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Zong Jiu felt that the words he said yesterday might have had some earth-shattering effects.
Yesterday night, everyone surrounded the fire and talked for a whole night. When it was almost dawn, many people couldn’t hold on anymore and fell asleep.
The sky was about to brighten, and there were many people bunched together. Zong Jiu wasn’t afraid either and also took a short nap.
Once he woke up, white was already gradually appearing on the eastern horizon.
It was just that the weather was still not any better today, gloomy and without a trace of life.
Perhaps it was a sequelae from all the times he had to adjust his sleep schedule on the plane because of the time difference when he was performing world wide, but Zong Jiu’s sleep had never been too deep or for too long. As long as he got enough sleep for a human body to function normally, then it was enough.
He was woken up by the noise, but he was still in good condition. Looking at the other people, their faces all showed very obvious signs of tiredness.
“What happened?” Zong Jiu took the lead in climbing up from the ground and patted the dust on himself.
They were all woken up by the noise.
“Ah… My head hurts so much. How come so many people are quarreling this early?”
Xu Su rubbed his sleepy eyes. After realizing that he was still in a horror instance, his eyes immediately became round as he tried to dispel his lingering sleepiness.
In a house not far away, following behind Black-Robed Azan, Anthony led people, pushed open the door, and stepped out.
Their faces all held vigilance. Seeing the newcomers by the fire who were a mess and disorganized from sleeping, their gazes very uniformly contained contempt.
Being able to sleep like this in a horror instance, this group of newcomers probably wouldn’t be able to see the sun in the next few days. They weren’t worth being vigilant against.
After they left with their chins up, the newcomers were also mostly fully awake.
After waking up, no one made any moves, and everyone looked towards the white-haired young man standing off to the side.
Zong Jiu, who was stared at by everyone, said,“… Since we’re all awake, should we also quickly go and take a look?”
Then, the group of people followed behind Zong Jiu like this, advancing forward vigorously.
Obviously, after last night’s deep talks, all the newcomers had put their trust in the leader newcomer who was the strongest, following his lead.
Zong Jiu himself also hadn’t thought that he, a complete and genuine mole who didn’t spend a lot of effort winning over people’s hearts like Messiah and had only run his mouth off once, would actually achieve such results. He couldn’t help but feel flattered.
The first time he ran his mouth off, Zhuge An got a clue from him. The second time he ran his mouth off, he created a giant misunderstanding. This showed that he had to quit running his mouth off!
For the first time in a long time, an emotion close to compassion appeared in Zong Jiu’s heart.
Once he had completed his main task, he would just lend a hand to these unlucky kids who were being used by the mole and didn’t even know about it. Even the mole himself couldn’t bear to watch anymore, how pitiful.
Once they had rushed over, the situation just happened to reach a red-hot state.
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“Search! Go search! She must still be hiding in the village!”
Once the other villagers heard this, they searched house by house. The sound of the door being kicked open came one after another.
Irrelevant people were all driven into the empty central plaza. No one was allowed to stay in the mud houses. After a while, some people stood in the village plaza in a scattered manner. Most of the people were trainees.
“They don’t have a single woman in this village.” Xu Su quietly said.
Not only did they not have any women, there weren’t many old people either. Looking over, those holding hoes were all skinny men.
“Didn’t the plot introduction show that all the women were sold to the human trafficker by this group of bastards?”
Xu Sen disdainfully said, “As for old people… sigh, I once entered a C-rank instance called Withered Cave. That instance’s setting is similar to this one. It is also set in a mountain village.”
Withered Cave referred to an old cave deep in the mountains. The cave was filled with human bones, and the skeletons turned into resentful spirits and enveloped the entire mountain top, causing the series of supernatural events that happened afterwards. That was the basis of the C-rank instance.
Following the contenders’ investigations, in the end, they found out that the Withered Cave was a place especially prepared for the elderly. At that time, they didn’t have enough to eat. For the sake of not dragging back their kids, the elderly in the village would secretly run into the mountain and starve themselves to death.
That’s why the location of the Withered Cave was chosen to be deep in the mountains, and the inside of the cave was filled with sharp stalactites. When they really couldn’t handle the hunger anymore, the elderly would bang their head on them, ending their life.
After hearing this story, the other people all sank into silence.
The villagers over there had gathered together to report. After Wang Shou heard them, he was burning with anger, “How could you guys not find her? That bitch is definitely still in the village!”
He was still kicking up a storm when the village head whacked his head with his cane.
“What time is it? Making so much noise in the morning?! You guys still haven’t learned from Lao Qiang’s incident yesterday?”
Very obviously, Wang Shou was a tyrant in front of the villagers, but in front of his old man, he wasn’t very confident, “Dad, that’s because that bitch stabbed me with a hairpin.”
“I should’ve tied her up and sold her with that girl long before she ran back to her parents’ house, ptui.”
The old village head looked at his bleeding arm, “Okay, okay. First find some medical herbs and apply them. Then quickly bring people to the temple.”
“That woman is a widow. Would her parents be willing to take her in? In the end, she still has to come back. It’s not too late to deal with her once we’ve caught her.”
Wang Shou looked like he was convinced. He viciously took the cloth strip that was handed over and pointed at a few people, “You guys go guard the village exit.”
