(For the Silver Alliance Leader, the random update cannot be used, and the completion progress is 5/50. Saying that you are going to do something but not doing it is also a kind of doing something~)
"Hong Yin?"
Suddenly hearing Hong Yin's voice, Bai Wu ignored the fire and became alert.
The surrounding scene began to change, as if returning to Jingliu's telephone booth area again. Bai Wu watched everything around him disintegrate bit by bit.
The fire at the Zhao family's house at the moment, the chaos caused by the mutated livestock outside the house,
From the moment Bai Wu left the witch's residence, the direction of the story changed completely.
Originally, it should have been the same as before, Bai Wu found the monster's obsession, and then moved the monster with words. Just like the first time he faced Hong Yin, but this time Bai Wu underestimated the degree of distortion of this spiritual world.
There are too many obsessions here, Zhu Jin and Zhao Kuan, the father of the Cui family who lost his child, Feng Haiping, the boss of the funeral business... they are all part of the obsession.
Completely soothing these obsessions can indeed allow a group of people to leave this world.
The white fog was indeed in a certain monster's brain, but in this monster's brain... there were two consciousnesses.
Hong Yin appeared beside Bai Wu. She was barefoot and her red skirt had black spots on it, but she looked extremely haggard.
Hong Yin, with a pale face, sat next to Bai Wu, and a mirror appeared in front of Bai Wu.
Bai Wu noticed... the balloon that Hong Yin always held in his hand was gone. He didn't know what this meant, but he felt a great sense of crisis in his heart.
All the stories, along with the images in the mirror and Hong Yin's voice... began to slowly surface.
"The grand sacrifice in the lake requires the sacrifice of a child between the ages of twelve and fifteen. This custom has been passed down for thousands of years. For thousands of years, the people of Zaohu have believed that this is a matter of course."
"It must be hard for me to imagine that there was such a remote and closed village in that era. Cui Zhengping of the Cui family was a craftsman. He had an ugly son named Shitou. The fortune teller said that his five elements were water and there would be a disaster of water in the future, so he was named Shitou."
"The fortune teller was actually right. The stone was indeed doomed to be ravaged by water. The stone was sacrificed in the grand sacrifice in the lake. On that day, they tied the stone to a wooden frame and placed the heads of livestock around it. The fortune teller chanted a set of incantations to pray for the blessing of the lake god. Everyone was laughing and talking, but Cui Zhengping's heart was bleeding."
"When the stone sank into the center of the lake, he heard the stone's desperate cry before death. He was shouting, Dad, save me."
The scene in the mirror at this moment was Shi Tou, who was tied to a wooden frame and was shouting. His hands and feet were tied and he could not move. He just kept his head raised and shouted at Cui Zhengping in a panic.
"No one rescued him, and the stone sank into the lake little by little. In fact, there was no need to tie him up, because at that time, the creatures in the lake had already begun to wake up..."
"For thousands of years, every household has been a victim of the lake festival. They have long been accustomed to it. In fact, some people have thought about abolishing it. The old man of the Zhu family thought about abolishing this custom after the festival because the families who lost their children were too painful. Cui Zhengping of the Cui family sighed all day long and made all kinds of paper figures at home."
"But the idea of abolishing it was stopped by the witch, because the next fifteen years would be the time for the Zhu family to offer sacrifices. Calculating the time, it started after Zhu Jin and Zhao Kuan got married. Brother may not know that girls in this village have to get married at the age of twelve or thirteen... They... They are very miserable. They have to become mothers when they are very young."
Bai Wu knew that before he came to this world, there was such a completely closed village in his world. The people in the village seemed to be still living in the previous era.
"The witch said that other families have offered sacrifices, and it's your generation's turn. You want to cancel it just like that? Then what are you going to do with the Cui family who just offered sacrifices? You have all seen the Lake God. Over the past thousands of years, have any ancestors seen the Lake God appear? This is the fate accumulated by our ancestors, how can we ruin it here?"
"The old man of the Zhu family thought about it and felt that everything was indeed like this. The birth of the lake god was like an auspicious sign. Anyone who saw the blooming antlers would think that the lake god could bring happiness to the village."
"Only Cui Zhengping thought differently. After the stone was sunk into the lake, he began to question everything. He was indeed not a good father. At least between the custom and his own child, he chose the old custom."
