Chapter 40: 40

Such is the downside of sleeping in a bunk, Jiang Luo resigns himself to gathering his hair and using the blanket to separate the people on his left and right.

After a difficult night, it was time for the participants to leave the rest house at 6am.

Liao Si moved slowly, and by the time he had finished packing up, there was no one else in the room.

He was in no hurry to unpack, taking out twenty palm-sized plastic bags, picking up the hairs from the bedding of all the participants except him and closing them up, writing their names on them one by one.

He put the plastic bags into his suitcase and finally pulled out the one he had packed last night.

In the small plastic bag, a long, slender strand of hair is coiled and bent, and only one of the participants has such long hair.

Liao Si looked at it curiously for a long time and said to himself, “Flower Beaver, why do you think the master controlled me to press Jiang Luo’s hair yesterday?”

“If you want your hair, why don’t you just get up in the morning and pick it up?”

The room was deserted except for him, but out of nowhere came another cold voice: “How do I know what the master is thinking, if your thoughts can be read by him, why don’t you ask him?”

Liao Si laughed, “You know that my master can manipulate my body at any time and can know my thoughts, but I was curious all night last night and thought about it, and my master didn’t answer a single word. Isn’t that why I wanted to ask you?”

Beaver didn’t want to continue this conversation with him, “If you don’t get out, someone will come looking for you.”

Liao Si sighed languidly and walked out of the resting place.

Jiang Luo listens to the staff talk about the third level.

In the middle of the forest, there is an isolated village called Shen Tucun,” said the staff member. A month and a half ago, the police received a call from Shen Tucun, but when they drove to Shen Tucun, they found that not a single phone existed in Shen Tucun. After investigating Shen Tucun, the police found out that Shen Tucun had been struck by a number of strange illnesses over the years, each of which had resulted in the death of half of the population. But even then, the people of Shen Tucun never left the village. In recent years, no more strange illnesses have occurred in Shen Tucun, but stranger things have happened —

” For every person who dies in Shen Tucun, a new life is added to the village, and the total population of their village never changes for several years.”

The staff said, “All you need to do, participants, is to unlock the secrets of Shen Tucun and succeed in surviving within a week.”

The familiar routine of signing a death waiver was still next, but the crowd looked much heavier than the previous level.

The road to Shen Tucun was not accessible by car and had to be travelled on foot. Bai Hua University and Shanhai University had the largest crowds and the two schools naturally split into two teams, while the other solo participants looked at each other and formed the last impromptu team.

But there was one man who paid no attention to anyone, picked up his compass alone and walked into the dense forest.

“That man is He Zhi from Wen Xing University,” Liao Si walked slowly to Jiang Luo’s side, “This man is very much alone. But I’m not alone, Jiang Luo, can I come with you?”

Jiang Luo turned his head towards him and Liao Si smiled weakly, “Although I am not well, at least I am a corpse catcher and will not slow you down.”

The status of corpse catcher was in high demand, and this being western Hunan, Jiang Luo had no reason to refuse Liao Si. He nodded and asked, as if casually, “Isn’t a corpse hunter supposed to have a good body? After all, occasionally you have to drive a corpse back to your hometown from a foreign land, over a thousand hills and a thousand miles, with only your legs and feet.”

“What you say,” Liao Si said calmly, “is that I have learnt the art of herding corpses, but I have never herded a corpse because my congenital deficiencies have supported me to walk so far. If I could, I would like to try to drive a corpse.”

He sighed, “But I guess the only way to put what I’ve learned to good use is to change my body.”

Their schedule slowed down once Liao Si joined the team.

Shen Tucun is in the middle of a dense forest, and while it is true that it is surrounded by mountains and water, it is also true that it is isolated and backward. There is only one footpath into the village, and before we reach the halfway point, Liao Si is already sweating and pale.

Kuang Zheng and Lu Youyi took turns supporting him, and it was three hours before the group reached Shen Tucun.

A large, leafy acacia tree grows at the head of Shen Tucun’s village, the yellow earth beneath it flattening out and shading a large area beneath it, the breeze blowing and the leaves swirling.

The group walked under the shade of a tree and the coolness of the air came over them. Liao Si rests against a tree, breathing heavily, and Lu Youyi teases him, “Liao Si, you’re even more of a loser than Jiang Luo used to be.”

Jiang Luo smiled and tilted his head back to take a sip of water, but suddenly saw a pair of naked, greenish-purple feet appear on Lu Youyi’s head. Naked, greenish-purple feet.

He paused in his movements and gazed upwards. The decomposing face of a hanged man is hanging from an acacia tree, directly above Lu Youyi.

Jiang Luo : ” Lu Youyi ……”

The next instant he made a sound, the male corpse instantly disappeared into thin air.

In broad daylight, the grisly corpse scene just now seemed to be Jiang Luo’s illusion.

Lu Youyi looked at him sideways: “What’s wrong?”

Jiang Luo licks his dry mouth, “Come here, don’t just stand there.”

Lu Youyi was puzzled but obediently went over to him and when he had drunk half a bottle of water, he wondered, “You don’t say, I always felt my scalp itching just standing there, as if something was scratching my hair, but standing here is much better.”

