"What do you mean?!" Liu Yufei lunged forward, ready to throw a punch.
Ke Xun, tall and long-armed, didn't wait for Liu Yufei's fist to reach him before his hand reached Liu Yufei's face. He spread his fingers, grabbed Liu Yufei's face, and casually pushed him aside, sending Liu Yufei staggering away.
"Dongzi, it's your turn," Ke Xun said.
"What I want to say is the same as Ke'er's," Wei Dong said, "I'm just an ordinary person, with no special skills or strengths. The only thing I can guarantee is that I won't falsely accuse others."
"Our Dongzi is also a graphic designer," Ke Xun added for him, "a fine arts major. He has a unique professional eye and perspective on artworks, and studying the world in paintings and such is kind of a good match for him."
Wei Dong thought to himself, what kind of good match is that?
The doctor looked at the pancake stall owner: "And you, do you have anything to say?"
The pancake stall owner opened his bloodshot eyes wide: "I don't want to die, I really don't want to die, please, don't choose me, I don't want to die... I don't want to die..."
Seeing that he kept repeating this sentence, the doctor had no choice but to stop asking and finally turned to Mu Yiran: "Your turn."
Mu Yiran said: "I have a clue."
"..."
Only four words, simple, brutal, direct and clear.
If Ke Xun's fatal blow was only one-on-one, then Mu Yiran's one-hit kill was a direct KO of everyone.
He has a clue.
No one else can die but him.
It's that simple.
The doctor lowered his eyes: "Alright, everyone has said their piece. Now... let's vote, there's not much time left."
Everyone's face was heavy and complicated.
Being an executioner is not a good feeling.
However, facing death is even worse.
"I'll go get paper and pen." The doctor got up to go find the old man and brought back a piece of yellow paper and a few charcoal pencils.
He cut the paper into eight equal parts and distributed them to everyone, then said, "Everyone, please state your names. If you really don't want to, you can give yourselves a nickname."
"Ke Xun," Ke Xun spoke first, "Ke as in Conan, Xun as in Li Xunhuan."
"Wei Dong," Wei Dong continued, "Wei as in Wei Qing, Dong as in Dong Qing."
Ke Xun: "...It's really unfair that you weren't called 'Qing'."
Wei Dong: "Ke Zhen'e's Ke, shut up."
Mu Yiran coldly glanced at these two guys who still couldn't resist making jokes even on the verge of death. He wondered if these two were upholding the spirit of not shedding tears until they saw the coffin, the spirit of entertaining to the death, or... a kind of carefree and thick-skinned innocence that came from their very bones.
He then said, "Mu Yiran, Mu as in Muye, Yi as in Changyi, Ran as in Youran."
"On the boundless fields under the blue sky and white clouds, carefree and leisurely, what a good name," said the thick-skinned and thick-skinned young man, Ke Xun.
Mu Yiran coldly said, "Ke Xun of 'Nan Ke Meng' shut up."
Ke Xun: "..."
Wei Dong: "..."
Next, the single father and the private business owner each gave their names: Ma Zhenhua and Zhang Maolin.
The pancake stall owner refused to give his name, pleading incessantly, "Don't choose me, please, I beg you, don't choose me..."
"Let him be codenamed A." The doctor sighed slightly, looking at Liu Yufei.
"Why are you looking at me! I can't die anyway! If you want to write, write someone else. Some people are just sitting around doing nothing, useless to the country and the people, their deaths are not a pity!" Liu Yufei roared.
"Let him be codenamed SB." Ke Xun sighed slightly.
Wei Dong: "Very fitting."
The doctor spoke last: "My surname is Qin, Qin Ci. Qin as in Qin Shi Huang, Ci as in bestowed."
The room fell silent again.
Eight names, eight lives, were laid out before everyone, unavoidable and with no way to retreat.
Private business owner Zhang Maolin pulled out his phone and glanced at it, then looked at everyone in a panic: "It's almost nine o'clock... We absolutely have to vote..."
Everyone's faces instantly contorted.
