Lu Qingjia suddenly looked up, his face filled with shock that even the continuous betrayal of his Ability hadn’t brought.
“Looks like me?” Lu Qingjia confirmed again.
The woman nodded, “Yes, both of you are so good-looking, once seen, not easily forgotten.”
“I remember it was late one night, almost midnight, that handsome man came knocking. The rented house was so small, I had nowhere to hide, so I just sat nearby and listened in.”
“At that time, their conversation was quite vague. I only thought the jade was valuable, so when I went to make a scene at the wedding, I also calculated that even if I couldn’t get the house back, I could make him feel the pinch.”
Lu Qingjia didn’t care much about these details. He quickly pulled out his phone, which contained photos he had taken from Old Uncle’s bedroom, photos of this world.
He handed the photo to the woman, “Is this the person?”
The woman was even more certain now, “Yes, that’s him. What’s the matter? Are you really brothers?”
Lu Qingjia stood up, not directly answering the woman’s question, just smiled, “I understand, thank you. Please give me the jade button, don’t worry, I’ll buy it.”
The woman quickly waved her hands, “No, no, you’ve given enough already. Take it with you.”
As they spoke, Lu Qingjia had already left.
He didn’t return to the mountain village, but went directly back to the city where the groom’s parents lived.
This time, with coordinates, there was no need to go through the hassle of the airport. He directly opened a spatial portal, hailed a taxi, and went straight to their home.
Now it was only three days since the groom’s accidental death, it was the time for the funeral.
The groom’s parents, fearing that the house would be hard to sell after holding the funeral in the new house, held the funeral in the old neighborhood where they lived.
They rented a piece of land in the open space outside the community, set up a few white tents as the mourning hall, and hired a one-stop funeral service.
When Lu Qingjia arrived, he followed the sound of the funeral music to the mourning hall, where the groom’s parents and a group of elders and relatives were keeping vigil.
When they saw Lu Qingjia, their faces looked as if they had seen a ghost.
After all, they knew he had returned to his hometown, and no young man who returned to his hometown had ever come out.
So they were a bit suspicious whether he had deceived everyone and never went back.
The groom’s parents asked him, “You ran away so fast that day, what are you doing here now?”
Lu Qingjia said, “I seem to have found the whereabouts of that woman, came to tell you.”
The groom’s parents quickly stood up, as if unwilling for Lu Qingjia to speak out in public.
They pulled him to a place a little distance from the tent, anxiously asking, “Found her? Where is she?”
Lu Qingjia smiled, “Where she is, don’t ask, just know that she is safe now. She already knows you also care about her, and asked me to bring a message, telling you not to worry.”
The groom’s father wanted to slap him directly, gritted his teeth and said, “Who cares about that bitch’s life or death? We need to settle accounts with her, she killed my son, made us old folks bury our child, she must pay with her life.”
Lu Qingjia smiled again, “In our family, isn’t it normal for the old to bury the young?”
Before the old couple could curse, he took out the jade button, and as soon as they saw it, they indeed forgot everything else and reached out to grab it.
But Lu Qingjia quickly took it back, and under their anxious expressions, he asked, “How much did Second Cousin promise you?”
“Huh?” The groom’s parents were dumbfounded by the question, unprepared and unable to hide, their faces almost engraved with ‘How do you know?’
Lu Qingjia spoke to himself again, “You two have lost your only son, next you can only plan for yourselves.”
“At your age, the biggest worry is to have no one to rely on in old age. To enjoy your twilight years, one needs money, and two, needs to ensure someone is always on call.”
“I guess Second Cousin promised you something similar, right?” Lu Qingjia grinned, “Did he promise to take care of you in old age?”
“What, what nonsense are you talking?” The two panicked, “Dagang is our own nephew, now that his brother is gone, naturally he has to take care of us.”
Lu Qingjia raised the jade button, “But when Second Cousin was still alive, he knew nothing about this.”
Lu Qingjia had long guessed the effect of the jade button, but now he wanted to confirm it with the old couple.
So he said directly, “With this life-saving treasure, if it wasn’t useless to your family, would you be willing to tell Second Cousin about it?”
