Since Lu Qingjia’s parents shared the same surname, his Old Uncle was also surnamed Lu.
As he grew older, the uncle and nephew began to resemble brothers more than relatives of different generations. This wasn’t just talk.
With their similar appearances, shared surname, and minimal age difference visible, since middle school, many new guests at the farmhouse often mistook them.
However, there was no one to correct this, so many well-meaning people even tried to introduce the ‘elder brother’ who had single-handedly raised his ‘younger brother’ after the parents’ demise to potential matches.
Of course, the attempts to introduce matches for Old Uncle weren’t new either, given his good character, low profile, yet obvious family wealth.
But Lu Qingjia had known Old Uncle’s sexual orientation was similar to his own since a certain period, so all the matchmaking efforts around them were in vain.
When Lu Qingjia discovered his own sexual orientation during adolescence, it was Old Uncle who positively guided him, helping him accept it well without any negative psychological impacts from the surrounding unaccepting environment.
However, from Old Uncle’s guidance, Lu Qingjia could also infer his tastes and preferences from his words.
Old Uncle’s standards were high, and before his death, Lu Qingjia had never seen him show interest in anyone in real life.
When Lu Qingjia first deduced from various clues that the Trickster and Old Uncle might have had a romantic past, he was genuinely reluctant to accept this conclusion.
Because once confirmed, it would mean that Old Uncle had experienced betrayal and pain, dying alone and miserably in the Game, far more painful than he had imagined.
Yet now he was being told that Old Uncle had already married in the Game.
Although this ceremony might have been due to the instance’s circumstances or other purposes, if there was even a slight possibility that Old Uncle had truly looked forward to the future, wanting to start a family with someone for the first time.
Even the slightest possibility of this made Lu Qingjia’s heart ache unbearably.
Perhaps his expression was too serious, as the chattering voices of the little girls in the relaxed atmosphere quieted down.
Lu Qingjia immediately realized this and forced an unnatural smile: “What’s going on? Can you tell me about it?”
The girl who brought up the topic said, “We’re not very clear about it either, we were very young at the time, but it was around this time of the year. Brother Ji and a few others returned to the village, and there was someone particularly close to Brother Ji. At the time, we thought they were just good friends.”
“Later, the others gradually died, leaving only Brother Ji and that person, and they got married in the mountain god’s temple.”
“Only then did I know that men could marry men?” The girl’s exaggerated expression showed how shocked she was at the time.
She continued, “But when Brother Ji said they wanted to hold a wedding, although the adults in the village scolded them, they eventually agreed. The village head and the great uncle even helped arrange the banquet, and the whole village attended.”
“Anyway, if the adults think it’s okay, then it must be right.”
In this closed mountain village, especially for girls in a dominated position, their values were naturally aligned with authority. No matter how bizarre something was, if the adults and elders said it was right, they wouldn’t doubt it.
After speaking, the girl looked at Lu Qingjia with concern: “But don’t you die, we all like you, you should go back to the city.”
Lu Qingjia smiled: “Did my brother and the others eventually leave here and go back to the city?”
“Hehe, you’re so funny, don’t you know if your brother went back then?”
From the girl’s tone, it seemed she didn’t even know if Lu Ji had died.
So this so-called return to the city by Old Uncle and the others at that time was unknown whether it was something they witnessed or the result of a ‘unified announcement’ by others.
Lu Qingjia first needed to determine where exactly Old Uncle had died.
After all, his ashes weren’t buried in the cemetery arranged by Lu’s parents, and now with this statement, the location of his death wasn’t straightforward.
In any case, based on the current clues, Old Uncle’s character neither died after returning to the city, allowing Lu’s parents to collect his body smoothly.
Nor was it convenient for him to ‘die’ in the village, otherwise, in such a large village, even if someone died, disposing of a young clansman’s body by digging a pit to bury it wouldn’t be a big deal.
Lu Qingjia asked a few more questions, and the girls, not knowing the importance, spilled everything they knew.
Soon, some people doing farm work passed by the river, saw a few girls not working but hanging around Lu Qingjia, scolded them, and glared at Lu Qingjia. The girls then scattered and continued washing clothes.
