Ah'Ming grinned, then sat on the floor and unwrapped the parcel.
Two books lay inside, both gleaming and fresh from the print. It was kind of funny, seeing such an old style book bound and printed on gleaming, laminated paper. It looked almost like a Cambridge edition textbook.
Ooh, it even had colored illustrations!
He started flipping through the old one first, since it probably had more to do with the instance. That was what had been introduced, anyways. Before long, he found a ritual that was for quelling spirits while bringing fortune. It had nothing to do with the fact that it was shorter, definitely.
Ah'Ming held up the book, and compared it to the town below. He sat on the ledge, swinging his legs.
Yep.
This was the one.
It spoke of shaping a town in the shape of the human body, with where to put specific buildings. The mayor's house would go in the position of the head, to represent knowledge and understanding for the people. Farms and factories would go near the hands and feet, to bring forth an aura of hard work and understanding.
Restaurants and shopping districts would go near the gut, while the funeral shop would go near the heart. Apparently, this would show the spirits how dear to the people's hearts they were, lessening any resentment, allowing them to reincarnate easier.
Houses and schools would be placed randomly around the body, to invigorate the village's Chi and Yang energy.
The entire ritual seemed mostly like a sham, like most Feng Shui was. The only thing that made it seem even remotely authentic was the recommended talismans to place at every street corner, every path and district. It was called The Living Meridian Township Rite
Even the name sounded like it was made up on a whim.
Though the ritual was designed to quell ghosts and disperse resentment, the formatting seemed strange. For one, why on earth would the funeral shop be in the heart of the body? That would trap the spirits in the center of the town, and make it harder for them to travel to the underworld.
The entire thing reeked of sabotage.
Ah'Ming turned to the other book, the newer edition. This book was way heftier, a foot thick too. He looked at the index page, and searched for The Living Meridian Township Rite. It was in the debunked section.
Well, that was easy.
He flipped to the page, and saw that it was written in bright bold letters, covered in warnings about how it had been spread by a couple of false cultivators. They had been using this to, like Ah'Ming had guessed, trap spirits within towns. This would decrease the fortune within, while increasing the Yin energy, making it easier to refine corpses and Jiangshi.
Based on the information, someone here had used the fake "Living Meridian Township Rite" to fill the village with yin energy. It worked, which explained how so many people had died of Yin poisoning at once, then were buried without any proper ceremony, mutating into ghouls.
But why had it only happened after the Xie family came in?
Based on the facts, the deaths had occurred only after the funeral shop owner had died. This perhaps meant that he had been doing something to prevent the deaths, either through proper rituals or from something else.
If he was that talented though, why not advise the mayor to move the funeral shop to the town outskirts, or closer to the ancestral graves?
Something was very fishy, but Ah'Ming wouldn't be able to glean any further clues from here.
He sighed, and tried to ring the bell just to see if it would do anything. Spoiler alert: it didn't, except for deafening him.
Maybe the next chapter of the main story would have to tie back into the funeral shop. Who knows, maybe there would be some form of manuscript or diary from a megalomaniac trying to take over the world with evil zombies!
But… the stairs would be too boring. How far up was the tip of the clock tower anyways? From first glances… it looked only about thirty meters? Give or take, anyways.
That was doable.
Ah'Ming sprinted, and leaped off of the side with a swan dive. Free falling was such a nice feeling, especially that little pit that you felt in your tummy.
It was almost as nice as bloodshed, but just falling would be boring.
The most fun part was seeing the ground coming closer at such an exciting rate!
When Ah'Ming was near the bottom, he did a flip, leaping off of the side of the building. He hit the ground with a roll, but with enough momentum that he was propelled straight back up.
He felt very smug.
That looked really cool, didn't it?
A think hit the found next to him.
Crap, he'd forgotten to put the old copy of the compendium into his inventory. He checked in a rush, then breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the updated version sitting safe and sound in his inventory.
He looked at the book.
He could kind of feel the book judging him.
Fair, but he chucked it into his inventory anyways. His new, shiny, expanded inventory from the gauntlets.
Before he forgets though, he turned to the big wooden doors of the clock tower. Just in case any other players came by later, unlikely as it was, he carved a message into the doors.
Call it compensation for the fact that he stole the floor.
'MEET AT THE FUENRAL SHOP'
He stepped back, admiring his work
|Broadcaster should be informed that it is spelt 'funeral'
Ah'Ming considered it, stepped forwards, corrected it, then stepped back once more to admire his work.
Very nice.
He whistled, then took off at a sprint to the funeral shop. It was very conspicuous, since the roads leading there had little red papers littered everywhere.
..
Now that he thought about it, it was really obvious what the main plot was about.
"Hey system, why are all the clues so obvious?" He asked
|In order to maintain a consistent level of difficulty through the main plot, increasing in small increments only, physical clues are given during a period with a lack of NPCs.
"?"
|Let system dumb it down for you
|No NPC so big red sign clue
"Oh."
|Broadcaster is an idiot
"But you love me!"
|System hopes that you choke on a vanilla ice cream and have your eternal spirit trapped in the half rotten and soggy cone for the rest of eternity
Ah'Ming skidded to a stop in front of the building. He kept slipping though, since there was way too much paper on the floor. There was a nice variety, with some talismans, some paper coins, people (though broken) and other miscellaneous items.
He stood there, and gazed up at the funeral shop.
It had grown bigger, in part from the hundreds upon hundreds of layers of paper stacked upon it.
Where the eaves had once hung bright lanterns, there were now hanging couplets.
Ah'Ming could even recognise some of them.
"Your voice and soul to remain behind for our youths"
What.
Wasn't it your voice and face to remain? You know, through photographs? If the soul remained for the youths…
Another clue for the main story, he supposed.
With a little sigh, he stepped into the building that dwarfed him like a heart to an ant.
The doors creaked close behind him.