The moon was hazy. Suddenly, everyone heard a creaking sound, like bones slowly being pulled apart.
The god Zao standing in front of him gradually became taller and taller. The white robe on his body was slowly lifted up, and the body inside was stretched like a bamboo shoot–
It was a body of a grown man that could never be mistaken.
Some people in the room drew a cold breath. They watched the scene in awe, as if they were still in a dream.
The hand rested on the edge of the mask. The hand was wide and long, easily covering half of the face. Fingers slightly hard, the Nuo mask was peeled away from his face, revealing the face hidden behind –
The face was handsome and profound, from the eyebrows to the contours, were the same as the idol beside him, as if carved from the same mold. This non-differentiation made the crowd’s hearts beat more and more wildly, even half a cry of surprise couldn’t come out.
“You guessed it right.”
He said indifferently, staring at the face of the youth opposite. Kou Dong was still wearing a mask, but there was a vague illusion that he was going to be penetrated by such a gaze. This gaze dissolved his flesh and bore into his bones and blood.
“So you’re really?”
A Nuo mask froze and said, “You are a god?”
He didn’t answer. He didn’t even give the man a look, he was only focused on the person in front of him.
“You’re back,” he said, “and I’m glad.”
Kou Dong frowned, because this “back” made him feel strange.
But the man didn’t go further. He just put his hand towards Kou Dong, and whispered: “Here…”
Kou Dong looked at his open palm.
“Come,” said the evil god, “you passed this game, I want to show you your prize.”
“What prize?”
Someone jerked up from his chair, snapping his eyes to Kou Dong, “What gives him the right to have the prize?”
System prompt: [Only players who open the hidden plot, can get the corresponding rewards.]
“What hidden storyline!” The Nuo Mask who spoke didn’t accept this, pointing at Kou Dong, “He didn’t follow the rules at all, this is also called plot? — Wasn’t just pointing out a bunch of nonsense?”
No one answered, but someone whispered a reminder: “Stop talking ……”
If he spoke again, words related to the rules of the game would have to pop up. The team copy had asked everyone not to mention the word “game” or any game name, and not to reveal their real identities in reality, and these restrictions were clearly stated.
No one wanted to know what the result would be if they didn’t follow the rules.
The Nuo mask who spoke didn’t care about this. He was neither drawn by the lottery barrel nor identified in the past few days, and had survived these days, and now, seeing that the copy was about to end, he was thinking about contribution points instead.
“That should also have our part!” He yelled at the evil god, “We’re all in this together! Why should he be the only one?”
The evil god turned his head around, his black, bottomless pupils stared at him. The unknown could make the heart fearful, especially the unknown given by such a powerful force, in this force, the face under the Nuo mask couldn’t help but turn white, his back turned cold, but he felt justified.
He wasn’t a good person, he robbed a few times, and also did time in prison. But in the prison, he learned to be silent, so he finally spat on the ground, and viciously spoke.
“I see you guys are opening the back door for him with this game!”
“……”
After these words were uttered, there was a sudden silence in the room.
Everyone could hear it clearly.
–He had said “game”.
The silence at this point was the precursor to the storm, and the man was more or less aware of it. Even if he thought he wasn’t afraid of the world, he realized at this moment that he had inadvertently said the forbidden word, and his scalp tingled.
But he waited and waited in this fear, and didn’t see what happened. The sky was still the same sky, the blood moon was still the same blood moon. He was still standing here, safe and sound.
This peace gave the man courage again. He put his head up and glared at the people present instead.
“What are you afraid of!” He cursed, “A bunch of cowards-”
He didn’t manage to finish his words.
Almost at that instant, a ghastly white hand bone suddenly broke out of the ground and firmly tugged at his ankle.
Then, more hand bones burst out. They were dense, almost like some kind of living creature, climbing towards the man in groups. The man tried desperately to knock them downward, but there were too many of them, and their grip was too tight, twisting his arms and legs without mercy – in the twinkling of an eye, the man was covered with these white, miserable bones.
From the head, to the feet.
The image was like a swarm of termites gnawing on an elephant.
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!”
The man let out a shocking scream, like he was in heart-breaking pain. Kou Dong saw a bit of blood red color from the gap of those hand bones before he understood what they were doing.
They had peeled back the flesh and were sucking the man’s blood.
Suddenly, he remembered the blood pool in the exchange pool, as well as the similarly abundant hand bones in the pool. He frowned and took a step forward.