Lu Qingjia bid farewell to them and left the riverside.
By now, it was late morning. Those with work were in the fields, and those without were mostly gathered at someone’s doorway shelling peanuts and gossiping.
When they saw Lu Qingjia, their voices noticeably lowered. Adults’ defenses weren’t as easily breached as a few little girls’.
However, Lu Qingjia showed no discomfort on his face. When he encountered people, he even greeted them with a smile, as if the underlying tension and estrangement didn’t exist, which actually made others feel quite awkward.
Lu Qingjia arrived at the mountain god’s temple he had visited the day before and knocked on the door. The same man opened it.
Yesterday, Lu Qingjia had judged that his actual age should be younger than he appeared, but in fact, it was the opposite. According to the girls, the man was over seventy, one of the village’s highest authorities after the village head.
This was very abnormal. It wasn’t that Lu Qingjia’s judgment was infallible, but the man’s eyes, his overall energy state, and the strength of his bones and muscle distribution as he walked all indicated that his body functions were in their prime, just his appearance was rough.
The man opened the door and wasn’t surprised to see Lu Qingjia. At his age, if he had always been in charge of guarding the temple, he must have encountered many Players.
He nodded to Lu Qingjia: “What brings you here?”
Lu Qingjia said, “I heard that three years ago, my brother got married here with someone. Although my brother is no longer here, and our parents and relatives are unaware of this marriage, since I know about it now, I would like to understand what happened at that time.”
“Can you tell me, his younger brother, so I can mourn?”
The man twitched his mouth, as if he had never seen such a fake young man coming back to inquire about clues.
But surprisingly, he didn’t refuse Lu Qingjia’s request. After letting him into the temple, he pointed to the layout inside: “The wedding was held here.”
“In the village, any joyous events are held at the temple, partly to share the joy with the mountain god, and partly to seek the mountain god’s blessings for smooth sailing.”
“Your brother and the others, like you now, returned in a panic and confusion. Although it was the sins of your grandparents’ generation that were visited upon you children, it’s still lamentable.”
“Returning didn’t help, as if years ago, the mountain god liked to occasionally pick a big sacrificial year to slaughter, just didn’t expect it to happen twice in a row—”
The man stopped talking and continued his previous answer: “At that time, the other kids had all died, leaving only your brother and another. Before they died, they wanted to marry, and although it was unheard of for men to marry men, since they were about to die, we elders naturally could only fulfill their wish.”
“Probably not the first time, right?” Lu Qingjia suddenly said.
The man didn’t react immediately: “What do you mean?”
“Men marrying men, probably not the first time you’ve seen it, right?” Lu Qingjia repeated.
The man’s expression visibly stiffened in that instant, his eyes emitting a strange brilliance, turning from previously amiable to full of aggression in a flash.
“What are you talking about?” he said in a deep voice.
Lu Qingjia smiled, his previously certain tone shifting, as if it were just a whimsical remark from a young man.
“Nothing, just thinking that many homosexuals outside have threatened suicide without gaining their parents’ understanding, but the villagers here accepted it so quickly. It seems that we shouldn’t measure a place’s conservativeness by its openness or seclusion.”
“But fellow villagers, many are relatives not yet five generations apart, pitying the juniors who wouldn’t live long, unanimously showing compassion, and even busy arranging banquets, with the whole village setting aside past grievances to attend, indeed blood is thicker than water~~”
Lu Qingjia’s expression at that time looked sincerely grateful, as if he had learned that his elder brother’s last wish was fulfilled with the villagers’ tolerance, which would make anyone lament and be moved.
But the man listening to his words, the tone of his speech, and those subtle inflections at the end, felt inexplicably sarcastic.
The man momentarily didn’t know how to react, as making a fuss would be too much, but holding back felt inexplicably aggrieved, making his already dark yellow face even darker.
But Lu Qingjia didn’t dwell on the topic and asked again: “Do you have any impression of my brother-in-law—sister-in-law?”
“It’s a pity, they held such a big event back then, but after they were gone, our family never got to meet the other party.”
“If possible, although it doesn’t have legal effect, we would still like to meet as relatives who both loved my brother.”
The man looked at Lu Qingjia strangely: “Hasn’t he already left? Didn’t he contact you?”