The old couple looked more and more panicked, thinking that Lu Qingjia already knew everything.
This thing must be kept in whose hands to be useful, if everyone knows about it, then who wouldn’t come to grab it? They couldn’t protect it, and instead, because they had hidden it for many years, they would be resented by all their relatives.
So they carefully said, “Jiajia, please take pity on your uncle and aunt, we have no other choice.”
“Like this, since you’ve found it, keep it to yourself, don’t announce it, announcing it won’t do you any good, right? We know you’re a filial child, from now on we two old folks will rely on you.”
The words were very clear, they just wanted to use the jade button to exchange for old age security, it’s the same for any junior.
Lu Qingjia also lived under a curse, the jade button was equivalent to a life-saving device for him, and he could pass it down to his children in the future.
But as long as he was responsible for taking care of the old couple in their old age, they would keep quiet, so that other relatives couldn’t get any ideas, and both sides wouldn’t break face, this was mutually beneficial.
Lu Qingjia smiled, didn’t say anything, but didn’t contradict them either.
The old couple took it as his agreement, after all, no one would let go of a life-saving straw.
They simply reminded Lu Qingjia, “This thing isn’t omnipotent, you still need to be careful.”
“It can help you avoid once, but not a second time, otherwise our family wouldn’t have lost children, and finally even the only child.”
After leaving the mourning hall, Lu Qingjia directly returned to the mountain village.
He settled in his room, the lights outside were still on, the Players were chatting and cooling off in the yard.
Everyone knew Lu Qingjia had left, but as for clearing the Game, although everyone was now in a peaceful relationship, after all, it was each showing their own prowess, so even though anxious, there was no reason to say anything.
After returning to his room, Lu Qingjia didn’t go out, but directly lay on the bed, holding the jade button in front of his eyes to examine it.
The black cat lay on his chest, sweeping his tail across his cheek from time to time, as if comforting him.
Lu Qingjia’s mood was complex, angry, sad, and inexplicably wanting to laugh.
Old Uncle was a decent man, in reality, in order to teach Lu Qingjia, he always set a good example for him, sometimes even to the point of being a bit pedantic.
But now Lu Qingjia found that Old Uncle’s style of doing things also showed cunning and flexibility.
The things he had repeatedly instructed, teaching him how to strike behind the scenes, although Old Uncle looked righteous and scolded him, his actual actions were also honest.
Lu Qingjia could even picture Old Uncle using money to pave the way, boldly changing the jade button in front of the groom.
This made Lu Qingjia somewhat amused.
But what followed was a strong sense of worthlessness.
According to his investigation along the way, Old Uncle’s Game at that time was very well completed, and he still held a life-saving Item in his hand.
The effect of this jade button was to offset an attack for the cursed person, this might be of limited use to ordinary people, but for Players strong to a certain extent, just one chance to catch their breath was enough to turn the tables.
Lu Qingjia had repeatedly asked at that time, whether there was anyone else when Old Uncle came to visit.
The woman’s answer was no, only him alone.
Because just a jade button gave him tens of thousands, with the groom’s sycophancy, when Old Uncle left, he personally sent him out of the community.
No one was seen throughout the entire process.
The groom and the woman were not Players, and under the premise that other Players knew nothing about this clue, the two had no need to deliberately separate as a warning, this did not match what Lu Qingjia heard from many NPCs, that Old Uncle was almost inseparable from that person at that time.
Then the only possibility was that Old Uncle avoided that person and came alone to the groom’s house to take the life-saving jade button.
Such behavior, if placed on someone else, might be to leave a hand, but if placed on Old Uncle—Lu Qingjia would rather his purpose was to leave a trump card for himself.
However, Lu Qingjia knew very well what kind of fool he was.
The more he investigated, the more Lu Qingjia hated the Trickster to the bone.
He turned over, hugged the cat in his arms, and put away the fake jade button that actually no longer had any function.
The next morning, all the Players woke up, and as soon as they went out, they saw Lu Qingjia sitting on a chair in the yard with the cat in his arms.
