Volume 2: The Days of Playing with Monkeys in the Village
Blessed
Since we started worshipping the Monkey God, I don’t even get sick anymore.
The last photo was taken by Lou Jingmo for the group of four just now. Shen Maomao searched the photo for a while and finally discovered this face, partially obscured by branches, in a large willow tree not far behind the four people.
Ye Tingnan couldn’t help but ask, “May I ask what exactly you’ve photographed?”
Shen Maomao didn’t answer him. She looked around and walked straight towards this willow tree growing beside a small path in the village.
It was the season when willow trees were sprouting new branches, and the catkins they had seen along the way seemed to have all come from this big tree. She stood under the tree, looking up, but couldn’t find the figure that had been following them.
Lou Jingmo, who had walked up to her side at some point, said, “It’s a child.”
The children in this village were truly abnormal.
From the one hiding in the bushes last night and not going home, to the one who snuck into their room at midnight and spent the latter half of the night lying under the bed, to now this one jumping up and down with unnatural agility…
Could it be that the main storyline of this game was related to these children?
Shao Mei rubbed her arms through her clothes and complained, “Tingnan, stop asking them. What kind of people are they anyway? It’s not like we don’t have a camera. We can just go back and take a photo ourselves to find out!”
Ye Tingnan, who had always been indifferent, didn’t listen to her this time. Instead, he sincerely apologized to the two girls, “Sister Xiaolou, Sister Rabbit, Shao Mei doesn’t know how to speak properly. Please forgive her… Shao Mei, come over here and apologize to them…”
“Ye Tingnan, you what?” Shao Mei widened her eyes as she looked at Ye Tingnan, seemingly unable to believe that he actually wanted her to apologize.
Ye Tingnan’s attitude was very firm: “Apologize.”
He held a high position in the small group of five, and even the spoiled Shao Mei seemed somewhat afraid of him.
Hearing him say this, Shao Mei’s eyes instantly reddened. But she didn’t dare to disobey the team leader, so she could only angrily stamp her foot and say a super fierce “Sorry!” to Lou Jingmo and Shen Maomao, then wiped her tears and turned to run away.
Wang Sheng hurriedly chased after her.
In the blink of an eye, two of the four-person group had run off.
Ye Tingnan said, “Shao Mei has been spoiled by her family and doesn’t know how to speak properly. Sister Rabbit, would it be convenient for you to tell us about your recent discovery, so that we can also be prepared?”
This long-unheard form of address reminded Shen Maomao of Golden Retriever, but unfortunately, Golden Retriever obviously wasn’t as smart as this Ye Tingnan. She wondered if he could safely make it through the second world…
Speaking of which, what was the Golden Retriever’s name again? Liao… Liao something or other?
She returned the camera to Lou Jingmo, and at the same time cast an inquiring glance.
Lou Jingmo nodded.
So Shen Maomao said, “There’s no problem with you, the problem is with us. Something has been following us two, and it looks like a child. Just now it was hiding in this tree.”
Ye Tingnan pressed further, “Then could there be something following us too?”
Shen Maomao: “How would I know?”
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Ye Tingnan’s words caught in his throat, and after a pause of a few seconds, he said, “We are newcomers and don’t understand anything. We hope that you two seniors can help us out when conditions allow… After all, everyone was once a newcomer…”
This made sense. Shen Maomao herself had only been through one world, theoretically just a small Lv.2 newbie, who could only pass through thanks to Lou Jingmo’s hard dragging. Her heart softened for a moment, and she reminded, “Don’t call us seniors, I’m just a small fry.”
Ye Tingnan promptly changed his words: “Sister Rabbit, after you turned off the lights last night, were you also unable to see anything?”
Shen Maomao nodded.
Shan Xiao, standing nearby, sighed in relief: “It scared me to death, I thought only we were blind with our eyes open…”
In the game world, being different is not necessarily a good thing.
Still softening her heart, Shen Maomao thought for a moment and said, “I can give you one piece of advice: don’t fully trust Yun Shengjin’s words, he’s not a good person.”
Ye Tingnan reciprocated, “Thank you, seniors. We just took a walk outside and it seemed there was no danger. Please be careful yourselves.”
The two groups passed each other, with Lou Jingmo and Shen Maomao heading out of the village along the small path, while Ye Tingnan and his group, who had just returned from outside, walked towards their lodgings.
Shen Maomao looked back at the two figures for a moment, then quickly turned back to watch the path carefully.
“Aren’t you afraid he might betray you to Yun Shengjin?” Lou Jingmo asked calmly.
Shen Maomao really hadn’t thought of that. She was stunned for a moment, then said uncertainly, “He wouldn’t, right?”
Lou Jingmo raised the camera and took another photo: “He’s very smart. In the confession game, the smarter people are, the faster they fall.”
Smart people live longer and know how to use everything to their advantage to survive.
Shen Maomao said seriously, “Even if he does snitch to Yun Shengjin, so what? Would Yun Shengjin dare to lay a hand on me?” After saying this with an air of dominance, she grabbed Lou Jingmo’s clothes and said, “Even when beating a dog, one must consider its owner! Goddess, I’m your loyal dog! You must protect me!”
Lou Jingmo: “…” And here she thought Shen Maomao might have some dignity.
The village wasn’t large, built entirely in a basin. There were about a hundred households in total, with houses clustered together. Standing on top of a small hill, the two of them looked out, and those buildings appeared particularly tiny.
Shen Maomao picked up a clean grass stem and held it between her teeth, basking in the warm sunlight and watching the birds fly by quickly: “Was last night a peaceful night?”
