Author: 木尺素 / Mu Chisu

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

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Chapter 134

Finally seeing Zhou Qian, He Xiaowei couldn’t help but immediately share his experiences with him.

Not long ago, he felt as if he had made eye contact with the blue pupils on the statue. When he closed and then reopened his eyes, he saw several players instantly disappear from their spots.

He counted carefully: Zhou Qian, Bai Zhou, Yun Xiangrong, and the “Sword Qi Xiao Heart” duo—a total of five people were gone, leaving only Hidden Blade and Yin Jiujiu by his side.

Just as He Xiaowei got to this part, Zhou Qian interrupted him. “Are you sure it was just the three of you?”

“Yes, for sure.” He Xiaowei didn’t understand why Zhou Qian would ask this question, showing a somewhat puzzled expression, then continued, “Oh, Hidden Blade and Yin Jiujiu were dealing with people from the other world inside the inn. They should be coming out soon. I came out first to scout which time and space we’ve come to and unexpectedly ran into you!”

It seemed that Qi Liuxing was in the same time and space as Ke Yuxiao.

Indeed, it was Ke Yuxiao…

With this thought, Zhou Qian frowned, and his expression became very serious. His appearance made He Xiaowei unavoidably nervous. After all, it was rare for Zhou Qian to show such an expression.

“Qian’er? What’s, what’s wrong?” He Xiaowei didn’t wait for an answer but looked towards Bai Zhou instead.

Bai Zhou didn’t answer immediately but shook his head at him.

Then Zhou Qian changed the subject. “It’s nothing. Continue.”

“Oh. After we noticed you all disappeared, the three of us quickly discussed and guessed that you had traveled through time. But the three of us didn’t travel; we were still in the original time and space because those villagers immediately revived and chased after us again. Then we ran up the mountain!”

“Let me interrupt again,” Zhou Qian said. “Are you sure you saw a blue light?”

“Yes! It was a blue light!” He Xiaowei asked, “So—?”

Zhou Qian then said, “We can make a conclusion now. The red light takes people ‘back’, the yellow light ‘forward’, but this so-called ‘future’ and ‘past’ are relative. The baseline for relative calculation is the blue light, which signifies ‘now’.”

Zhou Qian was now completely certain of the time rules corresponding to the three colors.

When the players first arrived at the instance, before staying at the Tartar Inn, that was the real, historical moment. At that time, the eyeballs on the statue facing west were red.

Later, under the invitation of the innkeeper transformed into Difu, they went to the second floor to choose rooms and found a prohibition during this period.

While they were choosing rooms, the statue outside the inn turned unknowingly. The red eyeballs looked in every direction, thus taking everyone back to the past—to the time when Alayne was eight years old.

When the players walked out of the inn, they had already returned to the past.

Under Difu’s guidance, they went to the square to participate in the handkerchief throwing game. At that time, the eyeballs of the statue facing the square turned blue, but in that situation, that paradoxically meant “now”.

The red eyes of the statue rotated once, taking everyone back to the past, followed by the appearance of blue eyes, which then fixed that segment of time as the present.

Next, if continued to be illuminated by “red” eyes, players would go even further into the past.

Thus, “relative time” was the real meaning of the three colors on the magical tool.

Thinking this, Zhou Qian asked He Xiaowei, “How did you get here then?”

“This!” He Xiaowei took out a silver artifact. “Found it in the inn.”

The silver artifact He Xiaowei took out was as big as a palm, with three skulls on it.

The base of the three skulls resembled a Tibetan Buddhist prayer wheel, engraved with a dense array of incantations. Twisting the base would rotate the skulls, and the color of the eyes would change accordingly.

“Actually, I still haven’t figured out exactly how to use it. I just tried it, and unexpectedly found you!” He Xiaowei slapped his forehead. “Hey, my luck is really good!”

Zhou Qian took the silver artifact to examine it, then asked him, “Okay, now you can tell me what you discovered about Beilan.”

……

After Zhou Qian and the others disappeared, the players illuminated by blue light remained in the current time and space.

Hidden Blade was the first to notice that the villagers were reviving one after another, perhaps soon finding their way here.

Relying on his sharp hearing to judge the speed of the villagers’ revival and the direction they were heading, Hidden Blade then led everyone to run up the mountain.

But the villagers weren’t easy to shake off; their special origins and training quickly allowed them to detect the players’ location and swiftly pursue.

Chased by the villagers, the three of them hid here and there, accidentally reaching a valley and then seeing a grave with “Beilan” inscribed on the tombstone.

Such a character, who lived only in the story and was hardly discussed or mentioned from start to finish, actually had a grave in the instance, with a tombstone to boot…

Moreover, he wasn’t buried with the other villagers of Nameless Village but was laid to rest on a mountain outside the village’s boundaries. This information was enough to form a very obvious hint.

The name “Beilan” inscribed on the tombstone seemed not just a name, but a glaring message: “Come dig me up!”

Having been playing this game till now, no one shied away from digging graves anymore. They immediately began to dig up the grave, only to find that there was no body underneath—just a ceremonial mound.

