“Wu… wuwu… Mama… where are you… I’m so scared…”
The weeping seemed to rise from the depths of an ancient well sealed for a century, carrying a dampness that soaked straight into the marrow. It did not sound like the crying of a child—there was no warmth of life within that voice, only endlessly repeating grief and terror. Every syllable was like a rusty needle, piercing with pinpoint accuracy into the four’s most fragile nerve endings.
In the instant they heard the weeping, the power of the Rules—far more terrifying than the hundreds of gazes within the ancestral hall—bound them firmly in place like a spiderweb. It was not that their bodies could not move, but rather the shackles known as “Restrictions.” They could sense that the moment they took any action unrelated to “seeking out a paper figure and asking for help”—such as retreating, such as attacking—the noose known as the “Rules” would instantly tighten, completely erasing their existence from this world.
“The seventh rule…” Lan Ce’s voice rang out in the mental link, his tone having lost its usual steadiness, carrying a tremor born from data that could not be parsed. “‘There are no children in the village. If you hear a child crying, please immediately seek out a paper figure and ask for help.’ This is a classic… classic logical paradox trap.”
“What do you mean?” Mo Fei’s muscles tensed like steel. He forced himself not to listen to that demonic, ear-piercing weeping, yet the sound seemed to penetrate everywhere, drilling into his mind and dredging up the deepest fears of powerlessness and loss within his heart. “There’s no way to break it?”
“It’s very simple.” Lan Ce forced himself into analysis mode, even though his own brain was buzzing from the bizarre crying. “Choice one: we ignore the rules and try to leave. Based on the consequences of violating the rules earlier, our mortality rate is one hundred percent. Choice two: we obey the rules, go outside to ‘seek out a paper figure and ask for help.’ But we all know that the paper figures outside are those monsters at the ancestral hall banquet. Asking them for help is no different from walking into a trap ourselves—our mortality rate is likewise one hundred percent. This is a dead end. No matter what we choose, we die.”
“Then what are we waiting for! It’s death either way, so I’ll just rush out and kill as many as I can!” Mo Fei’s fury was ignited once more—this seemed to be his only means of combating fear.
“Shut up, Mo Fei!” An Mu’s voice was like a cold iron anvil, smashing heavily onto the emotions about to erupt from Mo Fei. “The more dire the situation, the more calm we need. Since the rule gave us a path of ‘asking for help,’ that proves it’s not purely meant to kill us. It is testing us.” His gaze swept across every team member in the darkness, finally landing on Bai Yu, who was leaning against the wall, his face pale as paper. “Bai Yu, what do you think? Your senses are the sharpest.”
At this moment, Bai Yu was enduring unimaginable pain. That child’s weeping was, to him, not merely sound—it was more like a key, forcibly opening the prison door in his mind that sealed away the memories of the Wine of Resentment. The wails of countless wrongly slain maidens intertwined with this child’s crying, raising a tsunami in his spiritual world.
“Heh… What a crude trap, yet unexpectedly effective.” Hei Yan’s voice lazily rang out from the depths of his consciousness, carrying a hint of condescending commentary. “It exploits you mortals’ pitiful sympathy for younglings, as well as your reverence for the ‘Rules.’ Just like a clumsy hunter leaving a honey-coated trap on the road. The amusing part is that you clearly know it is a trap, yet you have no choice but to stick your foot in. That struggling posture does add quite a nice touch to this dull play.”
Bai Yu forcibly suppressed the convulsions of his soul, focusing all his attention on that “weeping.” He had drunk that cup of wine; his spirit had already produced a bizarre “resonance” with the source of this space. He could “taste” that there was no soul within this weeping.
“This crying… is fake,” Bai Yu said in the mental link. His voice was weak yet exceptionally clear. “It is not a real child. It is more like a… tape recorder, a ‘rule trigger’ set to repeat endlessly.”
“Fake?” Lan Ce immediately grasped the crucial point. “You mean this is bait purely constructed from the power of the Rules?”
