Volume 2: The Days of Playing with Monkeys in the Village
The Card
I just want to snatch his card
It was Yun Shengji.
Shen Maomao thought to herself that he had incredible luck, waking up so quickly and catching up to them as they walked ahead.
As expected of an experienced player, he did have some tricks up his sleeve.
Lou Jingmo didn’t want to pay him any attention, but he had already quickened his pace and ran to their side, panting as he said, “We’re all players here, is there really a need for such favoritism?”
Shen Maomao mocked, “Don’t you have a B-number in your heart (meaning ‘Don’t you know’), why we don’t like you?”
Yun Shengji was adaptable and didn’t take her sarcasm to heart at all: “I admit that my character has issues, but we’re all trying to survive. You’ve managed to hug a big thigh (meaning to rely on someone powerful), while I can only rely on my own efforts. Who’s nobler than whom? Besides, I haven’t harmed your interests, so why do you harbor such prejudice and hostility towards me?”
Shen Maomao didn’t want to listen to his high-sounding rhetoric and coldly snorted, leaving the decision to Lou Jingmo.
Lou Jingmo’s gaze fell on him, giving Yun Shengji the illusion of being seen through.
“You have a card,” Lou Jingmo said.
Shen Maomao’s eyes widened, staring at him like searchlights; Shao Mei and Ye Tingnan looked at each other in confusion.
Yun Shengji’s face remained expressionless: “What card?” as if he had never heard of such a thing.
Lou Jingmo had already gotten the answer she wanted and didn’t pursue the matter further: “Your legs are your own, follow us or not as you please.” She turned and walked away.
The four people behind hurried to catch up.
Smart people never need to spell things out too clearly. Yun Shengji understood that he had chosen the wrong answer and quickly tried to remedy it: “It’s not unusual for an experienced player to have a card, is it?”
Lou Jingmo’s voice drifted back from the front: “What do you think?”
Although the firelight was so warm, Yun Shengji still felt a chill that penetrated to his bones.
All experienced players knew how precious cards were.
For each player, the game’s hidden tasks were like a big card pool. Every player’s pool would have these twelve cards. When a person drew a Twelve Disciples card, the drawn card would disappear from the pool until they lost it, at which point the pool would reset.
Even though one could draw a Twelve Disciples card again after losing it, the probability was so low it was maddening.
His card hadn’t come easily. In that instance, there were over twenty people, and in the end, only he survived. He absolutely, absolutely would not give up his card!
With the torch, the path up the back mountain became more than twice as easy to navigate.
They didn’t encounter any other villagers; the entire back mountain was occupied only by them and the specters lurking in the shadows.
The three people behind hadn’t made a sound, and Shen Maomao, walking in front, could only hear their equally hurried footsteps.
She looked back every so often, fearing that her teammates might suddenly be replaced by monkeys without her knowing. Just as they were about to leave the back mountain, with the mist almost completely dispersed, she turned back once more and suddenly realized they were missing a person!
“Yun Shengji is gone!” she quickly said.
Lou Jingmo wasn’t surprised at all: “He’s afraid I’ll snatch his card.”
Shen Maomao angrily spat: “A petty person judges a gentleman by his own standards!” (idiom meaning to measure others by one’s own standard)
“Exactly,” said Lou Jingmo, “I do want to snatch his card.”
Shen Maomao: “…”
“Let him run,” Lou Jingmo said indifferently, “We’ll head to the village entrance immediately.”
Shao Mei asked, “Is the exit at the village entrance…?”
Shen Maomao: “Not sure, but it should be related to that locust tree.”
The group confirmed their target and headed straight for the village entrance.
The large locust tree looked particularly eerie in the moonlight, with red ribbons on its branches like soul-summoning flags, attracting people to come closer before suddenly devouring them.
Lou Jingmo stopped the others from approaching: “Don’t go over there yet!”
There was something wrong with the locust tree. The closer they got, the harder it was to resist the urge to move forward. The four retreated several steps before finally regaining their composure.
Ye Tingnan anxiously scratched his head, pacing around the three: “What should we do? How can we leave?”
Like a monkey that could see food right in front of it but couldn’t touch it.
Shao Mei was also anxiously scratching her ears and face, unconsciously shaking her leg.
Shen Maomao’s mind went blank, her eyes unfocused as she tugged at her ears. As she tugged, her movements slowed down, and she brought her hand in front of her face, asking in disbelief, “Sister Lou… didn’t my movements just now look like a monkey’s…?”
“What do you think, Shen Monkey?” Lou Jingmo glanced at her watch, “It’s almost ten o’clock. It seems that even though we’ve escaped the illusion, we’re still affected.”
Shen Maomao used all her willpower to resist the urge to scratch left and right. Shao Mei and Ye Tingnan were oblivious to their own abnormal behavior, acting like two hyperactive patients.
Lou Jingmo fell into deep thought.
They had tried to approach the locust tree before, but never felt this strong pull that seemed to suck in their very souls. The biggest difference today compared to before was that they had participated in the sacrificial ritual.
They had already taken off the clothes worn for the ritual, and the torch was stuck in the ground nearby, still burning…
Right, there was also the deity statue!
The old Zhang family deity statue had a little boy’s face, so the new deity statue was likely to be one of theirs!