Seeing everyone, he signaled them to sit down, “I have something important to say, come sit here first.”
Generally speaking, if the Players in the Game are not in a confrontational state, as the Game progresses, the Players will naturally form an open or default leader based on performance, contribution, and reputation.
Of course, this is the general situation in low-level fields, but the higher the level of the instance, the less this will happen, because everyone is strong, and Players of the same level rarely have an overwhelming advantage, everyone is strong and experienced, so naturally they won’t easily be someone else’s echo.
But this instance was too difficult, and compared to the information they had obtained so far, Lu Qingjia always seemed to be ahead of them, and the amount of information he had was not on the same level.
The two Players who were with him naturally complied, and seeing this, the other Players also sat down.
But they didn’t expect that the words Lu Qingjia spoke next would explode like a thunderclap in their ears.
Lu Qingjia said, “I know the origin of the village’s curse, the form of the curse, the rules of the curse, the avoidance methods, and the way to clear the Game.”
“I can share this information with you, but on the condition that you have to follow my instructions from now on.”
Everyone was shocked, wanting to question whether this guy was talking big, but they had been proven wrong before, so they looked at each other.
Finally, they reached a consensus, “If it’s really as you say, you’ve already made it this far, then of course we are lucky to have you.”
“According to the rules of clearing the Game, of course the one who contributes the most gets the most, whatever benefits you want, or help you need from us, is naturally within reason.”
“But the premise is that what you say is true.”
Lu Qingjia smiled, “This is why I like the Game more and more.”
Because as the level increases, the difficulty increases, and the people you face are becoming smarter and more aware of the times, many things don’t need to be repeatedly emphasized, saving a lot of effort.
Lu Qingjia then threw out a miniature projector, the size of a bee, also bought in Infinite City, projecting a picture from its eye.
It was what Lu Qingjia had found in the village chief’s house yesterday.
He faced the picture and said, “This is the family tree and the sacrificial records over the years. Not considering what was before, comparing the time of the first ceremony, the identity of the sacrificial host, the identity of the sacrificial offering, and the year and month of the death of the family members related to the sacrificial offering.”
“It’s easy to conclude that this sacrifice started with a blow to a family.”
As Lu Qingjia explained, everyone compared the key information and indeed found that the sacrificial offerings in the first two or three ceremonies were from the same family, the first priest was the son-in-law of that family, but it seemed this son-in-law was driving his wife’s family to death.
Most people in this village were ignorant, and now, more than half of the village is still illiterate, so in earlier feudal times, it was naturally even more impossible for them to understand what was recorded.
The village’s family tree before the first priest was also a mess, not as clean and orderly as later, and looking at the names of the successive priests, they were all the same surname as the first, and it was also noted on it that successive priests were all master and disciple or adoptive father and son relationships.
After becoming a priest, one must remain unmarried for life, but it can be seen that over the years, only the priest’s lineage has monopolized cultural heritage, and although there were occasionally one or two literate people in the village in the past, there has been no such thing since then.
The entire village has only had farming as an outlet for thousands of years, and of course, as mentioned before, this place has always been strangely stable and fruitful, regardless of natural disasters, man-made disasters, or dynastic changes outside, it has nothing to do with it.
Lu Qingjia said, “From the first sacrifice to the maintenance of the status quo for thousands of years, it’s not hard to see that everything started with the first priest’s work.”
“Then since he specifically cultivated successors, other villagers because of illiteracy and ignorance, over time would forget the original reason, but the priest’s lineage would not.”
“Following the first priest’s resume, you can find many problems.”
“First, he was of a different surname from the village, as the first priest, and the first to propose human sacrifice, in the village he was a symbol no different from a god’s spokesperson, his resume naturally had records.”
As he spoke, the picture from the bee-sized projector changed to the life records of the successive priests.
“The first priest in XX year, came to seclusion here with a companion, the next year married a woman from the village, less than five months after the marriage, the woman gave birth to a baby girl, and less than a month later, the baby girl and the black cat raised at home were hanged on a tree at the village entrance.”
