The moment this message appeared, the sound of wind in their ears abruptly ceased, and the grain of sand Pingping had tossed in the air was suspended mid-flight.
The whole space was utterly silent.
The group exchanged glances and instantly realized that time had been stopped; only the person making a choice could move.
As psychics here for a mission, none of them would ever pick “Option 1,” but no one hurried to make a decision. Beneath the two options, a countdown was displayed—they each had five minutes to think.
“Didn’t expect there’d be an Option 1…”
Shen Huanhuan read the words over carefully again, then whispered, “Everyone who entered Cangnan Funeral Home has died, so Option 1 is probably a trap—a decoy. Choosing it won’t result in anyone being released with a wiped memory.”
“I think the opposite.” Pingping hopped down from the giant Buddha’s palm.
After landing, she dusted her hands, brushing away imaginary dirt. “I’ve read the detailed records. There have been three groups of psychics who died in Cangnan Funeral Home, close to twenty people, plus twenty-seven ordinary people.”
“All these bodies were found in the Sea of Seeking Blessings, so the Bureau assumes that’s the total number of humans who entered Cangnan Funeral Home.”
“But judging by Option 1, something has changed.”
Pingping said, “Because it’s gone so long unsolved, Cangnan Funeral Home has become the most expansive energy field in Huaguo. It doesn’t just snatch up everyone who enters at the hour every evening; it can also selectively pull people from within several hundred li—it’s likely already caught hundreds, maybe thousands, but those people chose Option 1, had their relevant memories wiped, and were sent out.”
“At present, the only people who died in Cangnan are the psychics and those ordinary people who picked Option 2.”
Shen Xiaoxiao didn’t get it. “But why would regular people choose to go into a place like this?”
“If you’re given an option to live, why wouldn’t you pick one? Only a fool would choose the other!”
“As long as the sample pool is big enough, you’ll always get every kind of person,” Pingping snapped.
“Gamblers, people who think they’re Children of Destiny, risk-takers, gamers who can’t tell virtual from real anymore, or those with overactive imaginations, convinced completing the challenge will win them a prize…”
“There are always people who don’t value their lives.”
Pingping listed them without effort. Shen Xiaoxiao scratched her head—Pingping’s logic made sense.
Jiang Yan was inclined to agree with Pingping as well.
But she didn’t say much, her gaze falling on the dwindling countdown.
Thirty seconds left. Her fingertip hovered over Option 1 for a moment, then settled over Option 2.
“Let’s go in.”
Time waits for no one; each of them reached out and touched their interface—
The instant a choice was confirmed, time resumed its flow. The grain of sand Pingping had thrown now grew hazy, started swelling and growing, then fell rapidly, blanketing them all.
A blazing flash of gold filled their sight—they fainted once more.
*
Their second blackout in ten minutes.
The first time had been the funeral home’s bell. The second was before the Buddha, dazed by golden light.
Perhaps from too many collapses, Jiang Yan remained unconscious on the ground for a long time before waking. When she finally opened her eyes she felt distinctly unwell—not only dizzy and seeing spots, but with a constant sense of someone sighing in her ear, the ringing was terrible.
Once she’d recovered somewhat, she slowly pushed herself up from the sand.
But the ground was slick as the sand slid against it; her first try up she staggered, scraping her palm against the rough sand and nearly falling again.
Two minutes later, Jiang Yan finally managed to sit upright.
She looked around, finding she was alone—the others must have woken up elsewhere.
Her vision was still awash in white, leaving everything double and blurry. After much effort, Jiang Yan could just make out where she was—
A path strewn with corpses.
Here and there, two or three bodies overlapped on the barren ground—men, women, children; the youngest only two or three, the eldest barely forty or fifty.
They looked as if they hadn’t eaten in days, their skin drawn tight over bone, cheeks sunken, mouths cracked. Jiang Yan was so close she could clearly smell the reek of corpses.
It was overpowering.
Jiang Yan held her breath and exhaled through her nose, looking further down the path.
Seven or eight meters ahead, a man was still alive—lying on his side, hair disheveled, limbs stick-thin, eyes murky. Every so often he clamped his fist and licked his cracked lips, reopening an old scab to let blood slowly seep out.
But before the blood could bead, he was already licking it up eagerly.
Having tasted blood, the man perked up—as if with hope—quickly biting his lips open wider until the flesh curled outward, blood trickling out, only stopping when he could suck his lips for more.
As if savoring some delicacy.
Jiang Yan frowned but said nothing and made no move.
