the doorway. Sure enough, there was a monster lying prostrate on the ground.

From their angle, they could only see the undulating abdomen of the monster. It was lying on its back, revealing its white belly.

“How…How can there be a monster here?”

“Aren’t the monsters not allowed to go down the mountain?”

“Will this game let people live or not?! I want to go back. Let me go back!”

Xia Chi patted Liang Xi’s shoulder soothingly and said with a dry smile, “Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid. This is what brother Xin and I got back from the mountain. We knocked it unconscious and tied it up. It won’t be dangerous.”

Xia Chi licked his lips, “We went all the way. We couldn’t make a trip for nothing.”

The crowd: “….”

Were these two planning to have monsters come and eat a buffet?

However, Bai Lixin, the culprit, quickly came to Grandma Sang when no one else was looking and spoke in her ear.

Grandma Sang, whose eyes were cloudy, raised her head in surprise, “Really?”

Bai Lixin nodded, “Mm.”

Grandma Sang pulled up the corners of her mouth. Her face seemed to be separated from her flesh. The meat was pulled up and her face dangled capriciously on it, forming a bizarre smile, “Hee hee, okay. Then it’s a deal.”

With that, she abruptly rose from the ground.

The other players heard the sound, and they all turned around to look over. They watched with a dumbfounded expression as Grandma Sang wriggled inside the rope in some extremely twisted positions a few times and easily broke free of it.

The nimble little old lady brazenly walked to the window, opened it and jumped down into the courtyard.

Her feet were small, probably because of the foot-binding, but the quick friction of her feet with the ground surprisingly made the small steps come out with the explosive effect of a racing walk.

Grandma Sang dashed into a room at great speed and came out again not long after.

She came out with two rigid figures, one on each shoulder.

Each of these two figures was taller than her, but she carried them as easily as two balls of cotton.

The little old lady didn’t forget to kick the unconscious monster before she left, blending into the darkness and disappearing.

Out of the darkness came the faint sound of Grandma Sang’s hoarse laughter, “In three years, sacrifice the bride; otherwise, the flood will come. Remember to prepare the sacrifice.”

In the open room was Zhou Guang’s dumbfounded face.

The bald man glared at Bai Lixin, “What did you just say to her?!”

Bai Lixin ignored him. He walked to Liang Xi and pulled his wrist, “Go, go and save Li Cancan.”

Xia Chi hurriedly followed Bai Lixin’s pace, “Brother Xin, I’m coming too!”

The three people left, one after the other, and the crowd then looked at each other.

One of the players spoke up cautiously, “Is the sacrifice the old woman mentioned a female player? If the female player can survive… “

This player’s words were only half spoken, but the other players already understood what he meant.

If the female player could survive, couldn’t she be sacrificed to the river god as a bride?

Perhaps this was the real solution to this copy?

Why else would they make the female players sick right off the bat? And why not tell them that there are fever-reducing herbs in the cave?

Wasn’t that an obvious obstacle to let them know that saving the female player was the same as saving themselves?

The rules had reminded them from the beginning that the game was not without solutions.

The sacrifice of a pure maiden to appease the river god’s wrath and the flood will not come!

Many of them could not help but feel a pang of fear.

They were all ready to give up on those female players during the day. Fortunately, Bai Lixin and the others hadn’t.

If Bai Lixin had also given up and all these female players had died, then they would all have been finished!

The blacksmith had a cold look in his eyes, “I told you there was a reason as to why they were so concerned about those female players. I’m afraid they thought of this a long time ago and didn’t tell us.”

Baldy, “That can’t be right. What’s the advantage of hiding the information? Wouldn’t it be safer if he told us the information and we went up the mountain together?”

Blacksmith, “Have you forgotten the rules of the game? Points are allocated according to performance ratings. They were the ones who went up the mountain to get the herbs, and they were the ones who saved the people. They did all the good deeds, so their rating will be higher than ours in the end. Even if we survive, they will eat the meat and we will drink the soup.”

A player wearing glasses hesitated, “Don’t you think that little white face called Bai Lixin is evil? He stayed on the mountain for 20 hours by himself, even after the monsters chasing us had all left. Shouldn’t a normal person go down the mountain immediately? How did he manage to stay so long?”

“And look guys, that little white face secretly said something to Grandma Sang, and like a necrophile, she ran away with the corpses in her arms. Did this little white face find a clue to Bao’er and trigger Grandma Sang’s plot line?”

The blacksmith gritted his teeth, “They had no intention of bringing us into play from the start.”

Huang Mao gave the blacksmith a look and said, “Boss, didn’t you say you had a solution before? What solution?”

The blacksmith took a deep breath, “I only figured it out when I saw the time difference in the game after dark. The condition for passing is to sacrifice the female players. That’s why I said we should wait for them to bring back the medicine to complete the plan. But I didn’t expect that the other side had already thought of that.”

“Fuck, these turtle grandsons, they were playing tricks on Laozi from the start.”

Huang Mai’s face changed, “So what do we do next? Are we walking into a dead end?”

The blacksmith’s voice sank, “We’ll just get fewer points. They will definitely sacrifice the female player since they saved her life. Don’t worry, we’ll be fine that way too.”

The skinny man tapped his head, “Right, right, the boss is right.”

—

In the live game room.

[Fuck, this is the first time I’ve seen such a grand way of saying “picking up leftovers”.]

[I’ve also never seen such a brazen person before.]

[If Bai Lixin hadn’t attracted all the red spiders last night, would they still be alive to go down the mountain? What a joke. And questioning why didn’t Bai Lixin come down the mountain? Nonsense, it’s because your father, Bai Lixin, was pulling hatred for you as you scattered like coins.]

[What else can they do but drag their feet! They’re the ones who refused to go up the mountain, and now they’re the ones who’re putting the blame on others.]

[Speaking of which, why were those monsters afraid of Bai Lixin on the mountain?]

[I don’t know, maybe they were afraid of the herbs? We picked the herbs too, but it was during the day and we didn’t encounter any monsters.]

[Old player, what is in that cave?]

[There was a round hole with some herbs growing in it and some crystals on the wall, but nothing else.]

[How did you solve the additional task?]

[Our group was united. Everyone divided labor and worked together. We looked for all the clues that should be found and talked to all the NPCs, but we only managed to solve 70% of the task. We couldn’t solve the last 30% no matter what.]

[Why am I more nervous watching the live stream than when breaking through the level myself?]

[Me too. It’s so exciting. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen someone chased by so many red spiders yesterday and still look so good.]

—

At the other end of the room, Liang Xi quickly pounded the herbs into mud. He wrapped the crushed mud in gauze and squeezed the juice into a small bowl.