"Didn't I tell you? I'm a divine being. Whether you believe it or not, you believe it now, right?" Lu Yibei said, raising her eyebrows at ng Raoze.
As her words fell, she suddenly felt a slight warmth in her eyes, a warmth unlike the discomfort she felt when encountering urban legend before.
Instead, it was a warm, gentle sensation, sowhat like a hot compress, giving her an indescribable feeling of comfort.
At the sa ti, she entered an indescribably strange state. A subtle anticipation, like a spark about to ignite, slowly rose in her heart.
And then...
"Girl, don't joke around. What kind of divine being are you?" ng Raoze let out a dry laugh and said this. Just as a smile appeared on his lips, he suddenly felt a chill on his neck. Out of the corner of his eye, he glimpsed the cold glint reflecting off the cleaver and swallowed his smile back down.
He was like a basin of cold water poured over her, instantly extinguishing the spark that hadn't fully ignited in Lu Yibei's heart. She imdiately snapped out of that strange state she was just in.
Lu Yibei, "..." What kind of divine being am I not? I thought Ju ng didn't look very grand either!
"If you don't believe it, fine!" she said irritably. Then, changing the subject, she steered the conversation back on track. "Okay, let's continue with the part where I ask and you answer."
Lu Yibei said, brandishing the cleaver in front of ng Raoze's eyes as if threatening him.
"After hearing the serpent language, can you beco a Priest? What do those with similar experiences to you mainly do after becoming Priests?"
"No, not at all." ng Raoze shook his head and sighed, "If it were that easy to beco a Priest, it wouldn't be called a lifelong nightmare..."
As he spoke, his state gradually beca strange. His body trembled uncontrollably, cold sweat beaded on his forehead, his eyes twitched and rolled like soone having a seizure, and he occasionally blurted out syllables of the serpent language.
Beneath his skin, the light within his chest, shaped like a blood-red lantern, flickered much more rapidly.
It was as if so vast and absurd madness was gripping him from the shadow behind him, pressing on every resilient nerve and destroying every drop of his warm blood.
In the end, the words that ca out of his mouth had completely turned into the serpent language.
But Lu Yibei understood and didn't interrupt. Instead, she quietly listened to him continue.
...
Those Priest candidates in the village, after hearing the serpent language, would occasionally see strange images even during the day.
So saw distorted shadows writhing in dark corners, so saw empty villages with strange figures walking with blood-red lanterns, and so saw so kind of giant beast hidden in the endless black mountains.
Sothing would also gradually grow within them, sothing that devoured their bodies, their claws and teeth making chilling, subtle sounds as they rubbed together.
During those tornting years, many would gradually waste away and eventually die silently one day, their bodies broken open by the blood-red lantern.
Only a few, clinging to their remaining sliver of rationality, managed to endure. And this small group of people were "lucky" enough to beco the village's Priests and live in the ancestral hall.
The work of the Priests is simple. Most of the ti, they are in a semi-hibernating state, communicating with divine beings, and learning knowledge that ordinary people find difficult to understand in bizarre dreams.
...
Upon hearing this, Lu Yibei suddenly thought of a very familiar scene that often caused her insomnia and couldn't help but interject, "Learning in dreams?"
ng Raoze hesitated for a mont, but glancing at the cleaver on his neck, which would slice open his throat with just a little force, he nodded.
"Yes, in dreams. In dreams, we see divine beings. After waking up, we learn many miraculous things. So learn more, so learn less, and most of it is different."
Oh, in that case, it's fine. In my dreams, I always learn things with Du Sixian, so it shouldn't be a similar situation... Lu Yibei muttered to herself, nodding to signal ng Raoze to continue.
...
A very small portion of them, in the process of communicating with divine beings, are fortunate enough to leave here and go to the outside world to bring back # Nоvеlight # food for this place.
Most of the Priests, however, only erge from the ancestral hall in early spring and late autumn each year to organize the villagers for the twice-yearly Sacrificial Ceremony.
And the offerings used in the Sacrificial Ceremony are the urban legend that were attracted by the Great Serpent God's corpse and broke into the Bamboo Scroll Illusion.
The corpse of a mythical urban legend that has existed for who knows how many years is not disgusting to those lower-level urban legend. On the contrary, it makes them feel like it emits a sweet, honey-like scent.
...
"Wait, you use urban legend to sacrifice to the divine being? I thought, I thought those urban legend were your food, not..." Lu Yibei stopped short.
She had already deeply experienced the side effects of devouring the core of urban legend.
According to the records in the si ye shu, excessive consumption of urban legend cores can affect even fully evolved mythical beings with the mories and emotions contained within the urban legend cores.
