CH 12

“Oh, you don’t want to tell me,” Ning Su said expressionlessly.

“Well, if I praise you, you should say thank you to me and be a polite child.”

The child still looked up at him, like a mute little robot with a fixed task of “looking at Ning Su”.

Ning Su put the child down and sat down next to the fire.

The child followed him closely and sat next to him, still looking at him.

The child looked about four or five years old and was still thin, sitting there like a small bundle.

Ning Su glanced at him, remained silent for a few seconds, and then extended his index finger to him. “Go ahead, eat.”

The finger placed in front of the child was thin and long, with a jade-like color and texture.

The child stared at the finger in a daze for a while, and then slowly leaned forward, with his small purple-gray mouth opening slightly, carefully biting the finger and he started to suck.

Ning Su’s young arm appeared to have veins that grew increasingly visible, transitioning in color from purple to black as they stretched from the forearm to the back of the hand. The dark veins resembled interwoven black vines, creating a totem-like pattern within.

Ning Su said, “It seemed that you also like it.”

He discovered that the skeleton driver and the little bat antennae on the bus both liked to drink his blood, so he guessed that the child might like it too.

“Don’t drink too much. It’s not good for you.”

After all, it was something he absorbed from billions of zombies, which human scientists referred to as the zombie virus.

Suddenly, Ning Su thought of the several cars of dead bodies he had seen outside the bus driver’s window.

One of them was the female player who had just come out of the dungeon and whose husband had died in the same dungeon.

Ning Su frowned and thought for a moment, then said, “But maybe it’s a nutrient for you guys?”

The child sucked on the black substance in his body and looked straight at him. It’s unknown if he understood Ning Su’s words, but he was a good listener.

Ning Su was willing to talk about a lot of things easily in front of him.

In just a few minutes, the child opened his mouth.

Ning Su was surprised to see that his small mouth wasn’t as purple as before and had a slightly rosy tint to it. His eyes also became brighter and darker.

“Are you full?”

For the first time, the child responded to Ning Su and nodded.

Ning Su smiled, even more beautiful than the moon in the night sky. “But what do I do? I’m still hungry.”

“...”

***

Chen Tian and Chen Qing didn’t see Ning Su and the butcher by the river. They searched around the river and went to the nearby funeral home, but couldn’t find anyone.

There was a dirt road between the funeral home and the river, and Chen Tian crouched down to observe carefully. “It looks like traces of someone being dragged.”

Chen Qing immediately became nervous. “He must have been dragged to the slaughterhouse!”

The two siblings hurried to the slaughterhouse and met Zhu Shuangshuang and Su Wangsheng on the way. These two were even more nervous than them, and they almost rushed to the slaughterhouse.

As soon as they entered the gate of the slaughterhouse, they saw Ning Su sitting by the bonfire, eating skewers.

“...”

The skewers were threaded with unknown things, each one different, as if they had been caught from some unknown place.

Zhu Shuangshuang asked first, “What are you eating?”

Ning Su replied, “It’s all protein from meat and eggs.”

Zhu Shuangshuang then asked, “Where did it come from?”

Ning Su looked around nervously.

Chen Tian wasn’t in the mood to chat about this and asked directly, “What happened?”

Ning Su truthfully said, “The butcher dragged and carried me to the slaughterhouse, then stuffed me into the incinerator. The child pulled me out of the incinerator.”

Su Wangsheng talked to them about the child Ning Su was talking about.

Chen Tian said, “This child is also worth paying attention to.”

But now, it’s more important to exchange information about what happened tonight.

Chen Tian took the lead in talking about what happened to his side. Chen Qing listened with some surprise, apparently reminded of her own experience in college.

Chen Qing said, “The system rules require all beings to be equal. Can they torture and kill animals at will, since they are not within the rules?”

Zhu Shuangshuang said, “They should also be punished, but not at present.”

Everyone looked at her.

Zhu Shuangshuang repeated the guesses she had discussed with Su Wangsheng to everyone.

Everyone was a little surprised and heavy-hearted after hearing it.

Chen Qing said, “I didn’t expect you to come up with this after seeing all those cars.”