She knew she should get up, check the others’ causes of death, maybe talk with the living for clues—but she was too exhausted. Although the dizziness had faded, her body felt like it hadn’t eaten for days—she simply couldn’t get up.
After a few tries, Jiang Yan sat back down, opting to rest a while before anything else.
Bracing herself, she inched her body toward the base of a tree.
The sun here was merciless.
The brightness was far beyond any usual summer—scorching and oppressive, making her not want to move, much less talk, as if the very moisture inside her was being evaporated.
After a few minutes’ rest, a familiar voice came from nearby.
Pingping.
But Jiang Yan was so tired even her eyelids didn’t want to lift.
Pingping, dressed in tattered clothes patched all over, hair wild and face marred with grime, hobbled over leaning on a stick, expression full of exasperation.
“Don’t sleep. You’re still napping at a time like this?”
“Not sleeping.”
Jiang Yan half-opened her eyes. “Can’t find my bag. Hungry. Resting a bit.”
“How could you not be?” Pingping wiped her face with her sleeve. “When I woke, there was a living person nearby, seemed all right. I asked what happened—he said there’s a drought, famine everywhere.”
“Their village’s harvest failed; they can’t survive, so everyone’s trying to get to Lingren Village. That place is rich, the wealthy men can afford seven or eight concubines each.”
“Looks like we’re in the same boat—refugees.”
Pingping pressed her chapped lips together, a bit helpless. “My bag’s gone, too. But I saw where it went—some men took it, fought each other up close then split the food and water… Yours must have been stolen the same way.”
Given how long they’d all been unconscious, being robbed by fellow refugees was perfectly normal here.
Ravenous, Jiang Yan leaned against the barkless trunk and asked, “Why didn’t you use your ability to get your bag back? Just let them eat your stuff?”
Pingping was quiet for a moment.
Then said, “I saw them about to cook a child. They’d already lit the fire, but after fighting over the food, they pulled the kid back out of the pot.”
“I thought of taking my food back, but after seeing that… I didn’t. I also didn’t stop that from happening, even though I wanted to. I saw a few more cases like that on my way here. My spiritual power’s limited—I can’t help everyone…”
“So in the end, I didn’t help anyone.” Pingping plopped down by Jiang Yan. “I just came to find you.”
As cruel as child-eating was, these people were just NPCs. There was no reason to waste spiritual power on them.
For now, the priority was themselves.
Pingping gave Jiang Yan a full once-over, about to help restore her physical strength, but Jiang Yan stopped her.
“Don’t heal me completely, just enough to walk.” Jiang Yan said. “Better not look too healthy here; you’ll look like you have secret food and get targeted.”
Pingping clearly thought so too. She gave Jiang Yan a flighty glance. “Why do you think I’m still limping?”
“For fun?”
Jiang Yan smiled.
“Anyway, thanks in advance, our good friend Pingping.”
Pingping’s little face darkened. She grumbled something offhand.
At those words, most of Jiang Yan’s discomfort faded, leaving only a dull ache in her stomach. The two got up, looked around, but saw no sign of the twins or Yu Renwan.
After a quick discussion, the pair headed in the direction the other refugees were moving.
After ten minutes or so, they ran into Yu Renwan.
Her luggage was gone, her shoes missing—she stood barefoot on the dirt, dazed in the middle of the road.
They followed Yu Renwan’s gaze. In the center of the road, a little girl of about six or seven knelt, with a stalk of grass stuck in her hair. Her parents stood on either side, eagerly hawking her to the passing refugees.
Pingping, now self-taught up through high school, had studied history.
She guessed the timeline right away.
“Early to mid-last century.”
Knowing Jiang Yan was a Yao and likely didn’t know recent Huaguo history, she explained, “They’re selling their daughter. The refugees have no money—buyers are traffickers in disguise, buying girls to be servants or child brides for the wealthy.”
But these parents, it seemed, were even more vicious than Pingping had expected.
“My daughter’s got a lucky birth date, lucky—” the girl’s mother hollered, voice rasped into shards, yet piercing and shrill, “perfect for a ghost marriage, living or dead! For the young masters!”
Hearing this, a trafficker at the roadside approached. As luck had it, a prominent family in Lingren Village had just lost a son; his parents were desperate to arrange a ghost marriage at a high price, enough for six months’ food security.
After haggling, the girl was sold for a bag of wheat cakes and two jars of water.
The yellow-toothed man—easily in his forties—dragged the little girl off toward Lingren Village, her skinny hand in his. The girl looked back twice, but her parents didn’t spare her a glance.
