CH 11.1

Bai Lixin, “If you won’t say it, then let me say it instead. I’ll tell you what I’ve guessed.”

“The beginning of the story should be similar to what the village head said. The village had a two-year drought and no harvest. Huang Youcheng, a wealthy merchant, was passing through the area and took a fancy to Miss Bao’er. To get the beautiful Bao’er, Huang Youcheng made an offer that the village could not refuse—food and money.”

“How Bao’er got on a boat is unclear to me for now, so let’s skip that part and talk about the later events.”

“The village head said that Bao’er committed suicide after killing Huang Youcheng because she resented the village, but I’m from Huang Youcheng’s house and I don’t think so.”

“They stayed there for the first few days before going to the river, but the room was basically filled with women’s clothes and very few men’s. This means that Huang Youcheng rarely lived there. And there is a secret passage leading from Huang Youcheng’s house to yours. Who is it for?”

“Was it for Sang Bao’er and Huang Youcheng…”

Bai Lixin paused, his gaze examining Grandma Sang, “Or for the future Mrs. Huang and the village head?”

Grandma Sang had already shaken into a sieve. She looked at Bai Lixin with a face full of shock. She stumbled back on her feet and sank back into the rocking chair.

“You guessed it?” Grandma Sang swallowed her saliva, and her usual crazy tone had calmed down a lot.

Grandma Sang, “You guessed right, that tunnel was for Bao’er… and Li Yizhi to have an affair after she married Huang Youcheng.”

“Thirty years ago, there was a big drought. Huang Youcheng coveted Bao’er’s looks and was willing to provide food to the village in order to get her. The village head lied to us about some sacrifice to the River God, but we were not stupid. If there really was such a thing, why would it have been delayed until two years after the great drought, or not long after Huang Youcheng arrived.”

“The former village head also knew that Bao’er and Li Yizhi were in a relationship at the time. But just when Bao’er would rather die than submit, Li Yizhi came.”

“His mouth was full of benevolence and morality, telling Bao’er that it was for the greater good, for the sake village, and the sake of the hundreds of lives.”

“Bao’er said she loved him, and then Li Yizhi came up with a bad idea.”

“He asked Bao’er to marry Huang Youcheng and give her body to him, but they’d remain lovers at heart. He told Bao’er that it was a way to accumulate virtue for herself and that she would have immense glory in the next life.”

“Bao’er eventually accepted Li Yizhi’s idea and went along with it. She acquiesced to the lie of the River God’s sacrifice and married Huang Youcheng.”

“It was also from then that she began to have an affair with Li Yizhi.”

“At that time, Huang Youcheng chose a house closest to mine in order to woo Bao’er, and we secretly dug a passage to facilitate the affair. Because of the proximity, the tunnel was dug quickly.”

“After the tunnel was dug, Bao’er claimed to be homesick and requested to come back to the village for a longer stay.”

“Huang Youcheng had business in town and did not always stay with Bao’er. He’d only come back every couple of days and left again in a hurry the next day, which gave Bao’er and Li Yizhi plenty of time to carry out the affair.”

“But how can there be an impermeable wall under the sun?”

“Huang Youcheng discovered their adulterous affair one day.”

“Huang Youcheng gave Li Yizhi a violent beating and threw him out of the house. From that day onwards, word of Bao’er’s indiscretion in her private life ran rampant. Everyone would call her names, scold her for being loose, and call her a whore.”

“But all these people forgot that they had eaten food that Bao’er had bought with her body in order to have the strength to curse.”

“After a while, Bao’er was unable to bear the humiliation. She poisoned Huang Youcheng and committed suicide on the day they went to the river.”

“Since then, strange events have started happening in the village. First, monsters that had never been seen before appeared on the mountain, and then everyone found that they were trapped in the village and unable to leave. Some of the women in the village died one after another of persistent fever, and that’s when the curse of the River God appeared.”

“All the women in the village were sick, except me. Everyone said that it was the ghost of Bao’er who was at work, cursing the village because she resented it. We could only appease her wrath by sacrificing a pure maiden every three years.”

“The villagers were afraid that Bao’er would turn into a fierce spirit to seek revenge on them at night, so they built a mound for her on the mountain and went up to pay their respects daily.”

[Ding! Congratulations to the player. You have unlocked 20% of the truth about the River God’s curse. (Current progress: 90%/100%)]

Grandma Sang, “I don’t care about the curse or not, I just want my daughter’s bones back.”

“Fallen leaves return to their roots. Her surname is not Huang nor Li, her surname is Sang. She is a child of the Sang family. I should let her have a place to live after she dies rather than be a lonely ghost.”

The wind blew by, bringing down a fallen withered yellow leaf to float onto Grandma Sang’s hand.

Bai Lixin looked down at the old woman. Her back was hunched over and her face was too stiff to make much of an expression, but he could still read the mother’s affection and sadness for her child.

Bai Lixin, “Does that mean that the grave on the mountain does not contain Bao’er’s bones?”

Grandma Sang, “Of course not. If they were there, I would have dug it up long ago.”

Bai Lixin, “Then where is Bao’er’s body?”