“No, who knows the reason, maybe he was ashamed to face us alone? But he thought too much, how could we, in front of my brother’s spirit, trouble his partner?”
The man seemed to find a loophole and retorted to Lu Qingjia: “All the young people who can return to the village are relatives, those who ran out back then, even by your generation, should still be within five generations.”
“You’ve lived together since childhood, how could you not know who it was?”
Lu Qingjia’s eyes flickered, confirming that the man was deliberately avoiding answering this question directly, which made the current situation much more interesting.
Unlike the village girls who clearly remembered that event and that person, their impressions had become vague.
Lu Qingjia asked again: “By the way, after they got married, did they leave the village together?”
The man nodded: “Although the incident back then made everyone angry, after all, the children were innocent, and every time someone returned, the village never gave them a hard time.”
“You can see this year, anticipating that someone might return, we cleaned your house in advance.”
“Back then, they knew there was no hope, and shortly after getting married, they left together, and we only learned of their deaths from Shengwa.”
Shengwa was the village’s current teacher who taught children to read, one of the few who had gone to university outside and returned to the village, able to maintain contact with the outside clan members.
This speech full of loopholes, Lu Qingjia didn’t even bother to point them out one by one.
He just smiled and asked: “Oh, is that so? Then how did Uncle Sheng know who died and who lived? After all, my brother’s ashes haven’t been buried in the cemetery yet. I was very young at the time, and I thought even if my parents were heartbroken, they wouldn’t forget to collect my brother’s body, thinking he was buried in the village.”
When asked this, the man wasn’t flustered and instead smiled: “We know, every year the person chosen by the mountain god, upon returning to the temple to light a lamp, we check if the lamp has extinguished after fifteen days, which represents life or death.”
The man showed a strange smile: “Your brother’s lamp went out, but his partner’s didn’t, so we knew. It’s just a pity we don’t know how your brother died, and you haven’t found his body yet?”
“Poor child, how many years will he have to be a wandering ghost?”
When the man said this, he looked directly at Lu Qingjia, with a hint of provocation in his eyes, clearly trying to provoke him.
Lu Qingjia noticed another thing that didn’t match the man’s elderly appearance, this wasn’t the jumpy mindset of an old man, especially one who had been guarding the temple for many years.
The man seemed not to want to miss any chance for Lu Qingjia to lose his temper or get angry, but it didn’t go as he wished.
Lu Qingjia showed a slightly strange smile and said: “My brother and I are similar, we don’t care much about where we end up after death.”
“As long as the perpetrator accompanies us, that’s enough.”
Lu Qingjia deeply looked at the temple and the ugly, shapeless stone enshrined above, finally resting his gaze on the man.
His gaze was too aggressive. Since this village had been conducting live sacrifices for many years and the man was in charge, he must have seen blood.
But Lu Qingjia’s gaze almost made him step back, and he barely managed to hold his ground by sheer will.
The man remembered when he was a child, following the adults to the market outside the mountain, there were wanted posters everywhere in the town.
It was said that a serial killer who had committed more than a dozen murders across provinces had fled to the area, shocking the whole country. The news broadcasted it every day, and the whole town was in a panic.
Just looking at the photo on the wanted poster, the child felt the killer looked extremely ferocious, and the indifference to human life and the power of crime directly impacted the man’s young mind through the not-so-clear black-and-white photo.
He had nightmares that night.
But just now, Lu Qingjia’s gaze made the man, no longer childish or timid, feel that same fear again.
Even though Lu Qingjia looked handsome and kind, far from being associated with heinous crimes, and even though he was devout in his belief in the mountain god, believing it omnipotent.
It still couldn’t offset that impact.
The man’s face turned a bit pale, but Lu Qingjia suddenly leaned in.
This startled him, and he even instinctively stepped back.
Lu Qingjia, however, smiled easily: “Don’t be scared, I’m not going to do anything to you?”
“Didn’t you say you can confirm life or death by lighting a lamp? Where is it?”
The man seemed to only remember now, and came back to himself, feeling quite ashamed of his previous fear.
His attitude towards Lu Qingjia wasn’t good anymore, but he led him to a corner, took out three oil lamps from a cabinet inside.
