Chapter 26: Obedience Test

Shen Si looked around, "This iron basin seems to be used for offerings to the River God. Are you actually using it to eat?"

"That's right," Wang Fa replied. "The villagers' houses have all collapsed, and the places where we could scrounge for food are gone. We have no choice but to dig up wild vegetables here, wash them, and eat them."

Shen Si suggested, "There is plenty of corn over there; we could roast some."

Wang Guo shook his head. "That corn is older than my ancestors. It's too tough on the teeth."

Yang Liuqing said, "The ruin over by the temple was originally a dilapidated building. We were in it when we first arrived, but as soon as we stepped out, it collapsed."

Liang Dan added, "The building vanished after it collapsed, but it suddenly reappeared a while ago. Yang Liuqing thinks it might be because other players triggered the plotline related to that building, which is why it manifested again."

Shen Si asked, "So, we wanted to ask: what was that building actually used for?"

Wang Guo explained, "It was a school built by the women of the village, specifically for the children to learn. Since there were no teachers, they taught the children themselves."

Wang Fa continued, "But because the school only admitted girls and not boys, the little boy in the village—the High Priest—reported the school to the village chief."

Wang Guo added, "The village chief is the man who stands on the high platform to organize the sacrifices."

Wang Fa went on, "So the village chief led a large group of men to storm the school and tear it down. The building ended up looking the way you see it now. The children had nowhere to go and could no longer continue their schooling."

"That doesn't sound right," Shen Si countered. "Building such a large structure must have taken a long time. They didn't stop them while they were building it, and they didn't stop them while they were teaching, so why stop them just because a little boy reported it?"

Yang Liuqing raised an eyebrow. "You don't understand. If they had stopped them at the beginning, how could they have achieved such a deterrent effect later?"

"Things you can never obtain, you can eventually let go of. Things you are about to get but ultimately fail to, there is no help for. But things you have already possessed... to lose them—that is what is truly heart-wrenching."

Liang Dan said, "This was a massive test of obedience. Even if that boy hadn't reported it, they would have found another excuse to tear that building down."

Yang Liuqing added, "But that boy had long been spoiled; he had always been able to get everything he wanted. How could he possibly allow something to exist that he couldn't have?"

Shen Si was furious. "These people are truly vicious. They shouldn't have been allowed to die so easily; they deserve to be pierced by a thousand arrows!"

Liang Dan felt a tightness in her chest; she could almost see those women. She could see them working hard to build that school, see them crafting textbooks, see them in the act of teaching, and see the look in the children's eyes as they listened.

Wang Guo said, "It was this very incident that pushed those women to the edge, which is why they fled the village by boat."

Shen Si remarked, "Those men surely never imagined that their test of obedience not only failed but backfired completely."

"Exactly," Wang Fa agreed. "You know what happened after that. They started building the bridge, the children went missing, they started dying, and they began offering sacrifices to the River God."

Liang Dan asked, "With so many children running away, didn't they try to look for them? Or did the women fleeing and the children disappearing happen at the same time, leading them to mistakenly believe the children had escaped with the women?"

Wang Guo replied, "According to their claims, the children only vanished after they started building the bridge. As for why they didn't search for them, it was likely because they were girls, and the men felt it didn't matter if they were lost."

Shen Si asked, "Have those children been hiding in this temple all this time?"

"No," Wang Fa said. "They only seem to appear when they are killing someone. Once they finish, they leave, and no one knows where they hide."

Liang Dan asked, "You didn't just arrive here yesterday, did you?"

Wang Guo nodded. "We arrived on the tenth day of the sacrifice, which was twelve days ago."

"Are many of the scenes here summoned by you?"

"Yes."

Liang Dan took a deep breath. "Why kill the villagers so quickly? Do you think you have already collected all the scenes?"

Wang Guo looked innocent. "We haven't killed any villagers. We only heard from you just now that the villagers were dead."

Wang Fa added, "Our task requires us to collect as much information as possible. Since we have triggered many scenes, we know that there are still quite a few that haven't appeared yet. At the very least, we haven't found the hiding place of those girls. Under these circumstances, we certainly wouldn't kill the NPCs first."

Shen Si crossed her arms. "If you didn't kill those NPCs, then who did?"

Wang Guo stood up. "Today is the 22nd day of the sacrifice, which means 22 groups of players have entered this instance. It might be one of the previous groups, or perhaps someone who arrived new today—"

The temple doors, which had been standing open, slammed shut with a bang. Arrows pierced through the doors, shooting in one by one.

Liang Dan quickly ducked, forcefully pulling down a nearby table. Candles fell all over the floor. She hid behind the table, pushing it to barricade the temple doors.

A sudden gust of wind struck, and the temple doors swung open with such force that Liang Dan and the table were sent flying. As she flew through the air, the violent wind and sand forced her to squint. In her peripheral vision, she saw Yang Liuqing, Shen Si, Wang Guo, and Wang Fa being swept away by the gale.

Liang Dan crashed to the ground, and the table landed on top of her, shattering into two pieces. She felt a dull, throbbing pain where she had fallen before, now compounded by the new impact.

The temple doors were antique, resembling ancient folding screens. Now, the thin layer of wood was teetering, swaying in the wind.

In the next second, the doors disintegrated into splinters, raining down with a clatter. Amidst the howling wind and the sound of wood, there was a faint, soft sound of footsteps.

Liang Dan suddenly remembered the bodies they had seen the previous night. She had found it strange then: when those children killed, why were there no marks left on the bodies? The bodies had no signs of strangulation, no physical changes, and no symptoms of poisoning.

Now she understood: because those players from yesterday hadn't been killed by the children at all.

The scattered wood shards flew like hidden weapons, terrifyingly sharp. They descended at high speed, almost piercing into the top of Liang Dan’s head.

"Damn it!"

"Peerless Good Samaritan Liang Dan, you have insulted the wood; you are dead!"