Author: 木尺素 / Mu Chisu

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

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Chapter 125

At the entrance of the village, there was a statue composed of three heads.

One faced the square and most of the village houses, another directly faced the inn, and the third one looked in the direction of a fountain, farmland, and graveyard, respectively.

Zhou Qian’s conjecture was that each statue’s eyes, besides their normal limestone color, could display red, blue, and yellow states.

When the statue’s eyes didn’t change color, space-time remained unchanged.

However, when the statue’s eyes did change color, they illuminated the area they were facing in different space-times.

As for why the glass on the second floor of the inn changed color, Zhou Qian initially thought it was related to space-time shifts.

It was possible that the glass was colorless for a period and was redecorated with blue glass by someone in the future.

Players moving in and out of the inn saw the color of the glass change because the eyes of the statue facing the inn changed color, transporting them from the past to the future.

But now Zhou Qian found that the eyes of the head facing the inn had always been colorless.

Thus, he had to discard this possibility.

Since this was a world filled with magic, the color change of the glass was likely related to magic.

The person who changed the color of the glass with magic might have been trying to remind players to avoid prohibitions from the perspective of fire color. Now that the reminder had been given, there was no need to continue changing the color of the glass.

Therefore, unless something unexpected happened, players didn’t need to worry about the color of the glass tonight. They just needed to ensure that the fire in the fireplace was always yellow, as it would never shine through blue glass.

So, for the time being, players neither had to worry about the prohibitions nor fear being possessed by spirits, as the fireplace, always lit with fire, was enough to drive away ordinary spirits from the other world.

With these two problems out of the way, the only concern for players now was the innkeeper Tartar suddenly starting to cook meat soup in the middle of the night.

What exactly is her intention?

During the coming of Samhain, the gates between the worlds open, plunging it into chaos. The Red God could travel from the other world to the human world. However, despite this, they couldn’t communicate directly with people and needed dogs as intermediaries.

Every household in Nameless Village kept a white dog to communicate with the Red God.

Tartar should also understand animal language, but she didn’t have a dog.

There were two possibilities behind this. The first was that she was the Red God herself, and at the same time, she must be a particularly powerful Red God who wasn’t bound by time and could freely travel between the human world and the other world, even outside of Samhain. She could disguise herself as a human without being detected by dogs. Moreover, she could communicate directly with villagers and players without the need for animals like dogs.

Zhou Qian thought this possibility was relatively small because he hadn’t found any clues supporting Tartar was the Red God, nor had he found any descriptions that powerful Red Gods could break many restrictions, such as communicating directly with humans.

Therefore, Zhou Qian leaned more towards the second possibility—

Tartar wasn’t the Red God, but she must have some special identity that allowed her to communicate directly with the Red God, and she was preparing these soups tonight to welcome the Red God’s arrival.

The spirits from the other world enjoyed feasting, and to welcome their arrival and let them leave satisfied and without harming people, the square was prepared with a lot of food offerings in addition to the Bone Fire.

Furthermore, Zhou Qian had received information from Bai Zhou—in the other world, every Red God had an inn where endless food was supplied to the spirits, usually pots of meat.

This suggested that Tartar cooking meat in the middle of the night was likely to entertain the Red God.

Tartar had a special identity, and she was preparing to entertain the Red God tonight. With such a conclusion, Zhou Qian had ample reason to worry about Bai Zhou’s situation—

After all, the Red God was a “great ghost”, equivalent to an official spirit in the hell world understood by Easterners. Their number wouldn’t be large.

Moreover, according to the information previously provided by Bai Zhou, Nameless Village had been troubled by only one Red God for years, who needed to consume humans each year, with an upper limit of 32 and an uncertain lower limit. It was for this reason that Nameless Village held the handkerchief game on the eve of Samhain each year.

Therefore, the Red God plaguing the villagers in Nameless Village was likely just one—the same one Bai Zhou and the others went to meet.

