The moon hung high among the branches.

The sky after the rain wasn’t as clear as one might expect.

A gray cloud had drifted in from somewhere, obscuring the moonlight.

In the village.

As Zheng Xiu followed for a few steps, the doors that had secretly cracked open slammed shut in an instant.

Evidently, the existence of the "Late-night Butcher" was no secret in the village.

Feng Bei knew, the village chief knew, everyone knew.

They tacitly permitted the Late-night Butcher’s existence.

The villagers and the Late-night Butcher were bound together in some intimate way.

Passing the village chief’s house, the place where they had once drunk soup was now tightly shuttered. After being scared off by Wang Cangyun, the chief had apparently snuck back home to hide.

Wang Cangyun, the boy, and his subordinates had vanished in the short time it took Zheng Xiu to win over Feng Bei.

’Did they really leave?’

Zheng Xiu was surprised.

A moment later, disappointment set in. Master Zheng had thought Wang Cangyun could be an ally in the fight against the Late-night Butcher, but in the end, his trust had been misplaced.

The two of them followed the village fence to the eastern side, where the gurgling of flowing water was exceptionally clear in the silent night.

Zheng Xiu started walking toward the riverbank.

"Don’t go over there."

Zheng Xiu turned back with a smile. "What’s in the river?"

Little Feng Bei hesitated for a moment before saying, "Fish... carp. Lots and lots of white carp."

With that, Little Feng Bei quickly ran into the woods.

Zheng Xiu watched Feng Bei’s retreating back. The little girl was willing to save his life, but she seemed very nonchalant about it. Her actions seemed to say, ’If you don’t follow me, I’m not responsible for you. You’re on your own.’

After some thought, Zheng Xiu recalled the terror of the "Late-night Butcher" from that night. His "alt account" had already been maxed out through countless trials; there was no reason to have a head-on confrontation with the butcher.

It would be better to use this fresh start to find the true path to clearing the stage.

Deep in the forest, there was a small slope. It slanted gently downward, ending at the little river. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

Beneath a massive tree that would take two people to encircle, there was a natural hollow. Someone had used branches to build a crude, small shelter, like a makeshift home.

[Scouting].

Since it was his first time here, Zheng Xiu casually used Scouting.

Scouting failed, which was rare.

Again.

Scouting: Minor Success.

[You followed Feng Bei here.]

[You observe closely and discover that the leaves on the branches used to build the shelter have long since withered, suggesting it has been here for some time.]

[You find the remains of small animals and the dried pits of wild fruits nearby.]

That was all the information.

[Intuition] didn’t trigger, and since Feng Bei had led him here, it should be safe.

’Wait a minute.’

Zheng Xiu understood now, exclaiming in shock, "This is what you eat?"

Feng Bei nodded silently.

Zheng Xiu asked again, "The white carp, what’s the problem with them?"

Feng Bei shook her head lightly, pulled aside a few branches, and gestured for Zheng Xiu to hide inside. "Don’t come out."

Zheng Xiu got in.

The little den easily accommodated Feng Bei’s small frame, but for someone of Zheng Xiu’s size... well, Zheng Xiu felt like a grizzly bear curled up in a chihuahua’s doghouse.

Seeing that Zheng Xiu had managed to squeeze in, Feng Bei pursed her shriveled lips and warned him again, "You... don’t come out."

"Those white carp..." Zheng Xiu looked at Little Feng Bei’s frail figure and voiced the terrible suspicion in his heart. "They’re raised on ’white meat,’ aren’t they?"

"White meat" was a euphemism for human flesh.

Feng Bei’s small body trembled slightly. She turned and walked back toward the village, her figure soon disappearing into the darkness of the night.

Zheng Xiu looked up at the sky.

He had once been killed by a sudden thunderclap from a clear sky while hiding in a forest, so cowering under a tree now, it was hard not to think along those lines. But the sky at this moment felt strange to Zheng Xiu. It had a grayish color that was both cloud-like and fog-like, as if Baili Village was trapped under a gray dome.

Zheng Xiu then remembered that in the Heart Prison, Baili Village’s appearance on the map was that of a place encased in a shell resembling a century egg—just like the current situation.

AWOOO—

A wolf’s howl abruptly echoed through the forest, but it was cut short, as if someone had suddenly grabbed it by the throat.

A frantic flapping of wings filled the sky as a flock of panicked birds scattered in all directions.

