Although related searches had long indicated that Honey Ant Village was buried deep in a mountain ravine so remote it could not even be found on a map and although Instructor Ju had repeatedly reminded everyone to prepare themselves mentally,
When a group of university students who had grown up in the city finally staggered through more than ten hours in hard sleeper berths, barely having time to rest their feet or catch their breath, only to be immediately stuffed into two small passenger vans rented in advance, then jolted and shaken for another two hours along a forest road that twisted and bounced endlessly,
After such an ordeal, even the most excited among them had been shaken into silence, laughter completely knocked out of them.
Inside the cramped vehicle, what spread together with the smell of cheap synthetic leather and gasoline was not conversation but collective exhaustion and wordless fatigue.
Yi Fengchu was squeezed into the seat by the window, earbuds plugged into both ears. With a blank expression, he thought to himself: Finally, it’s quiet.
Through the dust coated glass, Yi Fengchu could vaguely make out rows upon rows of trees rushing past, flung far behind the tail of the vehicle. Looking left or right, all he could see was an endless sea of green, along with mountain ranges rising and falling like rolling waves.
It was said that Honey Ant Village had only recently been connected by a concrete road. Originally, there had been piles of sand left behind from construction along the roadside.
After repeated washings by wind and rain, only small portions remained, wet sand mixed with silt, forming gently sloped mounds that rose just above ankle height.
Occasionally, a lone concrete utility pole could be seen planted crookedly by the roadside. Black cables drooped down, wrapped several loops around the middle of the pole, evidence of electrical lines that had been started but not yet completed.
A student looked out the window at the primitive surroundings and sighed. “Good thing I prepared early and brought a power bank… Otherwise, I don’t even know how we’d survive these two days.”
Yi Fengchu curled lazily into his seat, rubbing the back of his phone with his thumb, quietly grateful that his phone didn’t need charging at all and didn’t even rely on any energy source currently known on Earth to function normally.
“Xiao Yi looks pretty low on energy today, huh.”
For some reason, a few students suddenly shifted their attention from the scenery outside to Yi Fengchu by the window, offering a casual note of concern.
Yi Fengchu’s attitude toward those around him was usually lukewarm at best. His relationship with his classmates barely extended beyond that of ordinary classmates but ever since Instructor Ju had started calling him “Xiao Yi,” the others had gradually grown bolder, unconsciously following suit.
Hearing his name, Yi Fengchu lifted his eyelids slightly and glanced at the person beside him,
At a single glance, the lines of fate inside the vehicle were densely tangled together. Mixed in with them were blackened blotches formed by erosion, black and white colors chaotically interwoven into a disordered mass.
As the students moved, those blotches trembled and stirred as well, like flies spiraling and buzzing aimlessly through the air. The sight made Yi Fengchu’s head ache and his vision blur.
He immediately withdrew his gaze, unwilling to look any longer. He closed his eyes instead, resting them, his voice indeed sounding a little listless.
“…I’ve got a bit of a headache.”
The classmate showed an expression of sudden understanding. “That’s not strange at all. After all that tossing around on the road, who wouldn’t feel unwell? We’re actually pretty lucky on our side, at least no one here got seriously carsick. In the other van, two people already threw up…”
Using the excuse of “not feeling well and needing proper rest” Yi Fengchu was finally able to make the rest of the journey in rare peace and quiet.
The last stretch of the route was a rough gravel path paved with jagged stones. To avoid blowing a tire, the two vans stopped on the concrete road several hundred meters away from the village. Everyone had no choice but to shoulder their luggage and walk the remaining distance to Honey Ant Village on foot.
The moment they got out of the vehicles and breathed in the crisp mountain air, fresh, as though infused with the scent of grass and trees, the students who had been drooping all the way here gradually regained their spirits. Their eyes lit up as they looked around with renewed curiosity.
Yi Fengchu, expression cool and detached, slowly fell behind the group and walked quietly at the very end.
From afar, they saw an elderly man approaching them. His back was slightly hunched and his face was etched with deep lines of age and hardship. He greeted them warmly and led them toward the village entrance.
What was particularly striking was the spot beside his cheek where his left ear should have been, there was only a smooth, flat scar, as if the ear had been cleanly shaved off with a blade.
Despite his physical impairment, the one eared old man was robust and energetic, walking with quick, steady steps. He led the group from the front, smiling broadly, every winding wrinkle on his face brimming with cheer. He paid no mind at all to the occasional flickers of discomfort in the students’ eyes when they glanced at his missing ear.
Speaking in halting Mandarin with a heavy accent, he introduced himself as the village head of Honey Ant Village. He explained that the village was located deep in the mountains and rarely received visitors, let alone such a large group at once. He warmly encouraged them to stay a few extra days and take their time appreciating the scenery, mountains on three sides, water winding around them.