They squatted at the roadside, frantically tearing into wheat cakes and guzzling water.
After the trafficker left, the surrounding refugees swarmed in like locusts.
The cakes were quickly snatched clean, one water jar toppled and spilled. Four or five people dropped to the ground, scraping dirt wet with water into their mouths.
Yu Renwan watched these people with wide, blank eyes. Jiang Yan, seeing this, went over and called her.
Yu Renwan turned, dazed. “…Jiang Jiang.”
“Why is it so bitter here?”
Her face was also streaked with dust. She told them her shoes had been pulled off right in front of her by someone who, seeing she had no strength left to fight, tried to tear off her clothes as well. In desperation, Yu Renwan used her power—the thief was quickly shoved down by other refugees and had no more energy to try.
Jiang Yan sighed.
Once a person is truly exhausted, they hardly speak. She patted Yu Renwan’s shoulder, signaling that they should go look for the twins.
They finally found the twins near Lingren Village’s outskirts.
Thanks to the influence of the energy field, the twins did not appear albino this time—their hair was black, their skin an ordinary yellow. At that moment Shen Xiaoxiao was fighting the refugees for her backpack; she’d packed it with so much stuff, and even with half of it “downgraded,” any of it could be valuable in this setting.
Anything might come in handy.
Yet the twins were no match for the crowd. In desperation, Shen Huanhuan’s fingertips sparked gold—she intended to tie all the refugees up.
Right then, a crisp “ding” sounded in her ear.
A death sentence of a chime.
In that moment, time froze—the greedy look on every refugee’s face frozen into place, Shen Xiaoxiao’s desperate grip on her bag also locked in stasis.
It was so sudden that the gold at Shen Huanhuan’s fingertips flickered out. She looked around in a daze.
Two steps away, a man’s arms were raised high with a rock; three steps away, a woman was kneeling sobbing, while a child clung tightly to Shen Huanhuan’s left leg, mouth wide, gaze devoid of innocence—looking only to bite deep into her leg.
Now, all were motionless.
Except her.
No help.
No one to call for rescue.
Shen Huanhuan couldn’t help but tremble. Swallowing, she gingerly pushed the frozen forms away, then forced her fingers to unclench, calming herself.
After a dozen seconds, she looked up at the lines that appeared before her.
[This is an era torn by war, with factions in chaotic struggles. Lingren Village, at the border between the powers, is a special place: a key thoroughfare, yet also a recognized neutral zone.
Now, a severe drought—there’s been no harvest. You and your parents decide to seek shelter in Lingren Village, but on the way your parents are injured by fellow refugees. Not wanting you and your sister to worry, they hide their wounds, but die after two days.
Your sister’s cloth bundle is lost. You stow both your parents’ little finger bones and your own bundle with your sister. At last you two near Lingren Village, only to be targeted by desperate refugees.
Faced with this, your decision is—
1. Argue your case and beg the refugees not to take your bundle.
2. Rely on what little self-defense you know, brawl with the refugees, and keep them three meters from you.
3. Throw your bundle’s food out, letting the others fight, and slip with your sister and your parents’ remains into Lingren Village while they’re distracted.]
Shen Huanhuan immediately dismissed Option 1.
These refugees had no rationality at all when food was at stake—nothing would make them stop.
And “Option 2”…
Implausible on first glance. The exhaustion in her body wasn’t fake—how could she beat five or six desperate adults?
So Shen Huanhuan also gave up that option.
Finally, she looked at Option 3.
Clearly, this was the best choice: exploiting the refugees’ greed, it would keep her and her sister safe.
Shen Huanhuan exhaled, raising her hand for Option 3—then, seeing she had more than three minutes left, slowly put her hand down again.
Her gut told her that the spirit behind this field had caught her just as she tried to tie up the refugees, and designed this quiz to stop her.
With time to spare, why not gather something concrete, and feel more confident in her decision?
She crouched and tugged the bag from Shen Xiaoxiao’s frozen hold.
Having fought the refugees immediately on waking, she’d never had a chance to look inside—what had degraded, what was new from the hidden spirit?
Thinking, Shen Huanhuan pulled open the zipper.
And the instant she saw inside, her pupils shrank.
It took a few breaths before she could move.
Shen Huanhuan staggered back, shaking the bag.
With the motion, out fell two little fingerbones, a fist-sized bread cake, half a jug of water; three pairs of severed hands belonging to different people; a pair of feet; countless filthy fingernails—
And a sharp, blood-stained boning knife.