Chapter 167: There is an Inside Man, the Sacrifice is Halted!
“That’s right, I can’t stand the daughter-in-law of the Ergazi family either, looking down on others with disdain, pfft!”
“How do I maintain my skin so well? Ah, this is my uncle’s secret formula…”
“…”
Most of the villagers here are actually quite simple, or rather, they have become hopeless and numb, giving up too much thought.
In other words, they are like the villagers in an RPG game, not very smart.
It took her less than ten minutes to find a cousin, three distant male cousins, and an uncle who looked like an aunt, successfully infiltrating the enemy’s inner circle.
Well, she’s always been good at making connections.
Even if…
The targets are a group of eccentric villagers.
For a moment, Luxianbei navigated among the villagers, completely blending in as a native.
During the exchange, Luxianbei discovered that Meng Raoze had a very bad reputation among these villagers; upon mentioning his name, the villagers couldn’t help but hurl a slew of insults.
These villagers are useless at anything except for cursing.
Luxianbei vaguely felt that if she didn’t turn Meng Rao into ashes, he might just rise from the dead on the spot and beat up a couple of little brats.
While she was constantly bringing up Meng Rao while earnestly learning the correct usage of ancient trash talk, the sound of instruments suddenly stopped for a moment. That snake-headed Hui Mother stood up and whispered a few words to the priests behind her, followed by the sound of a suona ringing out across the sky.
“Yiyi—!”
With the sound of the suona, the villagers on site suddenly became inexplicably excited, rubbing their hands restlessly, pacing back and forth, talking loudly and whispering…
Caught up in this, one could clearly feel the restless atmosphere emanating from them, much like beasts that had caught a whiff of bl**d.
Luxianbei looked around in confusion until she heard phrases like “It’s time to eat,” “I can’t wait,” and “This year, I must eat a whole leg,” and finally understood what was happening.
The Huipo had finished their meal, and now it was the villagers’ turn.
“Dang dang dang—!”
As the weeping sound of the suona gradually ceased, the priest responsible for cooking the urban legends struck the side of a pot with an iron spoon, producing a sound like the collision of metal that seemed to convey some sort of order to the villagers, who rushed toward the food stall.
Luxianbei quietly watched from the side as those severely deformed villagers, perhaps also psychologically distorted, fought like wild beasts for food.
Amid the crowd, even behind a mask, she could sense the ferocity on the faces of those villagers, as if the simple and friendly expressions they had just shown were merely a façade.
Just like Meng Raoze said, most of the people here had already turned into monsters, only newborn children could still be potentially saved.
But where were those newborn babies?
After arriving in the village square, she did not see a single young villager. Even after infiltrating the enemy’s inner circle and tactfully inquiring, the villagers were deliberately evasive on the topic, falling silent whenever mentioned.
If there were newborns here, all she could imagine were those pitch-black wooden boxes carried by the priests.
But…
There was no way to approach those boxes now; she couldn’t confirm anything, just had to wait for the right moment.
Having withdrawn her gaze from the dark wooden boxes in the priest’s hands, Luxianbei looked around again.
This made her recall a zombie movie she had seen before.
At moments like this, perhaps it would be good to have a Gatling g*n shooting blue fire…
Luxianbei thought nonchalantly, barely beginning to grasp the significance of the Siye Society’s existence.
Although they often appeared inefficient, their presence truly prevented hellish scenes like this from occurring in the outside world.
Perhaps, once I become a formal member of the Siye Society, I can try to complete some tasks.
As long as there’s no danger.
……
For about five minutes, Luxianbei was preoccupied with observing those frenzied villagers, delaying her action until her “distant cousin” finished eating, contentedly rubbing his belly and coming to her side.
“Why haven’t you gone to eat yet? Did someone bully you? Tell me, and I’ll take care of them!”
The “cousin” waved his abnormally thick and terrifying arm, appearing indignant.
“Uh, I’m going right now, going right now…” Luxianbei replied softly, turning toward the food stall. She hadn’t walked far when she heard a gentle call from behind.
“Wait a second!”
“…” Luxianbei’s heart tightened, and her steps faltered slightly.
“I see you didn’t bring a bowl, right? Here, I’ll lend you mine; I’m done eating anyway!”
The “cousin” said, stuffing a bony bowl covered with some unknown slime into Luxianbei’s hands.
Looking at the bowl in her hand, which was smeared with unidentifiable goo, Luxianbei gently rubbed her forehead.
Thank you, I really thank you and your eight generations of ancestors!
She thought, reluctantly following the crowd toward the food stall.
……
Meanwhile, on another side.
Gu Qiqi, posing as a villager, had already reached the front of the “food distributing” line.
“Gu Qiqi, saving the world isn’t about treating people to a meal…”
“I just want to take a tiny bite!” Gu Qiqi interrupted, feeling a little wronged.