Tongbai village was situated deep in the mountains. If someone wanted to leave the village, there was only one path, unless they went deeper into the mountains. However, not only were there no villages deeper in the mountains, there were also a lot of vicious beasts and insects. It was impossible for her to go there. As long as they blocked the path exiting the village, she was just a woman; they would catch her eventually.
After those villagers heard this, they obediently went to guard the exit to the village. The other people, who obediently stood behind Wang Shou, started walking towards the back of the village.
Before leaving, the village head, who was leaning on his cane, said a few sentences. Thus, those villagers walked over while holding their hoes and viciously yelled towards the trainees, “You refugees, come over here too! Hurry!”
What was this for?
Everyone looked at each other, and then they all went over.
The group turned left and then right before arriving at the back of the village.
At the back of the village, there was an area that was enclosed by a solid mud wall. Zong Jiu glanced inside and found out that this place was really the place that everyone was discussing about in front of the fire last night.
The soil inside the mud wall was red. Not only this, the surface of the ground inside was much lower than outside the mud wall. It could be seen that people often came here to take it.
“What are you looking at? What are you looking at?”
The villagers who were guarding them all rushed over with hoes, “Go, go, go. I just knew that you refugees wouldn’t be good and honest.”
The white-haired young man tilted his head, pulled out a dollar coin as if performing a conjuring trick, and then quietly stuffed it into that villager’s hand.
“This big brother, you really misunderstood. We are all refugees who escaped from many miles away. How could we know anything about this? This is just a meager gift to show our respect. How about you tell us something about it?”
The Strange Black Box was simply great. Although many people classified this A-rank prop as useless, to Zong Jiu, it was truly too useful.
The other people all watched his movements with their eyes and mouths wide open.
[Fuck, that’s the money of this era? Where did he pull that out of?]
[I also wanted to ask. This whole time, everyone was broke. How come only he has money?]
[Hahaha, /You guys know nothing about the ability of the Magician.jpg]
The villager squeezed the silver dollar coin in his hand, and his attitude immediately did a 180.
Zong Jiu’s gaze moved and happened to meet the unkind gaze of Anthony and Yi Ruisi, who were standing not far from him.
In Las Vegas, he had become enemies with them. Although Zong Jiu didn’t care, he wasn’t kind enough to have the noble idea of giving information to people who didn’t like him.
“Wait, come a bit closer and then tell us.”
“Okay.” Because of money, the villager was very agreeable.
Everyone had some evil inherently. There were three people responsible for watching over them, the refugees, and only he got money. If it was seen by the other two villagers, he would definitely need to split it with them. Compared to splitting, the villager undoubtedly wanted to have it all to himself. Thus, he cooperated and lowered his voice a lot.
“You outsiders definitely don’t know that my village was once enlightened by the bodhisattva.”
That villager mysteriously opened his mouth, “In the ancient times, a bodhisattva recused and helped people here. After accumulating enough merits, he became a bodhisattva on the spot. In order to express his thanks, he dipped a willow branch in a jade vase of sweet dew and drew over a piece of land here. It’s said that as long as you eat the Sacred Herb grown on this piece of land, then you would never grow old or become hungry.”
Sacred Herb?
Zong Jiu exchanged a glance with Zhuge An and then turned around to look at the red ground behind the wall.
The ground was bare, completely barren. There was nothing on it, and there was only a thin layer of red soil as well. It couldn’t be more barren.
However, in years of famine, there were indeed records of eating dirt. Dirt that could be eaten was called “Guanyin dirt”.
Except, this Guanyin dirt was a white-gray clay like dirt. People would only eat it when they were extremely hungry and had nothing else, and if they ate too much, their stomach would become bloated. Their intestines would also be full of soil and stones. When that happened, they wouldn’t be far from death.
“Since it’s a Sacred Herb, how could you get it so easily?”
Seeing the doubt on their faces, the villager explained, “No living seeds or trees are able to live after being transplanted into this soil. This soil is very precious.”
Saying this, he pointed at the temple in the back, “You see. That temple was built by my village for the bodhisattva.”
As expected, behind this enclosed bodhisattva dirt, there was a red brick temple quietly standing there that was very incompatible with the surrounding dusty and old mud houses.
In such a time of famine, they could still repair such a good temple and eat bodhisattva dirt for every meal. It seemed that everyone in this village believed deeply in their legend.
Zong Jiu thought for a moment and looked at the black pupils of the villager who was looking over that were much larger than an average person. Then he continued to walk forward with the rest of the group.
The group’s goal was precisely that gorgeously built temple.
Right then, Zhuge An suddenly walked to his side silently.
Under everyone’s gaze, he suddenly said a sentence.
“Do you have anyone you suspect?”
The other people all subconsciously looked over towards them.
Under the watch of countless pairs of eyes, the black-haired man was still indifferent. He didn’t even lower his voice.
Zong Jiu raised his eyebrow, “Oh?”
“As long as more than five people identify the same person as the mole.”
Zhuge An’s tone of voice was calm, “And it is judged to be correct by the system, then we’ll immediately have the right to kill the mole.”
“If we can successfully get rid of the mole, then the factors used to calculate grade would be directly tripled.”
Zhuge An secretly looked at Anthony and the rest who were viciously looking over. Then he stared at the white-haired young man’s eyes, his words containing subtle meaning, “Directly ascending to the S-rank, are you not tempted?”