The little man’s hand pressed on his shoulder and whispered, “Don’t go.”
Kou Dong stopped, but his brow was still furrowed.
“Don’t go,” Ye Yanzhi repeated, gazing deeply at the scene, “it cares about the rules. This person broke it, even if you save him now, he will die, even more painful than now, – you can never save him.”
Kou Dong didn’t go forward again, but he also didn’t look again. Amidst the screams, the man’s form slowly wilted down. First the feet, followed by the disappeared calves, waist, upper body ……
Finally, the man’s head was also gradually shrinking, and finally only a finely painted Nuo face fell on this yellow earth, he disappeared.
It was silent.
This was simply a thunderclap, violently splitting in their ears. Some people reacted and couldn’t help but shiver, they were suddenly in awe of the rules.
Ye Yanzhi, however, seemed to be somewhat impatient and said in a low voice: “This trick again, to make an example for the chicken.”
Kou Dong: “He was a chicken?”
Ye Yanzhi: “……”
No, you.
He looked to that Nuo mask on the ground, and glanced meaningfully at the system box.
The system acted this play, in his opinion, the intention couldn’t be more obvious. It gradually felt that it lost control of Kou Dong, so it couldn’t wait to be ruthless in front of the other, so that Kou Dong would be restrained, no longer think of other methods, and honestly fall into its trap, trapped in its game.
It was a pity that this goal wasn’t destined to be achieved. Kou Dong didn’t react much to this scene, let alone think about stopping his set of tawdry operations.
You’re kidding! Without the operation of Kou Dong, would he still be Kou Dong?
That was like a fish without water, birds without wings, the wukong without the golden band – the end.
Kou Dong quickly calmed down.
However, other players on the scene were intimidated by this scene and were tongue-tied for a long time. No one dared to complain that Kou Dong received the reward alone anymore.
The evil god extended his hand to Kou Dong again, signaling him to go with him.
Kou Dong looked at his spread palm, but didn’t move a step.
The evil god looked at him, and there was a surprising amount of warmth in his voice.
“What?”
Kou Dong also looked at him.
“Is there really a reward?”
The evil god seemed to be stunned, and the corners of his lips hooked upwards, “Naturally.”
Ye Yanzhi was also a bit puzzled.
“Just now the system said that only extra plots can trigger rewards,” Kou Dong said softly, staring intently at the other, “- did I trigger any extra plots?”
After these words were uttered, everyone was confused.
Ye Yanzhi immediately reacted, yes, what Kou Dong had discovered up to now was only the identity of the evil god.
But this identity wouldn’t be considered an additional plot, which was closely related to the final puzzle.
If one didn’t know the identity of the evil god, how could they answer the respective numbers of people and ghosts?
The evil god laughed lowly. This laughter became louder and louder, like it was uncontrollable. He finally said, “You’ve seen through it.”
“Of course,” Kou Dong replied, “you acted well.”
He paused and sighed from the bottom of his heart, “If you were outside, you could even win an Oscar.”
The tall figure of the evil god stood right in front of him and asked with interest, “What else do you suspect?”
“Many things.”
Kou Dong looked at the familiar face of the man from behind the mask. “Overlord NPC, possessive, scheming, and taking steps.”. In order to gain his trust, even during this period of time, he had always been acting as a female voice, and he was simply a proper woman in dress.
He didn’t even spare his dignity and male face, it was enough to show how deep his obsession with him was.
Could such a person be the child in the story who simply looked up and fell due to god’s annihilation and anger?
Kou Dong didn’t think so. At least not all.
The evil god’s smile deepened.
“Such as?”
“For example,” Kou Dong said calmly, “how about you tell us how you fell from the path of a proper god?”
In the story that Qin Tong told, there were two important points of information.
The first was that all villages would have gods.
The second was that the Gu family village next door had a god that failed to take its rightful place. As a result, the villagers had no one to shelter them.
Why didn’t it get its spot?
Linked to the evil god that suddenly emerged after the fall of the gods in Shanhai Village, Kou Dong felt that the answer couldn’t be more obvious. After all, it wasn’t like handing out leaflets on the street, where you could just stuff one with someone.
The reason why the evil god could appear so quickly was because he was originally a god.
More likely, he was the god of the next village.
In ancient Greek legend, a god came down to earth to ask for a glass of water in order to test humanity. However, the king, who was above his station, didn’t give it to him, and drove him out. In his anger, the god called for a flood to flood the town, leading to the extinction of mankind – this was called the Silver Age.
