See the Law of Deception

Chapter 216 Heredity (22)

The villagers arrived quickly.

There weren't many people in the village to begin with, and at this hour, many had already finished breakfast and gone to the fields to work. Most of those who remained at home were busy with other matters. Even so, they rushed over immediately upon hearing about the "corpse."

As it turned out, Lu Jinzhao was not lying. The first thing the villagers did when they arrived was to take the body away and burn it.

Lu Jinzhao's frankness relieved Xiang Liang slightly; at least, this person was someone he could cooperate with.

When the villagers were moving the body, Xiang Liang offered to help, and the villagers did not seem to object. Even when the rest of the people went to the cremation site without helping, they were not refused.

There was no professional incinerator in the village, but the place the villagers were carrying the body to did not seem to be in the village.

"Are we going to the back mountain?"

A villager led the way and nodded after hearing the passenger's question: "There is a cremation pit on the back mountain."

Although it's called the back mountain, it's actually just on the edge of the village. The village is located at the foot of the mountain, and you've already reached the path leading up the mountain before you even leave the village.

The mountains here are not very high. Although the path up the mountain is a bit narrow, it is not steep. The pit for burning corpses was dug halfway up the mountain. It took about half an hour to get there.

The weather wasn't exactly sunny, but Lu Jinzhao was used to it; just like in horror movies where it's always rainy, it was the same on the platform.

In the dim light, Lu Jinzhao saw the deep pit where the corpses had been burned.

It wasn't dug on the spot; mottled, dark marks remained in the pit, and even the outside was stained with a lot of filth.

Lu Jinzhao observed carefully for a while and then determined that more than one corpse had been burned in this pit.

Based on the information we had previously gathered, although the village was closed off, it was not completely isolated from the outside world. Observing the villagers' lack of fear of corpses and their skilled movements when burning them, it seems that it is a "common" thing for outsiders to come, die here, and be burned.

This village seems to be shrouded in a curse, making it difficult for any "outsider" to survive here.

However, the villagers did not strictly prohibit outsiders from entering, and they would even intermarry with outsiders to maintain the village's population.

Lu Jinzhao has compiled the information that is currently known:

Outsiders entering the village will gradually be "infected" and lose their senses. They will only regain their senses after killing at least one villager. Whether this recovery is temporary or permanent is uncertain, but judging from the villagers' attitude, it is likely temporary.

Intermarriage is one of the ways the village maintains its population size. The nervous attitude of the female villager when she pretended to kill someone also shows that the village does not encourage "fratricide".

The villagers will not leave the village; they would rather sacrifice their income from work and their education to stay in the village.

At this point, a thought suddenly flashed through Lu Jinzhao's mind.

Will something bad happen if we leave the village?
Are they trapped here by their "bloodline"?
Is the number of villagers who are held together closely related to the sins in their blood?
Then there's the "head." The way Ke Xing chose to kill Xu Ming was by beheading, and the woman's head had also grown larger at that time. Could the thing that "infected" them exist in their brains?

Leaving a corpse in the village overnight means there is danger. Is it because of "infection" or the corpse itself?

Will leaving a corpse in the village infect other people?
Or will the corpse "come back to life"?
It cannot be determined at this time.

Finally, there are the memorial tablets.

Through the two missions, the passengers have determined that the memorial tablet is a very important, life-or-death item.

Lu Jinzhao is certain that the ghost is in the village, but as long as you are a "villager" and have the identity of a villager, you will not be bothered by the ghost.

"Furthermore, both missions took place at night." The first night was relatively peaceful; even though they didn't get the memorial tablet, no ghosts appeared. But something was wrong on the second night. Xu Ming and the woman's "infection" also occurred on the second night.

"In other words, the safe period for this mission is only the first day."

Lu Jinzhao realized that she had to conduct another experiment.

She wanted to test what would happen if she removed the memorial tablet from her during non-task hours in the daytime.
--boom
The woman's body was thrown into the pit.

Lu Jinzhao looked around but didn't see anyone else, so she asked, "Are there any other places in the village to cremate corpses?"

The villagers kept pouring some kind of combustion-enhancing liquid into the pit, answering as they poured, "Yes, there are three pits in total."

So many pitfalls?

It seems that quite a few "outsiders" have died in this village.

A match was struck, and the orange-red flame of the match was thrown into the pit, instantly igniting the corpse.

A strong stench, like that of thousands of rotting animal carcasses, instantly filled the air, causing even the passengers, who were used to the stench, to change their expressions.

"This smell?"

Xiang Liang stared at the burning crater with a somewhat grim expression.

The villagers covered their mouths and noses: "Isn't this the smell when a corpse is burned?"

That's impossible. The burning of a normal corpse wouldn't produce such a strong stench.

What's even more chilling is that as the flames intensified, faint sounds began to emanate from the pit.

It's like a dead corpse coming back to life, wailing in agony from the pain of being burned.

However, the sound was more like the scream of some animal or some unknown creature than a human voice. The sound was not loud, but it was shrill and weak, which made people realize at the same time that it was going to die.

"What's that making that noise?" a passenger couldn't help but ask.

The villagers looked at each other, bewildered: "We don't know either. We only know that this happens when the bodies of outsiders are burned."

They don't understand the underlying principles.

"Could it be because they are possessed by evil spirits?" a villager tentatively said. "This is what the old folks told me: some outsiders bring evil spirits into the village, and they are controlled by these evil spirits to kill people. Only by burning the corpses can the evil spirits be killed."

"That sound is made by an evil spirit that is about to die."

“My sister told me it’s because of illness!” Another villager disagreed with her: “These outsiders carry diseases that we don’t have. Those diseases can only be burned off by high temperatures. When the bodies of sick people are burned, they make that kind of sound.”

The two had conflicting accounts, and Lu Jinzhao didn't believe either of them.

However, compared to "illness," the idea of ​​evil spirits is clearly more in line with the atmosphere of the platform.

But did outsiders bring evil spirits into the village?

Isn't it backwards?
Lu Jinzhao looked at the villagers' expressions; they weren't lying, but genuinely believed it.

(End of this chapter)