Placing them in front of him, he said: “Here, you have to light them yourself.”
Lu Qingjia asked again: “What about my brother’s and his partner’s oil lamps? Can I see them?”
The man didn’t refuse, and Lu Qingjia got two bronze oil lamps the size of a cup. The edges of the lamps were blackened, showing signs of use, but there was no dust, preserved quite well.
Lu Qingjia looked at his Old Uncle’s lamp, ordinary, with only his name at the bottom.
He then looked at his own lamp, raising an eyebrow at the man.
The man quickly said: “I made them for you last night, worried that you guys might not know where you end up.”
The carvings at the bottom of the lamps looked fresh, but Lu Qingjia was sure they weren’t made last night, though he didn’t expose it.
Instead, he picked up the oil lamp of the person who married his uncle and looked at where the name should be.
【Lu Qingzhou】
Lu Qingjia abruptly looked up, his gaze unexpectedly colliding with the man’s eyes, and his mental skill activated: “His name is Lu Qingzhou?”
The man nodded: “Yes, aren’t you relatives? Don’t you know him?”
Lu Qingjia smiled: “You see, I just asked a question, why are you saying so much?”
The man was left speechless, grumbling: “Alright, I’m busy, light the lamp quickly.”
But Lu Qingjia put his own oil lamp on the table, instead inexplicably asking: “I didn’t say I was going to light it, I just wanted to take a look.”
“But my brother’s and his partner’s oil lamps are useless now, right? Can I keep them as a memento?”
The man didn’t care about the discarded oil lamps, but had a look of being played: “You’re not going to light it? Then why did you ask for it?”
“Don’t be stubborn now, the mountain god has many ways to punish people. If something really happens, there’s no way to know for sure. What will your parents do? Hold onto a sliver of hope and look for you everywhere? You’re heartless.”
Lu Qingjia smiled, unconcerned: “It’s fine, I’ve already left a suicide note. If I don’t return home within half a month, it means I’m gone.”
“Since I’m gone, honestly, I don’t care much about what happens after death. Where I die doesn’t make a difference. If I’m in the way, someone will take care of it. If I’m not, then returning to nature is also good.”
With that, Lu Qingjia left directly, taking the lamp oil with him as he went.
The man was dumbfounded: “Hey, hey! What are you doing? Can you take that?”
“There’s not much lighting in our house, what’s wrong with taking some lamp oil back?” Lu Qingjia looked at him with clear eyes: “Is there something special about this lamp oil that I can’t take it?”
The man didn’t say anything, only watching helplessly as Lu Qingjia left.
At noon, Lu Qingjia returned to the house arranged for them, where the other two Players had also returned.
Each had their own gains in the morning, and the three of them didn’t bother to cook, each taking food from their own spaces, eating while exchanging information.
The Extreme Player spoke first: “They say they worship the mountain god, but I don’t feel anything unusual about the surrounding mountains, not even a change due to the thousand-year infusion of faith.”
“Generally, even if it starts from ignorance, once a sinister force is generated, the object of faith will inevitably mutate, but there’s nothing here.”
The Infinite Player continued: “When we arrived yesterday, the dead baby at the village entrance wasn’t recently dead. It’s been almost half a year.”
“But the body was preserved, and just these past few days, meaning the curse started, it was hung up.”
“I got the information from the kids in exchange for candy. It’s said that every time at this period, they have to hang a black cat and a female infant at the village entrance.”
“Specifically female infants?” Lu Qingjia confirmed.
“Yes, only female infants, never male ones.” The Infinite Player said: “Plus the talismans under the beds, I think this village probably also played a part, but I probed a bit, the villagers are indeed ordinary people.”
“At least in terms of physical strength, they definitely can’t directly harm Players of our level, and there’s no role similar to a witch in the village. Although they worship the mountain god to the extent of conducting live sacrifices in this era, the villagers’ homes don’t show many other signs of superstition.”
The Infinite Player came from a remote rural area and knew that the more superstitious such places are, the more signs of superstition are usually present in the homes, like taboo placements, worship items, children’s protective amulets or talismans, but there were none here, at least not visibly.