But if this Red God needed to select who to consume this year by playing games with the night watchmen, would they have time to visit the inn as a guest?

With such concerns, Zhou Qian frowned slightly when he discovered he could not contact Bai Zhou.

Beside him, He Xiaowei temporarily interrupted his thoughts. “But what exactly is the identity of the innkeeper? Why does she want to meet the Red God?”

After a moment of silence, Zhou Qian said, “Let’s solve the problem by thinking in groups of three. The present, future, past represent time and space; red, yellow, blue are the three primary colors; regarding humans, ghosts, and gods, we are still missing ‘god’.”

“Human refers to the villagers,” He Xiaowei said. “Although the Red God has ‘god’ in its name, it is actually a great ghost from another world. The Red God is a ghost. So, we have humans, we have ghosts, as for gods…”

Something clicked, and He Xiaowei’s eyes lit up. “Damn, I really feel like I’ve made progress! The only god we’ve seen… is that golden statue in the Temple of the Goddess of Prayers!”

Zhou Qian nodded. “Correct. Difu. If we speculate using the trinity thought process, the innkeeper is likely Difu.”

According to the information found by the players in the temple, Difu was locked in the temple by Vels, the God of Imprisonment, who loved her. There was a chain around the statue’s ankle.

The king of the Land of Silence lost a golden feather, entered the temple to make a wish, and inscribed a curse on a stone tablet. He suspected Amei had stolen the golden feather, wished for its return, and cursed that disaster would befall Amei’s hometown before it was found. If the feather was found, as a reward, he would unlock Difu’s chain.

Judging by the unlocked chain of the statue, the king had found the feather, and the magician Liu Shui used the “Key of Freedom” to release Difu from her bindings.

From then on, the temple became a movable temple.

So… what about the temple’s master, Difu?

Although that golden statue was in the temple, where was her real body or soul?

She likely turned into the innkeeper Tartar and came to Nameless Village.

Realizing the key point, He Xiaowei immediately said, “The Goddess Difu helped fulfill the king’s curse. The king found the golden feather, allowing the magician Liu Shui to restore her freedom…”

“Can we understand that Difu and the Land of Silence are on the same side? If the king and the magician want to kill us with a ban, then the person who has been helping us by hinting at the existence of the ban, definitely cannot be Difu!”

“The one who hinted at the existence of the ban to help us, is not Difu, I agree with this. As for whether she still stands with the Land of Silence now, it’s hard to say. To put it bluntly, the story of the Temple of Prayers is just a transaction. But what can be seen is that Difu’s attitude is quite subtle,” Zhou Qian said. “Difu turned into Tartar, the innkeeper. Someone magically changed the color of her glass. We noticed this, and she definitely did too.”

“If she really was on the king’s side, she could have simply changed the glass back. Once the glass is transparent, the color trick doesn’t work anymore. Any color of fire we light could be seen through the clear glass.”

“Therefore, in my view, it’s still hard to judge her stance.”

“Heh… so, Difu isn’t on the king’s side, and she doesn’t necessarily want to kill us,” He Xiaowei said. “She has no obvious malice towards us.”

“So this means—” Zhou Qian said, “maybe we have a chance to see how she hosts the Red God.”

As he spoke, Zhou Qian walked towards the room’s door. “Let’s go. Call Xiao Qi and the others. Let’s not just stay in the room. If possible, let’s all meet the Red God together.”

He Xiaowei: “Damn, but Tartar said not to go out at night?”

“She told us it’s best to stay in separate rooms and not to wander around at night… She probably just wanted to prevent us from seeing her meeting with the Red God,” Zhou Qian said. “But I must know the content of their conversation. I must meet this Red God.”

“Are you serious, Qian’er?”

As Zhou Qian was already out the door, He Xiaowei immediately followed him into the hallway. “As I understand it, the Red God is the boss we have to fight this time, right? Are you rushing to fight the boss?”

When He Xiaowei said this, Zhou Qian was already knocking on Qi Liuxing’s door.