"But from this, he began to think that the lake god might be fake, or that the world was slowly changing... How could a deer have flowers growing out of its antlers? He didn't care how magical the deer was, he just knew that the stone would never come back."
A deer with flowers growing on its antlers and walking on water does sound very fairy-like, but Bai Wu knows that this deer is just a degenerate evil, which is not surprising.
There is only one thing that Bai Wu feels he needs to pay attention to—this deer is the first one to fall from grace in all the timelines Bai Wu currently knows about.
Because according to the fortune teller, many people had seen it twenty years before the grand festival in the lake.
This was earlier than Danderel, Violet, and any other evil that Bai Wu knew of in the Ninth Mental Hospital.
The reason why it happened so early, before Professor Tao and Xie Yingjie discovered that the end of the world was coming, an evil creature was born, made Bai Wu suddenly feel that... maybe it was related to the well.
Because in the traveler's map, this area is actually considered the outskirts of the well area.
The deer itself was pretty weird, too.
It showed no desire to attack humans, and as Hong Yin talked about the deer, corresponding images would appear in the mirror.
Bai Wu also saw the deer.
The deer's body was pure white, its antlers were majestic, and the white flowers it bloomed seemed to be illuminated by the moonlight. The deer's hooves lightly stepped on the lake, but not a single ripple was created.
Although the Eye of Prell did not give any information, Bai Wu always felt that... this deer was indeed not an evil creature.
No wonder the villagers firmly believe in the existence of the lake god. This deer is so beautiful.
The white jade-like body is tall and majestic, and the antlers make people feel infinite vitality.
Bai Wu was wondering, how can deer be born so good-looking? So far, including himself, which evil creature is not ugly? Except for Chen Shuyue who has maintained a human form.
"Could it be that... the earliest mutations actually involved positive mutations?"
If we don't care about the appearance and only consider strength, there is no positive mutation. As long as we can maintain our sanity and it doesn't affect our survival, the evil degeneration in Bai Wu's eyes is an alternative evolution.
But maybe... there is some higher form
All of this was just Bai Wu's guess, purely because the deer was so beautiful. His reverie about the deer was quickly interrupted by Hong Yin's words. Bai Wu could now understand why the people in this village believed so firmly in the existence of the Lake God.
"Cui Zhengping didn't like the deer, nor did he like everything. Although his child was ugly, Shitou was very sensible. He missed Shitou so much that the witch told him that making a paper man could ward off bad luck."
"He started making paper figures constantly, both to ward off bad luck and hoping that if Shitou came back one day, he would have a group of paper figures to play with him."
"The stone... has indeed returned. He has transformed into another form, which is what you saw, the monster covered in mud. Compared to the deer, one has become the god of the lake, and the other has become the evil spirit in the lake."
"But Stone... he has become a monster like me..."
Hong Yin suddenly stopped talking here, and Bai Wu could feel that there was something wrong with the little girl's mood.
She was kindhearted, and Shitou's tragic experience made her feel sad. Bai Wu held Hong Yin's hand, and he suddenly felt that Hong Yin's... aura became very clean.
The huge resentment from the past seemed to have completely disappeared.
"The stone is really like me. I didn't expect to meet someone who had a similar experience to mine. It turned into a monster, but it never forgot those people. It should hate them because it was these people who took their lives."
Bai Wu suddenly remembered that Hong Yin should have hated those doctors at that time.
But she just wanted to play with the doctors, but she looked too scary at the time.
Shitou's situation was very similar to hers. He had no ill will towards the villagers who killed him.
"The stone has gained the ability to sense danger. It appeared in front of everyone in an ugly manner and first informed the Wang family, but it... it can't speak. It is just a very low-level evil creature and does not have all the abilities of an intelligent species. Even its memory is incomplete..."
The degeneration of non-intelligent species, except for physical strength and superpowers, which can be considered evolution, all other aspects can be considered mutation and degeneration.
"It was so scary that everyone was frightened and instinctively feared it. It chirped in front of everyone, telling them that the Wang and Li families would be in danger soon, but... no one could understand what the stone was saying."
"No one knew how anxious Shitou was. The Wang family finally plucked up the courage and drove Shitou out with sticks. This was the first time Shitou appeared in front of everyone."