This truly didn’t fit the style of an extremely superstitious village.
Lu Qingjia then shared his own findings. Besides the matter of Old Uncle’s marriage, the two Players only heard from the villagers that Lu Qingjia’s ‘brother’ had returned to the village last time, and just assumed it was a Player from the previous round who had entered that role, not suspecting that Lu Qingjia and Lu Ji were actually relatives in real life.
Upon learning that the village had prepared oil lamps with names even before they returned, the two Players were even more certain.
“They knew we would come back, and they had already determined exactly who would be affected.”
Apart from the Players, there was only one wave of NPCs who fled outside due to the curse, returned when they found they couldn’t break it, and ended up dying completely back then.
Although some villagers still maintained certain connections with the outside world, it was hard to imagine they would have sent back the genealogies of all the human descendants who had branched out elsewhere.
Moreover, many of those outside had lost contact with each other over time.
Lu Qingjia, however, said, “Or perhaps, to think more boldly, it’s not that they had already determined who would be cursed, but that they themselves could influence the list of those cursed in each cycle?”
The two Players were stunned for a moment upon hearing this, but then their faces lit up with excitement.
If that were the case, did it mean the curse list was controllable? If they could find a way to remove their names—
But Lu Qingjia poured cold water on their hopes. He smiled and said, “Don’t even think about it. It’s impossible. If it were changeable, the difficulty of this Game wouldn’t qualify it as an exchange student instance.”
“Most likely, once the curse begins, there’s no turning back. But confirming this, and even finding a way to manipulate the curse list, is still very important.”
As he spoke, Lu Qingjia’s phone buzzed several times in quick succession—it was WeChat notifications.
Several Players, having likely obtained relevant information outside, though a step behind, had decided to return to this village to look for clues.
In the end, everyone would have to gather here.
Lu Qingjia sent them the coordinates, and only then did they realize he had already arrived. This made them even more anxious to hurry.
Just as Lu Qingjia finished sending the coordinates and was about to speak, a layer of transparent bubbles began to ooze from his skin. The bubbles grew larger and larger, even pushing the black cat off his leg and enveloping his entire body.
The two Players knew that the trickiest part of this instance was the sudden outbreak of Abilities.
They quickly jumped up and asked, “What’s going on? Do you need help?”
Lu Qingjia felt the air inside the bubble thinning, and as he breathed, the oxygen was continuously consumed, making it increasingly unbearable.
He pointed at the bubble, and the two Players immediately understood, attacking it with their Abilities and Items.
However, their efforts had no effect whatsoever. Seeing this, they didn’t hold back, unleashing their full power, even risking Lu Qingjia’s safety with several attacks, but still to no avail.
This outcome was within Lu Qingjia’s expectations, but it also made him more appreciative of the bubble’s defensive capabilities.
Normally, the bubble wouldn’t block air—it would even filter it—but now it had become an airtight death trap.
Lu Qingjia’s face began to turn red from oxygen deprivation, and none of his offensive Abilities could break the bubble.
The black cat on the ground extended its claws, ready to intervene, but Lu Qingjia glared at it, forcing it to retract its claws.
As the two Players grew increasingly anxious, they saw Lu Qingjia suddenly throw out a large pool of Sludge, submerging himself and sinking into the Sludge space.
Seeing him escape the bubble, the two Players breathed a sigh of relief.
But what they didn’t know was that the moment Lu Qingjia’s feet touched the ground inside the Sludge space before he could steady himself, his hair suddenly surged violently.
Most of it wrapped around his limbs and even his fingers, while strands began to drill into his brain. Despite the powerful resistance of his divine constitution, given the sharpness and speed of the hair, it would only take a few seconds to pierce through his scalp and skull, killing him instantly.
Before Lu Qingjia could stabilize himself, his mobility was already restricted. By inertia, he would fall to the ground, unable to find his balance for several seconds.
Outside, it was eerily quiet. The two Players, relieved that Lu Qingjia had escaped, remained silent for the time being.
The bubble that had nearly suffocated him shattered after Lu Qingjia disappeared, leaving a pool of Sludge on the ground.
Meanwhile, the black cat on the ground extended its claws, leaving three deep, savage marks on the stone floor.