The god of Gu’s village failed to right the ship and begged for years to no avail, most likely also failing the test.
What test?
It happened to say that in their village, there was a child whose parents were dead, no relatives, and was said to be a child of a god.
This was really hard for Kou Dong not to associate.
The answer of the evil god also confirmed this point.
“Originally, it couldn’t be rightly placed, but later, it didn’t want to be rightly placed.”
Kou Dong: “Why?”
“Why?” The evil god stretched out his hand to touch his face that was still covered with Nuo mask. Kou Dong violently saw the demonic Qi, those pure black breath wrapped the god in front of him, so surging that it was simply like a monstrous wave tumbling up.
“Of course not.”
He said in a low, loving voice.
“If I become a decent god, how am I supposed to fuck you in this temple, openly and honestly?”
–.
What should the gods be like?
If this question was asked, no one would know.
Kindly? Compassionate? Blessing the world? These were the words of men, not the promises of god. In fact, in god’s eyes, these requests were both absurd and useless.
Why did he have to bless?
The gods were heartless, and this group of people, too, had nothing to do with him.
“Try, then,” a god advised him, “try to see if your people, are worthy of being sheltered.”
The evil god heard this, and therefore went down to try it himself. He took on the form of a crying child, who had just been born and killed his mother in childbirth, and soon after, his father was also killed in an accident, for which he was known as a demon, and was only kept in that remote shack, and no one even came to see him.
The village elders originally wanted to drown him directly, seeing his sullen gaze, surprisingly, they dared not.
They could only mutter behind their backs, talking about how unsettling the child was.
“Look at that look ……”
“How is it the eyes of a normal child?”
They didn’t dare to harm him, but they would never help him either. The evil god lay alone in the shack, staring morosely at the day, before he knew what kind of group of people were in this village.
He already had the intention of abandoning the villagers.
However, at that moment, he saw a golden light. The golden light was from the god of the next village, who had just gone to the moon god to ask for a red thread for the people of the village, and when he passed by in the sky, he caught a glimpse of a swaddling cloth alone on the dirty ground.
The corners of the evil god’s lips felt moist. He lifted his eyelids and glimpsed the face in the light, a thin young man.
“How pitiful,” the god whispered, “I wonder if he can be my son ……”
Evil god: “……”
He had never heard of such an amazing god.
They were the same, who wants to be your son? He amused him.
In this daze, the god wet his lips with immortal dew, giving him enough aura to sustain him. The side of his face was enveloped in light, emitting a warm and soft glow that was dazzling.
The evil god surprisingly also looked stunned.
The god swept him up in a hug.
“You are hungry,” the god said softly, “I will take some offerings ……”
That was the first full meal he had eaten since his new life.
Because of the aura, it was enough to last a few more days in this body. The evil god simply thought, give the village people another chance, as long as they were willing to lose their way and return.
However, the people of Gu village didn’t return, but fell deeper and deeper into the endless sea of suffering. They begged the gods day by day for righteousness, but couldn’t help but spit on the evil god for being born and bringing so much misfortune to the village. They didn’t know that these misfortunes were due to the lack of a sheltering god in the village, but blamed them all on him. After a witch swore that this was his cause, the evil god’s situation became even more difficult.
god, was too far away. This child was close at hand.
He was beaten, scolded, and had stones thrown at him by children when he went out. He couldn’t go anywhere in peace, If he stayed at the door of any house for a while, the adults inside will splash boiling water on his cold face, hoping to burn off a layer of skin.
No one cared about him, everyone saw him as a disaster.
Avoid it, not to mention pity?
Shanhai Village was getting more and more beautiful day by day. They had a good grain harvest every year, the people lived and worked happily, the two places were so close to each other, but their fortunes were abruptly different.
The villagers didn’t know why, they could only intensify their hatred of the child.
No one knows that this was in fact the right god they wanted to worship.
As long as they fed the boy, clothed him, and treated him well – it wasn’t difficult. As long as they did, the god would return to the pantheon and bless the party with peace from then on.
But no one did it, only the god brought offerings more valuable every day.
What use did the evil god want those offerings? He had long since abandoned the villagers of this place. The reason he remained here wasn’t for the villagers, but for the right god of Shanhai Village.
The righteous god.
He often sneaked to see him in person. The god didn’t know his identity and shared his offerings with him, telling him to eat well and wear warm clothes, treating him like any child in Shanhai village.