The die was cast; there was no time to hesitate.
The doctor remained calm, but his eyelids were lowered: "Write it down. What's meant to happen will happen."
In those long yet fleeting five minutes, everyone except Ke Xun and Wei Dong, who had already abstained, picked up their pens.
While writing their names, some were expressionless, some were conflicted, some were fierce, and some wailed.
A minute before nine o'clock, everyone placed the papers with their names on them face down on the table and slowly pushed them towards the center.
Even without revealing them, this world within the drawing would know who had received the most votes.
Everyone sat there, staring at the back of the papers, waiting for the moment of judgment.
Time ticked by, and single father Ma Zhenhua and private business owner Zhang Maolin couldn't help but cry out along with the pancake stall owner.
The doctor and Mu Yiran remained calm and expressionless.
Wei Dong stared blankly at a corner of the table, lost in thought. Ke Xun, his thin eyelids drooping, leaned back in his chair, motionless.
Liu Yufei was trembling all over, his fists clenched, large beads of sweat pouring from his forehead.
Until, after an unknown countdown, the last thread in his mind snapped. He jumped up abruptly, screaming at the top of his lungs, "I don't want to die—I want to go back—it's fake—it's all fake—I'm dreaming—I'm having a nightmare—wake me up—I don't want to sleep anymore—wake me up—"
Like a madman, Liu Yufei burst through the door and rushed out, seemingly trying to escape the shackles of this bizarre world. Everyone quickly got up and chased after him to the door, only to see Liu Yufei stumble and fall against the fence in the yard.
The jagged, sharp bamboo fence had pierced Liu Yufei's body in the middle, emerging from his flesh with a gushing spray of blood.
Liu Yufei let out a bloodcurdling scream, desperately scratching his limbs against the bamboo fence,
like a grasshopper with its belly pierced by a bamboo skewer.
Thick blood gushed down the bamboo fence, Liu Yufei's screams gradually weakened, and his limbs slowly stopped moving.
Until he hung there lifelessly like a piece of dried meat, no longer moving.
Ma Zhenhua and Zhang Maolin's legs went weak and they sat down on the ground, both bursting into tears, whether from shock at Liu Yufei's death or from relief at their own narrow escape from death, it was unclear.
The pancake stall owner was so frightened that he lost control of his bladder again.
The doctor stared at Liu Yufei's body, shaking his head with a complex expression. He was about to say something to ease the heavy, oppressive, and indescribable atmosphere when Mu Yiran suddenly walked towards the corpse. The doctor couldn't help but say, "He can't be saved. He's dead."
Mu Yiran ignored him, walking straight to Liu Yufei's body. Just as he was about to bend down for a closer look, he heard a voice behind him: "Want to study how he died?"
Mu Yiran glanced to the side and saw Ke Xun had followed him unnoticed, looking at him calmly.
The others hadn't followed. Mu Yiran turned back to examine Liu Yufei's body, only to see a row of sharpened bamboo strips beneath him, stained with thick, sticky blood, completely piercing Liu Yufei's waist and abdomen, almost severing his body in two.
"Cut in half at the waist," Mu Yiran coldly uttered two extremely cruel words.
Ke Xun, however, sensed a hint of understanding in his tone besides coldness.
Back in the house, the old man had already set out breakfast, seemingly oblivious to what had just happened, still lifelessly repeating what he'd said the previous morning: "Everyone worked hard last night, have breakfast first. There's no work to do during the day, you can rest. Come back to me after dark, and I'll arrange your work for tonight."
With that, he turned and went into the inner room.
Ma Zhenhua and Zhang Maolin were still slumped on the ground, weeping. The pancake stall owner was limp in his chair like a lump of mud, his incontinent urine spilling all over the floor. The doctor leaned against the doorframe, lost in thought. Wei Dong hid in a corner of the courtyard
, unable to see the corpses. Mu Yiran sat down at the table. As soon as he raised his hand, Ke Xun dutifully handed him a cornbread. He grabbed one for himself and beckoned to Wei Dong, "Come and eat."