From Zheng Xiu’s perspective, he couldn’t see them, but as those birds reached mid-air, they all convulsed in unison, as if possessed, before plummeting straight to the ground, dead in the forest.

’Something’s happening! "That thing" is on the move!’

Although he couldn’t see clearly in the darkness, the strange sounds that occasionally echoed from his surroundings told Zheng Xiu something unusual was afoot.

The incident on the night he slept in the village house had happened around this same time.

To this day, Zheng Xiu still couldn’t confirm if that beast-like figure was a man or a ghost. From an objective standpoint, however, he preferred to believe it was a madman. Otherwise, it would be hard to explain why the villagers lived alongside him.

’What’s the connection to Little Feng Bei?’

’Is it her father?’

With the progress in the Ghostly Realm and Zheng Xiu’s own continuous exploration, he felt he was getting very close to the truth.

But he wasn’t here to uncover secrets this time; he was just here for a speedrun.

This was just a phantom from twenty years ago; the past couldn’t be relived.

Zheng Xiu hadn’t truly traveled to the past. He could even switch back to reality at any moment, go AFK here, and wait safely until dawn. That would count as clearing the instance.

He never imagined it would be so simple.

But on second thought, how much effort had Zheng Xiu put in to get to this point?

First, there were the four great bandit families, the plague, the torrential rain, Commander Wang, and finally, Feng Bei.

’My ability to speedrun this isn’t because of luck; it’s all thanks to my own hard work!’

Zheng Xiu mused, readily accepting his own self-praise.

No matter what he did, the "Baili Village Massacre" was a fixed point in "history." The slaughter of the entire village’s twenty-six households was a foregone conclusion.

In truth, even if Zheng Xiu didn’t witness it himself, he had already pieced together the cause and effect of the "Baili Village Tragedy" that happened twenty years ago.

The backdrop was one of rampant bandits, with villagers suffering from poverty and starvation.

Then, for some reason, a species of white carp appeared in the small river east of the village.

The villagers began to fish for a living, but the carp in a single small river couldn’t possibly be a main food source year-round. It was obvious they would be fished to extinction one day.

Then someone discovered that if you fed the fish "white meat," they reproduced quickly.

A madman began killing people to feed the fish, the villagers ate the fish, and a new food chain was born.

And so it continued to this day.

Although this conclusion was horrifying, in an era where roadside inns could be traps for unwary travelers, nothing was impossible.

Even if the madman was crazy, he wasn’t completely gone. You could guess as much from the villagers’ lifestyle.

Furthermore, as soon as night fell, all the villagers would invariably hurry home and bolt their doors, clearly showing some fear of the madman’s nightly activities.

It was highly likely that Baili Village had lured and killed a good number of bandits. The bandits knew the place was dangerous but didn’t dare provoke it, leading to a delicate balance.

Zheng Xiu suddenly shook his head as a realization sent a tingling numbness crawling up his scalp.

’No, that official road is sparsely traveled. It’s highly likely the bandits also rely on the "Cannibal White Carp" produced by this village to survive!’

The thought was terrifying!

Zheng Xiu shifted his position in the tree hollow, his heart reeling in shock. It was hard to imagine that such an outrageous thing could happen in an obscure corner of the Daqian Territory during the chaotic times of twenty years ago.

Twenty-six households, a total of forty-six people, all died a tragic death in one night.

’Wait.’

’Twenty-six households?’

Zheng Xiu closed his eyes, and the familiar village flashed through his mind, house by house.

He began to count.

’One, two, three, four... twenty-six!’

Including "Feng’s Meat Shop," it was exactly twenty-six households!

’Everyone is going to die?’

’Hasn’t this food chain been in place for a long time?’

’Why does it have to be tonight, of all nights?’

’Is this an illusion of the past, or am I, as "Zheng Shan," truly living in the past of twenty years ago?’

’If this is twenty years ago...’

’There’s no one named Wang Cangyun in the Court today, which means they most likely died here!’

’If it’s the latter, could it be that my appearance is what got them killed?’

’Or was it the Treasure King’s fault?’

’This is just an Incarnation fabricated out of thin air!’

’An "Incarnation" that doesn’t even exist!’

’So it must have been the Treasure King’s fault!’

’So that’s how it is!’

’It has nothing to do with me!’

Zheng Xiu shook his head repeatedly in the darkness.

After a while, a sharp, piercing sound echoed from the distance, coming from the silent woods.

SKREEE—SKREEE—SKREEE—

It sounded like a heavy metal object being dragged slowly across the ground.