The evil god at first felt satisfied, pretending to be a child and being close to him, and even his own so-called hard-earned rice savings were tribute to him. The village chief of Shanhai village who found out was furious and also threw a tantrum at him, he endured it with red eyes and almost burned the other party to death in front of the right god, but heard the right god rebuke the village chief: “What matters is the heart, and what does it have to do with what it is?”
The village chief was speechless and had to write this offering in the merit book as well because of the god’s reprimand.
The evil god felt more and more that the god in front of him was unique.
He later, however, gradually felt that it wasn’t enough.
He didn’t just want that righteous god to treat him this way.
He also wanted ……
He wanted ……
He woke up abruptly.
The god in the dream had his white robe scattered and could only suppress intermittent cries in front of the thousands of faithful.
And he was the one who took the initiative.
He extended his grace to the god extensively and more than once.
Before he knew it, it had developed into a demon strong enough to consume him. When he awoke from such a dream again, he realized that he had been overwhelmed by a black demonic aura.
A demonic aura that heavy couldn’t even be compared to that of a thousand-year-old demon.
From that day on, he could no longer be in his rightful place. From the moment he moved, he had completely degenerated and was no longer a positive god.
The people of Gu village later discovered his identity and tried everything to calm him down, even sacrificing a few pairs of virgins and boys. However, the evil god didn’t return to the throne, he had long since lost this qualification. But he didn’t stay in the village.
The villagers were filled with regret and remorse, crying in front of him, but he didn’t hear.
In the midst of the earthquakes, he didn’t shelter any of the people in the village. When he became an evil god, he lived by devouring despair and fear, and the village became his natural food field, after all, it was producing such negative emotions every day.
Those who had bullied him repented and could only watch as their entire families were drowned in the earthquakes. And at that time, the evil god was watching from the sidelines. He clearly sensed and heard the prayers of those people, but didn’t respond.
Soon, Gu village was gone.
He became a real god in exile.
In fact, there had been nothing later. When he learned that the right god was suddenly killed, he was greatly wounded by this, and had to calmly recuperate. After the recuperation, he went to the village of Shanhai, the village full of villagers were slaughtered to avenge the god.
Shanhai village turned into a playground, the villagers all turned into ghosts. The evil god felt it was interesting.
However, in his heart, after all, there was something lacking, so he felt inadequate.
Until that day, the new Nuo mask was put on again.
He perceived a familiar aura, his heart and soul trembled.
–Came back.
The god for whom he had fallen at all costs.
This time, he would never let the other slip through his hands so easily again.
His fingers slowly exerted force and removed the mask of the person in front of him.
“My god ……”
It was still the same face he was familiar with. Kou Dong looked at him from behind Nuo mask, and their eyes touched.
“Do you like this playground?” The evil god asked him in a low voice, his fingertips rubbing the side of the youth’s face.
Ye Yanzhi exploded a bit at this action, jerking up from Kou Dong’s shoulder and glaring at the person in front of him.
Kou Dong’s hand patted him, he wasn’t offended by such an action, “Don’t like.”
The evil god didn’t feel surprised, but smiled slightly.
“I know,” he replied, “you originally aren’t like this.”
Kou Dong frowned, because this sentence didn’t sound right.
“It’s okay,” the evil god reassured him, “when you are a god here again, you will like it.”
Kou Dong froze.
What do you mean by being a god here again?
He jerked his head up to stare at the evil god, but found that the other’s face had some unnatural pallor. In this instant, Kou Dong suddenly understood something and turned his gaze to the god statue behind him.
As far as he knew, the reason why the gods died, it was because no one was left to believe.
Then how should a god come back to life?
He wasn’t sure exactly what kind of spell the evil god used, but if there was one available, there would surely be a corresponding object-
The evil god smiled faintly. He looked at Kou Dong’s gaze and whispered, “You’re still as smart as ever.”
As the words fell, he plunged his hand into the idol’s body, feeling around inside the wooden body. Eventually, he pulled out something from the heart part of the statue, – it was another bead made of wood, round and full.
At just the first glance, Kou Dong understood.
It was the original bead of that righteous god.
The evil god had set it in the idol so that the right god could also be worshipped day after day. These games, abuse, blood and bone ……
weren’t just for games and revenge.
Instead, it was a grand ritual for his return to the throne of the rightful god.
“You’ll like it.” The evil god said softly, holding the bead towards him, with a heavy black aura lingering on it, very different from before, “From now on -”