Jiang Luo did not have the heart to tell him that it was a pair of dead feet that touched his hair.

When they were almost rested, Jiang Luo urged them to get up and leave under the big acacia tree.

At the entrance of the village, the village headman is receiving the participants with his son Wang Qian.

The two of them were nonchalant, and from the village chief, Jiang Luo and the others were the slowest of the three groups of participants.

But Jiang Luo discovered that the village chief seemed to be unaware that they were contestants who had come to explore the village’s secrets, and instead treated them like a normal group of university students on a trip.

Shen Tucun should have been paid a lot of money by the tournament, and the room that Shen Tucun gave them was better than the resting place prepared by the tournament.

After sending them to the room, the village chief said indifferently, “Our village is having a ritual this evening, and you can attend it, but you can only follow at the end without making a sound. If you do attend, then remember that unclean people cannot participate, you cannot speak foully at the ritual, you cannot point your fingers at the offering table, and you cannot touch the things on the table with unwashed hands.”

These were the basic rules for the rituals, which they naturally understood, and they nodded at the words without any questions.

The village headman nodded in satisfaction and eased his attitude a little, “We have a lot of snakes, insects and rats here, don’t go up the mountain if you have nothing to do, and when you get bitten, hurry and come to me.”

Only after the instructions were given did the two village chiefs leave.

The rooms in this area were all occupied by the participants, and apart from He Zhi, who was the first to enter the village, all the other twenty-one people were present.

Xu Yan from Shanhai University hesitated for a moment and came over and said, “Did you meet any villagers when you entered the village?”

Jiang Luo nodded, “Met a few people.”

“I just checked with the village chief and there are 311 people in their village,” Xu Yan said, “just like the staff said, and the chief said the number hasn’t changed in years.”

311, when interpreted in terms of the numerical counterpart of the Eight Trigrams of the Ascendant, is the Burgundy trigram, which is a mountain, signifying barriers and obstructions.

Jiang Luo narrowed his eyes, “Why are you giving us this information?”

He now looks at anyone with suspicion; who would share information during a match for no reason?

Xu Yan whispered, “We wanted to thank you, last level, thanks to your information we were able to advance ……” he looked gloomy, “or you found out about Brother Bai being possessed by an evil spirit, luckily Brother Bai was saved back, otherwise we wouldn’t have had the face to continue in the competition.”

After making sure that his demeanour was not faked, Jiang Luo said generously, “It’s a small thing, you’re welcome.”

Xu Yan shook his head, “If we get any clues afterwards, we will come and tell you, thank you for helping us advance and even more thank you for saving Bai’s life.”

After saying this, fearing Jiang Luo’s refusal, he turned around and left without waiting for Jiang Luo’s reaction.

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Zhuo Zhongqiu sighed: “At the last level, this Xu Yan was very defensive of us.”

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Jiang Luo said with a straight face, “This is called good karma.”

They went back to their room, dropped off their bags and had a quick look around Shen Tucun before it was too late.

Shen Tucun is even bigger than they thought, with two high mountains surrounding the village and enclosing Shen Tucun in the middle. They split up in five to see if they could get a feel for Shen Tucun’s layout today.

Along with Lu Youyi, Jiang Luo saw many villagers from Shen Tucun along the way. The villagers were no different from any other village, but on the contrary, they looked happy and half of them had smiles on their faces.

At first glance, the green hills and the water, the old men and the young children, make this place look like a paradise in the world.

Lu Youyi said, “People here seem to be living well.”

As they spoke, they had reached the edge of the village. Overgrown with weeds, Jiang Luo suddenly said, “Something is not right.”

Lu Youyi asks, “What’s wrong?”

Jiang Luo pointed to the vegetable fields among the weeds and said, “Look at these fields, they are wilted and the crops are withered, they have clearly not been tended for a long time.”

Lu Youyi scratches his head: “Are the people who grow this piece of land too lazy?”

“In the countryside, especially in isolated villages like this one, most of the food, clothing and housing is done by themselves,” Jiang Luo shakes his head, “and when it’s time to fry, they just go out and pick onions or pluck vegetables, so the plots are usually planted in their own yards or in front of their homes. People who can go to the edge of the village to grow vegetables because they don’t have enough vegetables to eat at home will only work harder, not lazier. Otherwise, if you plant and don’t care, why bother planting at all?”

Lu Youyi also thought it made sense, “Let’s go back and have a look?”

This time they went back and looked more closely. There was indeed a vegetable patch, more or less, in front of each house, but some had tended to the patch in a particularly spirited manner, while others had a dead plant and the grass was sparse.

It is not that there is no one in the homes of those whose fields have withered, but there are people who do not care about the death of their vegetable patch, and it seems that laziness is the only reason.

The two men returned the way they came and were about to reach home when a little girl in red suddenly rushed out from around the corner and ran straight into them.

Jiang Luo helped the little girl to stabilize herself in time and put on a kind face for deceiving people, smiling, “Little sister, what are you doing running so fast?”

The little girl in red is about 11 or 12 years old, just above Jiang Luo’s waist. She has the same long black hair as Jiang Luo, her fringes are dirty and stuck to her forehead, her face is covered in dust and dry grass.

