Chapter 35: There is something unclean in the village!

"...That is the situation."

"If you are discovered by the others in the village, things will become quite dangerous."

"I'm going to buy some oranges. Stay here; do not move," Wu Wang said solemnly after explaining her current dire predicament.

The best-case scenario was that the [Spirit Calamity Game] had used reality as a blueprint to construct this instance world, and the girl before him was merely an AI version of Wu Xiaoyou.

The worst-case scenario—

This was the past, five years ago.

His actions here would affect the true reality. If the girl version of Wu Xiaoyou died in this wretched village, even his second sister, who bickered with him at home every day, would vanish.

But regardless, Wu Wang could not afford to gamble.

"Eh? Do I know you?" Wu Xiaoyou asked uncertainly, watching the little beggar stand up and prepare to leave.

This person gave her an inexplicable sense of familiarity, even a sense of safety and comfort.

Even after he had just finished a long string of utterly absurd explanations upon meeting her, she didn't feel the need to doubt him; she instinctively chose to believe.

"I have a common face. People can imitate my look, people can imitate my features, but they cannot imitate my scent."

Having said that, Wu Wang leaped high into the air.

To avoid breaking the wooden door, he chose to use a double jump to flip out through the hole in the ceiling.

Wu Xiaoyou, lying on the bed resting, was dumbfounded.

Holy crap! What was that?

Mama, I just saw kung fu!

Is this guy actually the reincarnation of Zhang Sanfeng?

Leaving the thatched hut, Wu Wang immediately began observing his surroundings—

Yinyuan Village was quite large, estimated to house over a hundred households. The houses were laid out in an orderly fashion, unlike the scattered, haphazardly built structures common in many rural areas.

No, rather than "orderly."

It felt more like the entire layout of the village had been intentionally designed into a specific pattern, though he couldn't judge the exact details since he lacked an aerial view.

Strangely, only one dark brown building directly opposite him shared the same mid-mountain location as his thatched hut.

All the other buildings were at the foot of the mountain.

He actually felt a bit of admiration for that middle-aged woman; she had to climb such a steep mountain path every time she brought food to Zhang Sanfeng.

After noting the suspicious points in the layout, Wu Wang sprinted down the mountain at an extremely high speed.

He was so fast that he even caught up to and overtook the middle-aged woman who had been walking slowly down the mountain just moments ago. Walking beside her was a scruffy, unkempt-looking middle-aged man.

The ability to double jump made the descent feel like walking on level ground for Wu Wang.

He dodged their attention and descended ahead of them.

As he neared the village entrance, the skin on his face suddenly began to melt. His physique filled out slightly, no longer looking like the scrawny, bamboo-stick-thin little beggar, and his facial features shifted to resemble the middle-aged woman who had just delivered the bread.

Since I'm already admiring her...

I might as well borrow her face for a bit.

Fortunately, the woman's figure hadn't changed too drastically.

Otherwise, his tattered, rag-like clothes really wouldn't have been able to hold the shape.

"Yo, Auntie Li, bringing food to that little madman again?" A shirtless man at the village entrance was busy slaughtering a pig and collecting blood. Seeing the woman disguised as Auntie Li, he struck up a conversation.

"That's right, can't bear to see the boy go hungry," Wu Wang replied, his tone perfectly natural.

Such seamless, excellent acting.

This was all thanks to a period of time when he had frequently attended high-intensity wedding banquets in hotels, as well as the occasional funeral or housewarming banquets in the streets and alleys.

Because the province where Mingyang City was located had quite severe traditions regarding banquets, people held feasts for every major or minor event to collect "social capital" money.

Wu Wang strongly criticized this behavior.

To that end, his contribution was spending an entire month where, for almost every meal, he would find a hotel with "XX and XX Wedding Celebration" hanging at the door and walk in, or see a funeral procession in an alley and walk in.

He would then claim to be a relative of one of the parties and find a seat to start eating.