“Yes.” Bai Yu nodded. He felt that every thought was intensifying the tearing sensation in his soul. “The rule says to ‘seek out a paper figure and ask for help.’ It is not wrong. But it cleverly exploits our fixed patterns of thinking. The moment we think of paper figures, we think of those malicious monsters outside. But… is it possible that it refers to a different paper figure?”
His gaze slowly moved from the room emitting the crying toward the portrait of the sinister old man on the front wall of the main hall.
“The owner of this diary, that ‘elder’ who killed A Wan and was ultimately devoured by the curse himself. He died in this room. Where would his resentment and obsession most likely linger?” A flash of realization crossed Bai Yu’s eyes. “The way to break the rule likely is not outside—it is right here in this room!”
This bold deduction was like lighting a faint oil lamp in a pitch-black dead end.
“You mean… there’s a ‘paper figure’ in this room that we’re looking for?” An Mu instantly understood Bai Yu’s intent.
“I can’t be certain, but this is our only path to survival.” Bai Yu took a deep breath, forcing himself to stand straight. “We must go in. We must look at the source of that crying.”
An Mu stared into Bai Yu’s eyes, which were filled with exhaustion yet exceptionally determined. A few seconds later, he made his decision. “Very well. We’ll do as you say. Mo Fei, you take point and stay alert. Lan Ce, follow behind me and be ready to support at any moment. Bai Yu, you walk in the center. Let’s move.”
The four formed a tight tactical formation once more, walking step by step toward that half-open door. Every step was taken with extreme difficulty; the weeping seemed to carry a tangible weight pressing upon their hearts. The dust on the floor was stirred by their movements, swirling in the flashlight beams like countless peering spirits.
Mo Fei walked at the very front. He reached out and gently placed his hand on that cold wooden door, then shoved hard.
*Creak—*
After a drawn-out sound, the door swung fully open. A gusting odor assailed them from within—a mixture of years-old mold, dust, and something like rotting candy. The flashlight beams shot inside at the first opportunity. Behind the door was what appeared to be a young girl’s bedchamber. The furnishings inside had long been buried beneath thick dust, their original colors lost. There was a small wooden bed, a dressing table, and a cloth doll lying on the ground, its cotton innards spilling from its split belly. One glass eyeball was missing; the other stared emptily at the ceiling.
And that mournful weeping was precisely coming from the exquisitely carved wooden music box in the center of the room.
The dancing figurine that should have been spinning on the music box’s lid was long gone, leaving only an empty base. That crying-like melody flowed out repeatedly from its internal springs.
“As expected… a trigger,” Lan Ce said in a low voice.
The four carefully entered the room, their gazes rapidly sweeping across every corner, searching for that “paper figure” Bai Yu had spoken of. Yet in the entire room, other than the fallen cloth doll, they could see nothing else related to a “figure.”
“Wait… where’s the paper figure?” Mo Fei vigilantly surveyed their surroundings, his palm gripping the battle axe already slick with sweat.
“Don’t panic.” Bai Yu’s voice rang out. He was not looking at those obvious furnishings; instead, he locked his gaze onto the dust-covered dressing table. Before the mirror sat a dust-covered jewelry box and a wooden comb covered in rust.
“Lan Ce, scan that comb,” Bai Yu said.
“The comb?” Although puzzled, Lan Ce immediately complied. A faint blue light swept across the wooden comb, and readings immediately popped up on the detector.
“There… there’s weak biological residual information. Mainly… hair. Based on fragmented DNA sequence analysis, it belongs to a female child between the ages of seven and nine.”
“That’s it.” Bai Yu stepped forward. He did not touch the weeping music box; instead, he reached out and picked up the wooden comb.
In the instant he picked it up, he saw a fragmented vision. That sinister-faced old man was sitting before this dressing table, using this comb to gently brush the black long hair of a girl whose face he could not see.
“He loved her very much,” Bai Yu said softly, as if speaking to himself, and also as if explaining to his teammates.
