The teammates were both astonished and delighted, gathering around Lin Xia in a circle.
Lin Xia briefly recounted what had happened and expressed her intention to distribute Incense Paper Money to everyone, ensuring that no one would face danger anymore.
“Thank you!” Everyone was deeply moved, though they also felt regret for the two teammates who had previously met with misfortune. However, in the Infinite Flow World, casualties were common every time they entered an instance, and to some extent, everyone had grown somewhat numb to it.
If it weren’t for the appearance of the Incense Shop, many players would likely have gone completely insane from hopelessness.
At that moment, an experienced veteran player suddenly spoke up: “There’s one problem. This instance requires us to purify the villagers’ resentment, so we must find the mastermind behind it all.”
In other words, even if they weren’t harmed by these NPC ghost villagers, if they failed to uncover the mastermind, their mission would still be considered a failure after seven days, and they would remain trapped in the instance.
This made everyone’s hearts tighten once again.
Lin Xia thought for a moment and said, “Perhaps we can try asking the NPCs.”
She remembered that Vice Guild Leader Pu Yunfeng had once used Incense Paper Money to bribe an NPC at the Waxwork Museum, which indicated that NPCs could be communicated with.
The teammates agreed that this was a good idea.
·
The next day, Lin Xia and her group approached a young boy in the village and cautiously asked, “Has anything strange ever happened in our village?”
The boy stared at them with hollow eyes and remained silent.
Lin Xia felt a chill run down her spine. Although the villagers appeared normal during the day, they were essentially like walking corpses. When the boy fixed his gaze directly on her, it was genuinely unsettling.
“Here, sister will give you this.” She took a deep breath to calm herself and handed him a stick of incense.
Based on the speculations of the top guild, NPCs in various instances were likely unable to resist the temptation of Incense Paper Money.
But this time, the boy didn’t take the incense. Instead, he pointed at her backpack and said, “I want what’s inside here. It smells better.”
Lin Xia was taken aback. Her backpack contained Gold Ingots.
It seemed that Gold Ingots were more appealing to NPCs than Incense Paper Money?
Seeing her hesitation, the boy pursed his lips and said, “Give me one, and I’ll tell you everything you want to know.” He glanced at the incense in Lin Xia’s hand and added, “This isn’t enough.”
He meant that if they wanted to know the truth, they would have to pay with one Gold Ingot—a single stick of incense wasn’t sufficient compensation.
Snapping back to reality, Lin Xia quickly opened her backpack and took out a Gold Ingot.
The boy reminded her, “I want a big one.”
Lin Xia: “…Alright.”
In any case, the allure of the Gold Ingot was undeniable. As the boy held it and sniffed it eagerly, he revealed the secret of Xiushui Mountain Village.
It turned out that the mastermind behind this instance was a woman named Fan Shuyao. She came from a scholarly family, was dearly loved by her parents, and enjoyed a happy upbringing. However, at the age of fifteen, she was trafficked to Xiushui Village and forced to marry an old bachelor. The old bachelor not only frequently abused and beat her but also took money to let other bachelors in the village mistreat her. The villagers were fully aware of her suffering, yet no one helped her. In fact, when she tried to escape, the entire village hunted her down. In the end, she was tortured beyond recognition and took her own life, dying before she even turned twenty.
After her death, her overwhelming resentment transformed her into a vengeful spirit, and she turned all the villagers into ghosts, turning the mountain village into a ghost village.
“How tragic…” After hearing the story, Lin Xia and the others felt particularly heavy-hearted.
Earlier, everyone had speculated that Xiushui Mountain Village might have been targeted by evil cultivators, with the entire village being refined into vengeful ghosts. Yet the truth was that the villagers themselves had committed evil deeds.
And Fan Shuyao was no murderer at all—she was the true victim.
“I’m going to find my mom now,” the little boy said before running off, clutching the Gold Ingots.
Lin Xia’s group remained immersed in the tragic story and paid no attention to the boy.
“The instance task requires us to find the murderer and restore the villagers to normal,” Lin Xia clenched her fist and said. “But I don’t want to restore them at all. They deserve to become vengeful ghosts… No, after becoming vengeful ghosts, they should be captured by a master, either sent to hell or have their souls scattered!”
Why should we help such a village of cannibals return to normal?
Because they’ve committed countless evils? Because they have the nerve?
“But if we fail the task, we’ll be trapped in this instance forever. We might turn into vengeful ghosts like the villagers, or perhaps just vanish completely,” her teammates agreed with her perspective, yet felt frustrated when considering the clearance task.
It felt like an unsolvable puzzle—every choice seemed wrong.
For a moment, everyone fell into silence.
·
Just as the group felt lost, a disheveled woman in tattered clothes approached, holding the little boy’s hand.
The moment Lin Xia saw her, she felt inexplicably stifled but not afraid, since her Protection Talisman remained inactive. Normally, it would only attack when facing malicious intent. Though this woman looked terrifying, she didn’t seem like a bad person.
“Did you give this to my son?” the woman asked, holding up the Gold Ingots.
Lin Xia glanced at the boy and nodded. “Yes.”
“Do you have more?” the woman asked.
The teammates immediately grew wary, suspecting she intended to snatch the Gold Ingots.
But the next moment, they heard her say: “I am Fan Shuyao. If you’re willing to give the remaining Gold Ingots to my son, I’ll spare the beasts in this village, and you can complete your task.”
Clearly, she had overheard Lin Xia’s group’s discussion.
Her words left everyone stunned.
No one had expected Fan Shuyao to have a son—and that the little boy was hers!
Wait, didn’t that mean the boy was also the child of that human-trafficking old bachelor?
“This… is your son?” Lin Xia confirmed again.
Fan Shuyao seemed to sense her doubt and said, “He’s also that old beast’s.”
Lin Xia: “…”
In her view, a trafficked woman shouldn’t develop feelings for a child forced upon her, since the child carried half the beast’s blood. Under normal circumstances, genes would be inherited, and some sons might even side with their beastly fathers.
But the woman before her seemed to love her son deeply.
Fan Shuyao gently stroked the child’s head and said, “He died protecting me.”
That old bachelor had sold her to other bachelors in the village. Every time he got money, he would buy alcohol, get drunk, and beat her. Once, he struck her with a stool until she was covered in blood, convulsing on the ground. Her son, only four years old at the time, had rushed over crying to protect her and was killed by a blow from the old bachelor’s stool.
It was precisely because of this that she had broken down and taken her own life.
Lin Xia: !
Teammates: !
Holy shit, that old bachelor actually dared to harm his own biological son—he’s worse than a beast, more terrifying than a demon!
At this moment, Lin Xia had only one thought in her mind: let that old beast remain a ghost forever. After all, he was no better than a ghost even when alive!
Fan Shuyao gazed tenderly at the little boy and said, “That’s why I hope my son can leave this hellish place.” She looked up at Lin Xia. “The Gold Ingots you gave are very useful. I can feel his ghostly aura and resentment diminishing. I want to help him pass on and be reborn. The Gold Ingots carry Gong De, which will benefit his reincarnation. I hope he can be born into a happy family in his next life and never have to suffer again.”
Lin Xia was deeply moved by her words, but also puzzled. So the Gold Ingots actually had such great benefits?
When the shop owner recommended the Gold Ingots to her back then, had he already foreseen this situation?