“A tiny bite is out of the question! Pfft! Is it a matter of a tiny bite or many bites?”
“Moreover, that thing is poisonous; you’re not a villager here, if you eat even one bite, I can only call the professionals to help you,” the system said earnestly.
“How about just sipping some soup? Would that still be poisonous?”
The system, “…”
Just as Gu Qiqi and the system were deadlocked over how much dark cuisine she could eat without risking poisoning.
A group of priests dressed in black robes rushed in from outside the village, heading straight for the Huipo by the dining table and kneeling down before them, speaking in a flustered manner.
The content was essentially about how during the river sacrifice, the offerings were contaminated and returned by the divine beings.
The next moment, all the Huipo stood up in unison, and the leading snake-headed Huipo opened its mouth wide, emitting a piercing shriek that hurt the eardrums.
……
Luxianbei felt herself being pushed forward by the surging crowd to the steaming pot.
As she watched the smoke swirl, the priest, resembling a hellish head chef, eyed her strangely, sending a chill down her spine.
Just as that priest grew impatient at her delay in handing over the bowl and scooped a ladle of soup toward her, a harsh snake language suddenly pierced her ears. The meaning of that snake language was very simple, too simple for comfort, which Luxianbei understood as…
“There’s an inside man, halt the sacrifice!”
In an instant, a foul and ominous aura spread to every corner, the humidity around shot up to a terrifying level, and the sticky air flowed among the crowd, as if an invisible great serpent was slithering.
Luxianbei’s hands holding the bony bowl trembled violently, her scalp numb, and her lungs felt as though they were congested, memories replaying rapidly in her mind as she recalled what detail she had messed up.
The music stopped, and the bl**d-colored lantern’s glow illuminated the villagers’ silent and panic-stricken faces, as if a storm was on the horizon, a sense of oppression pervaded, and silence enveloped the surroundings.
The sky grew gloomy, low thunder began to rumble, and as the first drop of rain fell, it quickly developed into a torrential downpour. The rain was unusually sticky, akin to some biological fluid, striking against her body with a dull pain.
Amidst the cover of the downpour, shadows flew out from the snake-headed Huipo’s cloak and mingled with the crowd.
The villagers’ bl**d-colored lanterns flickered in the wind and rain, and with a sudden pain in their eyes, Luxianbei caught a glimpse of the appearance of those black shadows in the dim, crimson light.
They were blurry figures, gaunt and emaciated, with snake-like inverted triangular heads; some of their indistinct faces appeared to be smiling, while others revealed snarls.
They darted past the villagers like hunting dogs, occasionally stopping briefly, circling around those villagers before swiftly heading for the next target.
The villagers touched by them would immediately convulse violently and then collapse to the ground, their hollow eye sockets staring blankly at something as if they were soulless puppets.
The temperature around was continuously dropping, and Luxianbei vaguely heard whispers discussing something; the voices were so soft they sounded like bugs crawling past her ears. She concentrated and leaned in to listen but could only catch fragmented phrases.
“It serves you right…”
“Not devout enough…”
“I hope I’ll be okay…”
……
Were the monsters’ criteria for searching for inside men based on the level of faith in the Great Serpent God? Luxianbei scoffed internally, clenched her fists, took a deep breath to calm herself, and recalled the praise she had previously uttered in the dilapidated temple.
But…
In a place like this, surrounded by malevolence and urban legends that could take lives at any moment, who wouldn’t panic?
She never could completely calm herself down; the praises in her mind came in sporadic bursts, and whenever she closed her eyes, it was as if countless strange eyes were upon her.
The more anxious she became, the closer the monsters drew, she gritted her teeth, chose to abandon reasoning, and then parted her red lips, quietly reciting a spell.
“Golden palaces, walls of iron…”
As the spell was chanted, Luxianbei felt that part of her spirit energy, which she could freely control, was being rapidly drained away, but that spell was like a greedy monster, turning its gaze toward the deeper parts of her body, where the spirit energy was not yet controllable.
Did this spell require so much spirit energy?
But why did her father seem to do it with such ease?
d*mn it, if this goes on, before I can complete the spell, the power inside me might just go out of control first!
As Luxianbei continued to chant the spell while enduring the feeling of being drained, she felt secretly alarmed.
At that moment, a very familiar and delicate shout suddenly pierced through the air, interrupting her chanting.
“Don’t come over here! If anyone steps closer, I’ll smash your head!”
Luxianbei, “…”
That voice… it’s definitely Gu Qiqi.
I didn’t expect that before I could find her, she would jump out on her own, but now, in this situation…
With that shout, all the shadow monsters stopped their search, emitting a series of high-pitched screams inaudible to the human ear, frantically rushing towards Gu Qiqi.
