NFM Chapter 59

He crouched down to get a closer look, but the villagers nearby had already noticed this uninvited guest. The village security team leader rudely tried to pull him up, demanding, “Who the hell are you, barging in like this?”

“The person inside is my relative,” Chu Tianshu dodged him, jumping to the other side like a rabbit.

“Bullshit, I’ve never seen you before!” the security team leader cursed, ordering his men to drag him away.

“My dear grandson, you died so tragically!” Chu Tianshu continued to throw himself towards the corpse.

In the midst of Chu Tianshu’s antics, Lin Huai had already squinted his eyes and ran to the side of the corpse to inspect it.

Eventually, both of them were thrown out by the security team leader. Chu Tianshu squatted on the side, watching the villagers who had tightly surrounded the corpse, and poked Lin Huai’s arm, “Did you notice anything?”

Lin Huai said, “Dead is dead, no soul at all.”

After a while, Cheng Xin and the others finally arrived. The moment they reached the scene, the system’s voice finally rang out.

“Mission issued: Mystery of Jiang Village. Task one: Ensure at least four villagers with death countdowns above their heads are not killed by the Fierce Ghost after the countdown reaches zero. The more you protect, the greater the reward. Task two: Eliminate the heart-stealing culprit. Choose one task to complete. If task one fails or all players die, this round of the Game ends.”

After the cold prompt, everyone’s vision changed. The corpse that had been lying on the ground now had a blood-red “0” above its head, while a terrified woman standing beside it had a large “01” above hers.

“01?”

The woman with “01” covering her mouth hurriedly fled the scene. Lin Huai turned to Chu Tianshu, “Did you remember that woman’s face? We…”

Then he saw Chu Tianshu shake his phone, “Got it on camera.”

Several other onlookers also had numbers above their heads. Their numbers ranged from 01 to 07, unevenly distributed, and Chu Tianshu took photos of each one. When he finished, Cheng Xin shivered and said, “This… this is really terrifying.”

“Yeah,” Lin Huai said, “This Fierce Ghost is really a workaholic…”

As he spoke, he glanced intentionally or unintentionally at Zhang Mingge. Zhang Mingge frowned and remained silent.

Finally, the belated village chief arrived at the scene amidst everyone’s calls.

The moment the village chief appeared, everyone was shocked: above his head was a blood-stained “0”.

Looking at the crowd gathered there, he sighed and said something that stunned everyone, “Have you all received the mission?”

Under everyone’s astonished gazes, he said the second sentence, “Who among you has numbers above their heads?”

Er Lai Zi’s body, wrapped in white cloth, was carried to the village chief’s courtyard. Everyone followed the village chief back to his home, all of them preoccupied with their thoughts.

As soon as they sat down in the village chief’s house, Chu Tianshu spoke up, “Village chief, why are you so familiar with this? Just how many times…”

The elderly village chief forced a smile, “Because, you are not the first group of players to come to this village to complete missions. Three years ago, this place became a ghost town where people only enter but never leave.”

“…After the incident three years ago, a heart-stealing Fierce Ghost appeared in the village. The entire village was sealed off, and no matter how one tried to escape—by car, on foot, by boat—they would wake up the next day to find themselves back at the village entrance. This Fierce Ghost becomes active every February and August, killing many people, then sleeps for half a year, repeating the cycle,” the village chief said, “In August of the first year, she died and started wreaking havoc. The villagers tried everything but couldn’t escape. In February of the second year, a group of people like you came to the village.”

“Originally, when the first wave arrived, we all thought they could save us, rescue us from the hands of the Fierce Ghost. They seemed to have many methods we had never heard of, many strange tools. They gathered the entire village and told us this was a Game, and they explained the rules of the Game. The leader was a very handsome young man, and the peach wood array on Ren Chun’s grave was left by him. He said that some of us had countdown numbers above our heads, and each number represented the number of days that person had left to live. Their mission was to protect us and eliminate the Fierce Ghost.”

At this point, the cigarette in his hand trembled, dropping a layer of ash, “And I… was one of them.”

Yan Chuchu couldn’t help but glance at the bright red “0” above his head.

“…At first, we all thought they were talking nonsense. Who would believe such an absurd thing?” the village chief extinguished the cigarette, “But deaths happened just as they said they would. Eventually, we chose to cooperate with them. They saved a few people, but more were killed. Besides our people, their people were also killed. In the end, I was the only one left among the victims, and only that young man remained among the players…”

“That young man said he would find a way to locate the source of the Fierce Ghost, eliminate her, and save me, but it was already the last night… In the end, he left the village alone.”

Clearly, that desperate young man did not succeed.

Cheng Xin showed a look of pity, while Zhang Mingge frowned, “What was that person’s name?”

“It’s been too long, I almost forgot… Yes, his name was Chen Du, just Chen Du,” the village chief recalled, showing a pained expression, “The next day, we found his body on the road outside the village. His heart had been dug out by the Fierce Ghost, and the number above my head reset to zero. Just as I was in despair, a voice sounded in my head.”

“…That voice told me I had been chosen as the executor of this Instance. My responsibility was to guide subsequent players, familiarize them with the Game, and in exchange, I could keep my life,” the village chief said, “But the next day, something even more terrifying happened.”

His voice twisted and trembled.

“Except for me, everyone, all the villagers, forgot that such a group of players had ever come to this village—!” he said in fear, “They acted as if such a group had never been here! I specifically went to the places where those players had stayed, and all traces of them were gone, completely gone! As if they had never existed!”

As he spoke, he clutched his head in pain, “At that time, I thought I had gone mad… until August of that year, the system reminded me that the Game had started again, and the second wave of investigators arrived in Jiang Village. The same thing kept happening, the third wave, the fourth wave… until you arrived.”