Ning Su said, “You have been riding in luxury cars since you were young. I envy you for having your own luxury car at the age of 18.”

“It’s just that my dad spoils his children more,” Zhu Shuangshuang said to Ning Su. “You look so good. You must have been loved by your parents since you were young, too.”

“Ah,” Ning Su said emotionlessly, “I have never seen my parents.”

Zhu Shuangshuang realized she had misspoke, but luckily Chen Tian immediately changed the subject. He said heavily, “If that’s the case, then we must go to the inner world to decipher it.”

They didn’t know what the inner world was like specifically, but in a paranormal replica, it definitely wasn’t where normal humans would be, and it must be much more eerie and terrifying than the current Huaiyang Village.

Chen Qing said, “I think the possibility that there’s something there is very high. No wonder we couldn’t gather clues here in Huaiyang Village. There must be another map waiting for us to explore.”

Su Wangsheng said, “There is something even worse. The village elder said the bride has died, and they have already embalmed her.”

“What?!”

Everyone was shocked.

Their faces became even more serious.

Chen Tian said, “The bride, like Yin Daijun, has died. This shows that her clues are very important. Both of you must follow us to the funeral tomorrow.”

The two nodded.

Then Chen Tian spoke to Ning Su and Chen Qing, “There is one thing that is very confusing. Why did the butcher switch the human ashes in the urn to those of pigs and cows?”

Zhu Shuangshuang: “If he’s not human, maybe he’s different from the villagers of Huaiyang Village and believes in equality for all living beings, wanting to give pigs and cows the same funeral treatment as humans?”

Chen Qing: “No, if that’s the case, why is he a butcher, specializing in killing animals?”

The two of them couldn’t figure out the answer for a while.

Su Wangsheng frowned tightly. He felt that something was about to emerge.

Chen Tian looked around the slaughterhouse and said, “There’s no one else here. It’s better to discuss things here. Let’s review it again before we go back.”

Although it was already the middle of the night, no one objected.

That night, they discovered a lot, but it was not a matter of feeling safer the more they knew, but rather that the task seemed more difficult and time was running out.

Chen Tian said, “Let’s start from the beginning.”

“The mission of the copy is to decipher the secrets of Huaiyang Village.”

“There’s nothing much to say about the environment here. We’ve observed it from a high place as soon as we entered the copy. What we need to decipher should be the relationship of the villagers to the village itself.”

Ning Su was eating skewers and paused for a moment, raising his hand proactively. “I have a different understanding of that.”

Everyone looked at him.

Ning Su said, “The environment here may have played a role in determining how the living beings in this place turned out.”

The group was taken aback, as they had never thought of this direction before.

Chen Tian glanced at Ning Su and said, “This is indeed a new direction, and we can explore it further.”

He continued, “Furthermore, the system prompt is about the equality of all sentient beings.”

“Related to this, there are the black cats and dogs at the village entrance, the fat guy who killed the black dog and turned into a black dog to be killed, the bridesmaid who runs a pet shop and secretly broadcasts animal abuse, the butcher at the slaughterhouse, and the crematorium.”

“For the sake of future deduction, we’ll call this the living beings’ line.”

“At the same time, we have unlocked a clue that seems unrelated to the equality of all sentient beings, which is Yin Daijun.”

“Yin Daijun is associated with the bride, a bride who comes from outside feudal weddings, and the importance of this clue increased after the bride’s death.”

“This is the bride line.”

Zhu Shuangshuang thought of the bride who knocked her head on the ground and said, “I think the bride is indeed not related to animals, but can also be linked to the equality of all sentient beings.”

“The black dog that was abused and killed is a vulnerable group compared to humans, and the bride who came from another place is also a vulnerable group in this feudal village. The bride was also treated unequally.”

Chen Qing：“That makes sense.”

Several people discussed it again.

Chen Tian said, “Let’s go back and sleep. This kind of task that requires the brain to stay alert can’t be done without sleep.”

When they returned to the villa, it was already after two o’clock in the night.

Thinking about the ghost child who crawled out of the bathroom last night, Su Wangsheng prepared himself psychologically for a long time before entering the bathroom. He even asked Ning Su to stand guard at the door like some kind of plaque that could supress the bathhouse god.