The little girl said, “I’m going to find my mummy and daddy.”

Lu Youyi said enthusiastically, “Where do your mum and dad live? We’ll send you there.”

As soon as the words left her mouth, a couple came running behind the little girl. The woman was still wearing an apron and the man was wearing slippers, their faces were as anxious as ever, and when they saw the little girl their faces lit up with joy, “Little girl, it’s almost dinner time, what are you running for?”

The two of them had features so vaguely similar to the little girl’s that one could immediately see the kinship between them. Lu Youyi said to the little girl, “Your mother and father are here.”

The little girl, however, ignored the call behind her and said dully, “I’m going to find another mummy and daddy.”

Another mum and dad?

Before Jiang Luo could think about it, the couple had already run to the little girl, who they gently and carefully coaxed. The mother gently patted the dead leaves off the girl’s body, while the father lovingly stroked her head and, after a few words, led her back.

Their love for the little girl is evident, even if a little overwrought.

Jiang Luo watched them fade away, frowned and returned home with Lu Youyi.

Soon the others returned as well. None of them had gained any useful information, so they could only wait quietly for the evening rituals.

At six o’clock in the evening, Wang Qian, the village chief’s son, brought them a cloth mask that covered the lower half of their faces.

The mask has a red smiling lip embroidered out in crooked needle and thread, the fabric is rough and there are four thin threads sewn on the sides to tie into a knot at the back of the head.

Wang Qian repeatedly admonished, “You must smile during the ritual, and if you can’t smile, put on a mask and go out. This is our village custom, please respect our custom.”

Wang Qian said the important words three times, but he said them five times, and before he left, he was worried that they might forget, and he looked back three times.

When he had gone, Jiang Luo looked into the mirror and put on his mask. In the mirror, a twisted smile spreads across his lips, grinning all the way down to his ears. At first glance it is extremely uncomfortable, and if one looks at it a few more times, one even gets the vague impression that one’s self in the mirror has become strange and distorted.

Jiang Luo removes his mask and turns around, snapping into the face of another distorted face with a wide grin.

Liao Si stood smiling behind him, the mouthpiece fitting perfectly over the bridge of his nose, which quivered as he spoke, as if the red embroidered lips were also opening and closing, “The embroidery on this mask is not good.”

Jiang Luo’s eyebrow twitched, “Can you take off the mask?”

Liao Si dutifully took it off, “I think there’s music playing outside.”

Jiang Luo listened carefully and there was indeed music playing outside. They took their masks and went out the door to see villagers from every household coming out as well, and the crowd soon formed a long line and wandered off to follow the sound of music.

There were children laughing and waving toys in their hands, and adults talking in small groups about funny stories, all with smiles on their faces.

Jiang Luo didn’t want to wear the somewhat opaque mask, so he smiled perfunctorily and blended in with the crowd.

As the crowd arrived at the shrine, the sky dimmed and burned with a cloud of purplish red fire.

The offering table was placed in front of the shrine and there were many tributes on the shrine. Fruits, pig’s heads and noodle cakes, and looking at the regulations, some god should be being worshipped.

The village chief was walking around anxiously at the offering table when he asked his son, “Hasn’t the God-god come yet?”

Wang Qian wiped his sweaty head, “It’s not here yet.”

The village headman’s expression twisted for a moment, his pupils clenching with extreme fear, “Did we prepare less?”

Wang Qian’s voice trembled, “Impossible, we have everything laid out on it.”

He hurriedly looked at the offering table, “Incense burners, candle holders, vases, eight tributes, a tea bowl …… one and all.”

The village headman looked over each item, and when he was sure that nothing was missing, he was a little relieved and said to himself, “It must be that the god-god has been delayed by something, let’s wait a little longer.”

At the back of the crowd Jiang Luo’s face froze with laughter, before the ritual had even begun. He maintains his expression with a leathery grin and glances around him to see that most of the participants are already rubbing their faces with their masks on.

Liao Si also put it on and he looked at Jiang Luo curiously, “Don’t you wear it?”

Jiang Luo immediately put the mask on his face, “Everyone is so ugly, so I don’t have the mental burden anymore.”

Liao Si laughed a few times, coughed again in a low voice and said breathlessly, “It’s starting to cool down.”

Jiang Luo looked up to see a man dressed in black and wearing a black hood coming out of the shrine.

This man walked up to the village chief and whispered a few words to him. The village headman nodded his head repeatedly, his face growing red with joy and eagerness.

When the man in black had finished, the village chief turned to face the villagers, pressed his hands down and said solemnly, “The ritual begins.”

This ritual ended unexpectedly quickly, before the moon had risen in the middle of the day, the village chief announced that it was time to dismiss, and before doing so, he said something.

“Tomorrow is the day of the selection of the ancestral hall,” the village chief said in a loud voice, “whether we are selected or not, it will not affect the gods’ favour on us! I say these words once a year, and this year is no exception, so don’t be anxious! Let there be no disputes! Tomorrow at 6pm, we will still gather here, do you hear me?”

The villagers said in unison, “I hear you!”

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