Grandma Sang, “It’s in the river. It sank with Huang Youcheng and never came back up. I went down to retrieve it, but the water was too deep. Coupled with the dense water plants, it was impossible to find.”

“That’s why you often go to the river to retrieve the corpses? Hoping for the day when Miss Bao’er’s body will float up from the river,” Bai Lixin’s eyes swept across Grandma Sang’s wrinkled face, “I will find a way to retrieve Bao’er’s corpse for you.”

Grandma Sang struggled to open her eyes wide and they almost fell out of their sockets, “Really?!”

Bai Lixin, “Grandma, your stare is weirdly cute. Don’t stare next time.”

Grandma Sang: “….”

—

In the live broadcasting room.

[90%! It’s now 90% and there are 30 hours left! They might actually be able to complete the quest without going through the sacrifice this time.]

[I’m going to die laughing, my dear. “Your stare is cute” “Don’t stare next time” hahaha, I used to think these NPCs were scary. How come the more I look at them now, the cuter they are?]

[…Not cute like that?]

[God Xin has cured my many years of fear of NPCs.]

[It turns out that Bao’er’s bones have been in the river all along, I thought they were on the mountain.]

[How is the blacksmith’s group of three?]

[Who cares? They dared to molest Bai Lixin. They deserved it!]

[But what just happened? Why did they suddenly run away? It seemed like something had hit them. Is there any supernatural existence in this copy?]

[I don’t know…but I don’t think so. There were only red spiders and NPCs when I entered this copy.]

—

When the blacksmith’s group woke up, Bai Lixin was no longer with them.

Huang Mao asked the blacksmith with a shaky voice, “Boss, what, what should we do?”

The blacksmith’s face was pale, “What else can we do? Hurry up and get out of here!”

Skinny man, “Boss, Bai Lixin is gone.”

The blacksmith, ” Don’t say anything about Bai Lixin. It has nothing to do with me, even if he is missing! Let’s get out of here!”

Bai Lixin came out of Grandma Sang’s house just in time to see the backs of the trio fleeing in despair, and he was relieved to see that the three were still alive.

There was still more than an hour before sunset, and not wanting to waste any time, Bai Lixin simply made his way to the river.

The laundry duo were still washing their clothes, so Bai Lixin slowly walked over to them and half-crouched down in the same posture as the two men, “Can I ask you something, brothers?”

The laundry duo were stunned, and hesitation flashed across their pale faces. They were probably wondering why background people like them would suddenly be remembered.

One of them spoke slowly; his voice was stiff, like a stuck robot, “What is it, brother?”

Bai Lixin, “Do you guys do laundry here every day?”

Laundry Man, “Yes, from dawn to dusk.”

Bai Lixin, “And when you face the mountains every day, do you ever notice the monsters coming down from them?”

The two laundry men scowled at the word monsters, and one of them squeaked as he turned his neck and spoke, “No, they don’t come out during the day. They just hang around the mountain at night, but they never come down.”

Bai Lixin, “Not even one?”

The man nodded like a puppet.

Bai Lixin stood up, “Okay, I understand. Thank you both, brothers. You carry on.”

Bai Lixin was walking along the river bank when he suddenly received a message alert from the discussion group in the [Friends] section.

[Discussion Group].

Xia Chi: [Brother, something big has happened! Those five players and the NPCs are fighting! You said we shouldn’t stop them if they wanted to dig the grave, so we watched from the sidelines. The NPCs wouldn’t let them dig the grave, but they had to, and now the two sides are in an uproar.]

Bai Lixin: [You guys come back.]

Xia Chi: [But we haven’t found Sang Bao’er’s bones yet!]

Bai Lixin: [I have just talked to Grandma Sang. Sang Bao’er’s bones are not there, they are in the river. Which one of you is a good swimmer?]

Li Cancan: [Me, I’ve been on the school swimming team before, and I’m 300% faster now.]

Xia Chi: [I can do it too. I used to write about diving, and I can hold my breath for about 2 minutes.]

Liang Xi: […I’m a *dry duck.]

Zhou Guang: [Uh, I can’t either.]

Bai Lixin looked up at the sky. The white-gold sun had gradually set and turned into an orange-red mass.

Bai Lixin: [Then me, Xia Chi, and Li Cancan will go down and look for the bones. Zhou Guang and Liang Xi will remain on the bank to meet us. The sun is going down soon, so you guys hurry back.]

Everyone: [Okay.]

The four hurried back and found Bai Lixin had already waited for a long time by the river.

Because it was a fishing village, the equipment to dive into the river was well equipped. By virtue of his status as a “Saint”, Bai Lixin scoured the village and borrowed three sets of diving equipment.

Goggles, underwater searchlights, flippers, and some bundles of rope for wrapping around the waist.

It was completely dark and the laundry duo NPCs had left quietly.

He had also made a trip back to his quarters during this time and punched the red spider that was tied up in a corner and gradually regained its vitality.

The red spider looked at Bai Lixin’s fist in shock, and with a reluctant roll of its red eyes, it passed out again.

This sleep, it would rather sleep for a long time.