While taking a quick shower, he talked to the Ning Su, especially when he closed his eyes to wash his hair, he needed to hear a voice.

Ning Su said, “Don’t be afraid. I told him not to go into the bathroom.”

Just as Su Wangsheng breathed a sigh of relief, he heard Ning Su say, “I invited him to come and play tonight.”

“...”

Couldn’t you just say everything in one sentence?

Ning Su said to him again, “You’re a Taoist, you shouldn’t be afraid of ghosts. Are you worried that he’ll bite your fingernails?”

Su Wangsheng: “...Mm.”

Ning Su: “Don’t worry, he’s eaten enough tonight, he won’t bite your nails. I also told him that he can only come to my side of the bed.”

Su Wangsheng didn’t dare to ask what the child had eaten to be full.

Ning Su: “I just want to give him his eyeballs and little hands. They’re under my pillow. Although a child with only one eye is cuter, I don’t know if it’s because of the imbalance in his vision, but he walks crookedly.”

Su Wangsheng: “...”

He didn’t know what to say.

But he couldn’t stay silent.

He forcefully changed the subject, “The fat guy killed a black dog and turned into one last night. Do you think someone will also turn into an animal in their sleep tonight?”

“It’s still uncertain whether eating meat violates the principle of equality for all living beings. I ate a lot of lamb at the banquet the other day.”

Ning Su immediately made a statement, “Don’t worry, even if you turn into a lamb, I won’t eat you. I don’t want to eat roasted lamb leg at all!”

Su Wangsheng: “?”

Was this how normal people comfort others?

Su Wangsheng lost his desire to chat.

Ning Su: “I still have something to tell you.”

Su Wangsheng was tired: “Let me take a break.”

Ning Su was about to go in when someone knocked the door urgently.

***

Amidst the blood-red lily flowers outside the window, a small child with one eye slowly climbed up the vigorous black and red lily vines, while the bleak moonlight shone down.

By the time he finally climbed to the room on the third floor, there was no one in the room.

The child walked to the side of the bed and stared at it for a while. He then squatted down, with his arms around his knees, and a black aura emerged from his body.

***

The living room on the first floor of the villa was brightly lit.

The man in black said: “Are you sure you didn’t see the thin monkey tonight?”

Chen Tian replied: “Wasn’t he following you all along?”

The thin monkey had disappeared.

He had been following the man in black all along, and after Chen Tian took him to see the tortured black dog and asked him to bury it, he didn’t pay attention to him anymore. He thought the thin monkey had gone to find the man in black and the others.

Meanwhile, the man in black and his group thought the thin monkey had gone with Chen Tian and his team.

It wasn’t until everyone returned to the villa in the middle of the night that they realized the thin monkey was missing.

Chen Qing said, “Stop talking and hurry up and find someone.”

She looked a little unhappy and added, “We also need to find a dog.”

The others understood her meaning and their expressions became solemn.

The entire villa was searched, but there was no sign of the thin monkey or a black dog.

Chen Qing asked, “Should we go outside the villa to look for him?”

Chen Tian shook his head. “If the thin monkey is still alive, he should be waiting for us in the villa. Even if he turned into a dog, he wouldn’t dare to wander outside the villa. He would definitely come to us for help as soon as we returned.”

There was a heavy silence in the living room.

Chen Tian suddenly thought of the little black dog that was brought to the church, and his face turned pale.

Outside the church, the three of them saw the bridesmaid holding a surgical knife towards a little black dog. One person asked if they should save it, while another said that the bridesmaid wasn’t killing a person and couldn’t take any risks.

If the thin monkey really was that little black dog, then this world had once again cruelly mocked the idea of “equality for all living beings.”

***

Author’s note:

Little ghost child to little Taoist: Don’t worry, he doesn’t want to eat roast lamb at all.

Butcher: ?

The butcher asked the little ghost: He doesn’t want to eat roast lamb?

Little ghost child: Do not disturb me, I am currently writing a complaint letter to the Survival Guild. The player Ning Su from “Ghost Animal” dungeon has forcibly hired a child laborer and forced them to barbecue 50 skewers!

T/N: This is my last update for this week. I'll be back on Monday! :)