Read Novel Full Chapter 9.2 - Bride of the River God
Chapter 9.2 - Bride of the River God
It was a red spider monster!
Li Cancan immediately took two steps back and leaned against the cold wall behind her.
She couldn’t really see the scene in front of her and could only vaguely make out a large black shadow and the sound of heavy fist strikes.
“Your speed has been increased to 300%… Leave as soon as you encounter danger… The red spider cannot catch up with you.”
The words Bai Lixin said earlier suddenly came to mind.
Li Cancan twisted her head to look at the exit. She could even see the small point of light at the exit. As long as she ran with all her might for ten seconds or so, she could leave this dangerous place.
Run? Yes, she would be safe if she ran.
Li Cancan shook her head hard.
No, she couldn’t run!
Maybe she couldn’t help with anything, maybe she was the most useless, but she couldn’t be a deserter. She couldn’t leave Bai Lixin behind and run away by herself!
If she had to run, at least she had to take Bai Lixin with her!
Li Cancan resisted the instinct to run away, and she shouted in a trembling voice, “Monster, come here! I’m tastier than him!”
In the darkness, only the sudden sound of a heavy object hitting the ground rang out.
Then Bai Lixin’s voice came lazily, “Ai, it’s a pity that it’s daytime. It melts when the sun shines, otherwise we could have taken this one back with us.”
Li Cancan, “…”
At this moment, why did she suddenly feel that, out of the three present, the monster was the one who should escape the most?
…
In a room, five people sat face-to-face.
Except for Bai Lixin, the other four people’s expressions did not look so good.
The monster Bai Lixin had tied up yesterday was chained to a corner.
It was now daylight, and the sun shone through the window. This would not burn the monster, but it would make it weak and lie helplessly on the floor as it tried to maintain the state of still being alive.
But even though this monster was about to die, it still looked like it was going to eat someone, especially when its four blood-red eyes looked over.
Liang Xi took a deep breath and resisted the urge to grab the door and run away, “I didn’t get any clues today.”
Zhou Guang and Xia Chi looked at each other and said, with difficulty, “So did we.”
Xia Chi, “The NPCs were surprisingly quiet today. They made us work as soon as they came up and didn’t say anything in the middle.”
Liang Xi, “The length of the mandatory work has changed too. I checked the quest bar and found that we worked for 4 hours yesterday, but did a full 6 hours today. At this rate, we’ll probably be forced to work for 8 hours tomorrow!”
Zhou Guang, “The atmosphere among the NPCs has changed too. Although they still have those same dead faces, I can tell that they’re also nervous.”
Bai Lixin, “These NPCs are set up as villagers and tomorrow is the last day of the River God’s curse. It’s a normal reaction to be nervous. I got a clue today that Sang Bao’er’s mysterious lover should be the village head. All the clues are related to Sang Bao’er and the key people are Grandma Sang and the village head.”
“Time is a little tight now.” He paused and looked at the other three. “There are only 30 hours left.”
Zhou Guang, “So we split up?”
Bai Lixin, “So I called them both.”
Everyone, “???”
No sooner had he said that than the sound of a bad quarrel rang out.
“Why are you here, stinky man?!”
“That’s the question I should ask you, damned old woman!”
Bai Lixin opened the door, shook the object in his hand, and flashed them a kind smile, “Will you come in and talk?”
The two NPCs looked at the object in Bai Lixin’s hand, and their pale faces shrank into one piece.
The village head, “How dare you touch Bao’er’s memorial tablet!”
……
In the live broadcast room, the barrage remained intense.
[When they both come, let’s just reasonably flash the memorial tablet. So awesome ah! I would like to call him God Xin. The NPCs went stupid.]
[Hahahaha, it’s the first time I’ve watched an escape game so entertaining. [Worthy of God Xin, he excels at playing monsters and NPCs.]
[How did the door of the secret ancestral hall open by itself? Did the NPC forget to lock the door when leaving? Even if he forgot to lock the door, did he forget the padlock?]
[It’s good luck.]
[F- Do you call that luck?]
[*Black to the extreme is Ou. Maybe all his good luck was used up today. And wasn’t Li Cancan there all along? I remember this player has a B in luck, so it should be about the same thing.]
**No matter how extreme things are, the opposite is also true. In this case, the bad luck is so extreme that it becomes good luck.**
[Come one, was it Li Cancan’s luck to get sick as soon as she came?]
[Umm…two negatives make a positive?]
…
The village head and Grandma Sang sat down a long way apart.
Bai Lixin made the long story short and got straight to the point, “I can return the memorial tablet to you, but you have to answer a few questions.”
The village head’s dull black eyes looked at Bai Lixin. He could hear a bit of forbearance in his gloomy voice, “Okay!”
“Li Chong, Sang Bao’er, and Huang Youcheng, what really happened thirty years ago?”
The village head’s face twisted for a moment, but he still opened his mouth.
“Thirty years ago, our village was hit by a natural disaster.”
“For two whole years, not a drop of rain fell and the river dried up. There was no harvest in the fields, and the villagers were barely able to survive. We prayed for rain, begged the gods, worshiped Buddha, and used all the methods we could.”
“Just when everyone was at a loss, a rich merchant called Huang Youcheng came to the village.”
“Bao’er was a famous girl in our village, and if she had been in ancient times, she would have been comparable to *The Four Beauties. That rich merchant coveted beauty, and he got ideas when he heard rumors about Bao’er.”
