CH 13.1

The red spider dug at the ground for a while, and the ground now had a large crater, but it still couldn’t enter.

Bai Lixin walked over and put a rope around the spider’s neck again.

Red spider: “.…”

The red spider was probably afraid of being beaten again as it did not run away. It just whimpered a few times and followed behind Bai Lixin.

With the red spider in tow, Bai Lixin walked it like a dog to the river, where he found the missing players.

It had taken the group a day to actually build the boat. The boat was tied to the river bank at the moment, and the village head was pouring oil on it.

All the villager NPCs were gathered here, including Grandma Sang.

A bonfire had been set up by the river and dozens of NPCs were jumping around it with stiff bodies. However, because of their stiff bodies, they looked like marionettes on strings as they twisted and shook their heads.

It was a live version of the zombie dance.

The players, on the other hand, had anxious expressions as they were surrounded by these NPCs and had to dance along.

It wasn’t that they wanted to dance, but they seemed to have entered some kind of plot transition, and their bodies started dancing uncontrollably.

There were less than 2 hours left, but they were being forced to go through the plot!

The sun had long since set, and the distant forest was rustling and stirring.

Countless red spiders were perched behind the trees at the foot of the mountain, their blood-red pupils glowing eerily under the moonlit night.

They kept rubbing their front paws together, spinning frantically in place and wailing as they gazed greedily at the crowd on the other side of the river.

For the first time, the grim-faced village head was happy to see Bai Lixin approaching. His loose face finally pulled out a wry smile, but the smile froze when he saw the red spider behind Bai Lixin.

Village head: “I was about to go look for you, but I didn’t expect you to find your way here.”

The discussion group icon in the [Friends] chat suddenly jumped violently.

Xia Chi: [Brother, run! They’re going to take you and sacrifice you!]

Zhou Guang: [Don’t come over, everyone’s bodies are being controlled!]

Liang Xi: [Bai Lixin, the village head said we’ll vote on whether to sacrifice you or not!]

Li Cancan: [Sorry, I’m being controlled too.]

Xia Chi: [Damn it, there’s only 5% left. Brother! Sang Bao’er, Huang Youcheng, Grandma Sang, and the village head, choose one of the four! At least there’s still a 25% chance of getting it right. You can just choose one! If we win, we’ll go out together; if we lose, we’ll all die together!]

The village head tossed the oil drum aside and shouted, “Quiet, everyone.”

At the order, the villagers and players who had been dancing stopped their movements in unison. They stiffened their bodies and quietly walked behind the village head, forming a vertical and horizontal square in a neat and tidy manner.

The village head roared, “Since the Saint has arrived, we will now proceed to vote on whether the Saint is qualified to be the new Bride of the River God. If the number of hands raised is unanimous, the Saint will go to the middle of the river in the boat and bathe in fire. That way, the Saint will become immortal and marry the River God. ”

“Now then, the voting begins! Those who agree with the Saint becoming the River God’s bride, please raise your hands!”

All the villager NPCs immediately raised their right hands stiffly, and the other five players raised their hands even faster than the villager NPCs.

Their faces were full of pain, and most of their bodies were spasming visibly, as if trying to fight some kind of external force, but they were still forced to slowly raise their hands under the powerful pull.

Xia Chi shouted at the village head, “This isn’t fair! We didn’t raise our hands voluntarily!”

Li Cancan’s eyes were red, and her body seemed to be pulled by two forces as her arms were raised in a very strange position.

Blacksmith: “Do you want to get everyone killed if you don’t raise your hand?! Sacrifice the bride to appease the river god’s wrath and we will get out alive. If you don’t want to live, we still do! He deserves to die to save all of us!”

Zhou Guang: “Pooh! Why don’t you sacrifice yourself to die?”

The blacksmith laughed wildly, “Hahahaha, because I’m not a Saint! How could the River God look at me? He’d only look at Bai Lixin, the little white face!”

Xia Chi: “Brother, run! Don’t just sit there and wait for death, stab a random one! I beg you, brother!”

Whether voluntarily or under duress, everyone’s hands went up.

There was only half an hour left until the time for the River God’s bride to be sacrificed.

The village head’s eyes were glued to Bai Lixin, his face pulled up and his bones clicking, “Everyone has raised their hands. Saint, it’s time for you to sacrifice yourself for everyone.”

—-

In the live broadcast room.

[What’s going on here? Isn’t there a system rule that the game can’t control the player’s body to enter the plot? The player can only transition into the plot as a spectator, ah.]

[I don’t know. This didn’t happen when I entered this copy at the time. Is there a bug that’s triggered because they were getting closer to the truth?