"Holy crap, you still have an appetite?" Wei Dong was shocked.
"You should eat more now," Ke Xun gestured for him to come over. "Didn't you hear what the old man said? We'll be assigned work again tonight. It was lucky we didn't die last night. We don't even know if we'll survive tonight. Even if we all survive again, are we going to vote again tomorrow morning? Come and eat! You'll have the strength to find the seal as soon as possible."
Wei Dong thought it made sense and reluctantly sat down, forcing himself to swallow the cornbread and porridge.
Hearing this, the doctor also came over and sat down, silently finishing his meal. He put down his chopsticks and looked up at Mu Yiran: "Little Mu, now you can share the clues you've obtained with everyone, right?"
Hearing this, Ma Zhenhua and Zhang Maolin immediately struggled to their feet and sat around the table, staring expectantly at Mu Yiran.
Ke Xun felt that if Mu Yiran didn't spill something at this moment, these two would devour him alive.
Mu Yiran didn't seem to intend to hide anything any longer. Suddenly, he lowered his head, untied the hemp strip with the character "央" (Yang) written on it from his waist, and placed it on the table.
"The rule used to determine how we die is this strip of cloth."
The doctor was slightly surprised. "Although I know there must be something strange about this strip of cloth, and it's also the basis for grouping us, do you have any explanation for saying that it determines how we die?"
Mu Yiran pointed to the words on the hemp strip: "On the first night, the three people who died in the mourning hall had the word '民' on the strip of cloth, and all three of them lost their eyes; the two people who died in the graveyard had the word '且' on the strip of cloth, and both of them were dismembered into equal pieces of flesh and eaten by crows; Liu Yufei, who just died, had the word '辜' on the strip of cloth, and his death was similar to being cut in half at the waist."
The doctor shook his head slightly with some doubt: "I don't see any connection between their death methods and these words."
Mu Yiran said: "I remember you said that the villagers' ancestors were ancestral priests, and I also said that curses were very popular during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, the most famous of which is the 'Curse of Chu'."
"The 'Curse of Chu' is a stone inscription from the Qin state during the Warring States period. The script belongs to the Small Seal script, which evolved from the Bronze script, which in turn originated from the Oracle Bone script.
Ancient artifacts, whether objects or writing, are heavily imbued with supernatural elements. The ancients respected and revered writing more than people today; therefore, both divine power and the power of curses were entrusted to characters.
Most people understand the character '民' (min, people) only in its modern sense, referring to population or common people. However, in its original form, '民' had a horrifying meaning.
The Oracle Bone script for '民' consisted of an eye shape with a pupil and a pointed cross below. Its original meaning was to blind the people with a sharp weapon, turning them into slaves at their beck and call.
This meaning became even more pronounced after the Oracle Bone script evolved into the Bronze script. The Bronze script for '民' directly erased the pupil, and the cross became a sharp cone, piercing the eye."
"Let's talk about the character '且' (qiě). In oracle bone script, it's composed of a variant of the character '夕' (xī) plus an '=" sign. '夕' represents a piece of meat, and '=" represents equality. Together,
'且' signifies the equal distribution of meat. "In the primitive era of communist equivalence, food was the most important shared property, and meat was the highest grade of food. Equally distributing meat was an important ritual for ancestor worship and offerings to gods. Therefore, the original meaning of the character '且' is to equally distribute meat and eat it.
"Finally, let's talk about the character '辜' (gū). '辜' is composed of the characters '古' (gǔ) and '辛' (xīn). '古' represents a large axe, and '辛' represents a person receiving a death sentence. The original meaning of the character '辜' is to use a large axe to carry out beheading or dismemberment.
"After seeing the deaths of those five people on the first night, I had some doubts about these characters, but I didn't dare to make a definitive statement due to insufficient examples. Seeing Liu Yufei's death just now has proven my inference."
"These words written on the cloth strips were infused with the inherent malevolent meaning of the original characters, and combined with the curse power of the ancestors of this village who performed the rituals, they became cursed tools that could determine the manner of our death."