How many years has that set of bamboo slips existed? A thousand years? Two thousand years? Or even longer!
During this ti, have the villagers here been using urban legend to sacrifice to their divine being? Isn't this courting death? Lu Yibei thought. Perhaps that mythical being went crazy long ago!
This thought made her feel a little scared. If it were a mythical being with a shred of rationality, perhaps it could be "talked down." A completely insane mythical being would likely launch a storm-like attack upon first contact.
"Those monsters are indeed our main source of food," ng Raoze replied in the serpent language. "But only dead monsters are a blessing; the living ones are offerings to the divine being."
"According to village records, in the fifth year after our ancestors imprisoned the divine being, the land could no longer grow crops. In the tenth year, all the birds and beasts in the mountains were eaten."
"By the thirteenth year, only one jar of pickled vegetables was left from the seven villages. Because of that jar of pickled vegetables, a large-scale ard conflict broke out, and then..."
At this point, ng Raoze grinned, and a strange arc appeared at the corners of his mouth on his aged face, making him look like a large serpent with its mouth agape.
"...And then, the villagers had food again and managed to survive for many years."
Upon hearing this, Lu Yibei felt as if sothing was forcefully churning in her stomach, and she couldn't help but have a spasm.
Although the idea of a large-scale tragedy caused by a group of people fighting over a jar of old pickled vegetables sounds sowhat ridiculous.
However, she had carefully observed the surroundings when she arrived. She clearly rembered that there were only three or four villages nearby.
But ng Raoze said there were once seven villages and that they had food after the ard conflict. Hidden behind these words was the phrase "eating people."
Lu Yibei rubbed her stomach with one hand, suppressing the discomfort, and casually asked, "You just said 'main source,' so are there other sources?"
...
ng Raoze didn't answer Lu Yibei's question. He remained silent, stiffly turning his head to look towards the main hall's entrance. His deep gaze seed to penetrate the door and see the large water vats in the small courtyard.
Lu Yibei followed his gaze and glanced towards the courtyard, then quickly withdrew her sight. She tilted her head and said, "The things in those water vats? What are those things?"
"Those are... children with severe deformities who couldn't be raised."
ng Raoze answered in a sinister tone, and Lu Yibei imdiately felt a chill run up her spine to her head.
Unbelievable! Do people here really eat everything? Crazy, crazy, this cursed place, not only is the divine being crazy, but the villagers have also been driven mad.
"I deeply admire your customs here. If I had known you lived such hard lives, I would have brought so enoki mushrooms when I ca and taught you how to exploit a bug to perfectly solve the food problem."
Hearing that the food problem could be solved, ng Raoze imdiately beca energetic. He looked at Lu Yibei with burning eyes and eagerly pressed, "Enoki mushrooms? What are those?"
Lu Yibei didn't expect her casual remark to elicit such a strong reaction from him and awkwardly said, "This... you wouldn't want to know. It's quite disgusting."
After saying that, she thought that compared to what the villagers here ate, it didn't seem that disgusting after all?
Never mind, it's better not to give them false hope.
Lu Yibei thought, deciding not to dwell on the food issue with ng Raoze any longer.
In her opinion, after understanding the general background of this village, it was ti to get straight to the point and ask for information about the mysterious knowledge the strange girl ntioned.
"Alright, last question. You said you learned a lot of knowledge in your dreams. Can you tell about that knowledge?"
As her words fell, ng Raoze's body suddenly trembled violently, as if he had seen sothing extrely terrifying. His pupils contracted sharply, followed by a hysterical scream.
"No, no! I didn't tell her, I didn't..."
His initial screams were in human language, but soon, his voice beca strange. Every sound was distorted, bizarre, difficult to understand, and filled with unconcealed malice.
His body seed to be compressed by so terrifying force, twisting and deforming, curling into a ball. His expression was like a mixture of wild laughter and loud crying, of excitent and despair.
As if sensing sothing, Lu Yibei's eyes began to burn intensely.
In a trance, she saw those towering, continuous figures, surging like dark rivers through the ancient, black mountains. Countless soldiers holding blood-red lanterns, wearing ancient armor, and wielding rusty weapons, crawled all over its body like ants, constantly attacking...
"Dong dong dong—dong dong dong—!"
Just as the scene before Lu Yibei's eyes beca clearer, a rapid knocking sound pulled her back to reality from the bizarre illusion.
She looked at ng Raoze lying on the ground. Large patches of bruises had appeared on his body at so point, shaped as if he had been tightly coiled by a python.
"Who is it?" Lu Yibei asked tentatively.
ng Raoze was silent for a few seconds, then weakly said, "Hui婆, it's Hui婆. They've co to get the offerings..."
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