He Xiaowei deliberately left a cliffhanger at this point, asking Zhou Qian, “Guess what we saw after we dug up the dirt?”

Zhou Qian cooperated very well, asking him, “What did you see?”

“Underneath were buried a dress and hair accessories!”

He Xiaowei seemed quite good at telling stories. The tone of shock in his voice suddenly intensified, almost exaggeratingly saying, “Beilan was actually a girl!”

In all stories related to Amei, Beilan’s gender was never explicitly mentioned.

Everyone knew she had been a guard, had escorted Amei to her wedding, and had heard that Amei loved her, so they automatically assumed she was a male.

After hearing He Xiaowei’s narration, Zhou Qian glanced at Amei, only to see her already asleep under the constraint of the red lotus.

There were some questions Zhou Qian couldn’t directly ask Amei, but he had already guessed the general idea in his heart.

He Xiaowei then said, “Actually, when we reached the ceremonial mound, the villagers didn’t continue to come after us. We guessed that area was already Red God Amei’s territory, so they dared not come.”

“So, thinking along those lines… since the ceremonial mound was established by Amei, she obviously built it near her base. Indeed, after leaving the ceremonial mound, it didn’t take us long to find this inn.”

Previously, Bai Zhou had been to the Red Gods Inn, but he took a different route and didn’t discover the tombstone.

Entering the inn, he found that Difu was likely the golden bird.

But at that time, Red God Amei had already gone to Zhou Qian’s side, and he, concerned for Zhou Qian’s safety, didn’t have time to explore further and immediately returned.

Now, recalling the details he saw related to the golden bird statue, Bai Zhou asked He Xiaowei, “The golden bird stretched out one claw to the ground, with three fingers on it, one of which had dust around it that seemed off, showing slight signs of movement. So, the mechanism is on that?”

“Yes!” He Xiaowei looked at Bai Zhou and replied, “We moved that finger, and the golden bird’s wings opened, then it revealed another claw holding the prop in my hand!”

Zhou Qian asked him, “Did you use the prop in front of the golden bird?”

“Yes!” He Xiaowei said, “The golden bird seemed to light up for a moment…”

“This world has three-dimensional spaces… It seems that even if the powers of the Red God and the Goddess of Prayers are great, they cannot traverse freely but need a medium, or rather, a spatial connection point.”

“These two inns are the spatial mediums.”

“Also, our travels back and forth all happen on the day of Samhain, which must be some kind of agreement between Amei and Difu.”

When Zhou Qian said this, he took the lead towards the inn, asking Alayne beside him, “When did you feel that you are the embodiment of the gods killing intent?”

Alayne was silent for a while, then followed Zhou Qian’s steps.

“When I was very young, I had a fierce energy about me. My mother said I’ve been hostile and wary of the people around me since I was a child, and they all said I was a difficult child to get along with.

“When the red lotus appeared, the thoughts of killing in my mind became clearer. And when… when the red lotus fully bloomed… I could clearly understand my mission.”

“At that moment, a thought just appeared out of nowhere in my mind—I have to eliminate all the villagers and Difu.”

“In other words, it’s like you were born with a murderous urge towards the villagers and Difu. But this urge was sealed and suppressed at first. As you grew up, it gradually became clear and exploded?”

“In a sense.”

“Hmm, when the red lotus was in full bloom, that’s when the killing intent fully formed. But besides that—” Zhou Qian asked her, “Do you have any memories, like from a past life?”

Alayne frowned. “What do you mean?”

“You seem to be quite good to Amei. Why?” Zhou Qian asked her.

“Because we were betrayed by the same group of people. I thought we could understand each other,” Alayne said. “But now I realize I was wrong.”

Zhou Qian suddenly said, “But just like Amei said, if we look solely at your experiences in this life, your hatred seems a bit excessive.”

“What do you mean?” Alayne was puzzled.

Zhou Qian continued, “The moment the red lotus was in full bloom, you felt the killing intent transmitted by your brain. You thought it was the killing intent bestowed upon you by the gods. But what ‘gods’ does this refer to?

“Is there really a war in the realm of the gods? Is there really a god guiding you?”

“Or let me rephrase the question. Does Difu really have a lover, and her lover is a malicious god, and she is so love-struck that she concocted all these conspiracies and schemes to help the malicious god?”

Alayne’s tone suddenly became somewhat panicked. “What… What exactly are you saying?”

Zhou Qian simply said, “What I mean is, what you believe to be ‘divine will’ might just be the power of a curse.”

“The gods who you believe are conveying killing intent to you might not be the ones from the so-called god wars who want to eliminate Difu. It could actually be Difu herself.”

After saying this, Zhou Qian arrived at the inn’s entrance, just as Yun Xiangrong finally got there, and Hidden Blade and Yin Jiujiu were coming out of the inn, both bearing significant injuries.

After coming out, they quickly performed a unanimous action—moving the seven pots of meat soup farther away.

Zhou Qian immediately understood their intent. “Did you hear our conversation?”