Instructor Ju chatted with him for a bit before asking, “Is Lin Lu, Professor Lin, still in your village? I tried calling her several times on the way here but none of the calls went through.”
Trailing along the edge of the group, Yi Fengchu saw clearly how the one eared old man tilted his head aside in a subtle, evasive gesture, as if he did not wish to touch upon the topic.
“Haha, well, you know how it is deep in the mountains,” the village head laughed it off. “The signal’s bound to be bad sometimes.”
“And Professor Lin is a very busy person,” he continued. “Every day she carries around equipment we can’t make heads or tails of, knocking around here and peering over there. Before long, she disappears into the forest and you can’t find her anywhere. How would we know her whereabouts?”
Doing field research in such a place, occasionally wandering into areas with weak signal and losing contact with the outside world, was not unusual. Instructor Ju did not press the matter further.
Just like that, the topic was lightly brushed aside. The group continued onward amid chatter and laughter and the outlines of Honey Ant Village, half hidden among mountain mist and tree branches, gradually came into clearer view.
Honey Ant Village was surrounded by mountains on three sides and built on a flat stretch at the foot of the hills. Because it had long been isolated from the outside world, the local buildings retained a rough, rustic character typical of mountain settlements.
Aged wooden beams and railings, low walls piled with irregular gray stones, small houses propped up with tree trunks as thick as wrists and lashed together, these were all scenes the students had never encountered before.
Seeing visitors from beyond the mountains enter the village, the villagers became exceptionally enthusiastic. One after another, they stepped out from under their eaves to greet the newcomers, scrambling eagerly to help carry their luggage.
“Honey Ant Village welcomes you!”
Voices filled with warmth and excitement surged like waves and bright smiles bloomed across faces weathered by years of wind and sun.
The students could not help but be overwhelmed by such fervor. Looking confused and at a loss, they were shepherded along by the villagers and escorted toward the only tall, well built two story house in the village.
“This was newly built just a couple of years ago,” the village head said with undisguised pride. “A big boss from our village paid for it himself. Looks solid and stylish, doesn’t it?”
“He moved to the city later, so the place has been empty ever since. Now it’s only used to receive… uh, distinguished guests!”
Yi Fengchu walked at the very back with his bag slung over his shoulders. Suddenly, a hand reached out from the side, trying forcefully to snatch his backpack away.
Clutching the strap tightly, Yi Fengchu raised his eyes. The villager who had stretched out his arm met his gaze, cold, piercing and the overly eager smile on his face froze instantly. An inexplicable chill crept into his heart and he hastily withdrew his hand, retreating in embarrassment.
Seeing that Yi Fengchu was not someone to be trifled with, the surrounding villagers exchanged glances. After that, no one dared approach him recklessly or insist on “helping” with his luggage.
There were quite a few empty rooms on both floors of the small villa. After a brief discussion, the group selected four relatively spacious and clean bedrooms. By taking turns sleeping on floor bedding and squeezing in a bit, they could just barely accommodate all nineteen people, students and teachers included.
After helping his roommates with a round of cleaning and tidying, Yi Fengchu settled his luggage. He then went out alone with his phone, intending to familiarize himself with the village’s layout and paths.
Along the way, he happened upon two elderly women sitting on bamboo stools at the gate of a courtyard, their mouths moving rapidly as they chatted animatedly.
Yi Fengchu took the initiative to greet them and exchanged a few casual words. Once the atmosphere warmed up, he casually brought up Professor Lin Lu’s situation.
“… ”
The two women, who had been chattering nonstop just moments earlier, suddenly fell silent. Their cloudy, weathered eyes shifted slightly as they exchanged a glance. One of them hesitated before answering, “Yesterday, it seemed Professor Lin… followed a village guide up the mountain, didn’t she?”
“Later it suddenly rained and the mountain paths became muddy and hard to walk. Maybe they stayed overnight up there and haven’t come down yet.”
That explanation was not at all consistent with what the village head had said.
If what the old woman said was true, then Professor Lin must have hired a local guide within the village, which would inevitably involve asking around. How could it be, as the village head claimed, that “no one knew Professor Lin’s whereabouts”?
Lying about such a simple matter was already enough to show that there was something wrong with the people here…
Yi Fengchu silently noted this point of suspicion. He then changed the subject and asked, “Do you know where the name ‘Honey Ant Village’ comes from? The second character is pretty rare, we couldn’t even read it when we first saw it.”
It seemed that the shift in topic put the two women at ease. They let out subtle sighs of relief and the floodgates of conversation opened once more as they launched into an explanation.