“The priest was avenging his daughter?” a Player interjected, “Could it be that in those days, boys were favored over girls, and the birth of a daughter was not liked by the elders, and was directly killed? The first sacrifice was half a year after his daughter’s death, at that time the village had already suffered a severe drought and had no harvest, presumably the daughter’s birth was already very difficult, killing a baby girl is not a strange thing.”
Not to mention then, even now, many places still have such things.
But someone else objected, “I don’t think so, the child came out five months after the marriage, wasn’t that clearly a cuckoo in the nest?”
“Perhaps the child was killed by the priest, because he was too petty, so he even took revenge on his wife’s entire family.”
“But why wait so long? The child was born five months after the marriage, meaning she was already pregnant at the time of the marriage, could it not be seen? If he really didn’t want the child, he didn’t need to wait until it was born to do it.”
Everyone had their own opinions, but Lu Qingjia said, “This is not the point.”
Everyone was surprised, not expecting such an answer, after all, from the records, the death of the baby girl was the beginning of everything.
“Look at the family tree from that year again.” Lu Qingjia said, “The priest’s record was that he came here with a companion to seclude, where is the other person?”
“At that time, in the village, besides the priest, there were three families of different surnames, but all could be traced back to ancestors who settled here.”
“But within those few years, except for the priest, there was no record of anyone with a different surname moving in, but in the notes of the first priest’s disciple, there were records about the master’s life.”
“The other person often worshipped at the back mountain—the place where we found the mountain god flower yesterday—on a specific day each year, he would not eat or drink, and would sit there all day.”
“This day is also interesting, it was the day he got married.”
The surrounding Players caught the drift, “You mean, the priest originally came here with his lover to seclude as a pair of wild lovebirds.”
“But because he was talented and literate, he was favored by a wealthy family in the village, the priest and his lover refused, so it’s very possible they were set up, making cooked rice out of raw rice. He’s a stranger, in someone else’s village, slept with someone else’s girl, it was justified to kill you if you didn’t take responsibility in those days.”
“So the priest compromised, married the person, but the lover couldn’t bear the blow and died on the wedding day, since she died near that family’s home, it’s very possible she committed suicide.”
“This incident hit the priest too hard, so he hated his wife and her family, even killed the newborn child, and through the drought at that time, incited the villagers to human sacrifice, offering up the wife’s family’s child, causing the family to have no descendants and be destroyed?”
Everyone, based on the recorded information and Lu Qingjia’s prompts, brainstormed and summarized.
Lu Qingjia nodded, “The priest was the only literate person in the village, it’s recorded that he loved feng shui and metaphysics, if driven by hatred, wanting to use natural disasters to deceive the villagers, establish his own prestige, and strike back at his wife’s family, was not difficult.”
“But unexpectedly, human sacrifice really worked, the effect was immediate. The villagers were even more convinced, perhaps the priest also saw other hopes in this, but when he presided over it, the wish he made to the so-called mountain god he fabricated, was probably not what the villagers hoped for, to make the village prosperous.”
“This logic is quite reasonable, but after all, there are too few clues, many places are filled in by speculation, not too solid.” a Player questioned, “After all, a thousand years have passed.”
Lu Qingjia smiled, “As long as it’s a Game instance, no matter how long the time has passed, the truth can never be truly buried.”
“Records may be missing, but as I said from the beginning, not everyone in the village was kept in the dark.”
“The first priest specifically cultivated successors, allowing this scam to continue for a thousand years, there must be something he wanted to accomplish even after death.”
“Human life is always limited, so he had to have others complete the unfinished work for him, now, starting with a group of young people fleeing the village, it’s no longer a traditional sacrificial issue.”
“After all, if the hard requirement was only to offer up a boy and a girl, wouldn’t it be enough for the villagers to do it every three years? But the rules formed over thousands of years clearly show it’s more than that.”
“People outside being cursed actually doesn’t concern the people staying in the village, there’s never been a curse that affected the village, as long as the offerings are maintained, they can be indifferent. So why did the village chief and others go out of their way to get involved in the curse? Using dead cats and baby girls to welcome us, making oil lamps, pasting talismans under our beds.”