If someone approached him to chat, he would make things up on the fly—mentioning distant aunts and uncles from all over the place, spinning tall tales that gave the other person the illusion that "that person actually exists."

Up until now, he had never been caught or kicked out for acting strangely.

"You've got a good heart. Better get back and prepare the sacrificial offerings; it's getting late," the man said cheerfully. His movements while bleeding the pig were efficient—fast, ruthless, and precise.

Clearly, he was a veteran butcher.

Wu Wang took the opportunity to ask, "What kind of sacrificial offerings is your family preparing this year?"

Hearing this, the man chuckled.

He patted the pig's back with his hand and said, "The usual three: two pigs, two cows, and two sheep! Though, Auntie Li, your family's crop harvest doesn't seem to be doing so well this year. Don't let the offerings be insufficient, or the Great Spirit of Yinyuan might get displeased."

"It's nothing, you go on with your work."

Wu Wang brushed it off with a laugh and entered the village.

A few minutes later, the woman and the man walked down the mountain.

Seeing the man busy with the slaughter, the woman called out, "Daozi, not finished yet?"

The man happened to be wiping sweat with a towel.

He responded instinctively, "Yeah, Auntie Li, you finished delivering the food and came down... Huh? Wait, didn't you go back just now?"

He immediately rubbed his eyes with the towel and blinked hard at the woman, his expression filled with confusion and bewilderment.

There was no mistake! The direction Auntie Li and Uncle Li were coming from was indeed from the front mountain.

Then who was the person talking to him just now?

Could he have encountered a ghost in broad daylight?

The man shivered involuntarily, feeling a chill run down his spine, especially since these few days were the special period for preparing the Great Yinyuan Sacrifice.

He was actually quite afraid of encountering something "unclean."

"What's wrong, Daozi? Why do you look like you've seen a ghost?" Uncle Li teased.

To his surprise, the man's face turned as miserable as if he had swallowed a fly, and he nodded.

"Uncle Li, I think I really did see a ghost."

"..."

The man recounted what had just happened.

Then, asking Uncle Li to lend a hand so he could finish the butchering quickly, he headed into the village to ask the elders about the situation.

Such an occurrence during these special days was indeed unsettling.

They wanted to know if any strange circumstances had occurred during the Great Yinyuan Sacrifice in previous years.

However, upon entering the village, they noticed that most of the villagers they passed had strange expressions on their faces.

Some even saw couples who were usually deeply in love shouting at each other, as if they had completely fallen out.

This left them utterly perplexed.

"What's going on, everyone? Why are you all acting like enemies?" Uncle Li stepped forward to stop them and ask.

One young man replied, "Sister-in-law says she saw Brother Wang go into a widow's house and close the door for a long time without coming out; Brother Wang says Sister-in-law was flirting with Dr. Chen; Sister Zhang says she saw her own kid talking nonsense to thin air in the clearing; and the eldest Zhang boy says his father inexplicably gave him a beating, but his father was helping set up the venue in the square at the time!"

"In short, many people have seen their family members appearing in places they shouldn't be."

"Uncle Li, don't you think this might be ghosts?"

"..."

Uncle Li and Daozi looked at each other.

Both felt their scalps go numb.

It seemed the incident at the village entrance wasn't an isolated encounter; it had already begun inside the village!

The two of them conferred.

They suggested going to find the Village Chief to ask what was happening, as he was experienced and knew a lot.

Unexpectedly, at that moment, a youth with a head full of bumps came running from the direction of the ancestral hall, crying, "Grandpa! Grandpa! Stop hitting me! I didn't do it!"

As the crowd inquired, their expressions became even more subtle.

This was the Village Chief's grandson.

People from the ancestral hall revealed that the boy had just walked in and started talking nonsense to the Village Chief.

There were only two specific sentences

"Grandpa! Since it's the Great Yinyuan Sacrifice these days, can you do me one favor?"

"I've been calling you 'Grandpa' for so many years; why don't you try calling me 'Grandpa' once?"

The entire Yinyuan Village fell into silence.

What kind of unclean thing had entered the village?