Qi Liuxing, hearing this, opened the door and looked towards He Xiaowei in the hallway, and immediately said, “Xiaowei Ge, isn’t this just Zhou Qian’s style?”

“What do you mean? You’re going to mess around with him?” He Xiaowei asked.

Zhou Qian, standing in the hallway and having pushed the door wide open, looked towards Qi Liuxing inside the room and, with a meaningful pat on his shoulder, shared the insights and observations from the mountains.

Finally, Zhou Qian said, “So, all the villagers will die in the future, maybe killed by the Red God. Don’t you want to save them? Can you bear to watch them just die like that?”

Qi Liuxing: “I…”

Zhou Qian: “You won’t abandon them, right? You’re not that kind of person.”

Qi Liuxing: “……”

Zhou Qian: “Then come with me to meet the Red God.”

Qi Liuxing: “…………”

He Xiaowei: “Damn, count me in! I suddenly feel fired up, just like when we fought the S army together last time!”

Moments later, everyone except the two girls had gathered in Qi Liuxing’s room.

The door was left ajar, allowing sounds from the hallway and even the downstairs hall to be heard.

This was especially easy for Hidden Blade, given that a Rank God player’s senses were much sharper than those of ordinary people.

At 12:10 AM, it was indeed Hidden Blade who first made a silent gesture to everyone, saying, “Someone’s knocking on the downstairs door. Someone has arrived.”

He Xiaowei quickly perked up his ears and indeed heard some talking.

He could clearly tell that two women were speaking.

However, to his surprise, both voices sounded very strange, almost like static. It was like the noise a radio makes when it’s not tuned to the right frequency—

One female voice said, “Buzz buzz buzz…”

Another female voice said, “Squeak buzz gargle…”

“What the heck is this bird language,” He Xiaowei couldn’t help but blurt out.

Zhou Qian simply said, “Perhaps this is why beings from the other world cannot communicate with humans.”

One of the female voices must belong to the Red God visiting the inn, who was unable to communicate directly with people, leaving the players to hear only static noises coming from her mouth.

The other female voice should belong to the innkeeper Tartar, or rather, Difu, the Goddess of Prayers. It seemed that she wasn’t only capable of communicating with humans but could also communicate with the Red God without any barriers, not needing to use a dog for communication.

If he sent out the little dragon, could it understand their conversation?

Wait. They had a fox here.

Zhou Qian turned his head and looked at Hidden Blade.

Indeed, Hidden Blade wasn’t standing near the door with his ears perked like the other players; instead, he sat far away on the bed’s edge, frowning slightly, appearing to be listening intently. It seemed he indeed understood the conversation between the two women.

“Hey, Hidden Blade, you’re also white. According to this world’s setting, you can communicate with ghosts. How about it—” Zhou Qian whispered to him, “Great Fox Immortal, can you translate?”

Hearing this, Hidden Blade gave Zhou Qian a look that was hard to describe.

Zhou Qian added, “Right, I suddenly remembered, Zhou Ge praised your intuition.”

Hearing this, Hidden Blade blinked a few times, seemingly incredulous. “Did the boss really… praise me?”

“Yes, he did,” Zhou Qian said earnestly. “So, what does your intuition tell you? Which side is Difu on, and which side harbors malice towards the players?”

Hidden Blade thought for a while and said, “I don’t feel any malice from the Red God towards us. As for Difu… my feelings towards her are more chaotic.”

“Chaotic?” Zhou Qian frowned.

“Or perhaps a better word would be… tumultuous?” Hidden Blade said, “In any case, I feel many elements related to evil in her. As for malice towards the players, it’s not particularly noticeable.”

Zhou Qian didn’t continue to inquire but simply asked Hidden Blade to translate again.

Hidden Blade sat calmly on the chair by the bed and truthfully relayed what he had heard.

The senses of Rank God players were far sharper than those of ordinary people. Every sound downstairs was clearly transmitted to his mind through his ears, even automatically forming vivid images.