“All of this points to the fact that the village’s sacrificial motivation and atmosphere, as well as the formed rules, have long been different from the original intention, other villagers may be stupid and not know, but someone must know.”
“The priest of this generation?” several people said at the same time.
Lu Qingjia nodded, it was the man guarding the ancestral hall.
“Then let’s go find him to confirm now.” someone stood up, “I’ve tested him, he’s just an ordinary person, with our abilities, as long as we grasp the direction of the question, finding out the truth is no problem.”
“No need, I’ve already asked.” Lu Qingjia said, as he spoke, a pool of Sludge appeared on the ground, and after dispersing, it was the scene of the man tied up and gagged.
No wonder Lu Qingjia had bragged from the start that he had cracked everything, he had already confirmed it.
Now his words were even more credible, so a Player directly asked, “Then what is the rule of the curse?”
“Excluding the people who died suddenly yesterday, currently only you have experienced the curse more than once, if averaged out, this obviously doesn’t match the rule.”
Lu Qingjia said, “Don’t include me, my matter has no reference value for finding the rule, it will only disturb your judgment.”
“What do you mean?”
“Why?”
“Aren’t all Players starting from the same point?”
Everyone was a bit shocked, because the Game emphasizes absolute fairness, the rules should treat Players similarly, this is also one of the things Players care about the most.
Lu Qingjia was the only one targeted by the curse. Although the other Players weren’t exactly indignant on his behalf, the injustice of the situation was undeniably concerning.
Lu Qingjia, however, gestured for everyone to calm down. “The reason I’m cursed is because my blood relative once entered this Game. It’s likely that I inherited the curse from that time, which is why it’s been unfavorable to me from the start.”
“But on the flip side, following their path of clearing the instance allows me to uncover the truth more efficiently. So for me, it’s both a risk and a benefit. There’s no need to question the fairness of the Game.”
Of course, the real reason was more complicated than that, but Lu Qingjia saw no need to elaborate further.
Still, what he had revealed was enough to astonish everyone.
Lu Qingjia continued, “The order in which the curse activates is based on the sequence in which the oil lamps were made. The Player who died yesterday was the first to have their bodily tissue collected and turned into lamp oil, so they were the first to die after returning to the village.”
“I’ve already extracted this sequence from him,” Lu Qingjia said, glancing at the man on the ground.
The man glared at him, desperately trying to make a sound.
No one paid him any attention. Lu Qingjia distributed the sequence to the Players. Those near the top of the order were naturally anxious, while those further down breathed a sigh of relief.
But before they could fully relax, Lu Qingjia added, “However, don’t place too much trust in this order. After all, it’s possible to find a scapegoat.”
As he spoke, he closely observed the expressions of those around him.
Amidst the tense atmosphere, he said, “When your turn comes, simply place the Mountain God Flower, which represents the offering, on another Player, and they will bear the curse in your place.”
The moment these words were spoken, everyone gasped, and nearly all of them took a step back, their eyes turning wary as they regarded their teammates.
Only one person reacted a beat slower.
Lu Qingjia grinned, his scalpel flashing toward the target. But just as it was about to make contact with the other’s skin, it was blocked.
Lu Qingjia wasn’t surprised by the failed strike. Sludge had already appeared beneath the target’s feet, and he unleashed his formidable speed and close-combat Ability, launching a rapid barrage of attacks that were almost too fast for the eye to follow.
Logically, among the intermediate Players present, Lu Qingjia was the strongest. His current strength surpassed that of many Players in the Advanced Zone, a fact confirmed by two administrator-level figures.
With Lu Qingjia’s level of attack and the binding effects of his Ability, an average intermediate Player would have been reduced to a pulp by now.
His dominance in this instance was something all the Players present acknowledged.
Yet, to everyone’s astonishment, the seemingly unremarkable Player who had appeared ordinary before was not only unscathed by Lu Qingjia’s fierce assault but also handled it with remarkable composure.
After exchanging several moves, the other Player no longer feigned modesty and revealed an intrigued expression—
“As that person said, one can’t afford even the slightest lapse in attention when facing you.”