[This is unreasonable. Isn’t the player allowed the right not to pass through the customs? Shouldn’t the system detect whether there is another bug in the copy?!]

The barrage was full of countless [bug detection] being brushed up.

A few seconds later, a line of official pop-ups with a golden background rolled across the top of the live broadcast room.

[Announcement: We have received player feedback.]

[Announcement: Detection is complete, no bugs were found to have appeared, and the player’s behavior is in line with the game settings for this copy.]

Viewers: [Fuck, what the hell is going on?]

—-

Instead of running, Bai Lixin led the Red Spider to the village head.

“Village head, I’ve made a small discovery.”

The village head looked at this unconventional “Saint” with confusion: “What is it?”

“I have been to Huang Youcheng’s house. Sang Bao’er kept her room very clean, her clothes were neatly ironed and hung in the wardrobe. The quilts were folded and even her shoes were neatly arranged.”

“You can tell she’s a very planned and tidy girl.”

“If she had really decided to kill someone on a particular day, she would have packed her things away first.”

“But the open jewelry box in her bedroom, the stained and dirty cloth in her wardrobe, and the moldy pots in the kitchen all point to the fact that she planned to return soon or she was in a hurry to get out because of something. In short, killing someone wasn’t part of her plan. ”

“If it wasn’t in the plan, how could she have poisoned Huang Youcheng and then killed herself on that day?”

“That was something I couldn’t figure out before until today when I was locked in your study and found this.”

Bai Lixin raised the yellowing book in his hand, “I took the opportunity to walk around your courtyard while I was on the toilet break. I slipped into your bedroom and found this diary. ”

The moment he saw the object in Bai Lixin’s hand, the wrinkles on the village head’s face tensed up and he looked at Bai Lixin fiercely, “Thief, you thief! Give it back to me!”

“Here, you can have it back,” Bai Lixin obediently gave the diary back to the village head.

The village head was stunned.

Bai Lixin continued, “I’ve read the contents anyway.”

The village head: “You are shameless!”

The air turned cold!

The players listened with some curiosity, and Zhou Guang asked, “What exactly is written in the diary?”

Bai Lixin: “Nothing much, just the anger at being betrayed by Sang Bao’er, the shame of being beaten and kicked out of the house by Huang Youcheng, the humiliation of being ridiculed by the villagers, and the joy of killing Huang Youcheng and Bao’er.”

The crowd: “….”

Is that nothing?!

That is a huge amount of information, okay?!

So if you string Bai Lixin’s words together, it means that the village head actually killed Huang Youcheng and Bao’er, pushed them off the boat, and then framed Bao’er?

The village head shook his head vigorously, “No, I didn’t kill Bao’er. It was Huang Youcheng I wanted to kill!”

“That bitch Bao’er promised that her heart would stay mine even after she got married, but everything changed just after being married to Huang Youcheng for a month.”

“She said Huang Youcheng was very good to her. She couldn’t wrong him, so she wanted to cut off her relationship with me. ”

“That greedy, vain woman was only moved by Huang Youcheng’s money!”

“Huang Youcheng happened to come back that day when I went to confront her. He beat me up and kicked me out, causing me to lose face. ”

“I still loved my Bao’er, but Huang Youcheng deserved to die, so I decided to kill him!”

” I asked Huang Youcheng and Bao’er out to the boat, saying that I wanted to make amends to them. But in fact, I put poison in Huang Youcheng’s wine. ”

“I thought that Bao’er would run back into my arms when Huang Youcheng died. However, when Bao’er saw that Huang Youcheng was dying, she hugged him and jumped into the river so that they could die together. No matter how much I tried to persuade her, all she shouted was that she was born a member of the Huang family and she will died and become a ghost of the Huang family.”

“Hahahaha, she wanted to be a ghost of the Huang family, but I wouldn’t let her. I set up a memorial tablet for her in the ancestral hall of the Li family, and I told the ancestors of the Li family that this was Sang Bao’er, wife to Li Yizhi and my woman!”

Bai Lixin: “So you cursed the River God village?”

The villager NPCs looked at each other, their stiff faces struggling to make expressions. Grandma Sang had a ferocious expression, but she too just stood still, unable to move.

The village head was stunned, “What nonsense are you talking about?”

“I found it strange that there was a red spider in the secret passage to the ancestral hall earlier. So I asked a brother who was washing clothes by the river, and he confirmed that the red spiders never come down the mountain. The red spiders hurt people, but you weren’t attacked when you appeared in the secret passage. ”

“There is only one explanation. You raised the red spiders and placed them in the secret passage to protect that shrine. Once someone entered, they would be killed. So that passage should be a second home for the red spiders.”