There were three knocks on the door downstairs.

Then Innkeeper Tartar said, “Please.”

Next, Hidden Blade didn’t directly hear the sound of the door opening, leading to the assumption that the Red God appeared directly inside the room and sat down.

The innkeeper served her a large bowl of meat soup with an iron spoon. “Eat as much as you like. You can also take it over there for them.”

“Thank you for this year as well,” the Red God said.

“There’s no need to be polite. It’s not easy for people to meet each other,” the innkeeper said.

The Red God paused for a moment before continuing, “I’m no longer human now.”

The innkeeper smiled and said, “But you once were.”

The Red God didn’t speak. She merely slurped the meat soup, saying, “The annual slaughter in this village is quite fun. The curse I placed in the Temple of the Goddess of Prayers really worked. Speaking of which… I should thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Listening to the curses of humans, listening to the curses of ghosts… this might just be my fate,” the innkeeper said. “Every god exists for a reason. My purpose is to fulfill your curses, as long as you are devout enough.”

“I’m certainly devout. Otherwise, things might not have gone so smoothly. If it weren’t for the curse… how could I have become a Red God? And how could I have used the power of the Red God to take revenge on these villagers?” the Red God said. “So, I really want to thank you. My power was bestowed upon me by you, the Goddess.”

“I can feel that you went to the temple again,” the innkeeper said. “But I haven’t gone back yet. What is your curse this time?”

The Red God said, “I once cursed myself to become the Red God, forever unable to return to the human world or become human again. Of course, this was because I thoroughly hated humanity. They betrayed me.”

“But over these years… I’ve actually grown tired of it. So, now I directly curse that all the villagers of this Nameless Village will die out.

“I want the four families of Sun, Moon, Star, and Cloud to forever disappear from this world!”

……

On the other side, in the mountains.

After midnight arrived, the moonlight became exceptionally bright.

Bai Zhou stood alone on a mountain path, watching as the thirty or so people he had killed reappeared before him, as if unaware they had been killed by him, continuing to invite him to meet the Red God.

Bai Zhou held the Breaking Dawn Tang sword in his right hand, keeping his composure, pretending not to notice anything, and said to Village Chief Ab, “Okay, lead the way to the Red God.”

Village Chief Ab smiled slightly and indeed led everyone towards the west.

But just a few steps out, Bai Zhou heard a complex set of footsteps coming from further west.

He wasn’t sure if these resurrected people, or rather souls returned to the mortal world behind him, could hear those sounds. However, as a Rank God player, he heard them exceptionally clearly.

One of the voices was Alayne’s, but surprisingly, another was Village Chief Ab’s.

Alayne was heard asking, “Lord Abu, where are you taking me?”

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The author has something to say:

Because a little angel said they didn’t understand yesterday, I took some extra effort at the beginning to smooth things out for everyone~

Should be okay now, right?

Actually, the story being told now is from Amei’s perspective. She married into the Land of Silence as requested by the king of the Kingdom of Words and the four major families. Her purpose was to steal the golden feather, which she indeed managed to do, healing both the villagers and the king of the Kingdom of Words. However, when the golden feather was lost, the Land of Silence came to retaliate, and the Kingdom of Words pinned all the blame on Amei. Amei was turned into a horse as punishment, and afterwards, she went to the Temple of the Goddess of Prayers to curse herself to become the Red God after death. So, Zhou Qian and the others now believe the innkeeper is the temple’s master, the Goddess Difu.

So now, after Amei died and indeed became the Red God, she believes she was betrayed by the villagers, hence her revenge on the villagers.

Zhou Ge is a dragon, capable of communicating with the Red God, Amei.

Additionally, during a conversation between Zhou Ge and the Red God, it was mentioned that he believes the one who hinted at the ban to the players (deserters) was likely Amei.

The players became deserters, betraying the Land of Silence, because they helped Amei, so Amei would help them.

That’s all.

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