Chapter 248 - 247: "Lost Pearl

Chapter 248: Chapter 247: "Lost Pearl

Sure enough, Zhang Qiuyan was met with a nonstop lecture from Dongfang Lingjun the moment she returned. She hung her head and listened obediently, but in truth, her mind had long since drifted away.

Others couldn’t see it, but from his vantage point, Huo Xingchen could just make out her vacant stare. He found it a bit curious. ’People really are multifaceted.’

The first day of the game passed with some tension, but no real danger.

After dinner, Huo Yunjing took Huo Xingchen out for another stroll, making up for the walk that had been cut short earlier.

The night was a natural cloak, allowing for all the wanton acts one wouldn’t dare commit in daylight. As the pair walked, they caught the scent of blood from several spots. In a village devoid of animals, it was easy to guess what had been killed.

Once they had walked out of the village, Huo Yunjing finally asked, "Are you scared?"

Huo Xingchen shook his head and said with a sigh, "I knew something felt missing from this village during the day. Turns out, it’s the animals."

Besides chickens and ducks, the most common sights in a farming village are cows, pigs, and dogs. But there wasn’t a single one to be seen here. They must have all been eaten at the start of the disaster.

Huo Yunjing raised an eyebrow and chuckled. "You’re just a little kid. Why do you talk like a world-weary old man?"

Huo Xingchen lifted his chin. "Because I’m smart and precocious!" Having said that, he quickly changed the subject. "They say those who live by the mountains eat from the mountains. If they’re this hungry, why don’t they go up the mountain to find food?"

Huo Yunjing shook his head. "Some deeply rooted ideas aren’t so easily changed. Let’s go back."

The next day, breakfast consisted of bird eggs, wild fruits, and bird soup.

"A whole nest of birds, gotta keep ’em all together," Gu Qingyin remarked as she ate.

"This game doesn’t seem very hard. How long are we going to have to play along with him?" Zhang Qiuyan asked casually.

But Huo Yunjing shook his head. "It’s not that simple. When we first arrived, the villagers were probably just watching and waiting. They might come for us today."

Zhang Qiuyan was confused. "Come for us for what?"

Gu Ziqian sipped his soup listlessly and said with a smile, "You’ll know soon enough."

Zhang Qiuyan had been about to leave after finishing her meal, but after hearing that, she sat back down to wait for the villagers to come knocking.

Sure enough, just as they finished clearing the dishes, there was a loud POUNDING on the courtyard gate.

A real pounding, as if someone was looking for a fight.

The group’s expressions remained unchanged. No one moved to open the gate. They simply sat where they were, calm and composed, waiting to see what would happen next.

The people outside were sure someone was inside. When no one answered, they immediately switched to a more suitable tool—it was clear this wasn’t their first time forcing their way into a home.

It was unclear what they were using, but Gu Qingyin, sitting in the courtyard, could hear their heavy panting, as if they were carrying something massive. Then, the courtyard gate let out a dull THUD.

Immediately after, a golden light flashed. From outside the gate came a wave of startled cries, followed by the sound of something heavy hitting the ground and weak moans of pain.

The golden light enveloping the courtyard flickered again, as if in a show of force, before slowly fading away.

The villagers had never seen anything like it and were all shocked and uncertain. The gaunt old man leading them, however, had a sharp glint flash through his cloudy eyes, his thoughts unreadable.

A moment later, the old man ordered in a low voice, "Go get the Witch God."

The people around him were strewn across the ground; not a single one stood up.

The old man stood there awkwardly for a few seconds, then flicked his sleeve and went off by himself.

The people lying on the ground glanced at each other and simply stayed put. ’We’re already starving with no energy, and they want us to ram down a gate and then run errands? Only an idiot would bother.’

By the time the old man returned, supporting an even older man, they had nearly fallen asleep.

This even older man was the village’s Witch God, a figure said to be able to communicate with the True God. Normally, he didn’t have to do any work, only occasionally treating villagers’ illnesses and living off the offerings from each household.

But now, with the villagers unable to feed themselves, the Witch God received no offerings. He could only survive on his old food stores, and he’d been getting very anxious lately as they were about to run out.

When the disaster first began, the villagers had gone to the Witch God for help. But even though the Witch God communicated with the True God several times, the disaster didn’t end. Eventually, the Witch God told them they had offended the gods and been abandoned.

The villagers fell into despair. They had sacrificed their last livestock to the True God, so how could they have offended him?

’If only they’d known... if only they’d known, they wouldn’t have made the sacrifice! That livestock could have fed them for a long time, and now it was all just ash in a fire! The regret was killing them!’

Seeing the Witch God arrive, the villagers on the ground subconsciously stood up. Generations of tradition had given the Witch God immense prestige in their hearts; they wouldn’t dare show disrespect.

The Witch God walked to the outside of the courtyard, his gaze fixed forward. He ran his palm along the outer wall, and one by one, Array Patterns materialized.

Inside the courtyard, Dongfang Lingjun let out a soft "Huh?" He had assumed the man was just a charlatan who conned people with fake rituals, but it seemed he actually had some skill.

"It’s not a particularly powerful Array. It can be broken quickly." A calm, slightly disdainful voice sounded from beyond the wall.

Dongfang Lingjun froze, feeling a bit ridiculous for having taken the man seriously just a moment ago.

’You couldn’t say this person had skill, only that he had a bit of a discerning eye—and not much of one at that.’

"Sigh. And here I thought I’d found a Lost Pearl," Dongfang Lingjun said, shaking his head in self-mockery.

Gu Ziqian lay on the rocking chair, rocking leisurely with his eyes closed. "Someone with real skill wouldn’t be content to be trapped in a village."

Gu Qingyin, who was sitting to the side continuing her work on the paper effigy from yesterday, shot him a glance. ’He’s the last person who should be saying that,’ she thought. ’He’s incredibly skilled, yet he loves nothing more than to hide away on a mountain for a quiet life.’

"Don’t bad-mouth me in your head." Gu Ziqian hadn’t opened his eyes, but it was as if he could see right through her. He explained, "I may be living in seclusion now, but you can go out and ask. Is there a single Heavenly Master who doesn’t know my name?"

’That’s true,’ Gu Qingyin thought. She couldn’t argue with that.

’Gu Ziqian went into seclusion after he’d had his fill of adventure. The man outside probably doesn’t even have what it takes to start.’

Gu Qingyin stopped dwelling on it and lowered her head, focusing on her paper effigy. This one was almost finished.

Curious about the people outside, Huo Xingchen grunted and groaned as he dragged a stool over to the wall to climb it. Unfortunately, his body was just too small; even standing on the stool, he couldn’t reach the top of the wall.

His little face scrunched in concentration, he looked around for something else to stand on.

Before he could find anything, Huo Yunjing came over, lifted him up onto the wall in one smooth motion, and instructed in a deep voice, "Sit tight."

Huo Xingchen quickly grabbed the top of the wall. Looking down, he realized it was much higher than he’d thought, and he felt a little scared. Still, he kept his little face tense and looked outside.

At that moment, the Witch God was preparing his tools to break the Array.

Vermillion, Black Dog Blood, peach wood nails...

Huo Xingchen’s brow furrowed. ’Isn’t the purity of that vermillion too low? There aren’t any dogs, so where did they get Black Dog Blood? It can’t be old, can it? The peach wood is new, at least, but that’s pointless.’

’In short, the components were all wrong. The ones that needed to be fresh weren’t, and the ones that were fresh were pointless. Utterly useless.’