“What confirmed my suspicions even further was when I released this red spider. It found the location of the ancestral hall without hesitation.”

“Village head Li Yizhi, you have something to do with the River God curse, don’t you?”

A system beep suddenly sounded in everyone’s mind.

[Ding! Congratulations to player Bai Lixin for finding the truth about the River God’s Curse. Completion progress is 100%, the additional task is complete.]

[Ding! Hidden quest triggered. Use the Demon Breaker Dagger to kill the source of the curse to break the curse. Friendly reminder: If you anger the curse origin, the curse will activate earlier and the flood will arrive within 3 minutes. (If you are unable to defeat it, the sacrificial bride can be used to break the curse.)]

[Countdown begins.]

Bai Lixin drew the dagger from his waist. The village head roared, and the distant mountains and forest suddenly resounded with restlessness.

The crowd looked towards the distant mountains in horror.

Under the moonlight, untold numbers of red spiders poured down from the mountains in a steady stream. They were so dense that they were like a flood in the darkness!

“Holy shit, is this the flooding of the village? Is the flood a swarm of red spiders?” The blacksmith shouted towards Bai Lixin, “Bai Lixin, the village head is the source of the curse. Quickly kill him. What are you dawdling about? Do you want to get everyone killed?”

But Bai Lixin was hesitating. Diji attached himself to his ear and asked, “Why haven’t you made the move?”

Bai Lixin: “There’s one thing I still haven’t figured out?”

Dijia: “What?”

Bai Lixin: “If the village head is the culprit, how do you explain why Sang Bao’er and Huang Youcheng’s corpses blackened because of their grievances?”

Just as his words fell, a soft laugh rang in his ears, “Thanks to your ability in figuring out the anomaly, this is a reward for you.”

Bai Lixin’s eyes were suddenly clouded with a layer of watery mist. Under the reflection of the mist, he saw several silk threads attached to everyone present.

The other end of the threads stretched all the way from the forest, and every time the threads yanked, the stiff bodies to which they were attached shifted.

The players’ bodies were forced to move because they were being controlled by these threads.

In addition, there were several of these threads tugging at the village head’s limbs and head.

Bai Lixin froze for two seconds the moment he saw these silk threads.

Dijia’s voice rang in his ears again, “Guess again, and I’ll give you another reward if you guess correctly.”

The village head was still staring at him, but a closer look revealed nothing but dullness on his face.

Sang Bao’er, Huang Youcheng, Li Yixhi, Grandma Sang, the black bones and the red spiders……

When everything was strung together, a bold guess suddenly flashed through Bai Lixin’s mind.

“No one said that the evil spirit is just a single individual.”

“There was Huang Youcheng’s resentment over being given a green hat and being killed.”

“Sang Bao’er resentment after sacrificing herself only to face insult and resentment.”

“Li Yizhi’s perverted and hypocritical possessiveness as well as his malicious murder.”

“Grandma Sang’s resentment over her daughter’s pointless death.”

“All these resentments were triggered at the same time, and they came together to form the evil spirit.”

“That’s why the task progressed a little with each character unlocked. The Evil Spirit isn’t a person at all, but a mass of aggregates!”

“Hahaha!” A stream of water suddenly stretched and rolled all over Bai Lixin’s body hidden in the sacrificial clothes. It moved restlessly, not sparing a single corner.

It slid over the youth’s tight chest and rolled over the slender waist.

“Worthy of the person I like. You’re correct.” Dijia kissed Bai Lixin’s collarbone and neck with the stream of water, dotting it with splash after splash.

“And to tell you another secret, I can hear that system.”

“This copy is full of malice, and it had no intention of letting you complete the additional task from the start. Either all of you will die, or the Saint dies. ”

“But I really can’t let go, and I want to give you a chance.” The water flowed greedily over the youth’s entire body, dropping kisses on every inch of skin. “I’ll help you lift the buff restriction on you, but it will only last for 1 minute. It’s up to you to kill the evil spirits or not. ”

Dijia: “Have you seen where that thing is?”

Bai Lixin nodded.

Dijia: “The countdown begins now!”

With those words, Dijia regretfully withdrew the current and wrapped it around Bai Lixin’s neck.

At the same time, Bai Lixin felt his whole body lighten, and the buff above his head pulsed twice before turning into a cloud of light and shadow with a bang.

There were only 2 minutes and 30 seconds left in the countdown to the flood.

Bai Lixin returned the dagger to his waist, and with a push from his feet, his body was like a meteor as it shot out.

The meteor cut across the river and rushed straight into the forest.

The players who were still waiting for Bai Lixin to kill the village head were dumbfounded. Even Zhou Guang and the others were a little lost.