“It’s said that in ancient times, the character ‘蟻’ was interchangeable with the ‘蛾’ in moth.”
“In these mountains, gray and white moths are very common. Some of the larger ones can grow bigger than a human palm. On rainy days, they cluster densely on tree trunks. From a distance, it looks like moths with human faces.”
As she spoke, the old woman’s hoarse voice sank lower, like sand grinding softly against the ear. “It scared the ancestors who lived in these mountains half to death. In the end, they could only attribute such phenomena to the power of the gods… From then on, generation after generation here came to worship the Moth God, regarding moths as the god’s servants and eyes.”
“And that’s how our village got its name.”
Yi Fengchu asked, “The original character for moth has existed since ancient times. Why not just use that more common character?”
Hearing this, the old woman looked at him with a sense of deep feeling. “That’s something you young people don’t understand, because you’ve never truly experienced reverence for the gods.”
Yi Fengchu narrowed his eyes slightly. In her gaze, he seemed to catch a flash of something she had not managed to hide in time, an unmistakable trace of yearning.
She slowly shook her head. “How could the name of a god be spoken so casually? People in the past deliberately chose another obscure character, that was to ‘avoid taboo.’”
He indeed had never experienced reverence for gods. He only knew that the offspring of gods tasted rather good.
Yi Fengchu thought this absentmindedly and asked offhandedly, “Then does the village still have a temple, tablet or statue dedicated to the Moth God? If possible, I’d like to learn a bit more about this god as well.”
“Go, go!”
The old woman’s expression changed abruptly. The wrinkles on her face piled together like dry, cracked bark and she waved him off irritably, muttering, “What era do you think this is now?”
“Our village may have only just gotten a proper road but young people have long been going back and forth with the outside world. They’ve brought back all sorts of strange things. We’ve got money now, sturdy houses too and slogans like ‘oppose feudal superstition’ and ‘promote literacy’… We stopped believing in that kind of nonsense a long time ago.”
Seeing her brows knit in impatience, clearly unwilling to continue the conversation, Yi Fengchu had no choice but to wander off on his own.
He keenly sensed that wherever he went, unseen gazes slipped out from behind seemingly closed doors and windows, watching his every move under the illusion of secrecy.
Yi Fengchu pretended not to notice, behaving just like an ordinary traveler. He looked around casually and took in his surroundings. Once a rough mental map of the village had formed in his mind, he turned back toward the place where they were staying.
The route he took was a bit roundabout. On his way back, he passed through a quiet, secluded path, with boundless dark woods stretching out on both sides.
Suddenly, Yi Fengchu faintly heard someone behind him calling his name in a low, lingering voice.
“Yi…”
Before he could turn around, the voice abruptly twisted, rising into a shrill, piercing scream that echoed through the mountains, startling countless birds from their perches:
“Yi, Yi Feng… ugh, aaaaaah!!”
A split second too late, Yi Fengchu turned his head.
Behind him, there was nothing but a charred, pitch black mass on the ground, like ash or shredded paper reduced to cinders, dark and sticky, clinging to the earth like a round shadow.
【Heh…】the phone let out a soft, amused chuckle, repeating the old woman’s words. 【The name of a god, how could it be spoken lightly?】
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Nycreth