“We did. We were dealing with ghosts just now and couldn’t come out in time.” Hidden Blade wiped blood from the corner of his mouth. “Luckily, the prop allows the inn to exist in different time dimensions at the same time, so the ghosts were dispersed, and we didn’t have too many to deal with.”

“Are those inside now trapped by you?” Zhou Qian asked.

“Yes. I used my secondary control skills to trap them for a minute. Once they break free, hopefully, these pots of meat soup can divert their attention, so they won’t attack us again.”

As Hidden Blade answered Zhou Qian, he and Yin Jiujiu had already moved all seven pots out.

“Just to be safe, everyone put on the ghost costumes that Difu brought earlier. Save as much mana as possible now.”

Zhou Qian turned and spoke loudly to everyone. After changing into a ghost mask and a long black robe himself, he threw a set to Alayne.

After a while, everyone was dressed up, and they walked in together. Indeed, all the otherworldly beings were frozen in place, temporarily unable to move.

As Zhou Qian fiddled with the prop trying to traverse time, some ghosts freed themselves first but didn’t attack the players dressed as ghosts; instead, they were drawn away by the meat soup. The rest still couldn’t break free.

Before Zhou Qian operated the prop to traverse time, he asked Alayne a question. “How old are you now?”

Alayne frowned and said, “16.”

“When we met you, you were 8, so the time difference for each color is exactly 8 years,” Zhou Qian said. “Qi Liuxing and the others returned to 8 years before that. Maybe that’s when you were just born.”

With this, Zhou Qian looked at the other players. “Let’s first go back 8 years to find Xiao Qi.”

Among those present, only Bai Zhou and Zhou Qian knew that something happened to Qi Liuxing.

Yun Xiangrong, although in the same time space, had been following them from a distance. The rest, such as He Xiaowei, came from another time space and had no idea about the condition of their teammate.

Zhou Qian, with a serious expression, didn’t explain further. After asking He Xiaowei how he had used the prop before and confirming its pattern was the same as the statue at the entrance of the village, he operated it, making one of its pupils turn red.

As the red pupil rotated around, everyone went back 8 years.

“It should work now. Let’s go.”

As Zhou Qian turned to leave, he saw Alayne suddenly kneeling on the ground, tears streaming down her eyes.

Just then, Zhou Qian received a message from the [Memory Eyeball].

The Temple of the Goddess of Prayers contained countless cursed tablets, with too much information for players to read and memorize quickly, so Zhou Qian used this item to help remember everything in the temple.

When Zhou Qian and Bai Zhou were watching Alayne massacre all the villagers, they used this item to search for information stored about the temple, with the keywords [Alayne] and [Amei].

Searching for words related to Amei was, of course, to further clarify her story and verify whether she truly cursed all the villagers as she claimed.

As for searching for Alayne, it was because Zhou Qian wanted to know if she had also gone to the temple to inscribe a cursed tablet. After all, being betrayed by the villagers and harboring hatred, it would be easy to attract the temple’s appearance.

The [Memory Eyeball]’s search function took some time, so Zhou Qian only now received its answer, which contained no curses related to Alayne, but quite a few about Amei.

The content of Amei’s curses matched the information obtained by the players through their investigations—she cursed herself to become a Red God, cursed Nameless Village to live in her shadow with many dying every year, cursed the villagers to betray each other for a chance to live…

The last was about the curse related to the death of all villagers.

Regarding Amei’s ultimate curse, Zhou Qian and the others previously learned about it through eavesdropping, but at that time, they didn’t know the specific content of the curse until now—

“I originally thought to spare them. Watching the play of betrayal year after year, I’ve actually had enough. But now I’ve found that I can’t even find Beilan’s soul. She has never visited my inn. Why? Is she hiding from me?”

“I thought becoming a Red God would at least let me wait for her… but things turned out contrary to my wishes. My separation from Beilan in life, in death, and even not meeting after death… It’s all their doing.”

“I curse them all to die!”

“I want to use all my power to curse them! For this, I’m willing to give up everything! I have nothing left to cherish… Goddess Difu, take whatever you want.”

Putting away the [Memory Eyeball], Zhou Qian looked again at Alayne, who was in tears. In the moment the prop was activated, the overlap of multiple timelines must have brought all past events to her heart, causing her to show such an expression.

Zhou Qian couldn’t help wanting to test her current attitude.

After all, if she decided not to kill Difu anymore, then the difficulty for Zhou Qian to obtain the golden feather would further increase.

Thus, Zhou Qian asked, “Have you remembered everything? You’re 16 now. If we calculate based on the timeline you’re in, Amei’s visit to the Temple of the Goddess of Prayers to curse, happened exactly 16 years ago. Which means—”

“Right after she inscribed the cursed tablet in the Temple of the Goddess of Prayers that would lead to the death of the entire village, you were born.”

“Alayne, you are not the incarnation of divine killing intent descended into the human world. You are Amei’s killing intent.”

“You were born from Amei’s curse. But at the same time, I think… you are also the reincarnation of Beilan. Thus, by some twist of fate, Amei’s killing intent also included you.”

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