Then, holding the comb, he slowly walked over to the cloth doll lying on the ground. He squatted down and reached out with his other hand to prop up the dirty, broken doll, gently patting away the dust on its body.
Then, he made a move that no one expected.
He raised that little girl’s wooden comb and began, stroke by stroke, to “comb” the already nonexistent hair of this lifeless, broken cloth doll.
His movements were very light, very slow, and filled with a sense of ritual. It was as if what he combed was not a toy, but a child truly fast asleep.
“What are you doing?” Mo Fei asked, baffled.
“Asking for help.” Bai Yu’s answer was only two words.
He continued his movements. One, two, three…
When he reached the tenth stroke, the child’s weeping that had been echoing through the room suddenly changed pitch. That sorrowful melody grew less mournful, instead carrying a hint of calmness, as if soothed.
Immediately after, an even stranger scene occurred.
The portrait of the sinister old man on the main hall’s front wall—its eyes, those eyes dotted in ink—suddenly shed two streams of ink-black “tears.”
“Wu…”
A sigh filled with endless remorse and grief traversed a hundred years of time, faintly ringing by the four’s ears.
Along with this sigh, the crying melody of the music box abruptly ceased.
The entire room once again fell into dead silence. But this time, that restraining power binding them also silently dissipated, like silk threads that had been cut.
They had succeeded.
“Th… that’s it?” Mo Fei looked at everything before him in disbelief.
“The rule says to ‘seek out a paper figure and ask for help.’ This ‘paper figure’ does not refer to a physical entity, but rather the ‘lingering thought’ in this elder’s heart regarding his daughter.” Bai Yu slowly stood up, placing the comb and the cloth doll back properly. “We used his daughter’s relic to soothe this thought, which equates to completing the ‘request for help’ to him. He acknowledged us, so the rule was lifted.”
“A perpetrator, yet also a pitiable father.” An Mu looked at that portrait shedding ink tears, his expression complicated.
*Click.*
At that moment, the sound of a mechanism springing came from behind the portrait.
The four immediately grew alert. They watched as the portrait slowly slid to the side, revealing a hidden compartment behind it, blackened by soot.
Inside the hidden compartment, there was no gold or silver treasure, nor any secret manuals. Only a piece of yellowed hemp cloth, folded neatly and placed there.
An Mu stepped forward, carefully taking out the hemp cloth and slowly unfolding it.
It was an extremely crude hand-drawn map. Drawn upon it was precisely the terrain of Luoshui Village’s back mountain. The map’s lines were crooked and twisted, drawn using some kind of charred charcoal. But at the center of the map, a cave was heavily marked with red pigment that could be cinnabar or blood.
Next to the cave, several scribbled words full of terror were written:
“…The Mountain God… eats people… A Wan… is inside… save her…”
And on the other side of the map, a hidden path leading to the rear side of the cave was drawn. That path was marked as the “Path of Life.”
“It’s the sacrificial cave!” A hint of excitement entered An Mu’s voice. “This is the only clue left by the diary’s owner at the final moment of his life, born from instinctive remorse and a plea for help for those who came after!”
“With this, we can avoid the front and find where A Wan’s obsession resides!” Lan Ce also could not hide his excitement.
The four looked at this hard-won map, all understanding in their hearts that they had drawn one step closer to the final truth of this cursed village. Although their bodies were exhausted to the limit, the spark of hope was reignited within this land of despair.
“Rest for five minutes.” An Mu glanced at the condition of his team members and gave the order. “Replenish water and energy. Check equipment. In five minutes, we head to the back mountain.”
He put away the map, his gaze passing through the room’s dirt-covered window toward the end of the village. Behind that deep, blood-red fog, a towering, ferocious black mountain loomed indistinctly, like an ancient beast lurking in the darkness, waiting for them to walk into its trap of their own accord.
The true final battleground lay right there.
Thanks to Tianxia Jinyou Q and Lengyue Wushuang for the monthly tickets
@( oω)@