Lou Jingmo grabbed Ye Tingnan’s arm and quickly said, “Stop scratching. Go to where you’re staying right now, find the deity statues made with your faces, and destroy them! After that, meet at the big locust tree! If you find the exit but don’t see anyone, it means we’ve already left. Got it?!”
Ye Tingnan suddenly awoke, his hands trembling: “I… just now…”
Shen Maomao shook Shao Mei awake: “Did you hear that?! Wake up, both of you!”
The four split up at the crossroads, each running towards their lodgings in the village.
Shen Maomao watched the two figures disappear into the night with worry: “Will they be alright?”
Lou Jingmo asked curiously, “I thought you found Shao Mei annoying?”
Shen Maomao rubbed her hands: “Well… it was quite satisfying to fight her.”
Lou Jingmo: “…” She didn’t know what to say.
The Zhang family’s main gate was bolted from the inside. Lou Jingmo picked up a tree branch from the ground and asked Shen Maomao to push the door inward as much as possible while she squinted, aiming at the door latch through the gap.
After about two minutes, the latch fell to the ground with a “clang.” Shen Maomao gently pushed open the door and gave her a thumbs up.
The new deity statue was placed in the courtyard, still covered with a red cloth.
There seemed to be something else under the red cloth besides the statue.
Shen Maomao and Lou Jingmo exchanged a glance, grabbed the corners of the red cloth, and pulled it off together. The deity statue was exposed before them, and sure enough, the stone monkey’s face was identical to Lou Jingmo’s. Besides the statue, there was an iron cage next to it, containing a small golden-furred monkey. The little monkey was curled up in the corner of the cage, motionless as if asleep.
Shen Maomao whispered, “Isn’t this a golden snub-nosed monkey?”
Monkeys are national second-class protected animals, while golden snub-nosed monkeys are first-class protected animals! Endangered wildlife has always been equivalent to huge profits. So this was the secret to Lingyuan Village’s wealth.
Lou Jingmo started working on the stone statue, while Shen Maomao gently opened the cage.
The golden snub-nosed monkey opened its bright red eyes, staring at her unblinkingly.
Shen Maomao shrank back for a moment, then controlled her fear, opened the cage, and said softly, “You’re free now, run quickly.”
The little monkey scratched the back of her hand with its paw and started to “squeak” loudly.
“Damn it! Why are you making noise?!” Shen Maomao locked it in her arms and quickly pinched its mouth shut to stop it from making any more sound.
Lou Jingmo said, “You’re preventing it from turning human, how can it not cry out?”
At this point, the relationship between the villagers of Lingyuan Village and the monkeys was no longer just about hunting and selling. For some unknown reason, Lingyuan Village had started worshipping the monkeys they had been hunting, and the villagers didn’t know that their relatives who participated in the sacrificial ritual had exchanged souls with monkeys on the night of the ritual.
The ones being bought, sold, and killed were their relatives, while those living harmoniously with them at home were actually monkeys…
It could only be described as karmic retribution, an inevitable consequence.
Lou Jingmo picked up an iron hoe from the Zhang family’s courtyard and brought it down hard on the stone monkey.
With a loud “clang,” the stone statue broke in half, and Zhang Jiansheng’s voice came from inside the house: “What’s going on?!”
At the same time, the jujube tree in the courtyard suddenly started shaking violently, and a mud-covered hand burst through the trunk, reaching straight for Lou Jingmo.
The lights in the house also came on. Shen Maomao threw the golden snub-nosed monkey onto the hand and pulled Lou Jingmo away, turning to run.
They hadn’t run far when they heard several screams from the courtyard, accompanied by Zhang Jiansheng’s heart-wrenching cries for help…
Shen Maomao was scared half to death and shouted as she ran, “There was a ring on that hand! It’s Wei Yu!”
Wei Yu had indeed been trapped in the tree heart long ago! If she had followed Wei Yu that day, she might have ended up making a home inside a big tree by now.
The two didn’t stop running until they could no longer hear the sounds from the Zhang family’s courtyard.
Lou Jingmo’s problem was solved, but Shen Maomao didn’t know where the stone statue with her face was. There were too many houses in the village to check one by one in time.
“Want to make a bet?” Lou Jingmo asked, panting.
Shen Maomao didn’t understand: “What kind of bet?”
“Bet that I can get you out of here.”
Hearing this, Shen Maomao’s eyes widened as she looked at Lou Jingmo’s profile. Suddenly filled with intense emotion, she gritted her teeth and nodded: “I’m in!”
The two changed direction and sprinted towards the village entrance. They hadn’t run far when they saw billowing black smoke and soaring flames coming from the village entrance.
As they got closer, the blaze had turned half the sky red.
A flaming tree branch quickly approached the two, scattering fire wherever it went, setting the village gate and surrounding grass ablaze.
“Holy crap, what’s going on?!” Shen Maomao was shocked.
The two moved away from the branch’s path and slowly came to a stop, watching the sea of fire before them.
The huge locust tree crashed to the ground with a thunderous sound, and a blinding white light illuminated the entire world. Two people engulfed in flames stood in the remaining half of the tree stump. They seemed to feel no pain, expressionlessly watching Yun Shengji, who was holding a giant axe.
The white light was emanating from beneath their feet.
The author has something to say:
The five-day double update period has ended, but I’ve decided to continue. I’ll try my best to do another five days of double updates. If I can’t keep up, I hope my dear readers won’t be too disappointed qwq.
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