**The four beauties in ancient China traditionally refer to Xi Shi, Wang Zhaojun, Diao Chan, and Yang Guifei.
“Bao’er would rather die than comply, so the rich merchant found Li Chong. He was the village head by then and my father.”
“Huang Youcheng promised to provide our village with a lot of food and money to help us get through the hard times, but on the condition that Bao’er be given to him.”
“My father was moved by the money and eventually agreed to Huang Youcheng’s request. But at that time, Bao’er and I were already in love. I was hiding outside, and I secretly overheard their conversation. Later, I knelt before my father and begged him to help me and Bao’er, but he knocked me unconscious and locked me up.”
“However, Bao’er was a good girl, she would not be stupid enough to agree. So, my father listened to Huang Youcheng and made up a lie about the sacrifice to the River God.”
“He then lied to the public that he had invited a Heavenly Master to talk to the River God. The River God had taken a fancy to Bao’er, but Bao’er refused to marry the River God, which is why the village was punished by the heavens and no rain fell for two years. Only by offering Bao’er to the River God would the River God forgive us and send down rain and food.”
“Bao’er was soon thrust into the center of the storm. It wasn’t long before the whole village supported the village head in handing her over to the Heavenly Master.”
“But that Heavenly Master was simply an impostor. Their men had Bao’er dressed in wedding clothes, bundled up in a palanquin and carried step by step to the mountain and then to the home of the wealthy merchant, Huang Youcheng.”
“By the time I was released, Bao’er had become Huang Youcheng’s wife and the villagers were fed with food.”
“They all had long-lost smiles on their faces as they thanked the River God for the gift and the gods for their overtures. They forgot about Bao’er, the one they had given away as a bargaining chip.”
“A month later, it finally rained for the first time in two years in the River God’s village. It rained for three days and nights before it stopped, and the river, which had dried up, filled up with water. Bao’er proposed a visit to the River God Village and brought Huang Youcheng to a boat on the river.”
“It was on that boat that Bao’er poisoned Huang Youcheng, then killed herself and died of hatred.”
“It was also from that day that the River God Curse appeared.”
“It was Bao’er, whose resentment turned into a curse that cursed us all. She hated us for giving her away as a sacrifice! She hated us for our greed and ungratefulness! This is all the punishment Bao’er has inflicted on us, and the pain we must endure! We, the River God Village, should be buried with Bao’er, and only when we are all dead will her soul be freed.”
[Ding! Congratulations players, 30% of the truth to the curse of the River God unlocked. (Current progress 70%/100%)]
Joy flashed across the faces of several other people in the room.
70%?
It had gone up so much! With just 30% left, they were already getting closer to victory!
Zhou Guang, “So there’s a Huang Youcheng. Shouldn’t we go to his house and check it out? Hey Village head, does Huang Youcheng have a house around here?”
The village head rolled his eyes and kept his mouth shut.
Bai Lixin, “Is it the dilapidated house at the east end of the village?”
The village head’s stiff expression showed a bit of unwillingness, “How did you know?”
Bai Lixin, “I remember that house has ‘Huang House’ written on the horizontal plaque, which is usually used only by large families. From the way the house looks, it must have been abandoned for at least twenty to thirty years.”
The village head glared at Bai Lixin and began to stare at the memorial tablet in his hand, “Yes, you’re right, that’s the place. There’s a dilapidated house at the east end of the village with a plaque that says ‘The Huang Family’. He caused a lot of trouble for Bao’er back then, and he lived there briefly. They also stayed there for a few days when they revisited the village.”
…
In the live broadcast room.
[… This is awesome. Is there a more simple way to blackmail NPCs?]
[We did a lot of tasks for the village head to get this clue from him. Then we worked all day before he told us this story on the last day, but it was already time for the sacrifice. We didn’t even have time to visit Huang Youcheng’s house. If we had done the same at that time, would that female player…]
[Don’t think too much about the past; not everyone is Bai Lixin. It was not easy enough for you to survive.]
[I’ve come to my senses. Following the rules only makes you a passive puppet; breaking them is the only way to win!]
—
The village head kept his eyes on the memorial tablet, “I have told you all that I need to tell you. Can I have Bao’er back now?”
With two hands, Bai Lixin brought the tablet to the village head, “I’m sorry.”
The village head immediately took the tablet into his arms like a treasure, “My Bao’er, you have suffered. Don’t be afraid; I’ll take you back now; we’ll go home together.”
Before leaving, the village head stood expressionlessly in front of the door of the room, his dark eyes looking straight at Bai Lixin, saying, “Don’t waste your efforts, you can’t escape. None of you can.”
With these words, the village head finally left.
In the room, there was still Grandma Sang, the NPC.
Grandma Sang was demented at times and sober at others.
She was still normal when she came to find Bai Lixin, but when she heard the Village head’s words, the person went crazy once again.
“No, no, no, Bao’er is so kind. She’s so kind, she won’t curse others.”
“Damn it, bastard! Go to hell!”
Grandma Sang sat there madly fuming for a while. Just when the crowd didn’t know what to do with her, her whole body suddenly twitched, then her head dropped, and she stopped moving.
Liang Xi was startled.
Just when he thought Grandma Sang had passed out and he was ready to save the NPC, the old woman jerked her head up. It scared Liang Xi so much that he fell to the ground.
Grandma Sang’s black eyes were bloodshot.
“I want Bao’er, my Bao’er!”
“It’s not what he said. I didn’t send Bao’er away because of money! Give me Bao’er’s body and I’ll tell you what I know!”