"The crisis that Shitou had anticipated soon came true, and the Wang family soon encountered an accident. And starting from the Wang family... more and more accidents happened in the village, mutated beasts, items with unknown uses after being possessed by spirits, diseases, and changes in people's hearts. The village seemed to be cursed, and people began to die frequently this year."
Hong Yin's other little hand clenched into a fist.
"Every day before death... the stone would appear in the house of the dying person and tell them that disaster was coming. But no one believed it... because the stone was not a white deer, it was just a monster as ugly as a water ghost. Disasters and death happened again and again, and the whole village was in a panic."
"The stone is not very smart. It has no idea that everyone has regarded it as some kind of evil spirit. Although it can sense that everyone dislikes it because it is too scary... But every time a bloody disaster occurs in a family, it will still stubbornly appear."
"Every time it appears, people become more convinced that it is evil. It is as lonely as it was when it was human, sitting by the lake like an alien... waiting for everyone to thank it."
"Even its father, Cui Zhengping, hates his..."
The following picture appeared in the mirror: the stone, like a water ghost, hid behind a pile of paper people. It missed its father so much, but it knew that it looked ugly and might scare its father.
So Shitou hid behind the paper man, dug out the paper man's eyes, and looked at Cui Zhengping through the holes in the paper man's eyes.
Ironically... what Cui Zhengping wrote on the red pillow was also words expressing his longing for his son.
"Cui Zhengping finally discovered that Shitou was hiding behind the paper man. Cui Zhengping was so scared that his soul was about to fly out of his body. His screams of fear forced Shitou to leave."
Bai Wu remembered that in the first scene, the person who wrote many things on the old calendar in the iron box was Cui Zhengping.
Cui Zhengping made a lot of paper figures, initially at the persuasion of a fortune-teller, and later in order to ensure that there would be someone to accompany his son's soul when it returned home.
"I knew it would be my turn someday, but I didn't expect it to come so soon... I saw that thing, it was all black, with very long hair, damn it! Damn it!"
Bai Wu still remembered this content, but he still didn't know that Cui Zhengping later prepared many talismans to restrain water ghosts. These talismans were pasted on the backs of paper figures and on the jars in the cellar.
Cui Zhengping became the first person who had seen Shi Tou but did not die, because Shi Tou came to see Cui Zhengping not to tell Cui Zhengping that he was in danger, but the child just missed his father too much.
"Then the stone did not appear again... Because one day, the stone saw the talisman paper pasted behind the paper man. It is indeed not smart, and cannot speak, but it can sense the father's disgust for it."
"Brother... Shitou must have felt very uncomfortable at that time..."
Bai Wu could more or less feel the pain of being hated by his father, but now he just felt that it was good enough that they just hated each other.
But what the stone was experiencing was actually more desperate. It was clearly longing for the love of its father.
It is the one that is truly cursed. No matter what it does, it seems to be getting further and further away from the villagers... further and further away.
Hong Yin's tone seemed quite self-blaming.
Bai Wu heard the self-blame in this, and thought of what Hong Yin said, that she had done something wrong. The resentment in her body became extremely thin, and she looked very weak. He realized that things might be worse than he had expected.
"In fact, it's not that no one understands the stone. Brother, the eldest son of the Zhao family played by you, as well as Zhu Jin... and Uncle Feng from the funeral shop, they all realized that the stone might not be a calamity."
No wonder they came out of the paper man cellar, which means that the story starts with the Cui family's sacrifice. No wonder the entrance to escape and enter the next level is in the red house and the white house.
Because the owner of the coffin and the couple who were getting married in the lobby might have played the role of the few good people in Shi Tou's life.
Bai Wu's expression became solemn. This story was about to have its final turn. He followed Hong Yin's words and said:
"I'm afraid the fate of these people is... not good?"
"Yes... Brother, I made the same mistake as them, judging people by their appearance. I really miss my grandma so much."
Hong Yin suddenly mentioned her grandmother, which made Bai Wu a little surprised. This story naturally had nothing to do with Hong Yin's grandmother.
But he remembered that Hong Yin seemed to have come to this village because she missed her grandmother. The person who combed her hair when she was a child...
Just continuing to think about Hong Yin's words, Bai Wu suddenly understood.