“Still not certain.” Lou Jingmo also found a rock to sit on, flipping through the photos taken later, “We haven’t seen Yun Shengjin’s two newcomers today, nor that girl who seemed to be quite perceptive.”
Apart from the naughty children always scaring people and not being able to see your hand in front of your face at night, this scenario was too quiet and peaceful. The scenery around the village was beautiful, the air fresh and comfortable, and the villagers were content. It was like the calm before a storm, making people even more anxious.
Shen Maomao stood at the top looking around for a while longer, then suddenly asked, “Sister Lou, do you feel like something’s off?”
Lou Jingmo: “Where?”
Shen Maomao: “I don’t seem to see any large areas of farmland nearby…”
Lingyuan Village wasn’t a village that often opened to outsiders. Although there were fields in the village, they were all particularly small, located in the backyards of individual homes, growing some seasonal vegetables for daily consumption.
The villagers here didn’t farm or raise livestock, so how did they become wealthy?
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Moreover, every household in the village was very leisurely. Men gathered to drink, women sat under trees playing cards, and children too young for school ran around wildly. No one seemed to be working at all.
Lou Jingmo thought about it and agreed, so she reached out to pull Shen Maomao up from the ground, saying, “Let’s go down and ask someone.”
Shen Maomao: “What? Ask directly? Won’t they drive us out?”
As it turned out, the villagers of Lingyuan Village were very friendly. An elderly woman sitting under a tree to enjoy the cool air openly shared with Shen Maomao and Lou Jingmo the source of Lingyuan Village’s wealth – the fruit trees on the back mountain. She also smiled as she explained to them how to better cultivate fruit trees.
Shen Maomao: “?” She felt as if she had traversed from a horror game to a get-rich-quick scheme.
At the end of her explanation, the elderly woman sighed with emotion, “This is all thanks to the Monkey God’s blessing! Blessing us with good weather and bountiful harvests every year!”
Shen Maomao’s eyes darted, and she tentatively asked, “It sounds like the Monkey God is quite efficacious?”
The elderly woman said proudly, “You bet! Since we started worshipping the Monkey God, I don’t even get sick anymore. My health is excellent!”
Shen Maomao: “That’s amazing?!” What kind of god is so powerful that it can bless its believers to never fall ill? The Great Sage Equal to Heaven?
The elderly woman nodded: “You’re staying at Zhang Jianshe’s house, right? His little grandson used to have some mental issues, couldn’t even recognize his own parents, and was always sickly. Since they participated in the sacrifice last year, that child not only became lucid immediately, but his health improved significantly too. Now he’s bouncing around every day! Zhang Jianshe’s eldest son is even planning to send him to school next year!”
Shen Maomao and Lou Jingmo exchanged a glance, understanding that they had reached the crucial point.
Zhang Jianshe’s little grandson was the one who had entered their room at midnight, behaving very abnormally. So he became abnormal after participating in the so-called sacrifice?
For the key question, Lou Jingmo had to take the lead. Shen Maomao consciously stepped back, letting the professional step forward to converse with the elderly woman.
“Auntie, can we worship the Monkey God?” Lou Jingmo asked.
Shen Maomao: “!” Is it okay to ask such an explosive question right off the bat?!
The elderly woman frowned and said, “Probably not possible. To become a believer, you need to request a deity statue, which must be enshrined in the courtyard of your home. You’ve come from so far away, even if you got a statue, you couldn’t take it with you.”
Lou Jingmo asked again, “Then can we participate in the sacrifice?”
The elderly woman waved her hand: “No, no, non-believers participating in the sacrifice would offend the Monkey God.”
Shen Maomao smiled sweetly, standing behind the elderly woman and massaging her shoulders: “Auntie, when does the sacrifice start? We’ll avoid it so we don’t offend the deity.”
The elderly woman counted on her fingers: “Today, tomorrow, the day after tomorrow; one, two, three, four, five… no, it seems to be four… four days later? Five days later? One, two, three, four…”
It didn’t seem like forgetfulness…
Shen Maomao felt her back crawl at the woman’s muttering and quickly interrupted: “Auntie, if you can’t remember, don’t worry about it. Whether it’s four days or five days, we won’t wander around.”
The elderly woman gave up on deciding between four or five, and smiled as she praised her: “Good child… good child…”
After extracting a lot of information, Shen Maomao and Lou Jingmo bid farewell to the elderly woman.
The elderly woman waved to them, and the floating willow catkins changed their trajectory, fluttering up and down chaotically.
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After walking a short distance, Shen Maomao looked back at the elderly woman again, her pupils contracting. She saw the elderly woman sprawled entirely on the tree trunk, her face in direct contact with the bark, her fingers reaching into a tree hollow, groping for something.
Shen Maomao gently pushed Lou Jingmo and whispered, “Sister Lou, look!”
As Lou Jingmo turned around, she saw the elderly woman pinching something black and gooey between her index and middle fingers, putting it into her mouth.
The scene was too disturbing for her to watch directly.
“It seems she ate an insect…” Lou Jingmo said.
Shen Maomao dry heaved twice: “Damn, what the hell!”
Would a normal human casually grab insects from a tree hollow to eat?!
The author has something to say:
Speaking of which, I’m a bit hesitant. I’m not sure if Pipi Xia has said the phrase “when beating a dog, consider its owner” before. It seems like she might have, but also like she might not have. I can’t quite remember _(??`」 ∠)_ Anyway, in my memory, this phrase is really cowardly, cheap, and able to express a stance at the same time.
How about we celebrate reaching 365 favorites (why the hell are we celebrating 365 anyway) by giving out ten small red envelopes to the first ten comments?