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ChaptersChapter 1 · Mysterious letterChapter 2 · Divine MessagesChapter 3 · Gamer ForumChapter 4 · Invitation from GodChapter 5 · JudgeChapter 6 · TerminalChapter 7 · Destruction of recordsChapter 8 · Whale Bone Aquarium (1)Chapter 9 · Whale Bone Aquarium (2)Chapter 10 · Whale Bone Aquarium (3)Chapter 11 · Whale Bone Aquarium (4)Chapter 12 · Whale Bone Aquarium (5)Chapter 13 · Whale Bone Aquarium (6)Chapter 14 · Whale Bone Aquarium (7)Chapter 15 · Whale Bone Aquarium (8)Chapter 16 · Whale Bone Aquarium (9)Chapter 17 · Whale Bone Aquarium (10)Chapter 18 · Whale Bone Aquarium (11)Chapter 19 Part 1 · Whale Bone Aquarium (12)Chapter 19 Part 2 · Whale Bone Aquarium (12)Chapter 20 · Interlude: His ApostlesChapter 21 · Echoes in the pupa (1)Chapter 22 · Echoes in the pupa (2)Chapter 23 · Echoes in the Pupa (3)Chapter 24 · Echoes in the Pupa (4)Chapter 25 · Echoes in the Pupa (5)Chapter 26 · Echoes in the Pupa (6)Chapter 27 · Echoes in the Pupa (7)Chapter 28 · Echoes in the Pupa (8)Chapter 29 · Echoes in the Pupa (9)Chapter 30 · Echoes in the Pupa (10)Chapter 31 · Echoes in the Pupa (11)Chapter 32 · Echoes in the Pupa (12)Chapter 33 · Echoes in the Pupa (13)Chapter 34 · Interlude: Investigation by the Bureau of Extraordinary Affairs (1)Chapter 35 · Interlude: Investigation by the Bureau of Extraordinary Affairs (2)Chapter 36 · Interlude: Investigation by the Bureau of Extraordinary Affairs (3)Chapter 37 · Small World: God’s Chessboard (1)Chapter 38 · Small World: God’s Chessboard (2)Chapter 39 · Small World: God’s Chessboard (3)Chapter 40 · Small World: God’s Chessboard (4)Chapter 41 · Advertisement Coming Soon (1)Chapter 42 · Advertisement Coming Soon (2)Chapter 43 · Advertisement Coming Soon (3)Chapter 44 · Advertisement Coming Soon (4)Chapter 45 · Advertisement Coming Soon (5)Chapter 46 · Advertisement Coming Soon (6)Chapter 47 · Advertisement Coming Soon (7)Chapter 48 · Advertisement Coming Soon (8)Chapter 49 · Advertisement Coming Soon (9)Chapter 50 · Advertisement Coming Soon (10)Chapter 51 · Advertisement Coming Soon (11)Chapter 52 · Advertisement Coming Soon (12)Chapter 53 · Advertisement Coming Soon to EndChapter 54 · Interlude – Tonight No One Sleeps (1)Chapter 55 · Interlude – Tonight No One Sleeps (2)Chapter 56 · Interlude – Tonight No One Sleeps (3)Chapter 57 · Interlude – Tonight No One Sleeps (4)Chapter 58 · Childhood Ghost Stories (1)Chapter 59 · Childhood Ghost Stories (2)Chapter 60 · Childhood Ghost Stories (3)Chapter 61 · Childhood Ghost Stories (4)Chapter 62 · Childhood Ghost Stories (5)Chapter 63 · Childhood Ghost Stories (6)Chapter 64 · Childhood Ghost Stories (7)Chapter 65 · Childhood Ghost Stories (8)Chapter 66 · Childhood Ghost Stories (9)Chapter 67 · Childhood Ghost Stories (10)Chapter 68 · Childhood Ghost Stories (11)Chapter 69 · Childhood Ghost Stories (12)Chapter 70 · Childhood Ghost Stories (13)Chapter 71 · Childhood Ghost Stories (14)Chapter 72 · Childhood Ghost Stories (15)Chapter 73 · Childhood Ghost Stories (16)Chapter 74 · Childhood Ghost Stories (17)Chapter 75 · Childhood Ghost Stories (18)Chapter 76 · Childhood Ghost Stories (19)Chapter 77 · Childhood Ghost Stories (20)Chapter 78 · Childhood Ghost Stories (Complete)Chapter 79 · Interlude: His Kingdom (1)Chapter 80 · Interlude: His Kingdom (2)Chapter 81 · Interlude: An Epic of Faith (1)Chapter 82 · Interlude: An Epic of Faith (2)Chapter 83 · Interlude: An Epic of Faith (3)Chapter 84 · Interlude: An Epic of Faith (4)Chapter 85 · Interlude: An Epic of Faith (5)Chapter 86 · Interlude: An Epic of Faith (Complete)Chapter 87 · Fate casually rolls the dice (1)Chapter 88 · Fate Casually rolls the dice (2)Chapter 89 · Fate Casually rolls the dice (3)Chapter 90 · Fate Casually rolls the dice (4)Chapter 91 · Fate casually tosses the dice (5)Chapter 92 · Fate casually tosses the dice (6)Chapter 93 · Fate casually tosses the dice (7)Chapter 94 · Fate casually tosses the dice (8)Chapter 95 · Fate casually tosses the dice (9)Chapter 96 · Fate casually tosses the dice (10)Chapter 97 · Fate Casually tosses the dice (11)Chapter 98 · Fate casually tosses the dice (12)Chapter 99 · Fate casually tosses the dice (13)Chapter 100 · Fate casually tosses the dice (14)Chapter 101 · Fate casually tosses the dice (15)Chapter 102 · Fate casually tosses the dice (16)Chapter 103 · Fate casually tosses the dice (17)Chapter 104 · Fate casually tosses the dice (18)Chapter 105 · Fate casually tosses the dice (19)Chapter 106 · Fate casually tosses the dice (20)Chapter 107 · Fate casually tosses the dice (21)Chapter 108 · Fate casually tosses the dice (The End)Chapter 109 · Interlude